There are a lot of news about the leaked Afghan War documents. And a lot of descriptions of Wikileaks as a threat to the US national and military security.
Which reminds me a lot of things.
The Cold War
Most Westerners are convinced that Ronald Reagan won it, by raising the military expenses of USA to a level that the Soviet bloc could not afford. This is not the first gross Western misconception about the communism – but is a very important one.
Every single penny in the cost of everything, be that a toaster, tank or ICBM, is eventually spent on someone’s salary. If you can pay peanuts, you can produce tanks and ICBMs for peanuts… That was the case in the Soviet Union. The head of an ICBM project there was paid about one tenth of the salary of a floor sweeper in an US ICBM project. And, living in the Soviet Union, he could not run away for a higher salary. In fact, the Soviet Union could push the military spending to a level that USA would not be able to afford, just because they spent so much less per a result than the Americans. (A hint for the future: watch China.)
Why, then, the Soviets did not win the Cold War, if it was so easy?
Because they could not achieve moral superiority over USA. An unrealistically sounding answer – if you haven’t lived in a communist country, and don’t know the situation from inside.
Immediately after the WWII we, who remained in the Soviet bloc, saw our stand against the Western bloc as a patriotic one. We saw that the Soviet order was horrible, but the order in the Western bloc was also not very nice. We had Lavrentiy Beria etc., but the West had Barry Goldwater etc. The Soviet Union orchestrated aggressions and coups all around the world, but the U.S. did the same. Where there is no clear “good” and “evil”, there is only “us” and “them” – and, of course, everyone is with “us”, not with “them”.
Things changed drastically under John Kennedy, and even more under Lyndon Johnson. The censorship and the anti-communist witch hunt in the US disappeared. The civil liberties were strengthened. And despite the Iron Curtain, this was noticed in the Soviet bloc. Suddenly, “them” ceased to be about as bad as “us”. We saw that “them” is the Good, and “us” is the Evil. We started believing that “them” means freedom, sincerity, truth, decency, while “us” means lies, hypocrisy, and life in a prison.
The West had achieved a moral superiority.
But how this translated into a Cold War victory?
You can’t run away from a Soviet country, no matter how much you despise it. However, if you are forced to remain there, you lose your initiative, inventiveness and desire to work, create and win. And, most of all, you lose your trust in the system, and your hope for a better future… The most important engine of the economics, the impulse of the people to work and create, went dry. The economics continued going for some time, supported by the effect of the scale, but eventually stuck. And to our perceptions of the West added one more – “wealth”. Actually, a “deserved, decently obtained wealth”.
Even the top Soviet functionaries had lost their trust in the communist system. Publicly, every time they spoke, they acclaimed the Soviet superiority. Privately, they didn’t believed a word from what they said. They regarded everyone who believed that the Soviets can be superior in any way as idiots, brainwashed by the lies they themselves fabricated. When told: “We can beat the West in the arms and space race”, they didn’t believed it, despite the calculations they were shown, and despite that they had nearly done it during the 60s. “If you believe one thing, and the Western experts believe otherwise, then it is them who must be right. There is no way you can be right, there is no way for us to be the better. It is them who speaks the truth, and us who cheats and lies.” This is what everyone was convinced in – even the Party core and top.
The military buildup and the “Space Wars” of Ronald Reagan merely coincided with the final stages of the Soviet economic deterioration. The rot was clearly seen from inside even before Reagan, and many people understood it is a matter only of time before the Soviet system falls apart economically. (Most of us expected this fall to come later, but to be a catastrophic one: happily, we were wrong.) The military race could have speeded it up a bit, but I doubt even this – the Soviet bloc practically didn’t tried to increase the military spending in order to counter Reagan. There was no use in doing this. The Cold War was already won by the West, and not in the arms race.
It was the moral superiority that won it. That rendered the Soviet “army” unwilling to fight – in fact, willing to desert at first opportunity, and expecting and hoping to lose… The result was the only possible one. The Soviet bloc simply disappeared into the thin air, without a single gunshot against the West.
Al-Qaeda
As a student, I saw once a man who was bent on organizing a crusade against the evil capitalism. He tried to recruit for it every single person he saw. And always failed… Instead of on the top of some government body, the system had placed him in a mental clinic. Despite that this obsession was his only peculiarity.
This is how much the Soviet system believed in itself, facing the Western moral superiority. In a country where everyone publicly called for the fall of the capitalism, this man hadn’t seen in his life a single person who would actually fight the capitalism. Or even believe that this is a sane idea…
If Osama bin Laden was in a situation similar to the Soviet bloc, he shouldn’t be able to find a single follower. And the Arab countries are not as anti-Western as the Soviet bloc was, so his task should have been even tougher. How is that he found thousands of followers?
Some people believe this to be an effect of the Islam. However, the communism is a religion also, and one that is much less tolerant of everything decent than even the darkest sects of the Islam. In addition, 15% of my country’s population is Muslims, and that madman could not recruit among them, too. Also, before Osama there were many other militant Muslims who went on a jihad against the West, and none found a significant number of supporters. Despite that the US were supporting then Israel as firmly as now, etc… Obviously, it is the situation that changed.
The people from Western Europe would not go on a jihad. However, during the last decade their opinion on the USA plummeted, too. Twenty years ago, if you were an American in Berlin, you would be revered, and more honored than the Berliners around… Not anymore. Now, you can often hear: “The country that lied to the entire world about the Iraqi WMD? That created and still maintains the Guantanamo gulag? That ran the Abu Ghraib prison? That bombed to destruction the civilians in Faluja? That shot the Italian hostage resque mission? That killed the Reuters journalists in Baghdad? That photographs, fingerprints and tracks every visitor like a criminal? That created the ECHELON system? That is killing in Afghanistan maybe more civilians than terrorists?… If it is decent, then Stalin is, too. This country is a blemish to the humankind.”
