As the British launched an imperial war in Iraq after their victory over the Ottoman Empire, we launched a war in Iraq after our victory over the Soviet Empire. Never before have our commitments been so numerous or extensive. Yet our active-duty forces have been reduced to one-half of 1 percent of our population, one-ninth the number under arms in May 1945.
We are approaching what Walter Lippmann called “foreign policy bankruptcy.” Our strategic assets, armaments, and allies cannot cover our strategic liabilities, our commitments to go to war on behalf of scores of nations from Central and South America to the Baltic and the Balkans, to the Middle East, the Gulf, Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, Australia, and Taiwan. Like the British before us, America has reached imperial overstretch. Either we double or treble our air, sea, and land forces, or we start shedding commitments, or we are headed inexorably for an American Dienbienphu. For if the U.S. Army and Marine Corps are stretched to the limit by the insurgencies in Mesopotamia and Afghanistan, how can we police the rest of the planet?
We cannot. If two or three of the IOUs we have handed out are called in, the bankruptcy of U.S. foreign policy will be exposed to the world.
America is as overextended as the British Empire of 1939. We have commitments to fight on behalf of scores of nations that have nothing to do with our vital interests, commitments we could not honor were several to be called in at once. We have declared it to be U.S. policy to democratize the planet, to hold every nation to our standards of social justice and human rights, and to “end tyranny in the world.”
And to show the world he meant business, President Bush had placed in his Oval Office a bust of Winston Churchill.
NOTES
EPIGRAPH
1. Andrew Roberts, Salisbury: Victorian Titan (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999), p. 687.
2. Emrys Hughes, Winston Churchill: British Bulldog (New York: Exposition Press, 1955), p. 30.
PREFACE: WHAT HAPPENED TO US?
1. Charles L. Mee, Jr., The End of Order: Versailles 1919 (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1980), pp. xvi–xvii.
2. Ibid., p. xvii.
3. Ibid., p. 259.
4. G. J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War 1914–1918 (New York: E. P. Dutton, 2006), pp. 123, 141.
INTRODUCTION: THE GREAT CIVIL WAR OF THE WEST
1. Captain Russell Grenfell, R.N., Unconditional Hatred: German War Guilt and the Future of Europe (New York: Devin-Adair, 1953), p. 68.
2. Russell Kirk, America’s British Culture (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1993), p. 7.
3. Thomas A. Bailey, Woodrow Wilson and the Lost Peace (New York: Macmillan, 1944), p. 18; Thomas Fleming, The Illusion of Victory: America in World War I (New York: Basic, 2003), p. 319.
4. Walter Lippmann, U.S. War Aims (Boston: Little, Brown, 1944), p. 174. 5. Everyone’s Mark Twain, Compiled by Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (New York: A. S. Barnes, 1972), p. 150.
6. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Selected Poetry and Prose, Introduction by Kenneth Neill Cameron (New York: Rinehart, 1958), p. 32.
7. Roy Denman, Missed Chances: Britain and Europe in the Twentieth Century (London: Indigo, 1997), p. 1.
8. Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Leftism Revisited: From De Sade and Marx to Hitler and Pol Pot (Washington: Regnery Gateway, 1990), p. 206.
9. Michael Riccards, “Two Years, 10 Major Decisions,” Washington Times, Aug. 5, 2007, p. B7; Patrick J. Buchanan, The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002), p. 73.
10. Charles L. Mee, Jr., The End of Order: Versailles 1919 (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1980), p. xvii.
11. A.J.P. Taylor, English History: 1914–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 274; Alistair Horne, To Lose a Battle: France 1940 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1969), p. 22.
12. Winston S. Churchill, The Gathering Storm (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948), p. iv.
13. John Meacham, “Bush, Yalta and the Blur of Hindsight,” Washington Post, Sunday, May 15, 2005, p. B1; Patrick J. Buchanan, “Was World War II Worth It?” Creators.com, May 11, 2005.
CHAPTER 1: THE END OF “SPLENDID ISOLATION”
1. Robert K. Massie, Dreadnought: Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War (New York: Ballantine, 1991), p. 241; Andrew Roberts, Salisbury: Victorian Titan (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1999), p. 628.
