{"id":337239,"date":"2025-12-08T16:33:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T16:33:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/337239\/"},"modified":"2025-12-08T16:33:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T16:33:12","slug":"the-risks-of-historical-amnesia-stimson-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/337239\/","title":{"rendered":"The Risks of Historical Amnesia \u2022 Stimson Center"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is a sign of our times that\u00a0both the\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0of history\u00a0in U.S.\u00a0schools and\u00a0universities and history as a\u00a0profession<\/a>\u00a0are in\u00a0serious decline.\u00a0The major powers are\u00a0ignoring historical experiences altogether in formulating policies or abusing\u00a0them and manufacturing fictional versions. Three generations after\u00a0WW2, the\u00a0lessons from\u00a0the Great\u00a0Depression, the Cold War,\u00a0the unification of Europe,\u00a0and\u00a0even\u00a0the\u00a0more recent\u00a0dot.com bubble\u00a0appear to have faded from decision-makers\u2019 memories. This represents the tyranny of the present\u00a0and the risk of Western governments\u00a0making the same mistakes again.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0troubling\u00a0consequences\u00a0of this culture of ahistoricism\u00a0are that\u00a0the invaluable lessons of\u00a0historical experience seem\u00a0largely absent\u00a0from current economic, geopolitical, and technological decision-makers\u00a0in the U.S. and elsewhere.\u00a0The use\u00a0and abuse\u00a0of history is, of course, not new.\u00a0For centuries, governments, for purposes of legitimacy, nationalist bolstering,\u00a0and\u00a0mythmaking,\u00a0have made\u00a0forgetfulness of past lessons\u00a0their\u00a0standard\u00a0fare.\u00a0When they do remember, the lessons they choose obliterate\u00a0all others.\u00a0For Serbs,\u00a0all security emergencies are seen through\u00a0the 1389 Battle of Kosovo;\u00a0for\u00a0modern\u00a0China,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0the \u201ccentury of\u00a0humiliation\u201d\u00a0that\u00a0remains\u00a0the obsession 75 years after it ended. History is\u00a0often\u00a0misused\u00a0to\u00a0rationalize irredentist claims, whether it\u00a0was Hitler over\u00a0Sudetenland<\/a>, or for Vladimir Putin,\u00a0Ukraine<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0\u201cnear abroad.\u201d<\/p>\n

A deficit in understanding history\u00a0and culture has led\u00a0to\u00a0underestimating\u00a0others\u2019\u00a0nationalism,\u00a0a\u00a0big factor\u00a0in failed\u00a0post-WW2\u00a0U.S. foreign policies.\u00a0On Vietnam, the\u00a0U.S. discounted\u00a0the fact\u00a0that\u00a0despite being split,\u00a0North and South\u00a0Vietnamese people had\u00a0a common homeland and\u00a0saw the U.S. as another invader\u00a0like\u00a0the\u00a0French, who they fought for seven years and ejected,\u00a0and even China with whom Vietnam\u00a0had a\u00a01,000-year\u00a0history of conflict<\/a>.\u00a0Washington\u00a0would have done better to support Vietnamese independence, something\u00a0Ho Chi Minh,\u00a0who\u00a0worked with the OSS during WW2, requested in a letter to\u00a0President Harry Truman.\u00a0Ignoring Vietnamese nationalism and getting mentally stuck on\u00a0domino theory<\/a>\u00a0explains why\u00a0warnings by\u00a0the\u00a0State Department\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0Asia\u00a0hands\u00a0were\u00a0discounted, and Washington thought it could bomb Hanoi into submission.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Similarly in Iraq,\u00a0flawed assumptions\u00a0that Iraqis would welcome U.S.\u00a0occupiers\u00a0as\u00a0liberators<\/a> and\u00a0ill-conceived analogies\u00a0to the\u00a0successful\u00a0U.S. occupation\u00a0and democratization\u00a0of Germany and Japan after WW2\u00a0led to a catastrophic outcome for the over-confident Bush administration..\u00a0Warnings<\/a>\u00a0from Middle East hands\u00a0in and out of government\u00a0were disregarded.\u00a0Many sought to explain\u00a0Iraq\u2019s complexity, pointing out that democracy would result in the Shia majority suppressed by Saddam Hussein becoming\u00a0the first Shia government in the Arab world since\u00a0the\u00a0Fatamid\u00a0dynasty<\/a>\u00a0was overthrown in 1171,\u00a0and that this would all but certainly increase Iranian influence.\u00a0Ignored\u00a0was\u00a0the British experience, T.E Lawrence\u2019s Seven Pillars\u00a0of Wisdom, and\u00a0the\u00a0fiasco\u00a0of London trying to impose\u00a0a\u00a0colonial\u00a0system\u00a0in the\u00a01920s<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In stark contrast to these\u00a0dark episodes, the international system created from the ashes of\u00a0WW2 was shaped by fresh, painful\u00a0memories of the\u00a0failure of Wilsonian idealism during WW1 and the\u00a0beggar-thy-neighbor\u00a0trade\u00a0and financial policies of the 1930s.\u00a0The\u00a0Bretton Woods\u00a0system (the IMF, World Bank, and General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs\u00a0trade system),\u00a0the United Nations,\u00a0NATO,\u00a0and U.S. alliances in Asia\u00a0that helped enable 80 years of unprecedented peace\u00a0and prosperity\u00a0were animated by\u00a0the\u00a0understanding\u00a0of\u00a0failed\u00a0inter-war\u00a0policies.\u00a0The system was designed precisely to institutionalize relatively open\u00a0trade, financial stability, and collective security\u00a0that, in the following decades, led to\u00a0the rise from the ashes of Europe, Asian\u00a0Tigers,\u00a0and China.\u00a0There\u00a0were certainly flaws, but in the 80 years since, the great powers avoided another world war.<\/p>\n

