Farewell, the American Century

Crossposted with TomDispatch.com

Rewriting the Past by Adding In What's Been Left Out

In a recent column, the Washington Post's Richard Cohen wrote, "What Henry Luce called 'the American Century' is over." Cohen is right. All that remains is to drive a stake through the heart of Luce's pernicious creation, lest it come back to life. This promises to take some doing.

When the Time-Life publisher coined his famous phrase, his intent was to prod his fellow citizens into action. Appearing in the February 7, 1941 issue of Life, his essay, "The American Century," hit the newsstands at a moment when the world was in the throes of a vast crisis. A war in Europe had gone disastrously awry. A second almost equally dangerous conflict was unfolding in the Far East. Aggressors were on the march.

With the fate of democracy hanging in the balance, Americans diddled. Luce urged them to get off the dime. More than that, he summoned them to "accept wholeheartedly our duty and our opportunity as the most powerful and vital nation in the world... to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit."

Read today, Luce's essay, with its strange mix of chauvinism, religiosity, and bombast ("We must now undertake to be the Good Samaritan to the entire world..."), does not stand up well. Yet the phrase "American Century" stuck and has enjoyed a remarkable run. It stands in relation to the contemporary era much as "Victorian Age" does to the nineteenth century. In one pithy phrase, it captures (or at least seems to capture) the essence of some defining truth: America as alpha and omega, source of salvation and sustenance, vanguard of history, guiding spirit and inspiration for all humankind.

In its classic formulation, the central theme of the American Century has been one of righteousness overcoming evil. The United States (above all the U.S. military) made that triumph possible. When, having been given a final nudge on December 7, 1941, Americans finally accepted their duty to lead, they saved the world from successive diabolical totalitarianisms. In doing so, the U.S. not only preserved the possibility of human freedom but modeled what freedom ought to look like.

Thank You, Comrades

So goes the preferred narrative of the American Century, as recounted by its celebrants.

The problems with this account are two-fold. First, it claims for the United States excessive credit. Second, it excludes, ignores, or trivializes matters at odds with the triumphal story-line.

The net effect is to perpetuate an array of illusions that, whatever their value in prior decades, have long since outlived their usefulness. In short, the persistence of this self-congratulatory account deprives Americans of self-awareness, hindering our efforts to navigate the treacherous waters in which the country finds itself at present. Bluntly, we are perpetuating a mythic version of the past that never even approximated reality and today has become downright malignant. Although Richard Cohen may be right in declaring the American Century over, the American people -- and especially the American political class -- still remain in its thrall.

Constructing a past usable to the present requires a willingness to include much that the American Century leaves out.

For example, to the extent that the demolition of totalitarianism deserves to be seen as a prominent theme of contemporary history (and it does), the primary credit for that achievement surely belongs to the Soviet Union. When it came to defeating the Third Reich, the Soviets bore by far the preponderant burden, sustaining 65% of all Allied deaths in World War II.

By comparison, the United States suffered 2% of those losses, for which any American whose father or grandfather served in and survived that war should be saying: Thank you, Comrade Stalin.

For the United States to claim credit for destroying the Wehrmacht is the equivalent of Toyota claiming credit for inventing the automobile. We entered the game late and then shrewdly scooped up more than our fair share of the winnings. The true "Greatest Generation" is the one that willingly expended millions of their fellow Russians while killing millions of German soldiers.

Hard on the heels of World War II came the Cold War, during which erstwhile allies became rivals. Once again, after a decades-long struggle, the United States came out on top.

Yet in determining that outcome, the brilliance of American statesmen was far less important than the ineptitude of those who presided over the Kremlin. Ham-handed Soviet leaders so mismanaged their empire that it eventually imploded, permanently discrediting Marxism-Leninism as a plausible alternative to liberal democratic capitalism. The Soviet dragon managed to slay itself. So thank you, Comrades Malenkov, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, and Gorbachev.

Screwing the Pooch

What flag-wavers tend to leave out of their account of the American Century is not only the contributions of others, but the various missteps perpetrated by the United States -- missteps, it should be noted, that spawned many of the problems bedeviling us today.

The instances of folly and criminality bearing the label "made-in-Washington" may not rank up there with the Armenian genocide, the Bolshevik Revolution, the appeasement of Adolf Hitler, or the Holocaust, but they sure don't qualify as small change. To give them their due is necessarily to render the standard account of the American Century untenable.

Here are several examples, each one familiar, even if its implications for the problems we face today are studiously ignored:

Cuba. In 1898, the United States went to war with Spain for the proclaimed purpose of liberating the so-called Pearl of the Antilles. When that brief war ended, Washington reneged on its promise. If there actually has been an American Century, it begins here, with the U.S. government breaking a solemn commitment, while baldly insisting otherwise. By converting Cuba into a protectorate, the United States set in motion a long train of events leading eventually to the rise of Fidel Castro, the Bay of Pigs, Operation Mongoose, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and even today's Guantanamo Bay prison camp. The line connecting these various developments may not be a straight one, given the many twists and turns along the way, but the dots do connect.

