Quagmires

Summary

History As It Happens – "Quagmires" (August 11, 2026)

Host: Martin Di Caro
Guest: Will Waldorf, senior fellow at Defense Priorities and author of "To Shape Our World for Master Narratives and Forceful Regime Change in United States Foreign Policy, 1900-2011"

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Overview

This episode of "History As It Happens" explores the recurring pattern of the United States becoming trapped in unwinnable wars—so-called "quagmires"—wherein the president who initiates or escalates the conflict is rarely the one to bring it to an end. Using the ongoing U.S. war in Iran as a springboard, Di Caro and guest political scientist Will Waldorf dissect historic interventions in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq to examine why these cycles repeat, what impedes exit strategies, and how presidential psychology, political legacy, and notions of credibility shape outcomes. The discussion is interwoven with historical audio and notable scholarly analysis.

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Key Themes & Discussion Points

1. The Pattern: Interventions Become Quagmires

• Recurring Cycles: From Korea to Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Iran, the U.S. becomes bogged down in protracted wars.
  • "US wars become quagmires and the presidents who initiate American intervention rarely if ever are the ones to extricate the country from the morass." (Martin Di Caro, 01:09)
  • Wars persist painfully, with unintended consequences for target countries and the U.S. itself.
• Historical Precedent: Since 1945, interventions have had "horrendous consequences" (01:10).

2. The President’s Dilemma: Why Initiators Rarely End Wars

• Political & Psychological Stakes
  • Presidents are reluctant to "cut and run" due to sunk costs, fear of damaging U.S. credibility, electoral consequences, and concerns about legacy.
  • "For presidents who end up in these stalemated wars or who expand and then get stuck in them, I think they feel a unique stake in it... for sunk costs, for credibility, electoral price, legacy concerns." (Will Waldorf, 12:54–14:06)
  • Even Trump’s attitude fits a pattern: "I find him to be sort of very consistent with a lot of presidents… They don't want to be the one that left and have a disaster." (12:54)
• Successors as Unwinders
  • Rarely does the initiator succeed in ending the war: "It often is up to the successor to do something about it." (Martin Di Caro, 10:38)
  • Exceptions are rare (Clinton in Somalia, Obama in Libya), and circumstances were very different from large-scale wars.

3. Historical Case Studies

Vietnam

• Johnson’s Admission:
  • "It looks like me we're getting into another Korea. It just worries the hell out of me… I don't think it's worth fighting for, and I don't think we can get out yet." (Lyndon Johnson, 04:30)
• Prolonged Negotiations: Nixon/Kissinger keep the war going partly to avoid electoral repercussions, even as they acknowledge the war is likely unwinnable.
  • "I look at the tide of history out there. South Vietnam probably can never survive anyway. We have to realize… winning an election is terribly important." (Nixon, 06:25)
  • "If we settle in October, by January 74, no one will give a damn." (Kissinger, 07:15; 32:13)
  • True peace only comes after the original architects step aside, with Nixon finally overseeing withdrawal (05:50, 09:07).
• Implications:
  • Success was not possible; extrication was delayed for domestic reasons.

Korea

• Truman’s Calculus: Initially skeptical, Truman is pressured into the Korean War and then stuck, unable to withdraw due to credibility concerns.
  • "He was not willing to give up the issue of repatriating Chinese and North Korean soldiers… his concerns about credibility with our Asian allies." (Will Waldorf, 23:10)
• Eisenhower Ends It: As Truman’s successor, Eisenhower finalizes the armistice by bending on key details (25:31).
  • "Successors often do… [find] space to do that." (Will Waldorf, 26:30)

Iraq and Afghanistan

• Bush Starts, Others End:
  • George W. Bush initiates but does not finish; Obama negotiates Iraq withdrawal, Trump the Afghanistan exit (related to Trump's Taliban deal, 30:36).
  • "The president who started those two wars, George W. Bush, was not around to end them." (Martin Di Caro, 09:46, 37:07)

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4. Why Do Presidents Enter Unwinnable Wars?

Structural vs. Personal Causes

• Grand Strategy & Insecurity: The U.S.'s pursuit of global dominance generates “just in case” military commitments.
  • “America's grand strategy since the end of the Cold War... has been this grand strategy promising... we have to be in that dominant position. I think that's one source of insecurity.” (Will Waldorf, 17:34)
• Imperial Hubris & Hegemony:
  • Interventions are driven by national projects and the temptation to "be transformative" (40:07).
  • Even non-ideological presidents like Trump are caught in the structure’s logic: "He believes, as most presidents do, that they're smarter than their predecessors. They will avoid the mistakes…" (Martin Di Caro, 39:36)
• Public & Elite Consensus:
  • Domestic politics, particularly after 9/11, create an environment in which presidents are pressured to act.
  • "He did so in a very conducive environment. Sometimes we forget that in the post 911 moment. Right. It was easy to connect these dots and for people to believe it..." (Will Waldorf, 35:48)

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5. Credibility and the Difficulty of Withdrawal

• Multiple Credibilities:
  • Allies, enemies, Congress, and the president’s own image shape calculations:
    • "Frederick Logevall calls this credibility cubed… There's also domestic credibility… If we cut and run, we're going to embolden our enemies…" (Martin Di Caro, 19:06)
• Changing Global Context:
  • Allies in the Middle East now urge U.S. withdrawal, questioning U.S. commitment and sanity (20:11).
  • “If credibility is the issue... then what we should be doing is trying to find a way out of this war, because that's what the allies essentially want. They want it to wind down.” (Will Waldorf, 20:11)

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6. How Negotiations and Endgames Happen

• Negotiating as One Withdraws
  • Vietnam as the prototype: Partial concessions during negotiations, with an eye on domestic/legacy goals (28:09–29:10).
  • Successors are freer to cut deals viewed as “less honorable” without bearing the full domestic fallout.
• Comparisons to Iran Today
  • Trump is unlikely to cut a deal because “I've said, I'm going to get something better… I can't be the Obama.” (Will Waldorf, 15:09–15:59)
  • Quagmires can drag on for years with no ground troops, as in the current (2026) Iran war scenario (21:47).

