Experimental Proto-Blog

Saturday, January 03, 2004

Selected Tidbits from the Cold War

In 1959, Americans happily greeted Fidel Castro's overthrow of the corrupt Cuban dictatorship. Castro initially pledged neutrality between the Americans and the Soviets, but within a year his friendship with the Soviets began to become more explicit, and by 1963 the U.S.S.R. had deployed nuclear missiles in Cuba.

Salvador Allende was popularly elected president of Chile in 1970 on a socialist platform, and began moving towards friendlier relations with the U.S.S.R. Worried about expanding Communist influence, the U.S. aided Allende's overthrow in 1973 by Augusto Pinochet, who maintained a dictatorship until 1990. Chile is now democratic.

Muhammad Mussadegh became prime minister of Iran in 1951 on a wave of popular support in parliament. He set about to some democratic reforms, but also opposed Western interests in Iran. The U.S. and the British aided the Shah in re-asserting his sole authority in 1953. The Shah, of course, was himself overthrown in a violently anti-U.S. revolution in 1979.

Mobutu Sese Seko was the dictator of Zaire from 1966 to 1997. Suharto ruled Indonesia from 1967 to 1998. Both came to power after overthrowing leftist dictatorships. Consequently, both received heavy aid from the U.S.

Afghanistan was the Soviet Union's version of Vietnam. The U.S.S.R. invaded in 1979 and installed a Communist government, but were never able to subdue the guerilla resistance. These mujaheddin fighters were greatly aided not only by the U.S., but by non-Afghan Muslims including Osama Bin Laden. Russian discontent over the Afghan quagmire played an important role in bringing about Gorbachev's reforms, the weak response to the 1989 revolutions in Eastern Europe, and the U.S.S.R.'s final collapse in 1991. Tragically, the mujaheddin fell to fighting among themselves after the Russians pulled out, and Afghanistan remained a basket case, leading directly to the rise of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Thus the causal link between the Cold War and the War on Terrorism is much more direct than most people realize.

In all of these cases, the American actions are greatly troubling to me in one way or another. But there really was a difficult "lesser of two evils" choice before us, and it is not clear to me that we always chose wrong. Allende or Mussadegh could have turned into another Castro. Or maybe not, who knows? Mobutu and Suharto, brutal though they were, at least kept that from happening. Paranoid? Morally ambiguous? You bet! But the Communist threat was real and global, and one does have to acknowledge that the number of free countries is considerably higher today than it was 30 years ago. One would hope that, with the Soviets gone, we have much freer rein to deal with brutal dictators, and that has proved true in many parts of the world in the past decade. But it must be admitted that the industrial need for oil, and now the specter of terrorism, and in many cases simple prudence, do still work together to keep countries under authoritarian rule.

Posted by Matt on 1/03/2004 01:57:00 PM

Comments:

tyrants
While I think that it should have been possible to oppose communist totalitarian dictatorships without emplacing or supporting right-wing ones, I am willing to let that water have flowed under the bridge in that, in the end, the world was made a freer place. Could it have been done better? Sure. Was it done good enough? Yes, so I won't quibble.

However, now the cold war is over. We no longer have to fear that by neglecting a tyrant we will push him to the arms of the Soviet Union. Now is the time for American foreign policy to reflect American values: freedom, democracy, international consensus, but most of all the right of all people to self-determination. The United States should not directly meddle in the political affairs of other nations.

We are totally within our bounds to refuse to trade with a country (Cuba), or to refuse to even recognize that a country exists (i.e., the Russian annexation of the Baltic states during the Cold War), or to not have relations with them (Iran), or even to intervene multilaterally for humanitarian reasons (Kosovo). However, to go around toppling dictators in some parts of the world and coddling others, based on who we like the best or who we need the most, is hypocritical and unbecoming of the greatest country in the world.

I fully agree with you that oil has warped our foreign policy into an evil one in many cases. Funding for alternative energy sources (solar, nuclear, wind, whatever!) and some reasonable degree of conservation (tighter fuel efficiency standards, tax breaks for lower consumption) would go far to starve Saudi terrorists of funds. The Bush administration would probably claim that we need their oil too much to fight them. Although Saudi Arabia is the #1 world exporter of oil, the statistic you hear a lot less is that the #1 producer of oil, by sheer volume, is the United States of America.

We've got enough oil to tide us over until new energy sources are found and tapped. All we need is the political will to start the changeover.
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Posted Wed, 7 Jan 2004 5:42 AM MST by Jason Barnes ( - )
[216.39.178.136 / 216-39-178-136.ip.theriver.com]

# posted by

Matt : 1/13/2005 3:28 AM

Sure, in a perfect world we would implacably oppose all dictators everywhere and bring about world democracy within a few years. In many places we've been able to make progress (Chile, Indonesia, Nigeria). But political reality is of course more complicated, and we have no choice but to "topple dictators in some parts of the world and coddle others." Not because of the Communists anymore, but either because they've got the drop on us (see North Korea) or because of simple prudence (a fat lot of good we did in Haiti). Saddam was one that we could do something about, because his U.N. violations gave us a justification, and I say it was right to take that opportunity.

So, did "meddling in the political affairs" of Iraq increase or decrease the Iraqi people's "right of self-determination"? I think most of your principles there are right, but you should be concluding from them that the war in Iraq was right! It's the most Wilsonian project in recent history, and the party of Woodrow Wilson wants nothing to do with it. That's the part that looks to me like a disconnect, and it leads me to suspect that their opposition is primarily personal.
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Posted Sat, 10 Jan 2004 12:10 AM MST by Matt ( - http://tisco.blogspot.com)
[128.196.64.193 / pirl-du1.lpl.arizona.edu]

# posted by

Matt : 1/13/2005 3:29 AM

Wilson
Woodrow Wilson was the man that started the whole concept of international law and collective action when he created the League of Nations. Don't tell me this war is Wilsonian: it isn't.

I disagree with you. You say we don't have a choice, and that's simply not true. We do have a choice. What matters now is whether we choose to act as the moral leader of the world, or to only act in our own national interest.
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Posted Sun, 11 Jan 2004 3:55 AM MST by Jason Barnes (jbarnes@c3po.barnesos.net - )
[216.39.178.136 / 216-39-178-136.ip.theriver.com]

# posted by

Matt : 1/13/2005 3:29 AM

Wilson
All right, I won't tell you.
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Posted Mon, 12 Jan 2004 11:15 AM MST by Matt ( - http://tisco.blogspot.com)
[128.196.145.45 / pirl-du3.lpl.arizona.edu]

# posted by

Matt : 1/13/2005 3:29 AM