The sky is not falling

Have you heard?

The world is about to end!

“60 Minutes” recently featured Paul Ehrlich, author of the bestseller, “The Population Bomb.”

“Humanity is not sustainable,” he said.

Why would “60 Minutes” interview Mr. Ehrlich?

For years, Mr. Ehrlich said, most Vietnam Veterans are proud of their service, in contrast to dominant popular imagery. Defense Secretary Robert McNamara with his civilian quantitative analysts, and the highly organized well-funded anti-war movement, are blamed for the ultimate failure of U.S. efforts to preserve South Vietnam.

“We are very close to a famine” and, “In the next 15 years, the end will come.” He’s been wrong again and again.

Yet “60 Minutes” takes him seriously. “Paul Ehrlich may have lived long enough to see some of his dire prophecies come true,” intoned reporter Scott Pelley. Now, “60 Minutes” says, “scientists say” the earth is in the midst of a “mass extinction”!

Doom sells.

Mr. Ehrlich’s book sold an amazing 3 million copies. It claimed the Earth’s rising population would lead to worldwide famine.

The opposite happened.

The world’s population more than doubled. But today there is less famine!

“60 Minutes” did mention that Ehrlich was wrong about widespread starvation, but they ignored his many other silly predictions. One was that by the year 2000 (because of climate change), England will not exist.

Sen. Webb also points to assassination teams sent to the South by Hanoi, targeting in particular village chiefs and social workers, and cites French journalist and scholar Bernard Fall’s important, reliable work.

Secretary McNamara, an extremely aggressive statisticianmanager, fixated on quantitative measures of progress. Attrition was the order of the day; enemy body counts and weapons captured the measure of progress.

Body counts were often inflated. Pentagon politics and public relations corrupted information. As that war became ever more frustrating and controversial, critics seized on this problem. The aftermath of the war included a bitter lawsuit between Vietnam commander General William Westmoreland and CBS News, which he accused of a biased documentary on the bloody numbers game. But there is a more subtle and profound problem with the bodycount approach. During Vietnam, U.S. Army iconoclasts such as Col. John Paul Vann argued that the McNamara measures were based on false premises. Given the enormous scale of American firepower, increasing body and weapons totals simply meant the enemy was growing in numbers. There were more targets to kill.

During Secretary McNamara’s tenure at the Pentagon, officers who questioned the approach were not only summarily rejected, their careers were in jeopardy. Col. Vann, ultimately vindicated, became extremely influential as a civilian official of the Agency for International Development, the important but politically unpopular U.S. foreign aid program.

Col. Vann, a true warrior, still carried a weapon and ran military operations, literally unable to let go of this passion. He was killed in a helicopter crash late in the war.

Not surprisingly, the Vietnam War had profound impacts on the United States military, especially the Army. During the Eisenhower administration, pressures grew steadily not only to increase military spending, but to use our forces overseas more aggressively.

Consequences included a large increase in defense spending under the new Kennedy administration. President John F. Kennedy and influential advisers became fascinated with notions of counterinsurgency. In Vietnam, however, the fighting ultimately became conventional.

War is unpredictable.

The same day the Paris Peace Accords were signed, Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird announced that the draft was ended, instituting the all-volunteer military. In consequence, our military forces can more easily be deployed into potentially dangerous situations.

In other words, involvement in wars became more likely.

To learn more, read Bernard Fall’s “The Two Viet-Nams.”

Arthur I. Cyr is author of “After the Cold War - American Foreign Policy, Europe and Asia” (NYU Press and Palgrave/Macmillan). He is also the director of the Clausen Center at Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisc., and a Clausen Distinguished Professor. He welcomes questions and comments at acyr@carthage.edu.

U.S. facing huge military recruiting crisis

‘America without her soldiers would be like God without his angels.”

— Claudia Pemberton

The 1940s were trying times.

The global economic crisis gave way to a world war that became the deadliest and most destructive war in human history. Eighty million individuals lost their lives during World War II. The war saw genocide threaten the eradication of some entire nations. It unleashed the most fearsome technology ever used in war. When it ended, America was the world’s greatest superpower because it had the world’s greatest economy and the world’s greatest military forces.

America entered World War II on Dec. 7, 1941, when Japan staged a surprise attack on the U.S. military base at Pearl Harbor. In a two-hour attack, Japanese warplanes sank or damaged 18 warships and destroyed 164 aircraft. More than 2,400 servicemen and civilians gave up their lives. President Franklin Roosevelt vowed; “No matter how long it takes, we Americans will avenge this with a victory.”