The Bomb. Nuclear weapons imperil our existence. Used on a large scale, they could destroy civilization itself. Even now, the prospect of a lesser power like North Korea or Iran acquiring nukes sends jitters around the world. American presidents -- Barack Obama is only the latest in a long line -- declare the abolition of these weapons to be an imperative. What they are less inclined to acknowledge is the role the United States played in afflicting humankind with this scourge.

The United States invented the bomb. The United States -- alone among members of the nuclear club -- actually employed it as a weapon of war. The U.S. led the way in defining nuclear-strike capacity as the benchmark of power in the postwar world, leaving other powers like the Soviet Union, Great Britain, France, and China scrambling to catch up. Today, the U.S. still maintains an enormous nuclear arsenal at the ready and adamantly refuses to commit itself to a no-first-use policy, even as it professes its horror at the prospect of some other nation doing as the United States itself has done.

Iran. Extending his hand to Tehran, President Obama has invited those who govern the Islamic republic to "unclench their fists." Yet to a considerable degree, those clenched fists are of our own making. For most Americans, the discovery of Iran dates from the time of the notorious hostage crisis of 1979-1981 when Iranian students occupied the U.S. embassy in Tehran, detained several dozen U.S. diplomats and military officers, and subjected the administration of Jimmy Carter to a 444-day-long lesson in abject humiliation.

For most Iranians, the story of U.S.-Iranian relations begins somewhat earlier. It starts in 1953, when CIA agents collaborated with their British counterparts to overthrow the democratically-elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh and return the Shah of Iran to his throne. The plot succeeded. The Shah regained power. The Americans got oil, along with a lucrative market for exporting arms. The people of Iran pretty much got screwed. Freedom and democracy did not prosper. The antagonism that expressed itself in November 1979 with the takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran was not entirely without cause.

Afghanistan. President Obama has wasted little time in making the Afghanistan War his own. Like his predecessor he vows to defeat the Taliban. Also like his predecessor he has yet to confront the role played by the United States in creating the Taliban in the first place. Washington once took pride in the success it enjoyed funneling arms and assistance to fundamentalist Afghans waging jihad against foreign occupiers. During the administrations of Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan, this was considered to represent the very acme of clever statecraft. U.S. support for the Afghan mujahideen caused the Soviets fits. Yet it also fed a cancer that, in time, exacted a most grievous toll on Americans themselves -- and has U.S. forces today bogged down in a seemingly endless war.



Act of Contrition

Had the United States acted otherwise, would Cuba have evolved into a stable and prosperous democracy, a beacon of hope for the rest of Latin America? Would the world have avoided the blight of nuclear weapons? Would Iran today be an ally of the United States, a beacon of liberalism in the Islamic world, rather than a charter member of the "axis of evil?" Would Afghanistan be a quiet, pastoral land at peace with its neighbors? No one, of course, can say what might have been. All we know for sure is that policies concocted in Washington by reputedly savvy statesmen now look exceedingly ill-advised.

What are we to make of these blunders? The temptation may be to avert our gaze, thereby preserving the reassuring tale of the American Century. We should avoid that temptation and take the opposite course, acknowledging openly, freely, and unabashedly where we have gone wrong. We should carve such acknowledgments into the face of a new monument smack in the middle of the Mall in Washington: We blew it. We screwed the pooch. We caught a case of the stupids. We got it ass-backwards.

Only through the exercise of candor might we avoid replicating such mistakes.

Indeed, we ought to apologize. When it comes to avoiding the repetition of sin, nothing works like abject contrition. We should, therefore, tell the people of Cuba that we are sorry for having made such a hash of U.S.-Cuban relations for so long. President Obama should speak on our behalf in asking the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for forgiveness. He should express our deep collective regret to Iranians and Afghans for what past U.S. interventionism has wrought.

The United States should do these things without any expectations of reciprocity. Regardless of what U.S. officials may say or do, Castro won't fess up to having made his own share of mistakes. The Japanese won't liken Hiroshima to Pearl Harbor and call it a wash. Iran's mullahs and Afghanistan's jihadists won't be offering to a chastened Washington to let bygones be bygones.

No, we apologize to them, but for our own good -- to free ourselves from the accumulated conceits of the American Century and to acknowledge that the United States participated fully in the barbarism, folly, and tragedy that defines our time. For those sins, we must hold ourselves accountable.

To solve our problems requires that we see ourselves as we really are. And that requires shedding, once and for all, the illusions embodied in the American Century.

Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations at Boston University. His most recent book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, is just out in paperback.

Comments

[gmorbgmibgnikgnok]

The stupidest part of the American Century has been the willingness to take responsibility for all of the British Empire's aftermath.

They created Israel out of already-occupied Palestine, thus insulting the entire Muslim world. They sewed together three incompatible populations to create Iraq. They created the Durand line through the middle of the Pashtun homeland. They arbitrarily partitioned India, leading to a nuclear cold war on the subcontinent.