2. Massie, p. 241.
3. Roy Denman, Missed Chances: Britain and Europe in the Twentieth Century (London: Indigo, 1997), p. 8.
4. Henry A. Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994), p. 178.
5. Bradford Perkins, The Great Rapprochement: England and the United States, 1895–1914 (New York: Atheneum, 1968), p. 9.
6. Roberts, p. 617.
7. Philip Magnus, King Edward the Seventh (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1964), p. 255.
8. Roberts, p. 687.
9. Roberts, p. 688.
10. Roberts, p. 688; Massie, p. 247.
11. Roberts, p. 710.
12. Peter Clarke, Hope and Glory: Britain 1900–1990 (New York: Penguin Press, 1996), p. 35.
13. Kenton J. Clymer, John Hay, The Gentleman as Diplomat (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1975), p. 158.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid.
16. Correlli Barnett, The Collapse of British Power (New York: William Morrow, 1972), p. 255.
17. Hajo Holborn, The Political Collapse of Europe (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969), p. 72.
18. Denman, p. 8.
19. Massie, pp. 589–90.
20. Winston S. Churchill, Great Contemporaries (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), p. 27.
21. Ibid.
22. Kissinger, p. 134.
23. Carl L. Becker, Modern History: The Rise of a Democratic, Scientific and Industrialized Civilization (New York: Silver Burdett, 1946), p. 641.
24. Henrik Bering, “Prussian Maneuvers,” Policy Review, April–May 2007, p. 94.
25. Michael Sturmer, The German Empire: 1870–1918 (New York: Modern Library, 2000), p. 83.
26. Holborn, p. 53.
27. George F. Kennan, The Fateful Alliance: France, Russia and the Coming of the First World War (New York: Pantheon, 1984), p. 253.
28. Ibid., p. 250.
29. Ibid., p. 251.
30. Giles MacDonogh, The Last Kaiser: The Life of Wilhelm II (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), p. 251.
31. Magnus, p. 272.
32. MacDonogh, p. 252.
33. Ibid., p. 2.
34. Ibid., p. 461.
35. Ibid., p. 2.
36. Ibid., pp. 306–7.
37. Magnus, p. 338.
38. Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August (New York: Macmillan, 1962), p. 2.
39. Massie, p. 185.
40. Arthur Herman, To Rule the Waves: How the British Navy Shaped the Modern World (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), p. 471.
41. Ibid., p. 473.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid., p. 476.
44. MacDonogh, p. 224.
45. Lawrence James, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1994), p. 335.
46. G. J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War 1914–1918 (New York: Delacorte Press, 2006), p. 527.
47. Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War (New York: Random House, 1979), p. 264.
48. Ibid.
49. Francis Neilson, The Churchill Legend (Brooklyn, N.Y.: 29 Books, 2004), p. 113.
50. Ibid.
51. Denman, p. 24.
52. Neilson, p. 115.
53. Magnus, p. 340.
54. Neilson, p. 106; Barbara Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War 1890–1914 (New York: Ballantine, 1994), p. 275; MacDonogh, p. 306; Ralph Raico, “World War I—The Turning Point,” The Costs of War: America’s Pyrrhic Victories. Edited with an Introduction by John Denson (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1999), p. 215.
55. Tuchman, Proud Tower, p. 275; Roy Hattersl
ey, The Edwardians (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2004), p. 58.
56. Magnus, p. 358.
57. MacDonogh, p. 281.
58. Holborn, p. 76.
59. Ibid., p. 78.
60. Ibid., p. 81.
61. Massie, p. 820; Emrys Hughes, Winston Churchill: British Bulldog (New York: Exposition Press, 1955), p. 57.
62. Robert Holmes, In the Footsteps of Churchill: A Study in Character (New York: Basic, 2005), p. 101.
63. James, p. 337.
64. Andreas Hillgruber, Germany and the Two World Wars, Translated by William C. Kirby (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 16.
65. Ibid.
66. Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (New York: Basic, 1999), p. 71.
67. John Laughland, The Tainted Source: The Undemocratic Origins of the European Idea (London: Warner, 1998), p. 111.
68. Ibid.
69. Ibid.
70. Ibid.
71. Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life (New York: Henry Holt, 1991), p. 555.
72. Ibid.
73. David Steele, Lord Salisbury: A Political Biography (New York: Routledge, 1999), p. 121; Steven Mayer, “Carcass of Dead Policies: The Irrelevance of NATO,” Parameters, Winter 2003–4, p. 83.
74. Ferguson, p. 64.
75. Tuchman, Guns of August, p. 52; Ferguson, p. 66.
76. Raico, p. 219.
77. Ferguson, p. 153; MacDonogh, p. 360; Raico, p. 208; Meyer, p. 9.
78. Massie, p. 852.
79. Herman, pp. 490–91; Massie, pp. 852–53.
CHAPTER 2: LAST SUMMER OF YESTERDAY
1. Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War (New York: Basic, 1999), p. xxxv.