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7. The Costs of Hubris

• Transformative Agendas Backfire: Presidents’ belief in their ability to reshape regions leads to lasting damage.
  • "That power makes the hegemon and its ideals pawns to power's own laws. And no superpower has been able to overcome this pattern." (Martin Di Caro, 39:36)
  • "That hubris about, 'We are so powerful. Certainly they're going to cave,' is very much there… I think it's doing tremendous destruction to U.S. foreign policy." (Will Waldorf, 40:52–41:52)
• Perpetuating Decline:
  • Attempts to maintain hegemony accelerate U.S. decline, undermining the very objectives leaders hope to preserve.
  • "It will simply accelerate the decline it is meant to avoid. The United States position is undoubtedly weaker now… before we started this ridiculous war." (Martin Di Caro, 41:52)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the Inevitability of Successors Ending Wars

• "Presidents who initiate American intervention rarely if ever are the ones to extricate the country from the morass."
  — Martin Di Caro (01:09)
• "It's hard to find cases, at least since the end of World War II, where we've got that."
  — Will Waldorf (11:50)
• "Even the Chinese won't like that... But it will worry everybody. And domestically in the long run, it won't help us all that much because our opponents were done in three years ago. So we've got to find some formula."
  — Henry Kissinger, Nixon Tapes (07:15)

On Presidential Psychology

• "They don't want to be the one that left and have a disaster. Sometimes they say it's better to fight on than it is to sort of end the fight on terms that may make me look bad as the president."
  — Will Waldorf (12:54–14:06)
• "He is a deeply insecure, I would even say deranged man who does not want to embrace reality."
  — Martin Di Caro on Trump (17:02)
• "You have credibility with your allies. If you cut and run, will our allies be able to trust us anymore? ... There's also domestic credibility… There's an election coming up and personal credibility, too."
  — Martin Di Caro (19:06)

On Vietnam’s Lessons

• "It just worries the hell out of me. I don't see what we can ever hope to get out of there… with once we're committed."
  — Lyndon Johnson (04:30)
• "Winning an election is terribly important. That is the real question… Can we have a viable foreign policy if a year from now, or two years from now, North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam?"
  — Richard Nixon (06:25)
• "North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that."
  — Richard Nixon (31:03)

On the Current Iran War

• "Iran's capabilities are evaporating by the hour, while American strength grows fiercer, smarter and utterly."
  — Martin Di Caro (01:09)
• "We've already won in many ways, but..." — Richard Nixon (impersonation/archival or script) (03:23) — "We haven't won enough."
  — Will Waldorf (03:25)
• "For nothing.” / “Yes.”
  — Martin Di Caro and Will Waldorf on US service members lost (19:05–19:06)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:07–01:09: Historical audio montage—Nixon, Iraq, Vietnam; setup of the quagmire concept.
• 10:36: Interview with Will Waldorf begins; foundation for why successors end wars.
• 12:54–14:06: Waldorf on presidential psychology, sunk costs, legacy.
• 21:47: Discussion on Iran war dragging on with no ground troops.
• 23:10–26:51: Korean War as template; Truman stuck, Eisenhower ends.
• 27:16–34:41: Deep dive into Vietnam War endgame, Johnson versus Nixon, "decent interval."
• 35:35–38:01: Post-9/11 Iraq rhetoric, sunk costs, policy inertia.
• 41:52–43:22: The cost of hubris and opportunity for reassessment.

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Conclusion

The episode elucidates the continuity between America's 20th/21st-century military entanglements and the current Iran war, highlighting that leadership turnover, political calculation, and the gravity of entrenched narratives shape both the persistence and eventual end of quagmires. The conversation calls for greater historical awareness and humility in considering future interventions, with the current Iran war—destined to outlast its initiator—serving as another stark illustration.

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This summary captures the episode’s central arguments, the arc of U.S. intervention history, and the analytical lens applied by Waldorf and Di Caro. It is designed for listeners seeking a comprehensive, timestamped guide to the discussion’s key ideas and historical context.

Transcript

[Martin DeCaro]

History as it happens, August 11, 2026 Quagmires.

[Richard Nixon]

We're not engaged in a struggle without end. We're engaged in a struggle which has the definite goal of peace. We have won an armistice on a single battleground, not peace in the world. If we are driven from the field in Vietnam, then no nation can ever again have the same confidence in American prom are in American protection.

[Will Waldorf]

It seems now more certain than ever

[Richard Nixon]

that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. I shall not see and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president. We can't let the world's worst leaders blackmail, threaten, hold freedom loving nations hostage with the world's worst weapons. There are more than 100 new victims of Iraq's sectarian violence.

[Will Waldorf]

And the UN says it's not just the death numbers that are startling in

[Richard Nixon]

Iraq is unacceptable to the American people and it is unacceptable to me.

[Martin DeCaro]

From Korea to Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, now Iran. Shall we count the repetitions? US wars become quagmires and the presidents who initiate American intervention rarely if ever are the ones to extricate the country from the morass. Why, that's next as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro. Iran's capabilities are evaporating by the hour while American strength grows fiercer, smarter and utterly.

[Richard Nixon]

I think it's going to end pretty soon. I don't think they can go much longer.

[Will Waldorf]

The president who started the war or made a major escalation in the case of Afghanistan with Barack Obama, those presidents usually once they stalemate, are not the ones to sort of bring the war to it.

[Martin DeCaro]

Way back in late February, President Trump launched his war on Iran, believing it would be over quickly. Now he's stuck and can't get out.

