The misplaced confidence of progressives when it comes to warfare
James Carafano:
In World War II in the North African campaign which was the first major offensive, the US was easily defeated when it turned out that our tanks had been given dummy practice rounds that just bounced off the German tanks. In the Pacific it too the grit of the Marines on Guadalcanal to stop the Japanese offensive and the naval battles in that fight were barely a draw. Even with good intelligence, our forces had to get lucky to win the battle of Midway because our equipment was so shoddy. The American planes were no match for the Japanese Zeroes. Fortunately our dive bombers caught the Japanese planes refueling on the decks of their carriers and the explosion touched off the fuel and sunk them. Even finding those carriers was a matter of luck. Some of our planes never did and ran out of fuel before they could return to base.
The progressives managed to turn Vietnam into a stalemate with rules of engagement that only made sense in Washington.
Since taking office Obama has botched one global hot spot after another. He wasted a victory in Iraq by failing to get a status of forces agreement. Now Iran is using Iraqi airspace to supply its ally in Syria. He has helped radical Islamist take over Egypt and other parts of North Africa. His Libyan campaign has been a strategic disaster that has armed al Qaeda enabling the enemy to take over most of Mali and supply weapons to the Hamas death cult. Leading from behind gave us no ability to shape events or secure weapons to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy.
Progressives think they are really good at fighting wars. That is the problem.
A core progressive belief is that international structures of management and arbitration would check and eventually end aggression between nations. As James Srodes notes in "On Dupont Circle," a book about Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and their cadre of young reformers, they had unshakable "faith in the powers of experts to solve political issues." And, of course, they saw themselves as the experts.
When conflict came, New Deal progressives ran the war effort with authoritarian zeal. FDR, John Foster Dulles, Sumner Welles and Henry Stimson felt supremely confident to lead the nation through World War II because their fellow progressives had done it before, in the First World War.
Progressives prided themselves on the way they had engineered victory in "The War to End All Wars." In doing so, they blithely ignored the "slight inconveniences" that had arisen under the experts' direction: The government had violated constitutional liberties right and left; they had allowed tens of billions in defense contracts that produced virtually no usable tanks or planes before the war ended; they had rushed troops with the "Spanish" flu overseas, sparking a worldwide outbreak -- and then concealed the truth about the pandemic from the American people.
Still, the progressive elite of FDR's time were cocksure they could run domestic and foreign affairs just as beautifully as their Wilsonian predecessors. Unfortunately, they were right.
Despite "progressive" measures, the United States had lapsed into a punishing recession after World War I. Twenty years later, the progressive response to the Great Depression actually prolonged and deepened the crisis.
Following World War I, the progressives were so sure of their ability to "manage" the world (think League of Nations), they allowed U.S. forces to wither away. Their management left FDR an Army of a few thousand men in a very dangerous world. Similarly, the progressives' rapid World War II demobilization left the U.S. woefully unprepared for the Korean conflict.
Today, President Obama is living the progressive mind-set. He and his team have supreme faith in their ability to administer us and the rest of the world.
But the facts just don't match.
...Progressives are basically liberal fascists. If you look at Obama's approach to regulation it takes the fascist approach to collectivization. You get to keep your company but they are going to manage it for you through a heavy handed regulatory scheme from energy to health care to banking. They were not that great at managing warfare either.
In World War II in the North African campaign which was the first major offensive, the US was easily defeated when it turned out that our tanks had been given dummy practice rounds that just bounced off the German tanks. In the Pacific it too the grit of the Marines on Guadalcanal to stop the Japanese offensive and the naval battles in that fight were barely a draw. Even with good intelligence, our forces had to get lucky to win the battle of Midway because our equipment was so shoddy. The American planes were no match for the Japanese Zeroes. Fortunately our dive bombers caught the Japanese planes refueling on the decks of their carriers and the explosion touched off the fuel and sunk them. Even finding those carriers was a matter of luck. Some of our planes never did and ran out of fuel before they could return to base.
The progressives managed to turn Vietnam into a stalemate with rules of engagement that only made sense in Washington.
Since taking office Obama has botched one global hot spot after another. He wasted a victory in Iraq by failing to get a status of forces agreement. Now Iran is using Iraqi airspace to supply its ally in Syria. He has helped radical Islamist take over Egypt and other parts of North Africa. His Libyan campaign has been a strategic disaster that has armed al Qaeda enabling the enemy to take over most of Mali and supply weapons to the Hamas death cult. Leading from behind gave us no ability to shape events or secure weapons to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy.
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