2. Giles MacDonogh, The Last Kaiser, The Life of Wilhelm II (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), p. 371.
3. A.J.A. Morris, The Scaremongers: The Advocacy of War and Rearmament 1896–1914 (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984), p. 355.
4. Ferguson, p. 70.
5. Winston Churchill, The World Crisis: 1911–1918 (New York: Free Press, 2005), pp. 94–95; Robert K. Massie, Dreadnought: Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War (New York: Random House, 1991), p. 879; Roy Denman, Missed Chances: Britain and Europe in the Twentieth Century (London: Indigo, Cassell, 1997), p. 21; Martin Gilbert, Churchill: A Life (New York: Henry Holt, 1991), p. 264.
6. Massie, p. 879.
7. Ibid.; John Charmley, Churchill: The End of Glory: A Political Biography (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1993), p. 96; Violet Bonham Carter, Winston Churchill: An Intimate Portrait (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965), p. 246; William Manchester, The Last Lion, Winston Spencer Churchill: Visions of Glory 1874–1932 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1983), p. 465.
8. MacDonogh, p. 355; Gilbert, p. 265.
9. Massie, p. 889.
10. Churchill, p. 99.
11. Barbara W. Tuchman, The Guns of August (New York: Macmillan, 1962), p. 91.
12. Manchester, p. 472.
13. Morris, p. 358.
14. Manchester, p. 472.
15. Gilbert, p. 266.
16. Charmley, pp. 95–96.
17. Ibid., p. 96.
18. Simon Schama, A History of Britain: The Fate of Empire: 1776–2000 (New York: Hyperion, 2002), p. 436; Gilbert, p. 268; Charmley, p. 96.
19. MacDonogh, p. 355.
20. Andreas Hillgruber, Germany and the Two World Wars, Translated by William C. Kirby (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981), p. 37.
21. Charmley, p. 33.
22. Massie, p. 893.
23. Tuchman, p. 130.
24. Hillgruber, p. 9.
25. Ibid., p. 32.
26. G. J. Meyer, A World Undone: The Story of the Great War 1914–1918 (New York: Delacorte Press, 2006), p. 94.
27. Ibid.
28. John Keegan, The First World War (New York: Vintage, 2000), p. 31.
29. Massie, p. 895.
30. A.J.P. Taylor, A History of the First World War (New York: Berkley, 1966), p. 14.
31. Ibid.
32. Tuchman, p. 25.
33. Ibid.
34. Massie, p. 895; Tuchman, p. 26.
35. Massie, p. 896; Denman, p. 25.
36. MacDonogh, p. 352.
37. Winston Churchill, Great Contemporaries (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973), p. 137.
38. Roy Jenkins, Churchill: A Biography (New York: Plume, 2002), p. 239; Gilbert, p. 271; Massie, p. 898.
39. Bonham Carter, p. 251.
40. Charmley, p. 97.
41. Peter Rowland, David Lloyd George: A Biography (New York: Macmillan, 1975), p. 280; Denman, p. 21.
42. Rowland, p. 283.
43. Ferguson, pp. 443–44.
44. Rowland, p. 282.
45. Meyer, p. 133.
46. Charmley, p. 97; Gilbert, p. 271; Jenkins, p. 239; Rowland, p. 282.
47. Manchester, p. 464.
48. Niall Ferguson, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Power Order and the Lessons for Global Power (New York: Basic, 2003), p. 294.
49. Manchester, p. 464.
50. Ferguson, Pity, p. 67.
51. Gilbert, p. 236.
52. C. Paul Vincent, The Politics of Hunger: The Allied Blockade of Germany 1915–1919 (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1985), p. 4.
53. Churchill, World Crisis, p. 102.
54. Ralph Raico, “World War I: The Turning Point,” in The Costs of War: America’s Pyrrhic Victories, Second Expanded Edition, John Denson, ed. (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1999), p. 215.
55. Tuchman, p. 117.
56. Massie, p. 907.
57. Ibid.; Manchester, p. 474.
58. Massie, p. 908.
59. Rowland, pp. 283–84.
60. Ibid., p. 284.
61. Meyer, p. 134.
62. Roy Hattersley, The Edwardians (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2003), p. 480.
63. Meyer, p. 134.
64. Emrys Hughes, Winston Churchill: British Bulldog (New York: Exposition Press, 1955), p. 62.
65. Gilbert, p. 275; Hattersley, p. 480. Hattersley attributes the description of Churchill to Margot Asquith rather than Lloyd George.
