Quote from: John MorrowAnd where was this scorched Earth policy put into action?  Pakistan?  There were problems between Pakistan and India and unrest among the Muslims there going back to British colonial rule (Pakistan was carved out of India and they are still fighting over Kashmir).  Where, specifically, was this policy that would destroy a country for generations actually put into play and how successful was it?

The billions of dollars in sophisticated weapons and CIA jihadist traning camps cited in the original article are one such example, unless you believe that well trained and well armed mujaheddin are the forerunners of democracy and stability? I don't see how it was anything more than a (successful) attempt to stop the Soviets at any cost.

Quote from: Malleus ArianorumThe billions of dollars in sophisticated weapons and CIA jihadist traning camps cited in the original article are one such example, unless you believe that well trained and well armed mujaheddin are the forerunners of democracy and stability? I don't see how it was anything more than a (successful) attempt to stop the Soviets at any cost.

Well, to be fair, his question was more specifically what we should have done instead.  I think that supporting the remnants of supporters for the government of Mohammed Daoud Khan would have been the right thing to do -- as opposed to the influx of foreign mujaheddin.  They would not have been as successful in fighting the Soviets, but I suspect less people would have died on both sides.  We could have used the threat of the Soviets to push for more cooperation in Pakistan -- i.e. providing aid contingent on reform.  This could have helped stem nuclear proliferation in later years.  

In general, I think that many of our policies of backing dictators worked against us, since it turned many populations sour on the U.S.  We could have been making converts to Western-style democracy and capitalism.  South Korea was about the best case of our Cold War intervention, and that was still riddled with some pretty horrible abuses that we tolerated or encouraged.  

For what it's worth, I disliked the foreign policy of both Carter and Clinton.  As far as foreign policy, I think our best president of the last few decades was George Bush senior.

Quote from: Malleus ArianorumThe billions of dollars in sophisticated weapons and CIA jihadist traning camps cited in the original article are one such example, unless you believe that well trained and well armed mujaheddin are the forerunners of democracy and stability? I don't see how it was anything more than a (successful) attempt to stop the Soviets at any cost.

Correct.  But stopping the Soviets at any cost is not the same thing as destroying the country so that nobody could have it.  Of course if that Brzezinski claim is true, it sounds like the Carter administration planned quagmire war for the Soviets which is, in my opinion, only a notch less malicious than the scorched earth policy you mentioned.

Quote from: J ArcaneAre you just completely fucking thick?

I'll tell you what I tell my wife.  I can't read minds.

Quote from: J ArcaneIt's a pretty simple concept.  If you want in depth analysis of political issues, a webforum about games where people pretend to be gay ass elves and stab beasties for their shit is probably not gonna be the most optimal environment for such.

Actually, I think it is a decent place for such discussions because any board dedicated to political discussions is generally so polarized that discussion is pretty pointless and may get you banned if you disagree with the orthodoxy of the discussion board.  And let's not forget that RPGPundit spends a fair amount of time on his blog mixing role-playing and politics to some depth.

Quote from: J ArcaneHow is that so hard for you to understand?

I do think I need to work on being more terse and maybe I need to start practicing summary replies rather than paragraph-by-paragraph Usenet-style replies, since those seem to annoy people here.

Oops! I was talking in first-person superpower. 'Nobody could have it' as in no government could have it. It's 'destroyed' in the sense that it can't be controlled by a superpower like America or the USSR.

(My other gay-ass elf is America.)

Quote from: jhkimWell, to be fair, his question was more specifically what we should have done instead.  I think that supporting the remnants of supporters for the government of Mohammed Daoud Khan would have been the right thing to do -- as opposed to the influx of foreign mujaheddin.  They would not have been as successful in fighting the Soviets, but I suspect less people would have died on both sides.  We could have used the threat of the Soviets to push for more cooperation in Pakistan -- i.e. providing aid contingent on reform.  This could have helped stem nuclear proliferation in later years.  

In general, I think that many of our policies of backing dictators worked against us, since it turned many populations sour on the U.S.  We could have been making converts to Western-style democracy and capitalism.  South Korea was about the best case of our Cold War intervention, and that was still riddled with some pretty horrible abuses that we tolerated or encouraged.  

For what it's worth, I disliked the foreign policy of both Carter and Clinton.  As far as foreign policy, I think our best president of the last few decades was George Bush senior.

Again, knowing how it all turned out, it's easier to second guess the cold-war policy of supporting anti-soviet tyrants.

And even at the time we knew doing business with those guys was regrettable...

But my alt.history crystal ball is broken -- can someone with a working one let us know what the cost would have been if we hadn't pressed against communism?

