The author states that liberal Presidents have overridden military commander's recommendations in the handling of China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba. We have the benifit of hindsight to determine whether that worked out well. Clearly, it has not. In every case communism has thrived, and the US has been impotent to depose it's grasp, precisely because we adopted some limited engagement rather than commiting to destroy the threat with all available resourcess before it became permanently entrenched. I am not saying I believe the same will be true of Afghanistan, only that the examples the author sites of previous liberal presidents overriding commanders would indicate that this policy does not work out well for our longterm strategic goals.

"In every case communism has thrived,"

Huh? Communism has not thrived. China, by far the largest practioner of communism, has basically given it up (though they haven't flocked to mirror a U.S. style economy, either.) North Korea may be the exception, though I would argue it is less communist than radically totalitarian (some would argue the two go hand in hand). Vietnam has been slowly but surely de-communizing. Cuba is another odd exception. And both North Korea and Cuba are far from their 'glory days' and don't command any type of world attention, let alone emulation. But the *biggest* communist threat, the Soviet Union, is history. And the way we 'played' those smaller wars played a large part in the larger victory.

For almost 5 decades, both the left and the right 'mainstreams' (and the presidents) more or less agreed on a policy of the 'waiting game' and limiting the escalation of smaller/proxy wars. In the end we had neither the Nuclear Holocaust so many thought was inevitable, not even the Soviet invasion of Western Europe, which was central to our military planning. "With hindsight" I'd say it took a long time and a lot of lives, but compared to alternative outcomes, the U.S. muddled its way to a pretty good outcome.

The market economy wins out over communism eventually, but I do think one could make the point that our foreign policy has not been very successful. China may be moving away from Mao but they're a stronger power as a result. Russia is no longer communist but they love breaking balls whenever possible. And despite our deep interventions in Latin America, that region has seen a resurgence in Leftist leadership over the last several years, so it's hard to see how our efforts have been successful there.

The point is, it's one thing to see the demise of an economic system; it's another to say this has resulted in increased security for the United States.

It all depens on what "success" means to you.

You seem to believe that "success" means a servile and deferential Rest of The World to the USA. That's hardly a reasonable or rational measure.

As for the great "communist" bogeyman - "communism" was never a real problem - neither Russia nor Chine ever were communist. Moreover they never really changed their historical governments nor economies - they simply change the titles of and who occupied the offices of Head Autocrat and the "Noble Oligarchy". The replaced "Tsar" and "Emperor" with "Chairman". And "Archduke" etc. with "Politburo" member (and similar in the PRC).

As for Latin America - again, what is inherently wrong with leftist countries or leftist nations? The problem instead are democratically elected facists/autocrats who once elected (sometimes by dubious means) use the powers of leadership to become more autocratic.

And as our experience in 2000-2008 demonstrates, the USA itself is not immune from this.

Security is not the be-all and end-all of the USA, As Ben Franklin wrote:

Those who would sacrifice any of our precious liberties for a temporary measure of security, deserve neither liberty nor security

here2help:

The author states that liberal Presidents have overridden military commander's recommendations in the handling of China, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba. We have the benifit of hindsight to determine whether that worked out well. Clearly, it has not. In every case communism has thrived, and the US has been impotent to depose it's grasp, precisely because we adopted some limited engagement rather than commiting to destroy the threat with all available resourcess before it became permanently entrenched.

That depends on how you define success. The US, Western Europe, and the USSR did not have tens of millions of people killed over Cuba or North Korea. I think that qualifies as at least a partial success. Certainly just about everyone involved agreed that those were the stakes on the table.

degsme, every time I think you've expanded the limit of human ignorance to its absolute maximum, you turn around and astound me with even more prodigious achievements.

Go and read up about the Cultural Revolution or the liquidation of the kulaks and then try to explain how they were continuations of conservative autocratic policies.

And if the Soviet Union wasn't communist, why did so many famous western communists (starting with Jack Reed and never entirely ending, even today) give it such enthusiastic support?

I suppose you're also going to claim that Chavez is a fascist now, too...

Pogroms have always existed in Russia. Liquidation of "dangerous elements" of chinese society similarly.

And if the Soviet Union wasn't communist, why did so many famous western communists (starting with Jack Reed and never entirely ending, even today) give it such enthusiastic support?

Because most - including Reed - are largely clueless about Russian history, and even more so really never bothered to experience that "communism" first hand. As someone who's family has directly suffered at the hands of the russians both under communism and historically, the reality is far different than the rhetoric.

Remember that Lenin posited that BEFORE communism could exist, an interim "dictatorship of the proletariat" led by a " vanguard party" (oligarchy anyone?) would have to control and educate the proletariat of a non-industrialized nation like Tsarist Russia before a People's Nation could be created. Thus even Lenin and Stalin never actually claimed that the USSR was operating under communist principles - rather it was very much a "dicatorship of the proletariat" - which functionally was indistinguishable from Tsarist russia.

And yes, Chavez is a Lat Am populist facist who owes more to the totalitarian Perons, Pinochets and Fujimoris of the world than to Marx.

Marxism and communism don't actually speak to HOW the government is run, they are fundamentally economic systems. Autocratic Totalitarianism vs. Direct Participatory Democracy and the spectrum in between defines the types of governments the world has seen. And it is the oppression of the people by The Government that is the issue about liberty, not the economic system in place.

Actions speak louder than words. Functional organizational structures are more important than titles.

Stop letting yourself get jerked around by demagouges who intentionally wield the "scary words" - educate yourself.