Of course, the real criminal is the war itself. In a war, no involved army can avoid such things. The war always de-humanizes the people. And sometimes you can’t avoid wars… However, a moral country is expected to not lie to the other countries, in order to involve them, too, in a non-justified war. To not organize gulags. And when its soldiers perform some nasty crime, to not try first to cover it. Otherwise, this country starts being considered by the entire world as an immoral, cheating and lying one. If it is bigger and stronger, it earns the “Evil Empire” nickname, and deservedly. All of its moral superiority, earned with bitter, painful and long-lasting sacrifices, and often paid with the lives of many of its best people, quickly evaporates.
The worst comes when this country continues to pretend that it is the mainstay of the world decency, morality and human rights. These pretensions make me, who has lived twenty-odd years in a communist country, instantly remember another country. One that pretended that it is the source of all human rights in the world, but actually was a big prison. The Soviet Union… Yes, there are differences. But not ones that matter when it comes to moral image and leadership.
What about Wikileaks?
What Wikileaks does is exposing the indecent and immoral things done, in this case, by the US army. When Adm. Mike Mullen says that this risks the lives of American soldiers or Afghan informants, he surely doesn’t believe himself – the leaked documents do not contain enough info to endanger them. Few people, if any, will believe him… What he actually achieves is to remind me (and not only me) of another kind of people, who also said what neither they nor anybody else believed. The Soviet functionaries.
I don’t know if Pfc. Manning is the person who leaked those documents (and the “collateral murder” video on which the US copter pilots killed the Reuters journalists). If yes, he reminds me of another person – Hugh Thompson Jr, the officer who stopped the My Lai massacre, and leaked the info about it. He was sharply criticized by the US Congressmen for this. He was sent to missions without adequate cover and supply until he was gunned down and nearly killed. However, he was awarded a medal by the US government, because of his humanity.
Will the same happen with Pfc. Manning? I doubt it. Given the current situation, it is more like he will get a sentence, and the medal will be preserved for those who will succeed to shut down Wikileaks. Which is another proof that the things in USA have changed – and a proof which direction they took.
… Remember the great support Obama had among the ordinary people abroad before the president elections? Especially in Europe? There is a reason for this support. The ordinary people hoped that he will restore the US moral superiority, by bringing moral to the US politics… He failed to do it. The Guantanamo gulag stays. Some measures are taken to prevent the worst things the US Army does abroad – however, the “culture of concealment” is stronger than ever. Slowly, but surely one trend emerges and grows in the thinking of the people outside US. Namely, that this state has gone too far on the Evil Empire road. That it cannot be stopped anymore, even by a good-intended President. And that it is better late than never to say openly: “Things changed. This is not anymore the moral leader of the world – this is just another evil empire. One that the decent people must hate, loathe and oppose to.”
What will happen if this trend of thinking prevails? Easy guess. Al-Qaeda will grow and attract more and more people, and will probably obstruct more of the US activity abroad. In fact, it may gain enough support to carry its fight on American soil. The support for US in Europe and the rest of the world will gradually diminish, to the extent that even the pro-US politicians will have to become blind and deaf to the USA needs. And very surely there will be new “cold wars” – economic, cultural etc. – between USA and some other countries, but it will not be possible anymore to win them through moral superiority.
Know Thy Enemy
USA is still the strongest military power in the world. However, even it cannot afford a major war against a decently strong enemy on its soil. And an union between some of the other top countries might prove as strong militarily. Not speaking that USA is not the world biggest exporter since quite a lot of time, and relatively soon is going to be dethroned from the first place in the economics, too. (In fact, the EU already did it.) So, a question arises – how USA is going to maintain its influence in the world?
Typically, influence is maintained by what you export, in the broadest sense of the word. Currently, USA exports almost only military power and economic size. In not a long time these will diminish, compared to other countries. Unless USA finds something else to export, and to be the top exporter, its influence in the world will be lost. Which carries a lot of problems for it, and for the world, too.
The single thing that USA is uniquely positioned to export is exactly the moral superiority. Its long-standing culture of freedom, compassion and civil liberties is still unmatched anywhere in the world. If properly extended to the people outside USA borders, it can restore this superiority, to the extent USA can become its overwhelming exporter. However, the freedom and the civil liberties inside USA are seriously eroded during the last decades, and it seems that this trend will not be reversed easily. And the growing tendency to treat the non-US citizens as second-class people doesn’t help too much.
Still, it is worth trying to do what can be done to preserve the moral superiority. The history has clearly shown that every bit of it is worth more than an army of tanks, even in a war. Unless USA choose this path, they are headed where the decadent Roman Empire was headed – to internal corruption, weakness and ultimately disappearance. This is the road down that every evil empire takes, sooner or later.
To preserve moral superiority, the US must first learn what is the correct move in situations like the current one. Whether Wikileaks is its enemy, or the best friend they can find – one that is brave enough to tell you you have a nasty problem, and to press on you to solve it on time. And whether people like Mike Mullen are its best servants, or its best enemies – the ones that tell you “There is no problem, continue this way, people will never learn of the crimes, truth never comes out”.
If you are still not sure which is the correct position, ask one truly outstanding soldier – Gen. David Petraeus. He will surely be able to tell you the truth… Actually, you can tell it yourself, by using his simple principle – which action decreases the number of your enemies, and increases the number of your friends.