“Leaders like Truman and Acheson, Kennan and Marshall, knew that
there was no single decisive blow that could be struck for
freedom,” Barack Obama declared on Tuesday at the Ronald Reagan
Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C. “We
needed a new overarching strategy to meet the challenges of a new
and dangerous world.”
In what his campaign billed as a “major” foreign policy address,
Obama stood behind a lectern that was adorned with the slogan,
“Judgment to Lead,” and aimed to present a comprehensive approach
to national security based on lessons from the Truman
administration, but he conveyed a selective account of history.
Obama drew a particularly suspect parallel between the Marshall
Plan and global economic assistance in today’s times:
I know development assistance is not the most popular
program, but as President, I will make the case to the American
people that it can be our best investment in increasing the common
security of the entire world. That was true with the Marshall Plan,
and that must be true today. That’s why I’ll double our foreign
assistance to $50 billion by 2012, and use it to support a stable
future in failing states, and sustainable growth in Africa; to
halve global poverty and to roll back disease. To send once more a
message to those yearning faces beyond our shores that says, “You
matter to us. Your future is our future. And our moment is
now.”
But the Marshall Plan wasn’t about making a general commitment to
fight poverty and disease throughout the world just to show that we
care. It was targeted specifically at Europe with the clear goal of
making sure its economies didn’t collapse after the war and
destabilize the region. It was meant to avoid a repeat of what
Winston Churchill called “the follies of the victors” after World
War I, in which economic collapse and heavy reparations imposed on
Germany created the conditions that facilitated Adolf Hitler’s
rise. Truman was also concerned that any economic depression in
Europe would drag down the U.S. economy.
A more disturbing aspect of Obama’s speech, considering it was
framed around applying President Truman’s foreign policy to today’s
national security challenges, was that he neglected to mention a
key event during Truman’s tenure: the Korean War.
In addition to praising the Marshall Plan, Obama found time to
applaud the establishment of NATO, the UN, and the World Bank. Yet
somehow, during the same speech that he blasted John McCain for
supporting a war in which “we have lost thousands of lives,” he
forgot about the war known as the Forgotten War, in which we lost
54,246.
It was with the counsel of Secretary of State Dean Acheson, whom
Obama also cited admiringly, that Truman made the decision to come
to the aid of South Korea, believing that if communists were able
to take over unmolested, it would only encourage similar moves
elsewhere.
But what was initially described as a limited “police action”
launched with broad popular support, under the auspices of the UN,
turned into a protracted conflict that, while shorter in duration
than Iraq, killed nearly as many soldiers as the war in
Vietnam.
THE WAR BEGAN WITH Congressional consultation but not official
authorization. When America became involved, there was no clear
strategy. U.S. troops were poorly trained due to post-World War II
cutbacks, unfamiliar with the local geography, and did not speak
the language.
As the casualties mounted and bungles multiplied, support for
the war plummeted, as did Truman’s approval ratings, which sank to
Bush territory. Truman couldn’t credibly run for reelection in
1952, and had Obama been running against him in the Democratic
primary that year, he may well have eviscerated Truman for
expending so much blood and treasure on a war that should have
never been fought, against a nation that posed no imminent threat
to the U.S.
What’s more, while Obama criticizes McCain’s overtures in favor
of a permanent U.S. military presence in Iraq, he praises the
Truman administration, whose actions resulted in permanent bases in
South Korea.
While alluding to the fact that the our nation’s early Cold War
policy involved “overwhelming military strength,” Obama didn’t get
specific, because he’d rather tie up everything in a neat bow in
which global institutions and economic aid made the world love us,
and created peace.
Talking about the fact that a messy, bloody war was a central
part of the legacy of the president whom he cites as a model for
his foreign policy would be inconvenient for Obama, who has built
his candidacy around his opposition to the Iraq War.
