For conservatives, every potential conflict is Munich.
Sigh.
"Those who ignore history are destined to repeat it" - George Santayana
So which history should we apply in this case? Vietnam or Munich?
Appeals to history are seldom much help. People pick an historical episode that lines up with what they believe anyway.
IOW, history is used as ammunition, not as a teaching moment. Which is why Henry Ford, who said, “History is bunk” was to a considerable extent correct.
Actually, it’s not history that’s bunk. I have probably read closing on a thousand historical works. It’s the way we generally use history that’s bunk.
IMO, of course.
Sorry, had another thought.
People are still drawing different conclusions even about the western failure to stand up to Hitler at Munich. Pat Buchanan has made somewhat of a cottage industry out of WWII being pretty much entirely the fault of the West, and especially Churchill.
It’s a pretty stupid cottage industry, IMO, but he sure works at it.
Most of the criticisms of western leaders are of the same variety as those who think we “should have” just kept going after Germany collapsed, invading USSR and destroying Communism. That counter-factual analysis is based on geopolitical theories that just ignore the real facts. Such as the enormously obvious one that the citizens of the Allies, and quite probably their armies, would simply have refused to obey. If FDR or Truman had tried any such thing, they would have quickly been impeached, or at minimum had funding cut off.
Similarly, IF Britain and France had been different countries in 1938, their leaders would have had options that included (possibly) facing Hitler down. Since they weren’t different countries, those leaders didn’t have those options. BTW, for the most part they didn’t have those options in earlier years, either.
IOW, IF your aunt had balls, she’d be your uncle. But since she doesn’t, she’s still your aunt.