I trust that a graduate student some day will write a doctoral essay on the influence of the Munich analogy on the subsequent history of the twentieth century. Perhaps in the end he will conclude that the multitude of errors committed in the name of Munich may exceed the original error of 1938.
Arthur M Schlesinger Jr
3 comments:
Neville Chamberlain, then, was not only responsible for the death and destruction of WWII, but also for the death and destruction of the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the overthrow of the democratically elected Nicaraguan government, the Gulf War, and, I suppose by the way we negotiated with Iraq, the War in Iraq. Truly, this was the most vile man in the history of the world. The U.S. did well by breaking with G.B. in 1776.
Aren't you being a bit hard on Mr. Chamberlain? I'd say that there's a big difference between being vile and being mistaken. There's plenty of people who should have known the limits of the Munich analogy but didn't bother thinking about it. Ask an ordinary second lieutenant who served in Vietnam -- say, Bob, for example -- whether Munich was applicable there. I don't think that it's fair to tag Chamberlain with the willful blindness of subsequent political leaders.
As it was recognized in connection with our total failure to anticipate the Arab spring, "Foreign affairs experts routinely use historical analogy to develop and justify policy. However, as professional historians have long noted, attractive analogies often lead to bad policies." We should have learned that lesson long ago. You can't blame Chamberlain for that failure.
Again, being older, I'm not so straight forward. As Pete says, it's hard to tell when people are being funny on the internet, but I thought in this case it would be obvious. (If you assume a winking smiley-face after my posts, you will better catch my drift.)
Post a Comment