It may be safe to say that the failed Bush/Cheney doctrine is totally

[whistle]

...due to their true-believer devotion to the writings and distorted historical interpretations of Yale Professor Donald Kagan, the father of neo-cons Frederick and Robert Kagan. Donald Kagan, a supposed expert on the Peloponnesian War, argued that war is the natural condition of man, and that the real mistake in Athens' disastrous Sicilian adventure of 415 B.C., was that the realist, General Nicias, advised against the adventure! By doing so, and by stating how much greater forces would actually be needed for victory, he turned the youthful Alcibiades' modest adventure, with limited liability, into a monumental disaster.

In 2000, Frederick and Donald combined to write their While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness and the Threat to Peace Today, described as a fervent call to arms, which required increased military preparedness, so that the United States could fulfill its mission as the world's policeman.

On Feb. 27, 2003, three weeks before the bombing of Baghdad, Donald Kagan was at the White House to receive a National Humanities Medal from George W. Bush, for his ability to draw lessons from Greek history for modern strategic planning.

<snip to a book review Edited and written by David Gordon, senior fellow of the Mises Institute>

The Bomber Caucus

Spring 2001

While America Sleeps: Self-Delusion, Military Weakness, and the Threat to Peace Today by Donald Kagan and Frederick W. Kagan (St. Martin's Press, 2000; ix + 483 pgs.)

While America Sleeps might better have been called While the Kagans Sleep. The book is divided into two parts: one on British foreign policy in the 1920s and 1930s and another on American foreign policy in the 1990s. The initial part, marginally better than the dreary laundry lists of military procurement policy that clog its successor, aims to inculcate a lesson. Britain, after the First World War, stood in position to dominate the planet. Foolishly, she threw away her chance at world hegemony by rapid demobilization and disarmament.

Lacking the tools to police the world, disaster followed. Britain failed to crush Germany as a potential antagonist. Further, with craven weakness the British Foreign Office refused to support collective security through the League of Nations. How could the British have failed to see the imperative need to punish Italy for Mussolini's occupation of Corfu in 1923? Without overwhelming military might, Britain felt herself constrained in her options.

The result, you will not be surprised to learn, was Hitler. The new German Führer posed a threat of unparalleled magnitude; but Neville Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, at the helm of British foreign policy, persisted in appeasement. Only America's intervention saved Britain from disaster, and she became a power of the second rank after the war ended. The Kagans' sad tale, they make evident, has more than antiquarian interest.

The United States occupies a similar position to that of Britain in the 1920s. After the collapse of Soviet Russia, the United States stood poised for world mastery. But overly cautious defense budgets have blocked us from imposing our will on other nations. The Kagans find especially disturbing our failure to dispatch Saddam Hussein and to destroy the North Korean nuclear program. Has the lesson of Hitler been forgotten so quickly? Only a massive arms buildup can save us. Whether or not you speak softly, at least carry a big stick.

The Kagans leave no doubt as to the moral of their prolix story: "A situation very like ours faced another great democracy this century. Warnings that England was sleeping came too late to do any good. We hope that this one comes in time. America . . . must make the necessary commitments and be ready materially and morally to meet them" (p. 435).

This latest entry into Aesop's fables proceeds in utter disregard of logic and morality. Our authors' initial premise on the surface seems plausible. If a nation has sufficient arms to cope with any conceivable threat, and the will to use them, then is it not obviously the case that her power can be indefinitely maintained? No doubt; but this is merely the tautology that a nation that can meet any threat can, not surprisingly, meet any threat.
<MORE>

http://www.mises.org/misesreview_detail.asp?control=181&sortorder=issue

<Paper by Prof. Donald Kagan delivered at a conference, "Intangible Interests and U.S. Foreign Policy," held in 1996. The article below was adapted from that paper and published in the April 1997 issue of Commentary.

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/vl/notes/kagan.html


<link to NYT book review>
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06EFDE173FF937A35751C0A9679C8B63