Nagy: When Will We Ever Learn: Lessons from our Past Shine Light on Russia and China

I don’t know which phrase is more apt for how we’ve been dealing with Russia’s international gangsterism and China’s moves to replace America’s carefully constructed international system: Yogi Berra’s “It’s like déjà vu all over again” or Ecclesiastes’ “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” Our nation’s responses to these two serious international challenges - which imperil not only global stability but our own future – bear remarkable parallels to how America’s naivete, isolationism, and dithering were major factors in the collapse of global order in the aftermath of World War I and led to the catastrophe of World War II.

America emerged from WW I the global powerhouse – with wealth, industrial might, and paramount diplomatic influence – while the former world powers (Britain, France, Germany) were exhausted and bankrupt and eagerly looking to the US for global leadership. But, as now, American society was split. While some of our leaders realized that increased US international engagement was essential to make the world safer and more prosperous, a majority of Americans wanted nothing to do with the world’s problems. This led to “feel good” but incredibly naïve initiatives like the Kellogg-Briand Pact to outlaw war, and the Neutrality Acts to make certain that the US could not supply arms to anyone (even our friends) in a conflict. The US also decided to stay out of the new League of nations, even though we were a major reason it was created. We also stopped building warships and allowed our army to shrink to a negligible size (in 1939 on the eve of WWII our army stood at 174,000 but would grow to 8 million by 1945.)

Our absence from the international arena had devastating consequences. While Germany and Japan rearmed in the 1930s, we dithered. Both countries warily watched what we would do with each aggressive step they took – because they realized our tremendous potential strength. And our democratic allies, Britain and France, pleaded for more active US engagement as they did not have the confidence to confront either Germany or Japan without our support. We basically did nothing – as Germany rearmed, swallowed Austria, and dismembered Czechoslovakia. Meanwhile Japan built a huge navy and subjugated China with barbaric brutality. By the time Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, most Americans, while still eager to stay out of war, expected war to come as our very existence in a world dominated by Nazi Germany and Fascist Japan would risk our existence. WWII’s tally showed dramatically how disastrous our isolationism had been, in terms of casualties, destruction, devastation, and the imprisonment of millions behind Soviet and Chinese Iron Curtains.

But we never learn. Just as Germany and Japan challenged the post WWI international system of greater democratization and open global trade, Russia and China are working feverishly to overthrow the current global rules-based international order which the US helped build after WWII. Their global vision is uncannily similar to what Germany and Japan envisioned – a world divided into spheres of influence, each dominated by a regional power which calls all the shots

and sets the rules. China’s dreams may even be bigger – working towards a world with everything dictated by Beijing. And we helped all this along. In China’s case, by encouraging China’s economic rise, overlooking their blatant disregard for international norms, and helping China become the world’s factory. In Russia’s case we echoed the passivity of Britain and France in the lead up to WWII, by doing little or nothing when it invaded Georgia (2008) and annexed the Crimea from Ukraine (2014).

This is why its so disconcerting to hear today in the face of Russia and China’s threat to our way of life and global democracy some of the same arguments voiced by some very well meaning “realists” in the lead up to WWII. For example, that how Germany and Japan treated their own people was not America’s concern; that the US is not responsible for the welfare of people in faraway lands; or that a German/Japanese dominated world was preferred to a devastating war. Substitute “Russia” for Germany, and “China” for Japan – and one hears the same logic today.

While the Atlantic and Pacific provided some safety in earlier conflicts, that is no longer the case. Russian or Chinese hyper-missiles can arrive in hours if not minutes, and cyber attacks can cripple our vital infrastructure in nanoseconds. To safeguard our own safety and global position it is imperative that we don’t make the same mistakes we made in earlier eras. We need to actively confront Russian aggression and Chinese maneuvering for global dominance, and we must re-energize our industrial capacity in case we again must accelerate defense production in response to active threats. And we must not forget two very valuable weapons in our arsenal which we utterly failed to employ in the period leading up to WWII – global allies and an active US diplomacy. If we had cultivated those, and applied them actively, history would have been so different. Hopefully we will finally take Churchill’s great quote to heart: “Count on the Americans to do the right thing once they’ve tried everything else.” Because even if we surmount this challenge, there will always be a next time.

Ambassador Tibor Nagy was most recently Assistant Secretary of State for Africa after serving as Texas Tech’s Vice Provost for International Affairs and a 30-year career as a US Diplomat. Follow him on Twitter @TiborPNagyJr

This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Tibor Nagy Lessons from our past shine light on Russia, China