PUTIN AWAKENS THE ALLIANCE
Despotic Russia, Defiant Ukraine and Cold War II remind us that NATO matters. As today’s Americans debate the value of alliances versus America First, we do well to remember America’s finest hour. Firstly, following World War II, the United States established a liberal democratic, economic, political, and military world order. Moreover, this national commitment was not undertaken without strenuous debate or consequence. Furthermore, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the Marshall Plan are two examples of exceptional American resolve. At the end of 1945, Germany and Japan were destroyed. Moreover, millions of people around the world yearned for political independence and the bare necessities. Would they find hope and aid from the United States or fall prey to communism? Americans wanted a break from global responsibility following the war. But a world in ruins, beset by many longstanding impulses, did not stand still while Americans relaxed.
THE IRON CURTAIN
Many Americans, including officials in the Truman Administration, favored the Morgenthau Plan, which was a punitive postwar blueprint to permanently partition and de-industrialize Germany. But in Japan, Supreme Commander Gen. Douglas MacArthur rejected the idea in favor of a conciliatory and progressive vision. Meanwhile, many liberal-minded Americans were skeptical that the Soviet Union was turning occupied East European nations into communist satellites. Into this atmosphere, former British prime minister Winston Churchill fired the first shot of the Cold War. Speaking at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri on March 5, 1946, Churchill warned of an “Iron Curtain” descending from “Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic.” Furthermore, Churchill advised that an American and European union was needed to stand up to the challenge. However, editorial response in the United States to Churchill’s “reactionary” warning was negative. Influential columnist Walter Lippmann called it a “catastrophic blunder.”
THE LONG TELEGRAM
Much like many today rationalize Vladimir Putin’s “need” for an Eastern European “buffer zone,” liberal progressives then argued for acquiescence to permanent Soviet control of Eastern Europe. At this important moment, the chargé d’affaires at the American embassy in Moscow, George Frost Kennan, recommended that Washington should abandon plans for cooperation with the Soviets. But he recommended a sphere of influence policy of containment. Moreover, Kennan argued that the United States had to accept reality. The communist USSR, like Putin’s Russia, was competitive, duplicitous, and unreasonable. Furthermore, Kennan argued that a transatlantic union was needed to contain the Soviets. Meanwhile, the United States had led the inspired creation of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, which the ruthless Soviets refused to participate in. However, Stalin was not about to cooperate with the restoration of a democratic and capitalist Europe.
THE TRUMAN DOCTRINE
Containment did not necessarily mean military confrontation, but moral, economic, and political preeminence. Reality forced the Truman Administration to ditch the draconian Morgenthau Plan, which was favored by the Soviets. Consequently, on March 1, 1947. the president announced the Truman Doctrine, pledging the support of the United States to “the freedom of democratic choice and economic aid for nations and peoples pressured by outside forces.” Following a foreign ministers meeting in Moscow, Secretary of State George C. Marshall reluctantly concluded that there was no hope of negotiation with the Soviets. He ordered Kennan to prepare a plan and to “avoid trivia.” Firstly, Kennan advised that Soviet communism was not the cause of the European economic crisis, but that Stalin was exploiting it. Therefore, he recommended an Economic Recovery Plan directed but not imposed by the United States in partnership with Europe, where people were starving.
WHAT MUST BE DONE
Marshall announced his plan in a June 5, 1947, speech at Harvard University, concluding that “the whole world’s future hangs on a proper judgement (and) the realization by the American people of what can best be done (and) what must be done.” Therefore, he defined the most intuitive foreign policy initiative in American and world history. Furthermore, he invited the Soviet satellites to join. But he had one non-negotiable term: abandoning communist exclusivity of their economies, which Moscow would predictably reject. Marshall’s motivation was not belligerently anti-Soviet. Moreover, he believed that the United States had a moral obligation to act despite the USSR. Republican leader Sen. Arthur Vandenberg rallied support on Capitol Hill and the Foreign Assistance and Economic Cooperation Act of 1948 passed the House and Senate by large margins. Consequently, the far-sighted legislation restored western European agricultural and industrial productivity and prevented famine and political chaos.
SURRENDER ULTIMATUM
Vladimir Putin’s recent surrender ultimatum to Ukraine was not the first draconian threat issued by a despot from Moscow. At 6:00 a.m. on June 24, 1948, Joseph Stalin stopped all train, road, and barge traffic into Berlin, and they cut off electrical power to the western sectors of the city. American proconsul Gen. Lucius Clay and allied leaders had three options: retreat and abandon Berlin, stand firm as Berliners starved or bring food and coal by force. But in the event of war, analysts predicted that Soviet forces could reach the English Channel in forty-eight hours. Moreover, the Americans would have to use nuclear weapons to stop them. Therefore, Stalin had boldly put before Clay a surrender ultimatum. However, the Soviet blockade was a response to western German currency reform and the Marshall Plan.