[Richard Nixon]

In any event, when this conflict is over, the strait will open up naturally. It'll just open up naturally.

[Martin DeCaro]

In this, he's no different than many of his predecessors. Since 1945, the United States has bombed, invaded or used covert operations against dozens of countries, usually leading to horrendous consequences for those nations.

[Richard Nixon]

UNHCR estimates that over 418,392 people have been displaced due to sectarian violence and 15,240 due to military operations. Since the bombing at the Al Aqsari shrine in Samarra on 22 February 2006. Some 1.6 million have sought refuge in neighboring countries since 2003.

[Martin DeCaro]

The UN also reports that more than

[Will Waldorf]

3,700 Iraqi civilians were killed in the

[Martin DeCaro]

month of October and for the United States itself, for our society, politics, the military, all the thousands of soldiers killed and maimed in a war not worth fighting.

[Will Waldorf]

The read we get on the people

[Martin DeCaro]

of Iraq is there's no question about

[Will Waldorf]

what they're they want to get rid

[Richard Nixon]

of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States.

[Martin DeCaro]

Wars are destructive, divisive, and almost always last longer than anticipated or lead to unintended consequences that blow back on the country later on. Yet here we are again, this time against Iran, which continues to defy President Trump's claims of victory.

[Richard Nixon]

We've already won in many ways, but

[Will Waldorf]

we haven't won enough.

[Richard Nixon]

Our military is unbelievable. The job they're doing, I would say, to put it mildly, way ahead of schedule.

[Martin DeCaro]

In an essay for Foreign Policy, the political scientist Will Waldorf says if history is any guide, it is unlikely Trump will achieve peace in the Persian Gulf. US Presidents are virtually never able to end the stalemated war as they start. He says Trump could overcome these precedents if he taps into his more pragmatic side or Congress presses him to do so. Both are long shots, however, meaning that a final peace is more likely to come from Trump's successor. We'll be better positioned to admit this war was a failure and make the kinds of concessions to get a deal that Trump should but likely won't do. I'll share a link to that essay in the show. Notes to this episode. Now, these painful lessons were supposed to have been learned after the nightmare of Vietnam. And one of those lessons is, of course, not to go to war in the first place. May 27, 1964 Lyndon Johnson on the phone with National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy, admitting he sees no good outcome in the jungles of Southeast Asia.

[Richard Nixon]

It looks like me we're getting into another Korea. It just worries the hell out of me. I don't see what we can ever hope to get out of there with once we're committed. Once I believe the Chinese Communists coming into it, I don't think that we can fight them 10,000 miles away from home and ever get anywhere in that area. I don't think it's worth fighting for, and I don't think we can get out yet.

[Martin DeCaro]

The following year, after deploying the Marines, Johnson was explaining why it was so important to send American boys halfway around the world to do a job Asian boys ought to be doing.

[Richard Nixon]

Most of the non communist nations of Asia cannot by themselves and alone, resist the growing might and the grasping ambition of Asian communism. Our Power, therefore, is a very vital shield. If we are driven from the field in Vietnam, then no nation can ever again have the same confidence in American promise or in American protection.

[Martin DeCaro]

It did not end well.

[Richard Nixon]

I shall not seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.

[Martin DeCaro]

LBJ successor Richard Nixon promised peace with honor. From 1969, Nixon implemented his Vietnamization plan, withdrawing US troops of that South Vietnam's armed forces could fight the war themselves. But negotiations dragged on and on with Hanoi until Finally in early 1973, Nixon and Kissinger got their phony peace with

[Richard Nixon]

honor to the people and government of South Vietnam. By your courage, by your sacrifice, you have won the precious right to determine your own future.

[Martin DeCaro]

The most important condition in the Paris Accords was that the US would leave but thousands of North Vietnamese troops would stay in the South. And nothing Nixon said could change that reality. So this peace, which was not designed to last, might have been reached earlier. If so, why did Nixon prolong hostilities? Some point to his August 3, 1972 meeting with Kissinger where Nixon said, I look at the tide of history out there. South Vietnam probably can never survive anyway. We have to realize, Henry, that winning an election is terribly important. He was referring to his reelection in November. It's terribly important this year, said Nixon. But can we have a viable foreign policy if a year from now or two years from now North Vietnam gobbles up South Vietnam? That is the real question. And here is Kissinger's response.

[Richard Nixon]

If we now sell out in such a way and say within a three to four months period, we have pushed few over the Frank we ourselves, I think that is going to be. Even the Chinese won't like that. Means they'll pay. Brutal. Vertically, they're like it. But it will worry everybody. And domestically in the long run, it won't help us all that much because our opponents were done in three years ago. So we've got to find some formula. They hold the thing together a year or two after which, after a year, Mr. President, Vietnam will be a backwater. If we settle it October, by January 74, no one will give it to him.

[Martin DeCaro]

The historian Carolyn Eisenberg in her brilliant book Fire and Rain says the most preposterous cover up was the claim that this peace agreement had been done in harmony with the government of South Vietnam. Neither man believed that the fighting between north and south was permanently ended. There was no prospect that the South Vietnamese government would coexist peacefully with the North Vietnamese army and the PRG administration inside their territory. Referring to the South Vietnamese insurgency. Nor did Nixon or Kissinger think Hanoi would passively await the results of elections under the auspices of the TU government, Again referring to South Vietnam.

[Richard Nixon]

The lessons of the past in Vietnam have already been learned, learned by presidents, learned by Congress, learned by the American people.

[Martin DeCaro]

So ending wars is extremely difficult. And in the case of Vietnam, when it was finally ended, the peace was hardly favorable to the United States or its allies in South Vietnam. Although we have to point out that the US Was finally out of that war and Nixon did in fact withdraw U.S. forces.