And we have done everything in our power to fan the flames in each conflict. We support Israel unquestioningly, to the point that Israel now thinks it can dictate our foreign policy to us. We overthrew local control of Iraq with no result other than the deaths of thousands of Americans and *hundreds* of thousands of Iraqis. We helped radicalize Pakistan and Afghanistan in the 1980's, and now try to stabilize Afghanistan while ignoring Pakistan.

As Bacevich says, taking an honest look at American (and British!) history might be the first step in pulling our heads out of our asses.

[mcostello]

I am always reminded that there would not be a single episode of Seinfeld if people just did the hard thing and told the truth. Trying to squeak out of saying or doing the difficult, and right thing has lead to many a funny episode of Seinfeld, and also a few hundred thousand inocent deaths.
It is a sad irony that what makes such good tv makes such real human tragedy.

I knew I would eventually be disappointed by BO, but If he won't prosecute the prior criminals for political expediancy then I wash my hands of him.

[Janus]

Professor Bacevich is a retired army colonel after 30 years of service, and knows whereof he speaks.

His 20-something son, a captain in the army, was killed in Iraq in a roadside device explosion. Bacevich dedicated his excellent book to his memory.

I try never to miss the professor's articles and too few guest appearances on television.

[mcostello]

Ditto

[Fireslayer]

If we accept and offer critique we will have truly earned our place as leader of the free world.

We can thus heal our relationships with Iran, the Arab world, South America, East Timor- on and on.

I love this country, that is why I want to improve it. The Right hates truth. It rains on their parade of carboard heros (themsleves) and carboard villans- most of who have been our victims in one way or another.

Our only claim to exceptionalism has been our freedom of speech and press, but even those beautiful concepts have had their share of bumps in the road.

Lastly, I think Obama gets all of this. Clinically delusional Bush never could in a million years.

[GraceNeeded]

"acknowledging openly, freely, and unabashedly where we have gone wrong" WOW! This NOT only is good for our citizens, but is good for future generations and the rest of the world. To be an effective leader is to recognize where you've erred and do everything you can to make amends, even if it wasn't your fault directly, to begin to make a real change! I so appreciate your direct plea Professor Andrew Bacevich. I must admit I read something similar when our daughter was asked to write an essay for Western Civilization on which country is the biggest threat for the coming century. She wrote ours and absolutely stunned me with why, as you will many readers of this essay. Like MLK JR. stated in his letters from the Birmingham jail, our daughter quoted in another paper, the greatest cause for real evil to be unleashed in our world is when good people do nothing in the face of the horrors bad people unleash.

[exoevolution]

Mr Bacevich, this post & your excellent book, address the "ground zero" of all of Americas problems!

President Obama, please read Mr Bacevich's book - better still - why is this man not working for you & with you???

[twofish]

I'm afraid we're going to have to lose a major war before the jingos in this country will countenance an American president apologizing for anything. Not even one as popular as Obama. Look at the fuss the right-wing BS machine was able to generate when he simply bowed slightly to the King of Saudi Arabia.

We had our chance to go through the dark night of the soul after Vietnam -- to say, my God, what have we done, how many people have we killed, in our insane pursuit of the Communist boogie man -- to change course. Instead, Ronald Reagan offered us "morning in America" and we embraced it with a will. It will be very hard to convince Americans that we are not God's (new, improved) chosen people who can do whatever we want to whomever we want without losing our halo.

[anachoret]

So, BS machine got all ginned up... Look at the "damage" it did to Obama's popularity. It just further emphasizes the Right wing has flapped itself into utter exhaustion. Don't give them more credit than they deserve... Even Specter knows that they are at low-tide, and stinkin' to high-heaven.

[K.J. Dwyer - Huffpost Blogger]

Brilliant piece. Absolutely dead on.

Mind you, there are at least another 9 such chapters beyond Cuba, Iran and Afghanistan. Anyone interested in this article should read "Overthrow" by Stephen Kinzer.

http://www.democracynow.org/2006/4/21/overthrow_americas_century_of_regime_change

I first became aware of Andrew Bacevich through this website. Norman Lear in an article last year provided a link to an interview Bacevich did with Bill Moyers which I pass on:

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/08152008/profile.html

Andrew Bacevich's read on American exceptionalism is a welcome buffer to the empty, hysterical rant employed by most american politicians and political writers and he should have a much bigger audience than he presently enjoys. I hope with every fiber of my being that his brand of pragmatic, level headed, honest accounting of America's responsibility for much of the world's political instability will overcome the idiotic, short-sighted, hegemonic policies that have all but ruined this country's domestic dialogue and international reputation.

[anachoret]

Mr. Bacevich, I loved your book and am truly thankful to gain the perspectives that you share. If we take your advice, I am confident, this country will be better for it. The courage to confront our own mythologies will be benefit to our current international popularity, and a lesson to future generations.
Thank you.

[BBackSoon]

We must always remember that we are but one nation in the entire world.

[TryToBeFlexible]

Americans should be getting tired of being the policemen of the world. Let other countries take up the job. We can concentrate on making our country a better place for us to live.

[Seldon]

Wow...one of the best pieces i have read on HuffPo. Thank you

[FearlessFreep]

Don't forget Washington's war crimes in Indochina and Central America.