BERLIN AIRLIFT
Meanwhile, Clay and fearless socialist Berlin mayor Ernst Reuter correctly believed that the blockade was a bluff. Although many in Washington were ready to cut and run, poker player Harry Truman bet his hunch and went all in to support Clay and Reuter. However, British proconsul Gen. Brian Robinson suggested the solution of supplying Berlin by air. USAF Gen. William Tunner, who commanded the World War II “Hump” operations between India and China, came in to direct “Operation Vittles.” Douglas C-54 transports consistently flew food and coal 24/7 into Berlin’s Tempelhof, Gatow and Tegel aerodromes. Children gathered at the end of the Tempelhof runways as aircrew dropped small parachutes with candy. The Berliner Telegraf marveled at how American planes were no longer a cause for anxiety. Moreover, the “roar of the engines now has a deep, good and quieting effect.”
COLLECTIVE SECURITY
A funny thing happened on the way to a Marxist worker’s paradise. The people of Berlin were resolute, and the capitalist enclave held out. Stalin’s gambit had backfired, and his blockade ended on May 12, 1949. Moreover, the awakened North American and European democracies had signed the North Atlantic Treaty on April 4, 1949 and approved the establishment of the Federal Republic of Germany. In response, the USSR established an East German police state and the Warsaw Pact. Likewise, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) became the collective security arm of the Atlantic Alliance, and the United States supported the formation of the European Economic Union. Therefore, NATO and the Marshall Plan would endure as cornerstones of multilateral American leadership. However, tensions simmered, and the clumsy communists even put up the horrid Berlin Wall. Resolved if patient containment would prove decisive by the 1980s.
PROFOUND CHANGE
In 1979, a new Roman Catholic pope from Poland, St. John Paul the Great, brought hope, courage, and possible divine intervention to Eastern Europe. Furthermore, the stage was also set for a profound change of direction with the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan as president of the United States. His Reagan Doctrine framed the Cold War as a showdown between good and evil. In a speech at Notre Dame University, Reagan announced that NATO and the west would not continue to contain communism but transcend it. Liberal Democrats bitterly opposed stationing Pershing II missiles in Europe and the Strategic Defense Initiative. Likewise, horrified western intellectuals, politicians and media pundits mocked Reagan. But premier Mikhail Gorbachev and Soviet leaders took him very seriously because they were “out of gas” and could not afford to compete. Meanwhile, Secretary of State George Schultz perceived an achievable opportunity to peacefully end the Cold War.
TEAR DOWN THIS WALL
Reagan constructively engaged Gorbachev with deceptive ease. But he also appeared in Berlin and demanded in an epic speech at the Brandenburg Gate, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” Likewise, the Solidarity movement of Polish workers and students with leader Lech Walesa lit a flame that spread across the entire Warsaw Pact. Meanwhile, the Marxist USSR had reached an ideological and economic dead-end, as predicted by Secretary of State George Shultz. Reagan’s successor George H. W. Bush navigated a remarkable transition. The Berlin Wall fell, the Warsaw Pact dissolved, and the Soviet Union ceased to exist on December 25, 1991, without a shot being fired in anger by NATO. Therefore, Germany reunited, and the former Warsaw Pact satellite nations, not coincidentally, became proud members of NATO. A consistent, rational, and bipartisan America had stayed the course and achieved the ultimate vision of Gen. George C. Marshall.
SOUND INVESTMENT
President Donald Trump and his interpretation of America First sent tremors throughout NATO and among the Washington elite. Proposing modernization and strategic change was warranted, but suggesting withdrawal was irresponsible. Alliances do not in good practice represent inefficiency or appeasement. NATO remains a sound investment that counters Russia and confronts existential threats. In conclusion, it now appears that Vladimir Putin has gravely misjudged the resolve of not only defiant Ukraine but an awakened NATO. And Finland and Sweden are understandably preparing to join the transatlantic alliance. During America’s finest hour, exceptional Americans gave us a remarkable example of resolve and reason. Our world is again at an ideological and economic crossroads and sound American leadership is vital. Putin has good reason to fear a strong NATO that he has unwittingly revitalized, let alone an independent and democratic Ukraine.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Dennis M. Spragg is the author of America Ascendant, the Rise of American Exceptionalism and Glenn Miller Declassified. He is currently writing America and Britain, the Exceptional Alliance. His recent related posts include Arming Ukraine, Benedict XVI, Elizabeth II, America and Britain, Defiant Ukraine, America and China, Guadalcanal – Then and Now, The Voice of America at 80, Nixon to China at 50 and Cold War II. The images contained in this article are courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, the National Archives and Records Administration, the Harry S. Truman Library, the U. S. Department of State, the Vatican, the George C. Marshall Foundation, and the Associated Press.
Note: primary source material is from America Ascendant, the Rise of American Exceptionalism, Chapter 8, United Nations, references 1-92, and Chapter 9, A New Frontier, references 1-119, pp. 361-69.