As the war in Ukraine moves toward an ugly conclusion unfavorable to the U.S., I anticipate the appearance of a common propaganda phenomenon following lost wars: the stab in the back. This is a propaganda tactic in which military defeat is attributed to domestic treachery undermining the heroic efforts of the military. The bellicose elements of the U.S. foreign policy establishment (a.k.a. the neocons), which invested large amounts of financial and political capital in the proxy war in Ukraine, will resort to the tried and true tactic of blaming the failed project on the betrayal of an ally. They will assert that Ukraine could have achieved a glorious victory over Russia if only the U.S. had supplied sufficient money and weapons or intervened directly in the war.
It is an article of faith of the U.S. neocons that when military violence fails to achieve a political objective it is because insufficient violence was applied by weak-willed U.S. politicians. Since this is impossible to disprove, it is a safe position in which to retreat after failure while preparing the next misbegotten military adventure. I will examine the stab in the back phenomenon from an historical perspective and as part of the repertoire of pro-war propaganda.
WWI
The most notable historical occurrence of the stab in the back propaganda tactic followed the German defeat in WWI. The Germans had a more compact term, dolchstoss, for betrayal of the valiant military by internal treachery. This simultaneously glorified the military while denigrating the accused traitors, in this case Jews, socialists, communists, and pacifists who allegedly undermined support for the war. The dolchstoss legend was a major contributor to German antisemitism supporting the rise of Hitler and the subsequent European holocaust.
Picture from 1924 German election poster
In fact, Germany was defeated in WWI by an economic blockade and four years of massive casualties, with the outcome finally decided by the entry of the U.S. tilting the military manpower balance and making victory impossible.
Vietnam
The U.S. indulged in a milder form of dolchstoss after the end of the Vietnam war. It was asserted that the miltary performed heroically, but that they were betrayed by politicians lacking the will to fight on to victory. To this day, the POW/MIA flag is widely displayed beneath the American flag, and its statement, “you are not forgotten,” implies that U.S. prisoners of war were abandoned in Vietnam. Although no proof of this ever emerged, it was a widely held belief for decades that the government abandoned U.S. POWs.
This sentiment was reinforced by a series of films depicting U.S. soldiers in Vietnam as victims of manipulative, incompetent, or corrupt leaders.
Despite documented instances of horrific war crimes committed by U.S. troops in Vietnam, such as the My Lai massacre, the public came to accept the dolchstoss idea as a means of shielding the military and blaming weak and treacherous politicians and peace activists. So great was the fear of dolchstoss accusations in Washington, that Nixon and Kissinger prolonged the Vietnam war for several years to secure “peace with honor,” and supplied the doomed South Vietnamese government with vast stocks of weapons before withdrawing U.S. forces.
It is this same fear that motivates Trump to keep pouring money and weapons into Ukraine. Despite some cutbacks in military aid caused by depleted U.S. arms stocks, Ukraine remains on financial and military life support from the U.S. and NATO. Trump does not want to be the President who “lost Ukraine.” Thus, he is trying to achieve a “win” by persuading Ukraine and Russia to make peace, despite their unwillingness to settle for less than their maximal demands. Unfortunately for Ukraine and Trump, Russia increasingly has the upper hand on the battlefield, and it is likely just a matter of time before Ukraine is forced to sue for peace. Then will come the dolchstoss claim, which Trump will try to dodge.
Instruments of Propaganda
Dolchstoss is a propaganda tactic that provides multiple benefits to foreign policy militarists: it prolongs existing wars, excuses failures, and enables future wars. Should an armed conflict with China over Taiwan end badly for the U.S., you can be sure that the dolchstoss treatment will be applied. Dolchstoss is just one of several propaganda tools used by the U.S. foreign policy blob. Consider the analogy of dolchstoss to a musical instrument. There is a whole orchestra of propaganda instruments that play the music supporting wars.
The U.S. musicians who play the propaganda instruments of war are operatives who are usually anonymous or clandestine. These individuals are among the most evil people in existence. They sow the seeds of violence and war while justifying themselves with patriotism and institutional authority. The actions and influence of these musicians of evil in stirring up fear and hatred worldwide have led to millions of deaths and vast destruction since WWII. Until this orchestra is disbanded, the world will continue to suffer the deadly consequences of propaganda concerts arranged by the United States.