In this\u00a0protracted moment of interregnum between a\u00a0decomposing\u00a0neoliberal order\u00a0whose rules, norms, and institutions\u00a0are fast dissipating,\u00a0and huge uncertainty about what comes next,\u00a0a disregard of history\u2019s lessons\u00a0by\u00a0policymakers\u00a0may be\u00a0leading to\u00a0dangerous\u00a0outcomes.\u00a0Many\u00a0of the mistakes of the past can\u00a0be discerned in current foreign and\u00a0technological\u00a0policy trends that are reshaping the world.<\/p>\n

Risks of Ignoring History<\/p>\n

Major War\u00a0Outbreak<\/p>\n

While many U.S. policymakers see a repeat\u202fof Hitler\u2019s rise and European appeasement at Munich\u00a0with an expansive\u00a0China\u00a0and\u00a0want to push back hard,\u202fthey\u202ffail to\u202fsee that the growing US-China rivalry\u00a0has dangers of its own akin to the\u00a0Anglo-German competition before WW1.\u202fJust like today, no one\u00a0then\u00a0wanted war, but the hostilities on both sides prevented decision-makers from\u00a0finding\u00a0a way to\u202fcoexist or\u00a0reconcile.\u00a0Many Americans,\u202fincluding policymakers\u202fwho can remember unrivaled American power after the end of the Cold War \u2014 what they thought was the \u201cEnd of\u00a0History\u201d \u2014 cannot\u00a0understand how Communist China could become a peer competitor. For them, China\u202fonly\u00a0rose illicitly.<\/p>\n

Canadian historian\u202fof the First World War,\u202fMargaret Macmillan<\/a>, has written about how the long peace after the end of the Napoleonic Wars lulled decision-makers\u00a0before the First World War\u00a0into thinking that a major war was\u00a0impossible.\u202fIn her view, a similar\u202flong period\u202fsince\u202fthe Second World War,\u00a0coupled\u00a0with the growth of globalization and\u202fthe establishment of the United Nations and other multilateral institutions,\u00a0is\u202fhaving a similar effect on\u202ftoday\u2019s\u00a0policymakers,\u202fwho discount the possibility of war.\u202fTrump\u202fappears to have\u202fa more acute sense of the possibility of\u202fmajor\u202fwar\u00a0and its nuclear risks, accusing<\/a> Ukrainian President Volodmyr Zelensky of\u00a0 \u201cgambling withWW3,\u201d \u00a0and saying<\/a> nuclear weapons were horrible and that he was \u201cworking a plan for denuclearization.\u201d But so far, he\u202fhasn\u2019t\u202ftaken the steps to dissipate Washington\u2019s anti-China\u202ffervor\u202fnor slow the nuclear arms race<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Economic Renewal<\/p>\n

The work of all\u00a0three 2025 Nobel prize winners in economics<\/a>\u00a0emphasized the importance of investing in science and technology to avoid an economy from stultifying.\u00a0For years, the U.S. has been a leader in research and development (R&D) investment, including basic science championed by the U.S. Government\u2019s DARPA that ended up fueling the digital revolution, including the latest AI iteration. But Trump\u2019s attacks on elite universities, involving the freezing of science grants along with threats against the enrollment of international students, pose a challenge to the United States\u2019 continued science and technological leadership.\u00a0The number of international student arrivals in the U.S. dropped by\u00a0nearly a\u00a0fifth for Fall 2025 university enrollments.\u00a0Trump is\u00a0substantially increasing\u00a0the cost of the temporary H1B visas that tech companies have used to draw in talent from overseas.<\/p>\n

