CRACKPOTS
WHY IS AMERICA SURPRISED AGAIN AND AGAIN AS THE EXPERTS ARE WRONG?
WARNING SIGNS In the new century, the surprises came quick and hard and left the experts reeling, like a pug fighter who keeps taking hits but won’t go down. The first great surprise was, of course, 9/11. There had been warning signs. There always are. America was surprised at Pearl Harbor. Again, when the Chinese came across the Yalu and almost chased the Americans out of Korea. Then again at Tet, disabusing Americans who had been assured by their leaders that all was going just fine in Vietnam. In each of those cases, the warning signs were ignored or brushed aside. Partly, one supposes, out of complacency. A reputation for “crying wolf ” doesn’t earn you a promotion. So you stick with the narrative. There had, of course, been warning signs in the days and months before the attacks on the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon. Al Qaeda had bombed hotels and embassies in Africa along with an American warship. And a few people were warning that more – and more deadly – attacks were coming.
The book’s author argued that several factors – the end of the Cold War, the fall of the Soviet Union, the steady move away from nationalism and toward unity in Europe, and China’s embrace of capitalism and trade – all signaled the arrival of a new and better world. One where, implicitly, there would be no more war. No big ones anyway. We would all become freer and more prosperous.
A reputation for “crying wolf” doesn’t earn you a promotion. So you stick with the narrative.
At the same time, there was a near-universal embrace of globalism.. along with the coming of the new, digital age with the arrival of the Internet. Toward the end of his first term, President Bill Clinton even asserted before Congress that “the era of big government is over.” It was the dawn of a new, better, freer, and more rational age. Pretty, anyway, to think so.
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American Consequences
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