STUDY HISTORY TO GAIN PERSPECTIVE

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”   George Santayana    

In today’s 24/7 media cycle, minor news stories can run for a week and important ones disappear in a flash. On cable news and social media, biased news sources seek to build up or bury events that are helpful or damaging to their preferred political party.

A constitutional republic such as ours, which depends on a well-informed public and a government capable of compromise, cannot be effective under these circumstances. The study of recent historical events often provides unbiased information for understanding the present and envisioning the future.

Several months ago, my spouse began reading the novel Munich by the historical fiction writer Robert Harris. The book relates the history of the 1938 Munich Agreement in which the British and French conceded Adolf Hitler the border area of Czechoslovakia. Five months after this appeasement to tyranny, Hitler violated the agreement, invaded Czechoslovakia, and hostilities began.

As my wife was reading the story, she would often comment on how certain historical figures sounded and acted like political actors in the news today.  For example, the characters in Munich tell us, “Hitler’s genius was for making men and women love him…. Only when Hitler starts to lose will his supporters turn against him by which time it will be too late… People believe what they want to believe, he has given them an excuse not to think….Hitler had to beat, bend and cut the truth into the required shape.”

This fictional telling of an historical event gave me reason to pause and think about the lessons history can offer. There is value in taking the time to consider what came before when forming opinions about the present and the future. Below, are two examples of twentieth century history that are relevant for events in 2024. The historical and present situations are not identical, but they often do “rhyme.”

Fascism in Germany and America.  Prior to Hitler seizing power, the Weimar Republic democracy was in place from 1918 until 1933. Some historical facts from this period are eerily similar to the rise of Donald Trump in America. The German conservative industrial sector spent all fourteen years trying to erase democracy and the economic concessions given to the average worker at the end of WWI. These wealthy authoritarians, who detested regulations and talk of equality, joined forces with outright fascists to defeat democracy and install a dictator.

The fledgling German Weimar democracy depended on the middle class. Because of hyperinflation, followed by the depression, these citizens lost their savings. Many average Germans became increasingly disenchanted, and with encouragement from Hitler, blamed their situation on the German democratic institutions and Jewish citizens who tried to save them.

In America during this period, there was a strong undercurrent of isolationism, antisemitism, and fascism. According to Rachel Maddow’s recent book, Prequel: An American Fight against Fascism, “Hundreds of New York City police officers joined the Christian Front in the late 1930s; National Guardsmen supplied the group with weapons. Isolationists in Congress recited talking points drawn up by the German Foreign Office in Berlin, vilifying Franklin D. Roosevelt and urging the United States to stay out of the war. One senator, Ernest Lundeen of Minnesota, had a Nazi agent as a speechwriter.”

Many of the same anti-democratic and isolationist tendencies are front and center in today’s Republican Party. Immigrants have replaced Jews as the immediate scapegoat. White, Christian nationalism is again on the rise.

The Next Global War. I read with interest a recent essay by Hal Brands in Foreign Affairs, The Next Global War: How Today’s Regional Conflicts Resemble the Ones That Produced World War II. This distinguished professor of global events makes a strong case that “a world at risk could become a world at war” and uses the history leading up to WWII to prove his point.

We often forget that there was no integrated world war until the United States entered the conflict in December 1941. Before then, three regional conflicts were playing out with Japan’s invasion of China, Italy’s bid for an empire in Africa, and Germany’s push to take over Europe. Despite very different goals, the three aggressor nations “banded together against Western democracies that could prevent their respective ambitions.”

Today, a similar scenario is developing. The international system is again facing three regional conflicts. Two of the situations, in Ukraine and the Middle East are in open war. The third involves China and its desire for regional dominance and could explode at any time. Russia, China, and Iran are “drawing closer together through a strategic partnership featuring arms sales, technological cooperation and displays of diplomatic cooperation.” Clearly, history is close to repeating the geopolitical situation that preceded WWII.

How the nation addresses these broadening regional conflicts should be a major campaign issue in the upcoming national election. Many mistakes that were made prior to WWII can now be avoided with an aggressive foreign policy that supports our allies and proper deployment of American military resources.

One take away from these examples is how Republican foreign policy positions have ignored recent history and the growing threat to global order. Calls for increased isolationism, halting foreign aid to Ukraine, a withdrawal from NATO, and rejection of a two-state solution in the Mid-East are irrational. The darkening international scene could quickly deteriorate into a world war with nuclear implications.