Conclusion
When the war in Ukraine ends, the advocates of this debacle will escape negative consequences by claiming that Ukraine was stabbed in the back by weak U.S. politicians intimidated by Russia. They will maintain that if the U.S. had unleashed sufficient force against Russia victory would have been achieved and that the risk of a global nuclear war was negligible. Protected by this argument, they will move on briskly to advocating war against China over Taiwan, confident that, if necessary, another stab in the back campaign will cover up another military disaster. Perhaps U.S. citizens will eventually realize that it is they who are being stabbed in the back by incorrigible war mongers.
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All true about WW1 but I’d say Vietnam strengthened the antiwar left rather than weakened. Arguably Nixon’s impeachment was more about Vietnam and the hatred that had developed over Cambodia, Kent State etc. When Democrat Carter became president he amnestied those who had fled to Canada.
It took a few years before a true pushback with films like Rambo and Gulf War 1 which was explicitly billed as an end to the “Vietnam Syndrome.” It’s been all downhill since then.
I guess my point is that wars are a risk to all politicians.
If the stab in the back isn’t lethal, it takes a while for hatred to fester–nearly twenty years after WWI and Vietnam. Of course it can be argued that there were pre-existing conditions, like slavery or missionary desperation. It’s a wound that never heals. (Where’s Amfortas?? Hope he’s ok.)
Check yesterday’s Coffee Break–said he’s ok.
There is another alternative. Whatever happens to Ukraine, the US will declare victory. One possible example of “victory” is for the US to state that it had weakened Russia to such an extent that Russia was unable to invade Europe.
I expect this to feature prominently, though coherence is apparently never a requirement where febrile declarations about Russia (imminently marching upon Berlin and Paris, yet simultaneously militarily incompetent) are concerned. Therefore both this and the dolchstoss are likely to be employed in tandem.
If Ukraine is defeated, I expect the blame will fall on Zelensky’s corrupt regime. The narrative will be, “The U.S. and NATO did their best, but Ukraine itself sabotaged its own victory.”
You will still find that they will bring Zelensky and his retinue out to form a government-in-exile. Years ago they were all given UK passports to make it all easier. The neocons will probably grab any money that the Ukraine has and between that and the untold wealth that Zelensky has grabbed over the years, he will make out very well thank you. It is only a matter of choosing where his government-in-exile will be set up. Italy? England? Florida? Maybe he will open his own wine cave in California.
The interesting thing about Ukraine is that, per Zelensky’s own statements, if we let it go down we might not be safe across the ocean from them. I think there’s a reasonable chance that the Sum of Our Fears should be a Banderite bomb in DC.
As for corruption, the media and all good people forgot about how corrupt and ugly Ukraine was after 2018. That is why it is considered a shining light against tyranny despite doing terrible things to opposition parties, limiting religion, disenfranchising citizens, preventing media from covering events, and, oh yes, engaging in constant acts of terrorism. All the best and the brightest have also forgotten the nasty things Ukraine said about Israel and Israelis in the recent past too. It really is amazing.
I was 11 and at an LA Kings hockey game with my dad, when they announced on the PA just after a stop of play during the game that the Paris peace accords had been signed and as far as US involvement-the Vietnam war was over.
There was a standing ovation for well over a minute, it was quite striking.
When we lose the Ukraine war will any Americans even notice?
Wasn’t as if we cared anything about leaving Afghanistan in a hurry aka losing, it was all in regards to the 13 service members lost in the hasty departure.
Trump set up the abrupt departure from Afghanistan on his watch, then left Biden holding the bag, then blamed Biden for the inevitably chaotic exit, and, having milked this catastrophe of his own making for all of its dolchstoss value, is now preparing to abruptly deport the few Afghani families that made it out, so that they can be tortured and killed at the Taliban’s leisure.
He really has no shame.
Whoa, not sure you followed what happened there.
