Andrew J. Bacevich on the "Good War"

Here is historian Andrew Bacevich's take on the "Good War." He writes about the lessons that should have been learned after World War II and the false parables that were derived from the war years. Bacevich wrote:

"For historians, World War II revisionism is likely to remain a tough sell. The process of enshrining the conflict of 1939-45 as the “Good War” has now advanced to the point of being all but irreversible. The war’s canonical lessons, especially those relating to the perils of appeasement, have permanently etched themselves in our collective consciousness.

"The problem with this orthodox interpretation is not that it’s wrong but that it is inadequate. The reflexive tendency to see every antagonist as another Hitler (or Stalin) and every sensitive diplomatic encounter as a potential Munich (or Yalta) has produced an approach to statecraft that is excessively militarized, needlessly inflexible, and insufficiently imaginative. The remedy is not to engage in a vain effort to change the way Americans remember World War II, however, but to restore that conflict to its proper context."

"Ripped out of context, the war, especially the struggle against Nazi Germany, has become a parable. Whatever their value as a source of moral instruction, parables offer less help when it comes to understanding international politics. Parables simplify—and to simplify the past is necessarily to distort it."

Full article.

Part I.

Part II.