AMERICANS, FEAR AND WAR / GEOPOLITICAL FUTURES

Americans, Fear and War

Thoughts in and around geopolitics.

By: George Friedman

We are living in a time when war appears imminent, but for many of us, this isn’t our first rodeo. 

I grew up during a time when war seemed to be stalking us. Americans had experienced Pearl Harbor, which brought them into a war that caught them by surprise, even if it wasn’t all that surprising. 

Still, we lived in America, the central feature on the North American landmass, surrounded by oceans that convinced us that we were apart from the world. 

At the time, war seemed an elective activity; we didn’t think the choice would be taken from us, first by Japan, a nation we thought little about and held in little regard, and then by Hitler, a man many regarded as both vile and comical. 

We had lived in an illusion of safety until suddenly we were plunged into a reality most of us didn’t know was there. 

We recovered with extraordinary speed and invented a war machine that crushed our enemies.

Pearl Harbor left a deep scar on the American soul. 

The nation could no longer convince itself that the rest of the world was at a safe distance or that it lacked the will to act maliciously. 

That was never the case, of course, and World War II taught us as much. 

A new American spirit emerged from the war, though. 

It consisted of awareness that we were a part of the whole, and vulnerable to it. 

Most of all, we believed entirely in what we now know to be true: that other nations were working to secure our downfall and that they would act at the time of their choosing, without warning, and with great and ruthless wit. 

We no longer had the right to dismiss any foreign power as benign.

This transformed our culture. 

We survived by constructing a war machine that had saved us from the horrors of Europe and Japan. 

The war years were seen not as an aberration but as the permanent condition in which we lived. 

From a nation in which wars against indigenous peoples or against neighboring Mexicans never posed an existential threat, we turned into a nation that was constantly on alert for the unexpected that was sure to come.

It’s hard to imagine how we would have coped with the fear embedded in us had there been no enemy after World War II, but one presented itself immediately in the Soviet Union. 

It was a nation to be feared and loathed. It was ruled by a monster, Josef Stalin, a mass murderer who had starved Ukrainians to death to sell grain to industrialize Russia. 

It was the definition of terror, reminding us of Hitler’s Germany. 

It had occupied European countries and executed a reign of terror meant to subjugate them.

In some ways, war was inevitable, but it took on an entirely different complexion. 

Just as Hitler had his ideological allies, so too did Russia. Both were built on waging wars or revolutions designed to spread their power. 

When North Korea invaded South Korea, we went to war without hesitation. 

The war against communism raged in Latin America, Africa, Asia and Europe until the Soviet Union collapsed. 

We saw the entire planet as one potential theater, and waged wars large and small accordingly.

But the real danger was nuclear annihilation. 

Though nukes were developed as a weapon against Japan, the U.S. kept them in anticipation of further wars, which seemed inevitable after the Soviets successfully tested their first device.

And if war was to come, as policymakers in Washington seemed to think, then nuclear weapons made for a perfect surprise attack. 

A strike could come at any time. 

We embraced our own nuclear power not as an instrument of war but as a deterrent to war. 

Growing up in New York, I recall regular tests of the siren warning systems. 

It always happened at noon so that we would all know there was no attack. 

I remember a little girl in fourth grade becoming hysterical at the sound. 

No one teased her. 

We were children, but we knew death might come for us at any moment. 

After all, we practiced for it.

The Vietnam War marked the beginning of a transition of a nation prepared for war at any time to one that was devoted to avoiding wars. 

So whereas there was once the belief that war lurks in the shadows, and permanent vigilance and readiness to sacrifice were the only way to save our nation, there was now the idea that the only threat to peace was our nation.

There is some truth to that, only insofar as the best way to prevent a war is by acting first. 

The doctrine of preemption has not taken root in our minds likely because preemption does not prevent war but frequently left us losers. 

I would argue that the nuclear balance, meticulously managed, is the path any pacifist should demand. 

Nuclear brinksmanship never led to war, and for humans, the absence of war is an extraordinary thing.

We are now facing a potential conflict in Ukraine. 

The American president claims daily that the Russians are prepared to invade Ukraine, but if it does, the U.S. will not defend Ukraine but destroy Russia’s financial system instead. 

The simplistic sense of security from a distance is gone. 

The sense that our enemies might strike us at any moment is missing. 

The post-Cold War belief that war is over and replaced by a universal desire to buy investment houses is gone. 

Being able to screw with the enemy’s investment house is an illusory form of deterrence, but at least gives the illusion of action without cost.

The bottom line is that we are not a nation prepared for war. 

We are exhausted by the preemptive war and contemptuous of the nuclear balance. 

It is all very well for American culture to move beyond war, but it is to be hoped that our fellow humans feel the same way. 

At the same time, we can take comfort in the rage of our fathers, 10 minutes after they heard about Pearl Harbor. 

As Leon Trotsky said, you may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.