Trump arranged for a deal whereby the US could withdraw, and set the withdrawal date to be during the cold season when not many fighters would be in the area. Biden was elected and the generals worked on Biden to try and get him to deny the withdrawal, because of the peaceful conditions, until he pressed them on it, and then the generals failed to do anything to prevent the chaos. The result was a much later departure under much worse circumstances that lead us to spend some 20 years in the country only to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.
The wonderful US media taught Biden his lesson by hounding him mercilessly for ending a war that should never have been started and was not capable of ever meeting our goals. The one undeniable good thing Biden did in office was stick to his guns and pull out our troops. The fact that it was a disaster is the responsibility of a military staff who thought they could lie to, and ignore, the express orders of two different commanders in chief.
It’s not Trump who should be ashamed here.
Yes, Douglas Macgregor, who then had a ringside seat, has recounted long form how Trump ordered the withdrawal and was defied.
I agree with your assertion that pushback from US military leaders who failed to do their jobs accelerated the catastrophe. The dynamic is essentially an uncomfortable reprise of the frantic US escape from Saigon, written as farce.
My intent here is not to imply that Trump is entirely responsible for how the withdrawal played out. But the damage that Trump’s ruthless manipulation of the narrative has caused, and his impending betrayal of Afghani refugees, is sobering.
Ok. Apologies if I misread what you wrote.
I’m not sure how to apportion any blame on how the withdrawal collapsed into chaos on Trump. The Biden administration chose to follow a different plan to achieve the goal. And even Biden gets a bit of a pass here for what happened. The accounts I’ve read suggest he believed the military staff involved.
The Afghani people who assisted us and are witnessing our kindness for their support will have to get in line behind the people in Iraq and all the other theaters we’ve been in since Vietnam. As the cliche goes, to be America’s friend is deadly.
The people I feel an uncomfortable amount of pity for right now are the Ukrainians and the Israelis. We promised them that we would support them and could protect them, and encouraged the worst elements of their societies to do horrible things. In Israel’s case, we also made them the test lab for the social repression we planned to enact at home. They sold their souls for the US. Now they both have ruined countries and no future. The US will walk away and leave Russia and others to clean up the mess. I am afraid of how the universe will balance these scales. I think the US is risking blowback of enormous proportions for supporting this aggression. I do not think the Israelis or the Ukrainians will ever forget what we did if we abandon them now. But I also don’t see as how we have the materiel to support them. So this is going to get very ugly.
The American people have a thoroughly isolationist character – at least vis a vis military intervention – because we are blessed with a thoroughly secure position. The idea that we could lose near 60,000 boys in the rice paddies of a place most of our leaders couldn’t have placed on a map before 1965 is an absurdity of unimaginable proportion.
How many Americans are there dead in Ukraine? Probably more than zero. We know there’s mercenaries and intel assets and probably temporarily-discharged regulars operating particularly sensitive equipment on the Ukrainians’ behalf. But nobody my younger brother’s age is living in fear of receiving a letter in the mail to go join them.
I don’t think the American empire will soon make the mistake of Vietnam again; millions of dead foreigners has never been a mistake to our ghoulish betters. Thousands of dead Americans very much is.
It really bothers me to see “non-interventionism” being confused with isolationism. This conflation of two very different concepts is a propaganda method too. Just because we don’t want to interfere with a nation doesn’t mean we don’t want to trade and have cultural exchange with them.
All nazi and fascist movements are based on the knife-in-the-back sentiment.
Here is an armed bunch of very unsavoury people ready to take revenge.
https://www.jungewelt.de/loginFailed.php?ref=/artikel/469335.nazi-organisationen-h%C3%B6llensturm-f%C3%BCr-den-feind.html
https://thegrayzone.com/2024/04/07/centuria-ukraines-western-neo-nazi-army/
https://fondfbr.ru/en/articles/centuria-german-eu-uk-en/
The emergence of a Dolchstosslegende after the war in Ukraine had already been suggested in the past at NC, but as applicable to the losing Ukrainian side, not the USA. It was feared that the extreme Ukrainian nationalists, banderists, and other naughties might well turn their ire on Europeans, whose irresolution and lack of full commitment supposedly doomed Ukraine, and take advantage of the networks of Ukrainians (including Ukrainian criminal gangs) to perpetrate terrorist acts as a revenge and an “incitment” to never engage in détente with Russia.
