Semantic Vandalism
I really try not to concentrate too much time on the crank known as Sully, but this crap is amazing.
They claim he didn’t mean that Reagan’s policy toward the Soviet Union was actually containment and appeasement (although he used both those words), he was just kidding! What Meyerson really meant, they argue, was that Reagan’s policy toward the Soviets was the same as the left’s policy toward Iraq today and that if we call that Iraq policy containment and appeasement, we have to say the same thing about Reagan. If I missed that ironic pirouette, I can’t have been the only one. But even reading his word use that way, I think my argument just got stronger. What distinguished Reagan’s policy – what differentiated it from Nixon Republicans and Carter Democrats and most of the foreign policy establishment of the time – was that he broke from containment, let alone appeasement. As I summarized his policy in Salon, it included
Actually, I think you were the only one. It was bloody obvious. He was making fun of Sully and his ilk who, unlike some intelligent conservatives who have a vocabulary capable of distinguishing between appeasement and containment and deterrence. In fact, it is semantic vandalism.
It is semantic vandalism to say that Scowcroft and others who share his apprehensions are “appeasers.” Appeasement is the policy of resolving a conflict by making concessions to the most truculent side. Scowcroft believes, probably mistakenly, that containment and deterrence — which when applied to the Soviet Union resulted in regime change — can suffice to make Saddam Hussein’s regime something America can live with. Or at least Scowcroft believes that the risks of reliance on containment and deterrence are less than those of regime change by war and its aftermath. This may be wishful thinking; it is not appeasement.
Sullivan tries to brand containment and deterrence as appeasement. They are completely different strategies. Sullivan tries the usual trick of branding the left as some amorphous, but unified block with a single position. What would, of course, be more productive is to deal with the Meyerson?s argument. He makes an explicit argument for containment and deterrence?the same policy the US followed for 45 years against the Soviet Union. Sullivan attempts to distinguish between containment and deterrence under Nixon and Carter and under Reagan, but the difference is one of degree?not overall strategy.
One can disagree with Meyerson?s assessment that containment and deterrence will work. I do. However, he is not arguing for appeasement. He is arguing for the same tactics that Reagan used towards the end of the Cold War. You might disagree that such tactics are sufficient and that is reasonable, but they aren?t appeasement. Appeasement would have been ignoring Hussein in 1990. We didn?t. Now it is an argument over containment and deterrence or war. Loonie lefties might argue for appeasement, but Meyerson is not.
Perhaps Meyerson?s argument was too subtle for Sully, but it gets worse:
rhetorical and diplomatic break in 1980 with the detente of the 1970s; a huge and costly defense buildup; financing and military support of counter-Soviet insurgencies from Nicaragua to Afghanistan; the pursuit of Star Wars; the refusal at Reykjavik to accept any deceleration in space defense spending; the description in London of the Soviet Union as destined for the “ash-heap of history”; the call on Gorbachev in Berlin to “tear down this wall”; the insistence on autonomy for the member states of the Soviet empire (yes, that one was an empire); the establishment of a united Germany in NATO; NATO membership all the way to Russia’s borders; and on and on.
I’m sorry but I fail to see how anyone can construe that as containment, let alone appeasement, which is why Meyerson didn’t support it at the time.
Afghanistan and Nicaragua were explicitly efforts at containment. There is no doubt. SDI certainly was an element of deterrence. And the rest could be right out of George Kennan?s mouth in describing how to morally contain the Soviet Union. His last line is telling though?he refuses to use the word deterrence, which Meyerson did. Why? One can only conclude it is because he doesn?t want to look foolish.
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