Why You Must Study History
In 1961, just after the Berlin crisis where hostilities with the Soviet nearly escalated to all out war as Americans and Soviets were both starring down each other tank guns at Check Point Charlie, John F. Kennedy and his administration grappled with yet another nerve-racking confrontation with the Soviet Union. They hadn’t seen the worse, the true test of JFK’s presidency was yet to come.
After the debacle of the Bay of Pigs — itself one of the great lessons in decision-making as it leaked throughout the US media that there was a planned attack yet Kennedy still went ahead with the plan — the CIA had spotted off the cost of Cuba Russian boats carrying missiles with nuclear wars heads. Cuba had taking a hard left after the Bay of Pigs as Castro leaned onto the Soviets, it wasn’t clear until now just how much Cuba aligned itself with the Soviets. The enemy at the footsteps of America, Kennedy was faced with a dilemma: should the US attempt another pre-emptive attack?
Kennedy was then to rely even more on history and acted with the poise of that of a true leader. For one, with a Socratic modus operandi, Kennedy knew that he did that know everything and brought in a team of individuals called the Excomm.[1] Astute historians and experts on foreign policy such as former Secretary of State Dean Acheson, they used history as one of the guiding tools for decision-making which itself was facilitated by Kennedy as he had said repeatedly “I don’t know enough about the Soviet Union”.[2] Excomm were thinking about the attack, and a reliance on history and its analogies by the men grew. The men were comparing the situation to Pearl Harbor, harm close to American soil. Kennedy, thankfully had come to the conclusion that an attack would be a “a Pearl Harbor in reverse and it would blacken the name of the United States in the pages of history.” Attack or no attack, the question still remained what to do about the Soviet nuclear weapons from shooting distance of the United States?
The Excomm showed just how acutely attuned to history they were. It was brought to Kennedy’s attention, unbeknownst to him, that the US currently had missiles at striking distance of Moscow in Turkey that the US set up a few years ago. The Soviets knew it and for them, sending missiles to Cuba seemed as a means to recalibrate the balance of power that tilted heavily to the US. Whoever pointed this out to Kennedy was highly conscious of the interplay between great powers to seek dominance over other great powers — and the weaker ones seeking alliances until power is shifted away from the hegemonic power. And understandably, through a Soviet perspective, power had disproportionally shifted in America’s side. Something had to be done without triggering a total war, yet sending Soviet missiles off the shores of US soil was teetering towards it. Questions still remained on how to quell the aggressive Soviet bear.
Luckily, Kennedy could breathe a sign of relief as the hostilities were put on hold for the holidays. This was perfect for Kennedy to blow off some steam and get some rest at his Marta Vineyards retreat. It as at Cape Cod that Kennedy happened to read the Guns of August, a book about the outbreak of War World I — a war that should of never have happened if it weren’t for the fatally flawed balance of power in Europe. Yet it may be easy to say in hindsight as Kaiser Wilhelm, then the German Kaiser who dragged Germany into a continental war, famously said “Ah, if only we knew”. It was through reading this book that JFK had come to “see himself as part of a long procession of political leaders on whose decisions many lives might depend.”[3] From this epiphany and clairvoyance (clarity of thought), Kennedy is to have said:
“I am not going to follow a course which will allow anyone to write a comparable book about this time, the Missiles of October. If anybody is around to write after this, they are going to understand that we made every effort to find peace and every effort to give our adversary room to move.”[4]
Kennedy would then return to Washington where he would negotiate a quid pro quo removal of Turkish missiles for Cuban missiles. Nuclear war averted.
Why Study History: Thinking in a Stream of Time
For one, as the Cuban Missile Crisis example has shown, being aware of a nation’s history, the history of the balance of power and relatedly, that of World War I, gives different perspectives and improves decision making. However, this isn’t necessarily applicable to all as we are not policymakers dealing with existential crises of a nation — let’s hope none of us are confronted with such situations. What history teaches us — as Richard Neustadt and Ernest May have pioneered — is to think of ourselves through a stream of time.[5] Just as Kennedy realized that he was part of a procession of political leaders, so too are we in a sense that our actions of the past have impacted the present and the latter will impact the future. We must stop compartmentalising our lives into the past, present, future. They are all inevitably linked (for each cannot exist without the conception of the other) and the notions themselves are arbitrary. History breaks down these barriers and creates flow. Hence, studying history and our own history just as Kennedy did after his debacle with the Bay of Pigs and his reading of the Guns of August on how the world f*ck up in 1914, we can avoid past mistakes and not repeat them.
Here’s how the historians Neustadt and May elaborate on how to think of time as stream:
“To link conventional wisdom of the present with past counterparts and future possibilities; to link interpretation of the past with the experiences of interpreters, and both with their prescriptions; to link proposals for the future with the inhibitions of the present as inheritances form the past — all these mean to think relatively and in terms of time, opening one’s mind to possibilities as far back as the story’s start and to potentialities as far ahead as relevant. That entails seeing time as a stream.”[6]
Hence, to study history is to understand time, and we are all subjected to it. Time will forever remain a scarce resource, so understanding how the times before us have shaped us and the world around us, we can learn from it and act with foresight to create a fluid stream into the future. It adds perspective and knowing whatever we will do today will affect future generations no matter the scale of our actions, we can act for tomorrow.
References
[1] Neustadst, Richard. May, Ernest. Thinking in Time. 31
[2] Ibid. 37
[3] Neustadst, Richard. May, Ernest. Thinking in Time. 47
[4] Kennedy. Thirteen Days. 109
[5] Neustadst, Richard. May, Ernest. Thinking in Time. 46
[6] Ibid. 370