People from all over America and every walk of life volunteered for service to defend the world’s greatest nation.

A total of 12,209,238 U.S. men and women served America and the nations of the world to fight for world freedom and democracy. U.S. soldiers fought in countries they’d never been to or heard of.

Many rushed to enlistment centers while others were drafted, eager to fight a war to end all wars.

A total of 672,123 service men and women sacrificed their lives for the gift of freedom worldwide.

World War II had scarcely ended when communism reared its ugly head in Korea. U.S. and allied troops stopped North Korea’s invasion of the South. But President Harry Truman refused to allow Gen. Douglas MacArthur to finish what he started to bring liberty to Asia. And this foreign policy blunder will haunt the U.S. forever.

“A general is just as good or just as bad as the troops under his command.”

—

Gen. Douglas MacArthur

Due to an unsettled peace in Asia, the U.S. has battled in many unpopular wars to stop the spread of communism. After fighting too many Asian civil wars, President Richard Nixon bowed to public demands and ended the military draft. And we are suffering the consequences today. Since our transition to a volunteer force in 1973, we have had many years when the military missed their recruiting goals.

In 1999, 2005, and 2018, when the economy was booming or conflict casualties were high, we had severe recruiting problems. According to military personnel officials testifying at a Senate hearing last week, 2022 is “arguably the most challenging recruiting year” since the military draft ended.

“Only those Americans who are willing to die for their country are fit to live.”

— Gen. MacArthur

The Army announced it has been forced to cut its force by 12,000 soldiers because there are not enough volunteers to fill its ranks. Army Chief of Staff Gen. James McConville told the committee they are in a “war for talent,” not with the Air Force or Navy but with Americans refusing to enlist.

The Air Force’s top recruiter warned Congress that he has grave concerns meeting his 2022 goals. The Navy’s top personnel officer stated they may make their 2022 goals, but only “by reducing the Delayed Entry Program from historic norms.”

The Marine Corps is struggling to find recruits also.

In 2013, to correct the shortage of service enlistees, U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colorado, introduced the Military Enlistment Opportunity Act.

This authorized armed force enlistment of persons who were residing in the U.S. but not citizens. After five years in the U.S. military, they would become legal aliens with a green card. This would give them permanent residence and a pathway to citizenship.

Although The Military Enlistment Act was a great opportunity to provide illegal aliens a legitimate pathway to citizenship, few took advantage of it since most “pseudo asylum seekers” have no ties to America. They come here for free social services, not to assimilate like our founding immigrants.

“We cannot sustain illegal immigration in perpetuity. It will not work for our country.”

— Lara Trump

The DOD says only 29% of Americans qualify for service. Things that disqualify them for service are a lack of a high school

GED, drug use, poor health and a criminal record. They blame this on public education. They say that public schools do not teach our youth how to be good citizens. Fitness, drug use and criminal records are not the only reasons why high school grads are turning their noses up at the military. Many Millennials and Gen Z hold more progressive views on issues like gay marriage, legal marijuana and morality. Many see the military as a bastion of conservative values like tradition, duty and sacrifice. Again this perception is a product of their public education.

Common Core teaches our youth that America is cruel and has treated Indians and blacks like second class citizens since our founding. They are teaching that racism is institutional, including in the military and our youth’s first duty is to correct our social problems, rather than defend their nation and its institutions.

“Wrong or right, as public education goes so does the country.”

— Steve Kagen

A recent DOD poll asked youths 16 to 20, “How likely is it you will serve in the military?” Only see HAUPT on C4

Mr. Ehrlich won’t talk to me now, but seven years ago, when my producer asked him about his nonsense, Mr. Ehrlich said, “When you predict the future, you get things wrong.”

The media should ignore doomsayers like Mr. Ehrlich, and pay more attention to people like Marian Tupy, editor of HumanProgress.org.

In my new video, Mr. Tupy points out that “life is getting better.” The modern era has brought much longer lives and the greatest decline in poverty ever.

Of course, universities, media and politicians say capitalism is destroying the earth, so young people throw soup on famous paintings. It’s the moral thing to do, they believe, because we face an apocalypse!

“If you sell the apocalypse,” says Mr. Tupy, “people feel like you are deep and that you care.”

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