Andrei Cherny: A lesson from Berlin for Baghdad
[Andrei Cherny, the co-editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, is the author of The Candy Bombers: The Untold Story of the Berlin Airlift and America's Finest Hour.]
Nearly three years after the invasion, it was clear that the occupation was failing. Little rebuilding had taken place in a country that had been showered with U.S. bombs. The economy was barely sputtering along. The security situation was growing worse. In the once-thriving capital, death from random violence and at the hands of armed gangs had become so pervasive that the city had acquired the nickname of "Crime Capital of the World." Worst of all — since the purpose of the occupation was, in the words of the top U.S. general on the ground, "to establish and maintain democracy — American style" in a country widely seen as culturally unfit for such a system — opinion polls showed that faith in the idea of democracy was plummeting to levels lower than those at war's end.
By most measures that mattered, by 1948 the occupation of Germany was a fiasco.
A swift turnabout
A year later, the modern Federal Republic of Germany was born with a constitution that, unlike that of the Weimar Republic, recognized "inviolable and inalienable human rights" such as equality before the law, the right to assemble and freedom of faith, press and speech. Today, Germany is the anchor of a free and prosperous Europe.
There is a grave danger in policymaking by historical analogy. Baghdad is not Berlin. The world of 2008 is not that of 1948. But the only way we have any sense of where we are going is in the context of where we have been. The manner in which America turned around the failing occupation of Germany is a lesson worth learning. Even if there is to be a massive withdrawal from Iraq in 2009 (something which is by no means certain) there will be — whether we like it or not — other military actions and other occupations by U.S. forces in the years ahead.
What happened in Germany in 1948 and 1949 was the Berlin Airlift — the massive U.S. and British effort to feed and supply West Berliners facing a Soviet blockade.
Before the airlift, many Americans had assumed that Germans would only embrace democracy once they felt secure from the looming Soviet military threat. Others — including those in the Truman administration who had authored the Marshall Plan and been shaped by the New Deal — believed that economic regeneration was a necessary precursor to political liberty.
"You cannot build real democracy in an atmosphere of distress and hunger," proclaimed American military governor Lucius Clay....
Read entire article at USA Today
Nearly three years after the invasion, it was clear that the occupation was failing. Little rebuilding had taken place in a country that had been showered with U.S. bombs. The economy was barely sputtering along. The security situation was growing worse. In the once-thriving capital, death from random violence and at the hands of armed gangs had become so pervasive that the city had acquired the nickname of "Crime Capital of the World." Worst of all — since the purpose of the occupation was, in the words of the top U.S. general on the ground, "to establish and maintain democracy — American style" in a country widely seen as culturally unfit for such a system — opinion polls showed that faith in the idea of democracy was plummeting to levels lower than those at war's end.
By most measures that mattered, by 1948 the occupation of Germany was a fiasco.
A swift turnabout
A year later, the modern Federal Republic of Germany was born with a constitution that, unlike that of the Weimar Republic, recognized "inviolable and inalienable human rights" such as equality before the law, the right to assemble and freedom of faith, press and speech. Today, Germany is the anchor of a free and prosperous Europe.
There is a grave danger in policymaking by historical analogy. Baghdad is not Berlin. The world of 2008 is not that of 1948. But the only way we have any sense of where we are going is in the context of where we have been. The manner in which America turned around the failing occupation of Germany is a lesson worth learning. Even if there is to be a massive withdrawal from Iraq in 2009 (something which is by no means certain) there will be — whether we like it or not — other military actions and other occupations by U.S. forces in the years ahead.
What happened in Germany in 1948 and 1949 was the Berlin Airlift — the massive U.S. and British effort to feed and supply West Berliners facing a Soviet blockade.
Before the airlift, many Americans had assumed that Germans would only embrace democracy once they felt secure from the looming Soviet military threat. Others — including those in the Truman administration who had authored the Marshall Plan and been shaped by the New Deal — believed that economic regeneration was a necessary precursor to political liberty.
"You cannot build real democracy in an atmosphere of distress and hunger," proclaimed American military governor Lucius Clay....