and ideology. Academics have been repulsed by the carnagenof war, a reaction that has blended with the liberal beliefnthat wars are “fuhle,” a waste of blood and money. It is notnwar but the “invisible hand” of economics or the civilizingntrend of enlightened philosophy that changes the world.nWar is a phase that man will outgrow. To study war willnonly perpetuate it. In this sense, historians have betrayedntheir own field by claiming that history is something tonescape from rather than something to learn from.nIn such an environment, it is no wonder that studentsnwho plan leadership careers have fled history for business ornlaw. By abandoning the framework of Polybius, history hasnbeen stripped of its usefulness. For if historians themselvesnclaim that there is nothing of practical value to learn fromnthe past, why bother memorizing a meaningless list ofnnames and dates? History departments have suffered fromnthis, but so has society. The lack of historical perspectivenmakes policy the victim of abstract theories and costlynexperiments. Wishful thinking proves a poor substitute fornunderstanding how the world works. Experience is shll thenbest teacher, and history is the record of human experience.nOf course, these attempts to escape the past have thenusual elaborate intellectual superstructures that one expectsnin academe. They can be placed in two broad categories:nthe liberal (or Whig) interpretation of history and thenMarxist interpretation. Both see history as a progression.nHistory is studied to detect changes—to determine whethernmankind is moving towards some ideologically determinedngoal on schedule and what can be done to speed up the pacenof progress.nThe liberal version is the most prevalent, with peace andnindividual freedom at the end of history. For example,nHerbert Spencer’s theory of social evolution was based onntwo ideal types: the military and the industrial. Throughoutnhistory, the military has dominated because the “continuednexistence of a society implies, first, that it shall not bendestroyed bodily by foreign foes.” However, Spencernthought that a new era was at hand: the rise of the industrialnsociety. External threats were diminishing, allowing morenindividual freedom, for “in the absence of hostile societies,ncorporate action is no longer the primary requirement.”nThe centralized state made necessary for the mobilizationnof the nation’s strength in war could now be replaced by andecentralized state that would exist only to protect the “life,nliberty, and property” of individuals. “Among competingnindustrial societies, there must be a gradual replacing ofnthose in which personal rights are imperfectly maintained,nby those in which they are perfectly maintained.” Competitionnwas to be waged along commercial rather than militarynlines.nA pleasant notion, but it has not come to pass nor is itnplausible in the near future. What grounds there may havenbeen for this view in the 19th century were thoroughlynoverturned by the world wars and other conflicts that havendominated the 20th century. Even before 1914 somenprevious adherents to this view were coming to their senses.nJohn Stuart Mill near the end of his life deplored thendecline of patriotism and honor in a land that valued onlynmoney. Mill termed the Liberal Party’s position on defensenas “smitten with imbecility” and advocated universal militaryntraining and the expansion of both the Army and Navy.nAlarmed by the rise of Germany, the century’s best-knownnliberal expressed in a letter to a friend that “I shallnhenceforth wish for a Tory government.”nHowever, the theory continues to thrive in many corners.nEven those who normally have nothing good to saynabout business proclaim their belief in an interdependentnglobal economy as a support for peace. Meanwhile, thosenwho cannot contain their enthusiasm for entrepreneurshipnare driven to new heights of fantasy by the vision of a worldnunited under a “capitalist international.”nThe Marxists also see global peace, but only after thenfinal triumph of the proletariat. History is a series of classnstruggles with the number of classes being reduced overntime. Eventually only one class will remain, the strugglenends and harmony reigns. Both liberals and Marxistsnenvision world peace and thus see a withering away of thenstate. The Marxists plan to wait until after the revolutionnand the reeducation of the masses by the dictatorship of thenproletariat before dismantiing the state, while the liberalsnadvocate that the state (or at least regressive segments of thenstate, like the military) be dismanded first in order tonremove an obstacle to the development of (or a return to, fornthose who believe in an idyllic natural society) a societynbased on peace and freedom.nThese totalitarian and libertarian Utopias have much inncommon, which should not be surprising given the largennumber of philosophers their traditions have held in commonnsince the Enlightenment. And in regard to theirnattitudes toward history, the modern ideologist is merelynfollowing the medieval theological tradition of interpretingnpassing events as the unfolding of a Divine Plan, only nownin secular humanist terms.nMarxists, however, have not been as ready to dropnmilitary history as have the liberals. Friedrich Engels was annavid amateur military historian, and Lenin was a devotednreader of Clausewitz. M.V. Frunze became the Sovietnregime’s leading military theorist by elaborating on thenLeninist concept of war as the extension of politics. Clearly,nan ideology based on class warfare has an obvious need fornknowledge about the strategy and tactics of armed conflict.nUnlike the libertarians, the Marxists have never considerednsweet reason or self-interest alone to be sufficient to transformnsociety.nIn the West, a line might be drawn between liberalnMarxists (democratic socialists) and the more hard-corenradicals. The democratic socialists have softened theirnclaims that pacifism is a “bourgeois delusion.” Being in anliberal environment, they have acquired a distaste for thenstudy of war, no matter how much they may repeat thencatechisms about armed struggle when discussing a situationnthousands of miles away. This lack of serious thoughtnhas led to such romantic notions as “inevitable revolutions”nand the myth of the guerrilla. Self-satisfying images andnuseful propaganda devices—providing the audience isnequally ignorant. In contrast, the radicals do devote timenand effort to the study of guerrilla warfare tactics, nuclearnstrategy, and geopolitics. They may still join their morenliberal brethren to encourage the peace movement, armsncontrol, and a noninterventionist foreign policy, but for thenvery subversive reasons that conservatives suspect. They arenthe more dangerous adversaries and also the more worthy ofnnnNOVEMBER 1987121n