[Richard Nixon]

We have adopted a plan which we have worked out in cooperation with the South Vietnamese for the complete withdrawal of all US Combat ground forces and their replacement by South Vietnamese forces.

[Martin DeCaro]

But we know it does take time to withdraw forces. Negotiations are complicated. And when such cynical operators like Nixon and Kissinger are involved, wars can be prolonged for less than honorable reasons. The global war on terrorism, with its invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, was even more open ended than the defense of South Vietnam. And the president who started those two wars, George W. Bush, was not around to end them.

[Richard Nixon]

The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.

[Martin DeCaro]

Donald Trump's successor won't be sworn in until 2029. Could the Iran war fiasco really drag on until then? Will Waldorf teaches in the Department of Politics and International affairs at Wake Forest University. He is a senior fellow at Defense Priorities, a think tank here in Washington. And his latest book is To Shape Our World for Master Narratives and Forceful Regime Change in United states Foreign Policy, 1900-2011. Our conversation next Tap. Subscribe now in the show Notes to enjoy ad free listening or go to historyasithappens.com to become a subscriber. Will Waldorf, welcome to the podcast.

[Will Waldorf]

Thanks for having me, Martin. Excited to be here.

[Martin DeCaro]

Let's dive right into your thesis that US Presidents almost never extract themselves from stalemated wars. When I read your piece in Foreign Policy, I said, you know what, I think he's right about that, that it often is up to the successor to do something about it, elaborate for us.

[Will Waldorf]

You know, I just started thinking through this piece and said, look, is Trump gonna be the right person to do this, you know, with the Iran war, to be able to bring it to? I hope he does. But, you know, you start looking at history and what history seems to point to is the fact that, well, when we've seen these wars stalemate, whether they've been Korea or Whether they've been Vietnam or Afghanistan, for instance, the president who started the war or made a major escalation in the case of Afghanistan with Barack Obama, those presidents usually, once they stalemate, are not the ones to sort of bring the war to an end. Maybe the one exception to that that I thought of, perhaps Clinton, President Clinton in Somalia in 1994, obviously he took what was a humanitarian aid mission and turned it into something like a nation building mission. That might be possibly our clearest example of that. We can talk about that example and some of the dynamics of it because I think it's kind of very different in a lot of ways from what we're dealing with today with Iran. But it's really hard to find cases where this happened. Libya, the military operations that ended and Benghazi happened, we pull out diplomatic resources, but the war itself was pretty much over. So if you think about a lot of these current examples, it's hard to find cases, at least since the end of World War II, where we've got that.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, in Libya, Obama said he had handed it off to NATO. There's so much to this, why I found your piece fascinating and why I wanted to speak to you. Structural causation. Now I sound like a political scientist, but, you know, the question is why not only why is it so difficult to get out of a stalemated war, why do presidents continue to get us into unwinnable wars? Those are related questions, but why don't we start dealing with the personality or the individual who happens to be in the pilot seat versus structural causes? Let's start with personality. I think we know Trump is a very insecure guy, doesn't want to admit defeat, but he's not that much different than other presidents in that regard.

[Will Waldorf]

It's funny because since I've written the piece, I've had folks comment that no disrespect to Professor Waldorf, but President Trump's a totally unique character. I don't actually find him to be unique historically in many ways. I mean, yes, he says the quiet part out loud a lot, but at the same time, I find him to be sort of very consistent with a lot of presidents. We'll start with a stalemate question, then we can move to the question then of why these things start in the first place. But for presidents who end up in these stalemated wars or who expand and then get stuck in them, I think they feel a unique stake in it politically, psychologically, reputationally. And there are a lot of different stakes that different presidents might feel I think that we've seen across history, some of them feel stuck because of sunk costs. Right? We've invested so much. We've got to have something to show for it, for our investment. We've got to have some kind of victory that can keep the war sort of rolling along. They could be concerned about credibility, international credibility, for instance. If we back down, it's going to hurt our image internationally, or their domestic credibility and political credibility at home in maybe immediate political fights that are going on. Or they may feel like they're going to pay an electoral price sometimes for backing down if the nation is very animated about the politics around a certain war. And then, of course, their legacy concerns. Presidents want to leave a good mark on history. They don't want to be the one that left and have a disaster. Sometimes they say it's better to fight on than it is to sort of end the fight on terms that may make me look bad as the president.

[Martin DeCaro]

You know, it's easy to say, just get out. It's over. And that is easy to say when there are no ground troops involved. So that's what's a little bit maddening. Well, there's a lot that's maddening about the Iran war, but one aspect of it is the United States has not committed ground troops. So it does make cutting this off easier than, say, if you have 100 or 200 or 300,000 troops in a country that takes time to draw down troops and get them out. An example is Vietnam. Another Vietnam example is sometimes in a stalemated war, you're actually negotiating to end the war while it's going on for years and both sides are clobbering the hell out of each other. So it's very difficult to concede the battlefield when you're at the negotiating table trying to get the best possible deal.

[Will Waldorf]