Immigrants<\/a> account for a disproportionate share of patents, especially in key strategic industries, and are more likely to start high-growth companies. Immigrants are also crucial to the functioning and viability of many graduate-level science and engineering programs.\u202fIn 2021, 44% of Fortune 500 companies were\u00a0established\u00a0by an immigrant or the child of an immigrant.\u00a0The xenophobic clampdown could not come at a worse time given China\u2019s growing investments in science and technology that have made the country a peer competitor.\u00a0After the Second World War, the U.S. brought in Nazi scientists\u00a0in a program called Operation Paperclip to work on rocket and missile technology.\u00a0Germany\u2019s loss was the United States\u2019 gain.\u00a0There are other historical examples of countries losing their talent, from Louis XIV\u2019s expulsion of the Huguenots to the difficulty many developing countries have in keeping their talent at home and preventing their citizens from being enticed by opportunities abroad.\u00a0America has been lucky to be the destination for much of the world\u2019s talent.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nuclear War<\/p>\n

One dangerous feature of unbounded Great Power competition is the new nuclear risks related to the surge of vertical, and potentially horizontal, proliferation unfolding in a third nuclear era (US-USSR, post-Cold War, strategic\u00a0competition) without\u00a0arms control, one of the lessons of the Cold War.\u00a0The world has gone from the Cold War-era balance of terror, to the collapse of the USSR and\u00a0a post-Cold War period when the U.S. and Russia\u00a0reduced<\/a>\u00a0their nuclear weapons by more than 80%, eliminating whole categories of missiles (e.g;\u00a0INF Treaty<\/a>), to an unraveling of the architecture of arms control accords.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0unclear if\u00a0New\u00a0START, which\u00a0set limits on numbers of nuclear weapons, will be extended when it expires in 2026.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

All three major nuclear powers (the U.S., Russia, and China) are in a nascent triangular arms race. The U.S. has begun a\u00a0modernization<\/a>\u00a0of all three\u00a0legs (land, sea, air) of its nuclear triad at an estimated cost of\u00a0$1.5 trillion.\u00a0Russia<\/a>\u00a0is also modernizing its nuclear forces, and China is modernizing and rapidly expanding its nuclear forces, which\u00a0the\u00a0U.S. says<\/a>\u00a0will reach 1,000 warheads by 2030. In response to Russian and Chinese tactical nukes, the U.S. has developed its own short-range nuclear\u00a0cruise missiles<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

As reflected in Moscow\u2019s\u00a0threats<\/a>\u00a0of tactical nuclear use in Ukraine, this category of nukes has led some to consider lowering the nuclear threshold, suggesting\u00a0limited nuclear war<\/a>\u00a0is\u00a0feasible. This risks lesser nuclear powers \u2014 including North Korea, which has massively\u00a0built-up<\/a>\u00a0its missile and nuclear capabilities, and India and Pakistan, whose nuclear\u00a0rivalry<\/a>\u00a0continues apace \u2014 also lowering the threshold. South Korea debates the virtues of nuclear\u00a0weapons while\u00a0Japan is also rethinking its posture. More broadly, nuclear strategists are again \u201cthinking-the-unthinkable,\u201d\u00a0planning to fight two major nuclear wars simultaneously. Notions of\u00a0mutual\u00a0assured destruction and peaceful coexistence seem all but forgotten.<\/p>\n

Lastly, the experience of\u00a0the nuclear\u00a0era is a useful prism for thinking about the risks of artificial intelligence. The inventors of nuclear weapons knew, as the movie\u00a0Oppenheimer<\/a> dramatized, they had unleashed a new technology that could destroy humanity, feared its awesome power, and as WW2 ended, debated how to control it \u2014 whether to put it under UN or civilian control, or to share it with others.<\/p>\n

Keeping Humans in Charge of AI<\/p>\n

Similarly, AI is a\u00a0transformational\u00a0technology that can both benefit and destroy humans. AI inventors have expressed existential fears of AI\u2019s potential.\u00a0Elon\u00a0Musk estimates that there is a\u202f20% chance<\/a>\u202fthat AI could destroy humanity;\u00a0Open AI founder Sam\u00a0Altman believes it could\u202foverpower<\/a>\u202fpeople entirely. In March 2023, Musk, along\u00a0with\u00a0dozens of AI scientists, signed\u00a0an\u202fOpen Letter<\/a>\u202fcalling for a pause in the training of more advanced AI systems, asking bluntly:\u202f\u201cShould we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete, and replace us?\u201d\u00a0Yet, there\u00a0remains\u00a0a deficit of global norms, rules,\u00a0and limits\u00a0for AI. Will\u00a0it take a near catastrophe before\u00a0an AI equivalent of arms\u00a0control accords are adopted to manage AI?<\/p>\n

As Mark Twain famously said<\/a>, \u201cHistory doesn\u2019t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.\u201d\u00a0 A bit more due diligence by policymakers, gleaning the lessons of the past could make it rhyme a lot less.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is a sign of our times that\u00a0both the\u00a0study\u00a0of history\u00a0in U.S.\u00a0schools and\u00a0universities and history as a\u00a0profession\u00a0are in\u00a0serious decline.\u00a0The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":337240,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-337239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337239\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/337240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}