I think it's intuitive that the USSR would have -- eventually -- undergone some kind of major transition. I doubt the US would have fallen... but if the result of US passivity was, in fact, the spread of communism then it's not hard to imagine that the ultimate cost in terms of lives would have been much higher and that today we might see people who are free in this time-line living in a post-transition China-style society (e.g. a hybrid capitalist/dictatorship)

How much ill-will was winning the cold war worth?

To echo some of John's points: the kind of calculus we're doing here (second guessing historical decisions) is based on unstated and unprovable assumptions.  I'm inclined to think that the relative success of the Cold War validates and to some degree vindicates our (not just America's) approach to fighting it.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: -E.I'm inclined to think that the relative success of the Cold War validates and to some degree vindicates our (not just America's) approach to fighting it.

It's also important to realize that America did learn many lessons from those Cold War engagements.  For example, the United States developed precision guided ordinance for bombing in response to the problems related to bombing during Vietnam (including Cambodia) such that the bombs dropped are now not only far more efficient at destroying the target but also far less likely to injure those not targeted nearby.  And by the end of the Cold War as things wound down, many dictators supported by the United States in places like Chile and El Salvador had given way to democratic elections, as they did in Nicaragua once both the United States and Soviet Union stopped playing games with their proxies.  It's also important to note that several nations that did fall to communist dictatorships, among them Vietnam, North Korea, and Cuba, are still not democratic and still endure a suppressed standard of living.

I will make a bold proclaimation: precision munitions are one of the least effective weapons developments of the last 1,000 years.

Why?

Because it completely destroys the civil will to do whatever is necessary to win wars, because ANY civilian casualties are decried as a Bad Thing. Some wars (such as the current one) would probably end sooner and with less political and societal stress if they were fought like the old-style wars. Destroy the enemy's will to fight, which generally means his population if necessary. As it stands now, our will to fight is nearly drained because the war has no end in sight - because we won't do anything that is required to win it in a timely manner, because we lack the political will.

Soften the enemy up before moving in for the kill, rather than marching into dangerous mazes of insurgent gunfire (and don't give me the Leningrad speech, please). As it stands now, any casualties aside from armed combatants (and sometimes, even them) are used not only by the enemy, but by opponents of the war in the homeland, as propoganda to batter the national will to fight.

Essentially, we've reached the point that we are unwilling to fight a war that kills anyone on our side, or any civilians on their side. Our precision weapons aren't quite that precise - not yet, at least.

There, I said it, and I'm not sorry I did.

Quote from: WerekoalaBecause it completely destroys the civil will to do whatever is necessary to win wars, because ANY civilian casualties are decried as a Bad Thing. Some wars (such as the current one) would probably end sooner and with less political and societal stress if they were fought like the old-style wars. Destroy the enemy's will to fight, which generally means his population if necessary. As it stands now, our will to fight is nearly drained because the war has no end in sight - because we won't do anything that is required to win it in a timely manner, because we lack the political will.

Using Cambodia as the counter example, the United States dropped more ordinance on that one small country than they did on the enemy during WW2.  It didn't destroy the enemy's will to fight -- not the NVA, the Viet Cong, or the Khmer Rouge.  Instead, it made a huge mess of Cambodia that continues to this day, in the form of unexploded bombs that still go off.

Our will to fight is being drained for the same reason it was drained in Vietnam, a media that's emphasizing the bad, ignoring the good, and looking for every opportunity to say that we've lost with absolutely no historical perspective about how wars are fought.  Abu Ghraib?  In WW2, we had summary executions or SS and Japanese prisoners, soldiers using flame-throwers on the enemy, and Japanese having gold teeth ripped out of their mouths while they were still alive and their defleshed skulls sent home as souvenirs.  By any measure I can think of, the American troops are better trained, safer, less harmful to civilians, and more humane to the enemy than they've ever been, yet the press emphasizes the problems it can find.  Doesn't anyone find it the least bit curious that there are almost no reports of heroism or honor in the mainstream press, even though there is heroism and honor happening in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Quote from: WerekoalaEssentially, we've reached the point that we are unwilling to fight a war that kills anyone on our side, or any civilians on their side. Our precision weapons aren't quite that precise - not yet, at least.

We don't want to kill civilians because that's not what good guys do if they can help it.  It's easier to get away with killing civilians when the mainstream media becomes part of the propaganda machine and talks about how evil the enemy is like they did during WW2 rather than becoming part of the enemy's propaganda machine by detailing every civilian casualty and weeping relative.  The United States purposely fried tens of thousands of Japanese civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Americans cheered.  Perhaps things would have been different if, instead of reminding Americans of Pearl Harbor, Bataan, and the Rape of Nanking the press had done their best to avoid talking about those things and instead blamed America for provoking the Japanese to attack with sanctions and excused their atrocities in China as a matter of cultural differences.

As for why we don't want casualties on our side, I read an interesting explanation for that.  In a country where many parents have one or maybe two children, many soldiers are essentially "Private Ryan".  If you remember the plot of the movie, it was to save the last remaining son of a mother who had already lost 4.  But for a mother with only 1 son, that one son starts out being "Private Ryan".  We no longer have expendable children.