You know, I would agree with that, that there are some practical considerations. But I really do think, I mean, just looking at the Iran war and coming to your point, what did. We had up to half a million troops in Vietnam, and we had massive bombing campaigns. And this was a huge war. Right. Much more complex dynamics at hand. So I have some sympathy for the complexity of sort of trying to figure out how to end that war. You know, you could say maybe we face some of the same complexities to some extent within Afghanistan. We have many fewer troops on the ground. So I think there's some major differences there in terms of this particular conflict. Martin, the way that I think about it is we actually had a deal in place in 2015 with the JCPOA. Right. So the structures and the outlines for something are already there. The problem that I see with the current Trump administration is that for many of those reasons, those psychological, political, various other reasons that I mentioned for why leaders continue stalemated wars, the president can't necessarily accept those terms and go back there as a starting point or something to that effect. Yes, the negotiations are challenging, but they'd be much easier if we sort of couch them a little bit more within the framework of that deal. But for President Trump, I think his views are. I've left that deal. I've said, I'm going to get something better. This is part of that reputational, domestic reputational stuff that I think is continuing to fuel this war. I can't be the Obama. I've got to get something better than President Obama. Those are the psychological sort of dynamics that I think are sort of pushing him in a direction away from that. There's a bit of simplicity to it, to some extent. If the President were to sort of move on, some things like enrichment and now accepting the fact that, hey, perhaps the Iranians, we've got to concede some control over the Strait of Hormuz and that sort of thing.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah, the enemy has a vote. I mean, Iran is dictating right now. And I think this is where Trump's personality does come in. He is a deeply insecure, I would even say deranged man who does not want to embrace reality. Or if he understands that he's lost, he's just trying to kick the can down the road as far as he can maybe pass the midterm elections. That deals with the credibility issue. I wanna return to that in a bit, but for now, how about just insecurity? Sometimes American leaders feel genuinely that doing so would worsen the security picture.

[Will Waldorf]

There are two things, I think, that often come into play here. You know, America's grand strategy since the end of the Cold War has been this grand strategy promising. We've gotta be dominant in every region of the world, this, that and the other. Therefore, we have an insecurity around what if we aren't in control? Right. What if we aren't fully in control? I think we've gotten sort of hardwired into sort of thinking that we have to be in that dominant position. I think that's one source of insecurity. And to be quite honest with you, I mean, the United States forward presence has, I think, created along those same lines of those insecurities, a deep sense of kind of just in case. Thinking, hey, we need to stay just in case. I've written some on US wars in Africa as well. Somalia, West Africa, and this just in case. Wait. Yeah, sure. We have all this evidence that Al Shabaab is not a global terrorist organization, but we need to stay just in case. Right. We have a presence there. It's very difficult to extract once you're there. And part of that's driven by memories of 9, 11, things like that within the policy community. Even though the American public has pretty much moved on from most of that.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah. It makes conflict. Looked more likely American soldiers wouldn't be attacked if they weren't in some of these places.

[Will Waldorf]

I think the case of the Iran war in the Middle east is a classic example of this, with the number of bases that have been attacked. If those bases weren't there and most of those bases weren't involved in the military operations, you know, that we're involved in with Iran right now. Eighteen U.S. service members who've sacrificed their lives for this.

[Martin DeCaro]

For nothing.

[Will Waldorf]

Yes.

[Martin DeCaro]

I don't think there's any question the United States has been exposed in the Middle east, and there's only one real way to end that exposure, and that is to start closing down the bases and bringing the troops home. Middle east is not even that important of a region anymore when it comes to oil, at least for the us, Right? So. But there is credibility. Frederick Logeval calls this credibility cubed. You have credibility with your allies. If you cut and run, will our allies be able to trust us anymore? There's also credibility in the eyes of your enemies. If we cut and run, we're going to embolden our enemies and endanger our security, our friends, global position, what have you. There's also domestic credibility, for instance, on Capitol Hill. There's an election coming up and personal credibility, too, which we've already discussed in terms of Trump and his insecure personality. But when it comes to global or allied credibility, just like in Vietnam, in Iran, we are right now at the point where our allies aren't worried about credibility. They're worried about our sanity. They're all telling us, get out of there.

[Will Waldorf]

That's exactly right. I mean, look, this is the message we're getting from the Gulf states. This is the message we're getting from other states in the region as well, the Jordanians, for instance, who are deeply questioning the US security commitment to some extent. The lack of the US's ability to protect them has opened up a very broad conversation about, hey, is this worth it to us? I think the United States should take advantage of that conversation and to begin to offload and encourage those states to sort of take on more of the load in the burden of their own security. I would say the same thing about our European allies. I don't think they're looking at this at all as a matter of US Credibility. That right now, if credibility is the issue, if that's really what we're concerned about, what others are thinking about, then what we should be doing is trying to find a way out of this war, because that's what the allies essentially want. They want it to wind down. They want a different kind of security architecture, in a sense, for the Middle east in general that doesn't involve all of these endless wars that the United States has been plowing in.

[Martin DeCaro]

And don't you think Trump has destroyed his own credibility with his many, many threats to just say, oh, no, actually we're on the brink of a deal.

[Will Waldorf]

And I mean, I think so. And again, this probably doesn't help in getting a deal by the end of his term, you know, because what it's done is it's communicated weakness in a sense to the Iranians, you know, in classic sort of bargaining terms. And the Iranians are like, we can wait this out. We can wait for the best terms, or we can wait, you know, to the end of. Maybe the president, in some of those sort of last minute moves at the end of his term, term will want to broker some kind of deal as he's leaving office. And they said, we can wait that out.

[Martin DeCaro]

You know, I'm sitting here listening to you thinking, gosh, this could still be going on by 2029. Again, there are no ground troops yet. That would change everything. By 2029, we'd still be in this on again, off again bombing, but, you know, 20 years in Afghanistan. Russia's been stuck in Ukraine for four years and counting. These wars always seem to go on longer than anyone would have predicted. So let's talk about some of the historical examples you mentioned in your piece. The Korean War, this was another case where war continued for two years while negotiations were going on. Correct. It was a stalemate and it ended in a stalemate eventually. Eisenhower is the one who made the settlement that is still really in a state of war on paper today, right?

[Will Waldorf]

That's right.

[Richard Nixon]

Yes.

[Martin DeCaro]

North and South Korea never signed a peace treaty.

[Richard Nixon]

We may not now relax our guards nor cease our quest throughout the coming months, during the period of prisoner screening and exchange and during the possibly longer period of the political conference which looks toward the unification of Korea. We and our United Nation allies must be vigilant against the possibility of untoward developments.

[Martin DeCaro]

Give us the short encyclopedia, encyclopedia entry version of this one. Tell us what happens with Truman in Korea and why it fits the thesis of your piece.

