Commentary No. 53, December 1, 2000
"Not with a bang but a whimper"
T. S. Eliot famously wrote, "Here is how the world ends, not with a bang but with a whimper." I was reminded of this verse when President Clinton visited Vietnam this month. It was an absolutely remarkable visit. The first remarkable thing is that it was made at all. The second remarkable thing is that hardly anyone noticed that he went. The U.S. public was so absorbed in the continuing melodrama of the undecided presidential election that Clinton's visit barely made the television broadcasts. In Vietnam, the government was frostily polite. Popular response seemed to be more favorable, more so in Saigon than in Hanoi.
But consider this. What the U.S. calls the Vietnam War and what the Vietnamese call the American War was by far the biggest event in the political life of both countries in the past 50 years. The cost in lives and money was incredibly large. And the political passions could not have been more intense. The War divided both countries and left a permanent mark on both their psyches. And here we are, in 2000, seeing the two countries saying in effect to each other, well, let's just move on, improve economic relations, and act as though nothing really happened.
One has to wonder why there ever was a war. For example, take the results from the U.S. point of view. Suppose the U.S. in 1955, after the Geneva accords, had not created obstacles to the free elections that the accords stipulated, and which everyone thought at the time the Viet Minh would win. The U.S. didn't allow this to happen because they said this would mean a Communist victory in Vietnam, and that a Communist victory would set in motion "falling dominos," meaning that other countries (like Laos and Cambodia) would then become Communist, and perhaps still others beyond them. So, there was a war. And despite the U.S. troops, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia all did become Communist states, like China before them.
The real question, I suppose, is so what? China today is indeed ruled by a Communist Party. But it is also very involved in the networks of the world-economy, permits U.S. investment within China, and has sometimes tense but not unfriendly relations with the United States. Vietnam today (as Laos and Cambodia) are trying to emulate, more or less, the transformations in China. So in 2000 we have arrived at a result the U.S. wanted in 1955, and it seems we might have arrived at the same result had the U.S. never opposed those elections and never fought a war.
Now, look at the same question from the Vietnamese standpoint. What did the Vietnamese want in 1955? They certainly wanted national sovereignty, a sense that Vietnam was run by Vietnamese and could play its appropriate role in the world. The leaders of the Viet Minh also wanted to create a socialist society. But what did they mean by this? One that would be more developed economically, more autonomous economically, and more egalitarian internally. So they fought a war to achieve these ends. The fact is that they achieved none of these ends. The explanation is in part that fighting the war was so costly that it impeded these objectives. But that is only part of the explanation, since other countries that went down the path they did, but without fighting a war, also did not really achieve those ends. The Vietnamese seem to be trying to achieve these ends now by trying a different path, which is why they invited President Clinton to visit. So, from their point of view, too, was the war worth it?
Of course, counterfactual history always leaves out the reality that alternative options may not have been real options at the time. It also leaves out the possibility that taking alternative paths may have had consequences that would have made the situation in 2000 far worse for either or both of the countries than it is now - not to mention the consequences for the rest of the world. But one still has to reflect on the pitiably small benefits both countries obtained from the war.
Let us turn our attention to another war. Afghanistan, some twenty years ago, had an internal coup that brought to power a Communist government. The U.S. supported an armed revolt against this government by mujahiddin. The Soviet Union sent in its troops to support the government of Afghanistan. The war dragged on, in many ways parallel to the Vietnamese-American War. Indeed, in the press at the time, the war began to be called "Russia's Vietnam." This referred to the fact that the war seemed unwinnable and there was growing opposition within the Soviet Union to involvement. In the end, the Soviet Union withdrew its troops and the Communist government fell to the mujahiddin. The fiasco in Afghanistan was one factor, of course not the only one, in the process that led to the disintegration of the Soviet Union.
The U.S. seemed in a sense to recoup in Afghanistan what it had lost in Vietnam. But did it? As we all know, what followed in Afghanistan was a long civil war among the victorious mujahiddin. The ultimate winners were the Taliban, who established an ultra-integrist version of Islam in the country, particularly devastating to the women of the country. One has to remember that the Communist government had established the most "Western" kind of government in Afghan history, and in particular had done much to improve the situation of women, as well as to advance education and health facilities.
The greatest irony is that the U.S. financed and encouraged politically the rise of the mujahiddin. The fighters were recruited not only among Afghans but among Moslems in many other countries. After the collapse of the Communist government, the non-Afghan mujahiddin returned to their countries of origin where, using the training the U.S. had provided them, they created para-military structures in many of them. They became a force in countries like Algeria and the Sudan. Above all, they created cadres in a trans-national structure controlled by a now familiar personage, Osama bin Laden.
For Osama bin Laden, the Communist enemy is today a historical memory. The United States, however, is considered to be a present-day and continuing enemy against which Osama bin Laden (and many others) are waging an unremitting struggle. The U.S. has suffered attacks from this group, which it considers a band of "terrorists" and clearly thinks of them as a major political problem.
So, one has to ask, suppose the U.S. had not encouraged a revolt against the Communist government of Afghanistan. Would President Clinton be visiting Afghanistan today, encouraging increased economic participation in the world-economy? And would he have been received at least as well as he has been in Vietnam? No U.S. president can visit Afghanistan under the Taliban. For one thing, the U.S. refuses to recognize the Taliban government as the legitimate government, despite its de facto control of the territory. And would the Soviet Union have collapsed in any case, even if there had been no war in Afghanistan? And would Afghanistan have been better off today were there a Communist rather than a Taliban government?
We shall never know, but one has to wonder. So, perhaps not the world but the last 50 years may be ending with a whimper.
Immanuel Wallerstein
[Copyright by Immanuel Wallerstein. All rights reserved. Permission is granted to download, forward electronically or e-mail to others and to post this text on non-commercial community Internet sites, provided the essay remains intact and the copyright note is displayed. To translate this text, publish it in printed and/or other forms, including commercial Internet sites and excerpts, contact the author at iwaller@binghamton.edu; fax: 1-607-777-4315.
These commentaries, published twice monthly, are intended to be reflections on the contemporary world scene, as seen
from the perspective not of the immediate headlines but of the long term.]
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