What America needed, then, were stable allies — allies that shared the ideals of freedom, democracy, and the rule of law, and that saw themselves as having a stake in a market-based economic system. Such alliances, both military and economic, entered into freely and maintained by mutual consent, would be more lasting — and stir less resentment — than any collection of vassal states American imperialism might secure. Likewise, it was in America’s interest to work with other countries to build up international institutions and promote international norms. Not because of a naive assumption that international laws and treaties alone would end conflicts among nations or eliminate the need for American military action, but because the more international norms were reinforced and the more America signaled a willingness to show restraint in the exercise of its power, the fewer the number of conflicts that would arise — and the more legitimate our actions would appear in the eyes of the world when we did have to move militarily.
In less than a decade, the infrastructure of a new world order was in place. There was a U.S. policy of containment with respect to communist expansion, backed not just by U.S. troops but also by security agreements with NATO and Japan; the Marshall Plan to rebuild war-shattered economies; the Bretton Woods agreement to provide stability to the world’s financial markets and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade to establish rules governing world commerce; U.S. support for the independence of former European colonies; the IMF and World Bank to help integrate these newly independent nations into the world economy; and the United Nations to provide a forum for collective security and international cooperation.
Sixty years later, we can see the results of this massive postwar undertaking: a successful outcome to the Cold War, an avoidance of nuclear catastrophe, the effective end of conflict between the world’s great military powers, and an era of unprecedented economic growth at home and abroad.
It’s a remarkable achievement, perhaps the Greatest Generation’s greatest gift to us after the victory over fascism. But like any system built by man, it had its flaws and contradictions; it could fall victim to the distortions of politics, the sins of hubris, the corrupting effects of fear. Because of the enormity of the Soviet threat, and the shock of communist takeovers in China and North Korea, American policy makers came to view nationalist movements, ethnic struggles, reform efforts, or left-leaning policies anywhere in the world through the lens of the Cold War — potential threats they felt outweighed our professed commitment to freedom and democracy. For decades we would tolerate and even aid thieves like Mobutu, thugs like Noriega, so long as they opposed communism. Occasionally U.S. covert operations would engineer the removal of democratically elected leaders in countries like Iran — with seismic repercussions that haunt us to this day.
America’s policy of containment also involved an enormous military buildup, matching and then exceeding the Soviet and Chinese arsenals. Over time, the “iron triangle” of the Pentagon, defense contractors, and congressmen with large defense expenditures in their districts amassed great power in shaping U.S. foreign policy. And although the threat of nuclear war would preclude direct military confrontation with our superpower rivals, U.S policy makers increasingly viewed problems elsewhere in the world through a military lens rather than a diplomatic one.
Most important, the postwar system over time suffered from too much politics and not enough deliberation and domestic consensus building. One of America’s strengths immediately following the war was a degree of domestic consensus surrounding foreign policy. There might have been fierce differences between Republicans and Democrats, but politics usually ended at the water’s edge; professionals, whether in the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, or the CIA, were expected to make decisions based on facts and sound judgment, not ideology or electioneering. Moreover, that consensus extended to the public at large; programs like the Marshall Plan, which involved a massive investment of U.S. funds, could not have gone forward without the American people’s basic trust in their government, as well as a reciprocal faith on the part of government officials that the American people could be trusted with the facts that went into decisions that spent their tax dollars or sent their sons to war.
As the Cold War wore on, the key elements in this consensus began to erode. Politicians discovered that they could get votes by being tougher on communism than their opponents. Democrats were assailed for “losing China.” McCarthyism destroyed careers and crushed dissent. Kennedy would blame Republicans for a “missile gap” that didn’t exist on his way to beating Nixon, who himself had made a career of Red-baiting his opponents. Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson would all find their judgment clouded by fear that they would be tagged as “soft on communism.” The Cold War techniques of secrecy, snooping, and misinformation, used against foreign governments and foreign populations, became tools of domestic politics, a means to harass critics, build support for questionable policies, or cover up blunders. The very ideals that we had promised to export overseas were being betrayed at home.
All these trends came to a head in Vietnam. The disastrous consequences of that conflict — for our credibility and prestige abroad, for our armed forces (which would take a generation to recover), and most of all for those who fought — have been amply documented. But perhaps the biggest casualty of that war was the bond of trust between the American people and their government — and between Americans themselves. As a consequence of a more aggressive press corps and the images of body bags flooding into living rooms, Americans began to realize that the best and the brightest in Washington didn’t always know what they were doing — and didn’t always tell the truth. Increasingly, many on the left voiced opposition not only to the Vietnam War but also to the broader aims of American foreign policy. In their view, President Johnson, General Westmoreland, the CIA, the “military-industrial complex,” and international institutions like the World Bank were all manifestations of American arrogance, jingoism, racism, capitalism, and imperialism. Those on the right responded in kind, laying responsibility not only for the loss of Vietnam but also for the decline of America’s standing in the world squarely on the “blame America first” crowd — the protesters, the hippies, Jane Fonda, the Ivy League intellectuals and liberal media who denigrated patriotism, embraced a relativistic worldview, and undermined American resolve to confront godless communism.
Admittedly, these were caricatures, promoted by activists and political consultants. Many Americans remained somewhere in the middle, still supportive of America’s efforts to defeat communism but skeptical of U.S. policies that might involve large numbers of American casualties. Throughout the seventies and eighties, one could find Democratic hawks and Republican doves; in Congress, there were men like Mark Hatfield of Oregon and Sam Nunn of Georgia who sought to perpetuate the tradition of a bipartisan foreign policy. But the caricatures were what shaped public impressions during election time, as Republicans increasingly portrayed Democrats as weak on defense, and those suspicious of military and covert action abroad increasingly made the Democratic Party their political home.