[Will Waldorf]

Truman in Korea is a fascinating piece because that war started in June of 1950. In January of 1950, Truman redraws the US security boundary in Asia and draws Korea outside of it and says, look, this is strategically unimportant. He's making a clear cost benefit calculation, trying to be very pragmatic. Then all of a sudden, the North Koreans cross the border, they invade South Korea. And Truman, because of tremendous pressure around the Cold War to look tough on communism, all these other things at home. He was running for reelection at that point, feels we don't have any choice but to engage and to try and save South Korea. And then Truman then feels an immense amount of pressure. And he had people like George Kennan and others saying, hey, I don't think this is very good idea, but tremendous pressure from, you know, MacArthur and others to go north, right, to try and unite the peninsula. We do that. The Chinese come into the war, and that's when the thing stalemates becomes much more bloody. The United States loses as many troops in this war as they did in Vietnam. And so Truman, of course, decides not to run for reelection. He starts trying to find, very pragmatically so he's returning to his pragmatism, which is one of the fascinating things about stalemated wars is that presidents often do sort of try to find some negotiated solutions out of them. The way Trump is today, they actually step back from the extreme of conflict. And Truman tried that. I mean, they made significant progress towards a peace deal, but he was not willing to give up the issue of repatriating Chinese and North Korean soldiers back to North Korea and China. He thought this was immoral. And that kind of came back a little bit, both to his own image, I think, what he looked like at home as he was leaving office. And I think it had a lot to do with his concerns about credibility with our Asian allies.

[Martin DeCaro]

Because of what happened in 49.

[Will Waldorf]

Exactly. So you can see those kinds of pressures.

[Richard Nixon]

I am convinced that the course we are now following in Korea is accomplishing most for peace and at the least cost in American lives. All of us wish that no Americans had to fight or die, but by fighting on a limited scale now, we may be able to prevent a third world war later on. We're not engaged in A struggle without end. We're engaged in a struggle which has the definite goal of peace.

[Will Waldorf]

Then Eisenhower comes to office. A lot of the deal is already in place. The armistice agreement. And what does Eisenhower do? He does what successors often do. Well, you know, I look pretty good in terms of being anti communist. I'm a newly elected president, you know, former allied commander and all. Yes, that's right. Not my war. And so he bends to some extent, not in a huge way, but he bends on the provision about repatriation.

[Richard Nixon]

With an uneasy truce in Korea, the vanguard of 5,000 Indian troops arrives in Seoul, many of them wearing colorful native turbans, en route to Mansan to take custody of prisoners of war. Refusing repatriation, 15,000 anti communist Chinese POWs and 8,000 North Koreans head for Mansan, too steadfast in their refusal to return to Red rule, eager in their determination to remain among free men.

[Will Waldorf]

You know, we can argue, was that good? Was it right? Was it really bending? How. How much was it bending? The key thing is, is that he found the space to do that. And I think that's the comparison today with Iran and Trump's possible successor is can Trump find the space, and will his successor find it easier to find that space? And I just think usually the successor does.

[Martin DeCaro]

Eventually all endless wars do come to an end. Yes, fatigue does set in. To me, this is still the ultimate one. I always come back to it, and that is Vietnam. Yeah, we'll start with LBJ. He had a partial bombing halt in March of 1968. He happened to announce that on the same day he announced, I shall not

[Richard Nixon]

seek and I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.

[Martin DeCaro]

He immediately enters negotiations for a full bombing halt. But he needed the North Vietnamese to agree to certain stipulations, such as stop shelling into South Vietnam, a number of things. The North Vietnamese insisted that they only agree to these conditions secretly, not openly. And a bombing halt is announced by LBJ very late in the game. You know, the days before the.

[Richard Nixon]

The election that, as I had indicated, on the evening of March 31, we would stop the bombing of North Vietnamese territory entirely. When that would lead to prompt and productive talks.

[Will Waldorf]

I felt like what he was trying to do is say, okay, we're going to bring all four parties together. I compare it to Nixon and how Nixon got to a deal in 73.

[Martin DeCaro]

The point of the bombing halt was to get everyone to the table.

[Will Waldorf]

In looking at it, I think he still would have had a really hard time cutting a deal. I mean, first of all, just look at the calendar and the clock. The talks don't start, I think was April or May. I think it was May, actually.

[Martin DeCaro]

And ultimately the South Vietnamese did not go to the table. And the story behind that is it was the interference of Anna Chenault, who was working on behalf of Nixon. But go ahead.

[Will Waldorf]

Right, right, exactly. What I think is interesting here is that in these negotiations, I mean, first of all, again, you have a very short clock. That's, you know, he's doing this with less than a year left in his term and he's a lame duck president, very challenging. Secondly, I think, and this is, I think, where those reputational concerns and whatnot come in. What he did was he established a very broad multilateral peace negotiations. It was going to involve both North Vietnam, South Vietnam, the Chinese, the Soviets. Right. And essentially what I feel like he's trying to do is wind the clock Back to the 1956 Paris Peace Accords that ended France's involvement. Trying to go back to the status quo of a North and South Vietnam. That, to me, signals that LBJ was still kind of thinking reputationally, okay, yeah, I'm going to leave office, I'm going to get peace. I'm going to leave this in a way that looks good. Fast forward to 73 and what do we have? We have pretty much Nixon just cutting a deal, the Nixon administration cutting a deal with the North Vietnamese, kind of the way Trump did with the Taliban in leaving Afghanistan. That signals to me a change in strategy. Hey, this is going to be messy. It's not going to look right. It's not going to look perfect. It's not going to look like kind of victory. Think that where LBJ was, was still a little bit trying to save something. I think by the time we get to 73, the Nixon administration is caving on the points about, you know, North Vietnam, keeping troops in South Vietnam. And he's basically prepared to accept the fact that, hey, we lost this war, we need to move on. Right?