Quote from: -E.To echo some of John's points: the kind of calculus we're doing here (second guessing historical decisions) is based on unstated and unprovable assumptions.  I'm inclined to think that the relative success of the Cold War validates and to some degree vindicates our (not just America's) approach to fighting it.

The thing is, John Morrow said many of the same things.  He also said that he believed the bombing campaign against Cambodia was a mistake, for example.  That was not vindicated by the overall collapse of the Soviet Union.  

Obviously, this is all hypothetical.  However, the conservative view that whatever was done in the past was inherently the best choice has no better foundation than any other view.  I think the Cold War in particular is a very murky justification for most things compared to actions in an active war -- since it is not at all clear how the quagmire in Afghanistan connects to the political change of will in Moscow.  The USSR was not militarily defeated, but rather opened up on its own.  

Even in an active war, though, I don't think that citing overall victory justifies all evils done along the way.  Some moves, like Sherman's March or the firebombing of Dresden, are debateable.  However, others are less so, like the internment of Japanese-Americans or the common practice of killing Japanese prisoners.  

Quote from: -E.Again, knowing how it all turned out, it's easier to second guess the cold-war policy of supporting anti-soviet tyrants.

And even at the time we knew doing business with those guys was regrettable...

But my alt.history crystal ball is broken -- can someone with a working one let us know what the cost would have been if we hadn't pressed against communism?

Um?  Hello?  I'm saying that I believe the support of tyrants was often counter-productive in the press against Soviet aggression.  I believe the Soviets should have been pressed against -- but that some of the efforts against them were mistaken.  

It is a stupid rhetorical tactic to claim that any change from exactly what was done in history would mean doing nothing.  (i.e. "What?  You're against the bombing campaign in Cambodia?  That must mean you think that we should have done nothing to fight communism.")  

I think we should have opposed Soviet aggression by helping sides that were actually compatible with us.  So, specifically, I think that funding the mujaheddin was a mistake.  I think instead we should have supported Pakistan, which naturally turned to us given its fear and hatred of the Soviets.  Obviously, the results are not certain, but I'll give my view.  Afghanistan would have been less of a quagmire for the Soviets -- though there would still have been mujaheddin, just less well-funded ones.  Thus, it would have been more of an ex-Soviet state when the USSR collapsed, rather than a realm of warlords.  

Having drawn the line at Pakistan rather than fighting within Afghanistan, I believe that we could have fostered a more moderate regime in Pakistan -- which would have been a stronger ally (more like Saudi Arabia or South Korea).  By building up along the Afghan border, I think we still could have presented the Soviets with a strong front.

Quote from: jhkimIt is a stupid rhetorical tactic to claim that any change from exactly what was done in history would mean doing nothing.  (i.e. "What?  You're against the bombing campaign in Cambodia?  That must mean you think that we should have done nothing to fight communism.")

That's exactly why I asked for alternatives.  If you actually give an alternative (as you've done), then it becomes clear what you think should have been done, instead.  People can certainly argue that your specific alternative wouldn't have worked, worked as well, or worked better than what was done, but proposing an alternative shows a recognition that there was an issue there that needed to be dealt with and that things weren't as easy as simply doing nothing instead.

Quote from: John MorrowThat's exactly why I asked for alternatives.  If you actually give an alternative (as you've done), then it becomes clear what you think should have been done, instead.  People can certainly argue that your specific alternative wouldn't have worked, worked as well, or worked better than what was done, but proposing an alternative shows a recognition that there was an issue there that needed to be dealt with and that things weren't as easy as simply doing nothing instead.

Fair enough.  Though sometimes, it should be sufficient to say "Don't do that thing."  Demanding an active alternative carries the implication that the action was absolutely necessary.  

For example, the internment of Japanese-Americans in WWII, say.  You can say, "Well, what alternative was there?"  That would be simply, not interning them.  This doesn't need a special alternative -- I think our regular police work and counter-intelligence work would have been fine, since it worked well enough for German-Americans.  

The thing to avoid is overblown interpretations like "Well, if you're saying we shouldn't have spent billions funding the mujaheddin, then you must mean that we should have done nothing anywhere else to oppose the Soviets."  Which is stupid.  Suggesting "don't fund the mujaheddin" should be interpreted as the alternative of not funding the mujaheddin but otherwise acting as we did.  You can criticize that in itself that Afghanistan would have been less of a quagmire for the Soviets, but we would have billions more in our budget (which would reduce the national debt, among other things).

Quote from: WerekoalaBecause it completely destroys the civil will to do whatever is necessary to win wars

Maybe people have finally come to the conclusion that wars are bad, mkay?

