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Cold War lessons forgotten as U.S. escalates tensions abroad – Tennessee Lookout [1]

['More From Author', 'October', 'Ren Brabenec']

Date: 2023-10-10

“What kind of peace do we seek?” asked the young President John F. Kennedy 60 years ago at a commencement address on the campus of American University in Washington, DC.

“Not a Pax Americana [peace] enforced on the world by American weapons of war,” Kennedy continued. “Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, the kind that enables men and nations to grow and to hope and to build a better life for their children — not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women — not merely peace in our time but peace for all time.”

Kennedy prepared that speech in secret, the intelligence agencies and Joint Chiefs of Staff unaware the President was about to publicly call for peace with the Soviet Union and a robust de-escalation of the Arms Race. Weeks after his speech was broadly publicized across the U.S. and the world, Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev signed the Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the first of many arms agreements between the two world powers. Four months later, Kennedy was assassinated.

Sixty years ago, peace prevailed

In his brief but dynamic presidency, Kennedy guided the nation through a series of U.S.-Soviet crises, including the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, the contentious Vienna Summit, the Berlin Crisis, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Many historians have described these moments as the closest humanity has ever come to annihilation.

In direct defiance of intelligence agency officials and Pentagon brass who wanted Kennedy to order a full-scale invasion of Cuba and nuclear first strikes on the Soviet Union, Kennedy took to the bully pulpit and called for peace. “I speak of peace,” said Kennedy, “as the necessary, rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war — and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.”

Kennedy’s call for peace may have fallen on deaf ears among most of the men around him, but the bold statesman found an unlikely ally in Nikita Khrushchev, and the pair walked the two world powers back from the brink.

If two world leaders 60 years ago could foster peace in their time and, in so doing, draft blueprints for us to follow, why have today’s leaders embraced amnesia? Why do they dance to the drumbeat of war when many of them are old enough to remember cowering under classroom desks during nuclear strike drills?

Red lines are ignored in a race up the escalation ladder

Today’s politicians ignore Cold War lessons as they march the American people toward global conflict between nuclear powers. In the last few months, the Biden Administration has repeatedly ignored its red lines by sending offensive-capable weapons to Ukraine, including M1 Abrams tanks and F-16 fighter jets. Every escalatory prod by Washington must be expected to produce a reciprocal prod from Putin.

The Administration also announced it would send cluster munitions to Ukraine despite its full-throated condemnation of Russia’s use of the same munitions less than one year prior. Over 100 countries have banned cluster munitions because the munitions often fail to detonate on impact, leaving small but deadly unexploded ordnance on the ground. According to the Cluster Munitions Monitor, 97% of casualties from unexploded ordnance in 2021 were civilians. Two-thirds were children.

Statesmen of today answer to private interests, not the public good

The critical shift in foreign policy did not begin with the Biden Administration. President George W. Bush’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in December 2001 and President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in August 2018 and the Open Skies Treaty in November 2020 helped set the tone for Washington’s increasingly hawkish attitude towards Russia. And while archives cite the War on Terror and accusations of Russian transgressions as reasons for withdrawing from de-escalatory treaties, closer examination reveals other motives.

Case in point, while recent debt ceiling negotiations delivered $136 billion in budget cuts, the military budget was increased for the ninth year in a row, from $857 billion to $886 billion. Withdrawal from nuclear treaties, military aid to foreign countries, and the expansion of U.S. military presence around the globe all mean one thing: profits for the military-industrial complex, the most powerful lobby in Washington composed of weapons manufacturers who are not shy about funding politicians’ electoral campaigns.

Military adventurism abroad has real consequences for Americans

U.S. intervention has cost the American people more than just their tax dollars. Over 7,000 U.S. service members have been killed in post-9/11 operations abroad, and more than 30,000 have died by suicide, often after returning from the horrors of deployment.

At least 158 Tennesseans died in post-9/11 wars, and Tennessee veterans account for 15% of the state’s suicides despite comprising only 8.5% of the population. Similar trends are on display in other states, easily visible and painfully so, would that elected representatives who take campaign dollars from weapons manufacturers possess the moral courage to look.

The Biden Administration and Congress’s unwillingness to seek a diplomatic settlement in Ukraine is a dangerous departure from the peace-focused leadership of Kennedy’s time. The U.S. does not have to approve of how other world powers behave, but it does have to find a way to work with those powers. Kennedy knew Americans might not see eye to eye with the Soviets, but he knew the two world powers had to make peace.

“If we cannot end now our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity,” said Kennedy, “for in the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s futures. And we are all mortal.”

Today’s leaders would be wise to heed those words and act on them, lest we fall from the brink we so rapidly approach.







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[1] Url: https://tennesseelookout.com/2023/10/10/cold-war-lessons-forgotten-as-u-s-escalates-tensions-abroad/

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