[Richard Nixon]

Yeah.

[Martin DeCaro]

He accepts what LBJ refused to, which would have been a unilateral American withdrawal from Vietnam. So about Nixon and Kissinger and their decent interval, what is your view on whether that was something they could have gotten earlier? Because ultimately the most important piece of the Paris Accords were the North Vietnamese stayed in South Vietnam and the US Left. Everything else was minor compared to that.

[Will Waldorf]

I think they could have conceded that much earlier. They could have probably gotten a deal earlier. And again, you know, as a successor, they negotiated the end of a deal. But I think you got to remember here that Nixon ran on the platform of I've got a secret plan to end the war, but he certainly was going to do it in a way that looked like a success. Right. And so, again, peace was on.

[Richard Nixon]

North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.

[Will Waldorf]

You know, you see the escalation of the bombing campaigns in Cambodia and whatnot. You know, I think he was again, probably caught a little bit in trying to get something maybe like Obama's surge into Afghanistan in 2009. But then he's the one who comes to the realization that, you know, under tremendous pressure, hey, we've got all sorts of problems at home. This thing's gone on too long. We're going to have to cut this deal. Right. And so it creates the space. So could he have have negotiated that earlier? Probably, and we would have ended up in the same place. Would he have paid a little bit more of a political price for doing it? Maybe. But at the same time, look at the political price that he paid for continuing the war.

[Martin DeCaro]

So the historians who have the harsher view of Nixon say he might have cut the deal earlier, except he was worried about South Vietnam collapsing without the US troop presence there before the 1972 election or even a major North Vietnamese offensive in South Vietnam before the 1972 election. So therefore, he and Kissinger needed their decent interval.

[Richard Nixon]

So we've got to find some formula that holds the thing together a year or two after which, after a year, Mr. President, Vietnam will be a backwater if we settle at the end of October, by January 74, no one looks at that.

[Martin DeCaro]

As Carolyn Eisenberg has said on my show, Nixon and Kissinger are getting information that although the war may not be winnable outright, there is still benefit to staying in militarily. No one was telling them, in other words, that you're losing the war. So it may not be winnable ultimately, that the South Vietnamese will never be able to defeat the Viet Cong without American help. But you're also not losing the war either. I'm talking like 69, 70.

[Will Waldorf]

The terms losing and winning are interesting here, aren't they? Right. Because was the United States holding its own? Sure. It was doing tremendous damage in much the same way the United States is doing tremendous damage today in Iran. Right. With bombings and things of that nature. What I think the issue is, and I think this is what is ultimately chipping away at the administration is the recognition that, hey, the costs of this war are really outrunning the benefits dramatically in terms of body bags coming home, you know, resources expended and whatnot, is tremendous in terms of what it's doing to us domestically, politically at home, political divisions and the like. Not wanting to lose a war on your watch in 72, I probably could buy the fact that that may have played into sort of Nixon's thinking here. You know, the 72 election. I mean, look at Biden and the departure from Afghanistan, and no American wants to get dinged with that kind of an outcome.

[Martin DeCaro]

That hurt Biden. That hurt Biden.

[Will Waldorf]

It hurt him dramatically. I think you could probably say it didn't help Ford with the withdrawal from Vietnam and the way that that looked and the way that that went down. I probably would not be so cynical as to say it was all about 72, because I still believe that they were caught in the mindset of which we are often caught up with forever. Wars is, hey, listen, just a little bit more of this and a little bit more of that, and we can get it to a position where we can get better terms at the negotiating table. Yes, I'll give him a little bit of benefit. I think that's something that we do just. Just expend a little more resources here, there. And with his 68 pledge described out a secret plan, I think part of that secret plan was clearly escalation in certain areas and de. Escalation in the ground troop side of things.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, sure. And all the effort, time, blood, treasure, multiple administrations invested in keeping South Vietnam free from communism. That is a burden. The conversation with Will Waldorf continues in a moment. Tap. Subscribe now in the show notes or go to historyasithappens.com to sign up and enjoy ad free listening. And now I do want to introduce the element of language and rhetoric and Bush and Iraq in 2003. So when you've invested so much in a cause, when you have said this cause is so important to national survival,

[Richard Nixon]

my fellow citizens, the dangers to our country and the world will be overcome. We will pass through this time of

[Will Waldorf]

peril and carry on the work of peace.

[Richard Nixon]

We will defend our freedom. We will bring freedom to others, and we will prevail.

[Martin DeCaro]

We're fighting an enemy that wishes to destroy our way of life, the terrorists. After 9 11, it makes it very, very difficult to say, you know what, I screwed up. This really isn't that important. Let's get out of here.

[Will Waldorf]

You know, and I think the other piece to that too, that I've written some about that I think is perhaps underappreciated in this story is certainly the president and his team played a huge part in escalating sort of the threat dynamics along the lines that you've just explained. But he did so in a very conducive environment. Sometimes we forget that in the post 911 moment. Right. It was easy to connect these dots and for people to believe it because they were willing to accept it and absorb it. Anything to stop terrorism. Right. And avoid another attack. I do think that particular context was really important. And you know, again, coming to Iran today, we don't have that context, which is one of the reasons the American people are like, why are we fighting this war? But I do think in 2003, yeah, he elevated it to that point. You know, again, I think there's an element of hubris that often comes in these moments of crisis for American presidents with power. And we can be transformative in the freedom agenda and everything else that comes with that. And they do wrap themselves in that kind of an image. And. And then when it goes south, that comes back to those questions of sunk costs and things like that. Sure, you're sort of stuck. Where do we go from here? I notice again, it was Obama in 2011 who brought troops home from Iraq.