Quote from: jhkimThe thing is, John Morrow said many of the same things.  He also said that he believed the bombing campaign against Cambodia was a mistake, for example.  That was not vindicated by the overall collapse of the Soviet Union.  

Obviously, this is all hypothetical.  However, the conservative view that whatever was done in the past was inherently the best choice has no better foundation than any other view.  I think the Cold War in particular is a very murky justification for most things compared to actions in an active war -- since it is not at all clear how the quagmire in Afghanistan connects to the political change of will in Moscow.  The USSR was not militarily defeated, but rather opened up on its own.  

Even in an active war, though, I don't think that citing overall victory justifies all evils done along the way.  Some moves, like Sherman's March or the firebombing of Dresden, are debateable.  However, others are less so, like the internment of Japanese-Americans or the common practice of killing Japanese prisoners.  


Um?  Hello?  I'm saying that I believe the support of tyrants was often counter-productive in the press against Soviet aggression.  I believe the Soviets should have been pressed against -- but that some of the efforts against them were mistaken.  

It is a stupid rhetorical tactic to claim that any change from exactly what was done in history would mean doing nothing.  (i.e. "What?  You're against the bombing campaign in Cambodia?  That must mean you think that we should have done nothing to fight communism.")  

I think we should have opposed Soviet aggression by helping sides that were actually compatible with us.  So, specifically, I think that funding the mujaheddin was a mistake.  I think instead we should have supported Pakistan, which naturally turned to us given its fear and hatred of the Soviets.  Obviously, the results are not certain, but I'll give my view.  Afghanistan would have been less of a quagmire for the Soviets -- though there would still have been mujaheddin, just less well-funded ones.  Thus, it would have been more of an ex-Soviet state when the USSR collapsed, rather than a realm of warlords.  

Having drawn the line at Pakistan rather than fighting within Afghanistan, I believe that we could have fostered a more moderate regime in Pakistan -- which would have been a stronger ally (more like Saudi Arabia or South Korea).  By building up along the Afghan border, I think we still could have presented the Soviets with a strong front.

I wasn't trying to paint your position as unreasonable -- and it's obvious you're not advocating doing nothing; I'm sorry if my post made it sound like I thought that.

Let me be clear: I basically agree with you that we should take action and we should try to deal with tyrants and extremists as little as possible.

I think the devil's in the details, though... how little is "as little as possible?"

In WWII we were "good buddies" with Stalin, providing him with resources for the Eastern Front. We knew he was a butcher, but we felt it was worth it to take out Hitler.

Certainly working with him was a gross violation of our principles in many ways, but it seemed like the lesser of two evils. It probably was.

If that's the case then it's a lot more complex than "don't do business with tyrants."

It's more like like "only do business with tyrants when it's worth it."

You're probably right that we do more business with tyrants than we ought to. My guess is that it's easy and safe compared to other approaches... but in terms of specifics I find the calculus hard to do.

Taking your Afghanistan scenario -- if the Pakistan option would get us to where we are now, but with fewer Osamas, then it's a clear win. But I'm not sure it's that simple:

I'm not an expert, but I've done a little reading about what the Soviet's failure in Afghanistan meant to them. It wasn't just an economic and military failure; my understanding is that for much of the senior leadership it raised some very serious questions about the value of their whole system and whether it was worth fighting for.

Those questions became critically important, one presumes, when they were facing collapse and they had to decide whether to fight or to go out peacefully and with grace.

We know about the choices they actually made: they didn't slaughter their population to maintain control at all costs (as Stalin did in WWII). They didn't hold the world hostage with their nuclear arsenal (North Korea).

There's no way to know how influential their experience in Afghanistan was, but I don't think it was trivial... and if it was in some way pivotal, then who knows... maybe finishing things quickly and in a way that left no question as to the outcome of the conflict *was* worth the cost.

This is a bit of an alt.history speculation (which is fun, but I'm critically undereducated to be doing this stuff), but my point is that I don't think there are simple answers to these things or easy ways to "do better" in the future and I'm skeptical of most analysis of the past.

Cheers,
-E.

Quote from: Tyberious FunkMaybe people have finally come to the conclusion that wars are bad, mkay?

People have always felt that wars they lose are bad.

US, Chinese and Soviet victory in WWII gave us the Korean War, and the Vietnam War, but also gave us a pacifist Germany and Japan. US defeat and Vietnamese Communist victory in the Vietnam War gave us the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia, and several years of US pacifism. Soviety victory in East Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia gave us the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. US victory in the Cold War gave us the first war against Iraq, which gave us the second war against Iraq. And so on.

There's nothing like winning a war to make you keen on having another, and nothing like losing one to make you into a pacifist - at least until you turn around a few years later and rationalise your defeat so you can say, "but this time we'll do it right."

People have always felt that wars they lose are bad. You don't get very many anti-war movies about battles we won.