As a further example of Dolchstoss, perhaps what happened in the USA after 1949 might be relevant: for quite some time, accusations and disputes were flaring on the topic of “who lost China”.
vao: The emergence of a Dolchstosslegende after the war in Ukraine … but as applicable to the losing Ukrainian side, not the USA.
It’ll be both.
You’re right. There’ll be blowback from the Ukrainian side, in which the West — and Europe in particular –will get a hard lesson that when people have been talking about Russian mafias for the last three decades, those have frequently been Ukrainian mafias.
But Hovhaness’s point is right on, too. Those in America responsible for this asinine murderous strategy will have to find scapegoats for its failure.
I’m not certain there will be a Dolchstoss after Ukraine. Sure, the neocons will try to start one, but I already see a lot of Republicans ticked off we’re still spending money there, and Democrats are coming to realize there was no avoiding Trump, no matter how much the Russians were to blame for her Hillary-ness loss.
Hard to make a movie when no American lives are lost. Maybe some sort of cool mercenary bio-pic starring Cena? The instrument needs to be something cheap, like a Kazoo of Pointless?
I guess that makes me part of the problem. I’m just making fun of this whole thing, ignoring the vast number over there who actually have to live it.
“Competing with” and “keeping up with” are other notes that the Saxophone of Fear and Trumpet of Pride can also play.
From its onset, the war in the Ukraine appeared a losing proposition considering the relative size and capacity of the two opponents, even after generous allowances for the generosity and effectiveness of u.s. weapons delivered to the Ukraine. I believe the war in Ukraine depends on the capabilities of u.s. weapons versus their Russian counterparts much more than it depends on any lack of will or commitment to Ukraine by the u.s. That is before considering the relative size of the Ukrainian army compared with the Russian army they face. The war has exposed the great expense and inferior performance of u.s. weapon systems. All the hype and finger pointing after the Ukraine war should not protect the u.s. MIC from its abject failure to deliver “bang-for-buck” — referring to a common measure of expenditures on the MIC.
There’s lots of damning evidence of German scheming at the end of WWI. Generals knew the war was over and began secretly urging the monarchy to accept an armistice, and at the same time scheme how to make liberals take the blame.
General Ludendorff urged the king to give
socialists many ministry positions so that they would be associated with the loss. The king abdicated two days before the armistice was signed on November 11, 1918, and Chancellor Graf Hertling also resigned beforehand. The new
socialist Weimar government thus signed the war-ending armistice instead of the military and political leaders who had directed and lost the war.
This later supported widespread rumors that the undefeated military had been betrayed by the socialists.
The Vietnam POW / MIA Dolchstoss story is true. The reporter Sydney Schanberg, who won a Pulitzer for work that was the basis for film The Killing Fields, researched this extensively. IIRC when Soviet archives came to light following the fall of the USSR, they contained documentation about a secret annex to the Vietnam Paris peace agreement. Under this annex, North Vietnam retained some US prisoners pending the payment of reparations promised by Nixon. Congress, which did not know about the prisoners, refused to fund the reparations. The prisoners stayed in Vietnam. Nixon and Kissinger never said a word.
I was strongly antiwar while Vietnam was happening. However, when I read Schanberg’s work I was ashamed of my bad thoughts about the POW/MIA activists. What an unbelievable betrayal. I still get angry thinking about it.
https://www.beyondthekillingfields.com/vietnam-mia-pows/
Gotta agree with you here. And John McCain was at the heart of it. Short form, the US and North Vietnam made an agreement to end the war and releasing the US prisoners was part of this deal. But then Congress reneged on their end of the deal, even though those in Government knew that North Vietnam had not released all of the prisoners but retained a coupla hundred as insurance. And John McCain was part of the cover up here big time. I note that his father helped in the cover up on the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty so the apple did not fall far from the tree. And those American prisoners? Probably liquidated over the years as being political embarrassments to the North Vietnam government. It was their own fault. They trusted the US government.
My objection to the black POW/MIA flag is its application. It is overtly political.
It does not clearly apportion blame in this ugly episode. Wherever I see it displayed in our rust belt seems invariably in locales where Trump flags appeared until recently. Or 9/11 monuments.