[Martin DeCaro]

And so it wasn't Trump, the status of forces agreement there. But yeah, I mean, it's a very human thing to do. You've made a huge mistake, but you're going to try to clean it up somehow.

[Will Waldorf]

Again, you've invested so much in it, put so much time and energy and resources into this. And so of course he's going to be all on for the surge in 2007, 2008, when things start going south there.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah. And of course, new rationales were invented after the initial WMD fell apart. You know, now it was about creating a freedom agenda and democracy in the Middle East. And the initial impulse was, was very much about security. It wasn't just Saddam. It was that he would give his weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. That is very powerful case to make, however, well, imaginary that it was. But when you make that case to the American people, how you say no, okay, we could just look the other way. That's not that big of a deal.

[Will Waldorf]

Exactly right. And I don't think Democratic politicians in particular, those that may have been in the opposition, to sort of ask some hard questions about that, even some within the Republican Party, I mean, Dick Armey, for instance, was very skeptical about what Dick Cheney was trying to sell here in terms of the dirty bombs and what Saddam Hussein presented, the threats and those sorts of things. Basically, Cheney told him, look, do you want to be the one who, on your watch, we see a dirty bomb go off in San Francisco or some other city in the United States? And, you know, a lot of them cowed in the face of that, because, again, I would argue that the political climate was so intense around the question of terrorism, it made it really hard for anyone to sort of stand up to that narrative.

[Martin DeCaro]

We'll wrap up here with the issue of ideology. It is often said, including by me, that Trump is not an ideological. I wrote an article for Responsible Statecraft about how the initial Persian Gulf War was the starting point in this chronology of being stuck in the Middle East. Perpetual feelings of insecurity driving interventionism. And I interviewed the political theorist Naim Anaitollah, who suggested another explanation. That is US Military adventurism. It stems from hubris that comes with being a hegemon and a superpower, combined with the ideology that goes hand in hand with those two structural positions. Hegemony, in other words, transcends partisanship. It's a national project. And Naitila went on to say, citing Thucydides, of all people. In the Malayan dialogue, every new potential hegemon starts by touting ideals each new superpower claims through its own hubris, it'll make the world a better place for freedom and equality. But that power makes the hegemon and its ideals pawns to power's own laws. And no superpower has been able to overcome this pattern. And I don't think Trump was able to overcome it either. And of course, he believes, as most presidents do, that they're smarter than their predecessors. They will avoid the mistakes of their predecessors.

[Will Waldorf]

I think where I would part ways a little bit is with the freedom and democracy piece of sort of that ideology. I don't think that's a part of, as you would probably agree with, of Trump's makeup and how he looks at it. For the president, the hubris of power that we see here, and I do think it's on full display in Iran, in many respects, does sort of center around this idea of being transformative. Right. Into using American power in a transformative way. And for him, ideologically, I would say that is to make America look better, look stronger, maintain its position again. There's going to be a lot of his own personal Persona wrapped up in that, too.

[Martin DeCaro]

Sure.

[Will Waldorf]

But. But I. I would say in the Middle east, he probably has been, although it's been fangled in many ways, one of the more transformative presidents. He's really wanted to try and come in and sort of reset the region in various ways around Israeli hegemony. And. And that's what the Iran war is about, in part. And through the Abraham Accords, transforming the region in many ways. So that transformative impulse and connected with American power does create this hubris that we can do this. I mean, and I look at Iran and I see that distinctly in the sense that I think the president was very much convinced that, hey, just a quick flick of the finger in this regime is going to fall over. Very little flickering force will be able to do it. And I think he is still existing in that space as he approaches this conflict that Huberts about. We are so powerful. Certainly they're going to cave. Is very much there and very much present. And I think it's doing tremendous destruction to U.S. foreign policy.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah, his public statements still reflect that attitude, whether he really believes it or it's just for public consumption. But that's what he's saying. You know, he keeps declaring victory, but he won't go home. You know, the irony here is, of course, this effort to maintain a dominant position in the Middle east, whether you call it hegemony or primacy, it will simply accelerate the decline it is meant to avoid. The United States position is undoubtedly weaker now than it was on February 27th before we started this ridiculous war.

[Will Waldorf]

In a certain way. Hopefully it'll create opportunities. Right. For us to prioritize things a little bit better in our foreign policy and rethink at this particular point. I can't agree with you more. And we can just look at munition stockpiles today and where they are in the United States and the way that affects our capacity to project power in other parts of the world. That's one measure of many that would sort of point to the fact that, yes, we've been weakened by this conflict.

[Martin DeCaro]

It's an opportunity to reassess. We can't defend these bases in the Middle East. Maybe we shouldn't have them where they're located.

[Will Waldorf]

Right.

[Richard Nixon]

It.

[Will Waldorf]

Or think more strategically about it. Learn a little bit from history. I think we've gotten so used to having all these bases in the Middle East. We're like, what else do we do? Well, what else we would do is kind of go back to the 1980s. We had a couple of naval bases and a couple of critical sea points, you know, help with sea lanes, but that was it. We didn't have bases. We troops on land and that sort of thing. And it's those troops yeah, exactly. So that's exactly. And would hope that we would learn some of from this war.

[Richard Nixon]

And an Asia so threatened by communist domination would certainly imperil the security of the United States itself. We did not choose to be the guardians at the gate, but there is no one else. Nor would surrender in Vietnam bring peace because we learned from the Hitler at Munich that success only feeds the appetite of aggression.

[Martin DeCaro]

On the next episode of History as it Happens, I'll be interviewing a United States Senator. That's right. Not a historian or a political scientist, a U.S. senator. Then you'll have to listen to Friday's show to find out the topics we'll be covering US Hegemony, Iran, congressional war powers, Israel, Palestine, God, and much else that is next as we report history as it happens. In the meantime, make sure to sign up for my free newsletter. Just go to Substack and search for History as it Happens.