66. Bonham Carter, p. 295; Ferguson, p. 178.
67. Manchester, p. 471.
68. Robert Payne, The Great Man: A Portrait of Winston Churchill (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, 1974), p. 150.
69. Keegan, p. 3.
70. Meyer, p. 67.
71. Keegan, p. 3.
72. Ferguson, Pity, p. 163; Denman, p. 22.
73. Ferguson, ibid.
74. Ibid., p. 173; A.J.P. Taylor, English History: 1914–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1965), p. 4.
75. Taylor, p. 161.
76. Ferguson, Pity, p. xxxvii.
77. Ibid., p. 168; Captain Russell Grenfell, R.N., Unconditional Hatred: German War Guilt and the Future of Europe (New York: Devin-Adair, 1953), p. 18.
78. Morris, p. 359.
79. Ferguson, Empire, p. 298.
80. Ferguson, Pity, p. 163.
81. Francis Neilson, The Churchill Legend (Brooklyn, N.Y.: 29 Books, 2004), p. 117.
82. Ibid.
83. Francis Neilson, The Makers of War (Appleton, Wisc.: C. C. Nelson, 1950), p. 19.
84. Bonham Carter, p. 266.
85. Peter Clarke, Hope and Glory: Britain 1900–1990 (London: Penguin Press, 1996), p. 72.
86. Correlli Barnett, The Collapse of British Power (Great Britain: Sutton, 1997), p. 57; Vincent, p. 4.
87. Barnett, p. 57.
88. Ibid.
89. Ibid.
90. Hajo Holborn, The Political Collapse of Europe (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969), p. 96.
91. Taylor, English History, pp. 2–3.
92. David Fromkin, Europe’s Last Summer: Who Started the Great War? (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004), p. 250.
93. Patrick J. Buchanan, Death of the West (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002), p. 73.
94. Keegan, p. 66.
95. Massie, p. 869;
MacDonogh, p. 356.
96. Ferguson, Pity, p. 149.
97. Ibid., p. 156; Meyer, pp. 52–53.
98. MacDonogh, p. 355.
99. Massie, p. 875; Tuchman, p. 79.
100. Massie, ibid.; MacDonogh, p. 361; Tuchman, p. 80.
101. Massie, ibid.; MacDonogh, p. 361.
102. MacDonogh, p. 294.
103. Ferguson, Pity, p. 168.
104. Ibid., p. 169.
105. Ibid.
106. Tuchman, p. 75.
107. MacDonogh, p. 360.
108. Massie, p. 901; Tuchman, p. 53.
109. Ferguson, Pity, p. xxxvii.
110. Churchill, Great Contemporaries, p. 38.
111. Tuchman, p. 76.
112. Fromkin, p. 250.
113. Andrew Roberts, A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900 (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), pp. 53, 81.
114. Ibid., p. 79.
115. Grenfell, pp. 54–55.
116. Henrik Bering, “Prussian Maneuvers,” Policy Review, April–May 2007, p. 90.
117. Denman, p. 24.
118. Ferguson, Pity, pp. 170–71.
119. Gilbert, p. 270; Meyer, p. 71.
120. John Laughland, The Tainted Source: The Undemocratic Origins of the European Idea (London: Warner, 1998), p. 114.
121. MacDonogh, pp. 259–60.
122. David Calleo, The German Problem Reconsidered: Germany and the World Order, 1870 to the Present (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 44.
123. Ferguson, Pity, p. 172.
124. Ibid., pp. 172–73.
125. Ibid., p. 444.
126. Lawrence James, The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 1994), p. 367.
127. Jim Powell, Wilson’s War: How Woodrow Wilson’s Great Blunder Led to Hitler, Lenin, Stalin and World War II (New York: Crown Forum, 2005), p. 43.
128. Ibid.
129. Ibid.
130. Neilson, Makers of War, p. 113.
131. Hughes, p. 60.
132. Neilson, The Churchill Legend, p. 169.
133. Ibid., p. 159.
134. Grenfell, pp. 3–4; Hughes, p. 63.
135. Jenkins, p. 239.
136. Tuchman, pp. 91, 94; Manchester, p. 474.
137. Manchester, p. 470.
138. Ibid.
139. Ibid.
140. Ibid., p. 471.
141. Ibid., p. 473; Gilbert, p. 272; Churchill, Great Contemporaries, p. 148.
Churchill, Hitler, and The Unnecessary War Page 42