Also often co-displayed our economically depressed communities with “Hometown Heroes” lampposts of veterans going back to WW1. Nothing but recruitment posters. See any of these in Beverly Hills or the Hamptons? My dad had such a thing posted downstate for his September 1946 enlistment as a “WW2 veteran”; his parents invited the recruiter to the house after HS graduation to rid their house of an incorrigible.
That first part is co-opting. That’s an important qualifier. Our political class is very good at it. I won’t argue that, but that’s not what I’m getting at.
That second part sounds like a part of the definition of flyover country. The small town that I grew up in and the small town I live in are both tightly knit, families that go back generations. When this town cries, we all cry together..
“And all I got was this lousy tee shirt”
There’s a metaphor I can go with.
That is a gut punch for sure. Just another in a lifelong series of them, for all of us in the US.
#TYVM
Thank you. I did not care for the framing of the Vietnam War section. I believe it is off the mark.
Imagine if it was your husband/son/brother/father/best friend that didn’t come back, just disappeared. That black flag you see represents an impossible sacrifice, and maybe it flies in that yard as a coping mechanism to fend off the demons born of an unimaginable sacrifice compelled of you by your government.
I agree. Whether or not MIAs were really left behind, MIAs and the movies aren’t really about why the U.S. list the war, so are a bad example. The Vietnam dolchstoss myth is that the military could have won if it weren’t for lefty protesters, civilian policymakers, and Congressional doves.
An unpublished song by Kevn Kinney (Drivin ‘n Cryin), known to his fans as
You Are Not Forgotten
Long wait at the windowsill
She looks for him
Long wait at the windowsill
She wants for him
In the jungles of Southeast Asia
He still roams
I know your out thee somewhere
won’t you please just come home
Wont you tell him something for me before you go
Wont you tell him something for me before you go
Wont you tell him something for me before you go
You are not forgotten
It was such a long time ago
When we were all best friends
It was such a long time ago
When you pulled away from the gym
There you stood with your honor on your arm
All the witnesses said we can never win
Wont you tell him something for me before you go
Wont you tell him something for me before you go
Wont you tell him something for me before you go
You are not forgotten
All night long, in the moon, I see you
I look up high in the sky, I see your eye
I hope you haven’t been sitting under the apple tree
All night long, I see your smile, in the aisle
Wont you tell him something for me before you go
Wont you tell him something for me before you go
Wont you tell him something for me before you go
You are not forgotten
I saw Kevn perform this once back in ’08, and I have a bootleg recording off the soundboard somewhere. Lyrics by memory. Apologies to Mr Kinney if I screwed up the lyrics.
You’re conflating two very different episodes.
The “stab-in-the back” legend arose from the fact that at the end of the War, the German Army still held territory in France and Belgium, and no allied troops had set foot in Germany. Yet as far as ordinary people were concerned, Germany just surrendered like that, overnight, without any warning. Moreover the Armistice was signed by a team led by Erzberger, and this and the abdication of the Kaiser enabled critics to present the Armistice as a manoeuvre by civilian politicians when the Army was undefeated. In fact, Germany’s position was untenable: Austria-Hungary had sued for peace, and the US presence, though not yet significant, would become so in 1919. Revolution was also breaking out in parts of the country.
Vietnam (and Afghanistan) were just standard “who lost the war/battle” controversies, which is what Ukraine is likely to turn into. There are lots of examples: the two that have generated the most shelves of studies are probably the disastrous defeats of the Red Army in 1941/2 and the Fall of France in 1940, where everybody parades their own preferred villains and makes their excuses for those they support. That’s probably the model for Ukraine.
Nobody seems to want to talk about Korea – not a CIA enterprise, but certainly not an “honorable” war. We burned that country to the ground and killed millions of civilians. Douglas MacArthur himself was sickened by it. And we tested the chemical and biological weapons tech we got from the Japanese on them and the Chinese as well. Stephen Gowans’ book, Patriots, Traitors and Empires,” is a must read.
In today’s Ukranian 101 lesson: peremoga and zrada. 🤓
Zrada is equivalent of dolchstoss, that will be used by historians of the future. There is already an entry on Urban Dictionary, but it lacks 👍.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=zrada