Where the Wall Was & the President Wasn’t

November 9, 1989, was the most significant historical moment since the end of the Second World War. Indeed, it is easy to argue that that was the date on which WWII really ended, as the division of Germany and the Soviet occupation of Central Europe meant that hostilities never really ceased. I would go further than that, and say that the fall of the Berlin Wall marked the close of "Modern European History." From the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) until 1989 a series of powerful states sought dominion over Europe: first France, then Germany, and finally Russia. That story, one of great tyrannies opposed by alliances led by Great Britain and later the United States, lasted more than three hundred and fifty years. Barring some unforeseen event, such as the resurgence of Russia, it ended twenty years ago.

It ended in a way that might make one believe in God's grace. No final war had to be fought. No fresh millions had to perish. A lot of keyboards have been worn down with arguments over who gets the credit. But this doesn't look to me like a difficult question. Credit has to be divided by three. First of all one has to give credit to the Eastern Block for more or less deciding to commit suicide. A massive and rather sudden loss of confidence seized all the Warsaw Pact governments, including the Soviet Union, rendering them unable to bring any of their terrible power bear even for self-preservation.

The greatest credit has to go to the peoples of East Germany, Poland, and other Middle European nations, for seizing the moment. When Hungary allowed Germans to flow through its borders to the West, and the tyrants failed to stop it, other crowds of Germans showed up at the Berlin Wall and began to manually dismantle it. Shocked security guards called their masters repeatedly, but no orders were issued. Thus did the most ordinary people, armed only with hammers, put an end to one of the most repressive and spiritually impoverished regimes.

Finally credit has to go the United States, and to Ronald Reagan in particular. No, Reagan did not destroy Leninism by calling on Mr. Gorbachev to "tear down this wall." He did it by building up American military power and so compelling the Soviets to try to match him. They couldn't, and trying broke their bank. He did it by putting American short range nuclear forces into Europe to match a similar move by the Soviets, and remaining steadfast against a fierce campaign by the Left in Europe and America to stop the West from acting. In the face of that act of will, Gorbachev backed down and found the ground sliding out from under him. Reagan's portion of the credit has also to be shared with Margret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, and François Mitterrand. But the United States protected Western Europe against the Soviet threat for forty five years, and so the final victory was very much our victory.

Well, some of the heirs of Reagan's great allies, along with a representative of the losing side, gathered in Berlin this week to celebrate the moment. From the Voice of American News:

Representatives from East and West were on hand - from former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and Polish labor leader and later president, Lech Walesa, to current Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

What about Ronald Reagan's heir in the White House? Well…

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton represented the United States and President Barrack Obama made a surprise video appearance.

A surprise video appearance. This is a President who can find time to travel to Copenhagen to personally lobby the International Olympic Committee on behalf of the City of Chicago. He is going to make it to Norway to accept his Nobel Prize. As for celebrating one of the greatest victories of the greatest alliance in Western history, that wasn't on his agenda.

It is possible, of course, that the President doesn't consider 1989 to be important. A victory of free peoples, supported by great democracies, just doesn't float his boat. Unfortunately, the only more charitable interpretation of his absence is that he is merely shallow. Perhaps, as Tony Harnden put it in the London Telegraph, he didn't go to Berlin because "it wasn't enough about him." After all, he has been to Berlin.

Surprisingly enough, it's President Barack Obama, who found time last year to give a campaign speech there last year, which Der Spiegel summed up as "People of the World, Look at Me". This time, Der Spiegel has reported it as "Barack Too Busy".

The United States stood for a century against the world's greatest tyrannies. Our current President is uninterested in that legacy. That might matter.

Comments

[William]

KB,

It matters far more than our current President will ever understand...

[Miranda]

Before I added my own voice to the recent objections to Obama's absence, I thought I'd have a look at his schedule. As it turns out, his schedule was not very full, but it might offer some clue as to why he was not in Berlin. According to his schedule (http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/11/president_obama_official_sched_164.html):

He met with senior advisors, signed an executive order regarding the employment of veterans, and then met with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Perhaps the president did not want to offend Prime Minister Netanyahu by skipping out on their meeting to go to Germany. If that was his reasoning, his move might be a little more excusable, although he should have timed his appointments better. If not, it's just another embarrassment.

[Erik]

I think that '89 is put an end to the long 20th century that started in 1914, with the last and most barbaric of Europe's Civil Wars, surpassing the bloodshed of the Protestant-Catholic struggle in the 17th century. "The War to end all Wars" did no such thing and the fall of the Berlin Wall was at the end. To paraphrase an old saw, the Soviets paid in Blood, the British provided the Time, and the United States provided the equipment with our Arsenal of Democracy. So, we can say that '89 was the end result of FDR, Churchill, De Gaulle, and Stalin's great victory. To them and the peoples they represented, we owe a great debt of gratitude.

[KB]

Miranda: you are right that, in all fairness to the President, he might have thought that meeting the Israeli PM was more important than celebrating a moment in history, on a "that was then, this is now" sort of calculation. But I note that the President treated Mr. Netanyahu pretty much like he treats all of our allies, which is to say, poorly. I also note that the 20th anniversary of 1989 has been coming for, well, twenty years. He might have considered that when he laid out his agenda.

Erik: You see the history as I do. I liked that bit about blood, time, and equipment. But I would point out that a lot of Soviet blood was repayment for the pact with Hitler, and that a lot of British and American blood was invested in the enterprise.

[Miranda]

Dr. Blanchard:
Agreed on all accounts - and I rather suspect Netanyahu would have understood if the president had asked to postpone the meeting.

[Erik]

KB:
I would only add that Stalin appeased Hitler in (almost) the same way as the British and French did in Munich. Actually, the Soviets were ready to fight in 38 but of course the Red Army had to pass through Poland and, well you know the history of Russo-Polish relations.....

[KB]

Erik: the result of allied attempts at appeasement and Stalin's pact were the same, and I suppose that is what matters. The psychology was probably very different. The allies appeased Hitler out of a liberal faith that there is always some sort of peaceful accommodation possible between nations. Stalin made his pact out of the hope that two mega-tyrants could split the world between them.

But were the Russians really ready to fight in 38? They didn't seem at all ready when the Germans invaded. And if Stalin had been ready in 38, would Poland really have stopped him? I am just raising questions here, and not so much taking issue with your account.