The undesirable effects of mistaken political decisions have a way to come back like a boomerang, haunting or deeply challenging subsequent generations. A classic example of this boomerang effect can be found in the Versailles Treaty at the end of World War I.
From the Versailles Treaty to World War II
In the final chapter of his Stellar Moments of Humankind, Stephan Zweig refers how, after imposing at the Versailles Peace Conference his Fourteen Points, Woodrow Wilson was incapable of translating the principles therein contained into the second phase of the negotiations. That is, the one that dealt with the specifics of territorial, economic and military arrangements. As a result, a divorce materialized between the ideal world order envisaged by Wilson, and the paranoid one expressed in those arrangements.
As Henry Kissinger puts it: “The gravest…blight on the Treaty was article 231, the so-called War Guilt clause. It stated that Germany was solely responsible for the outbreak of World War I…Most of the punitive measures against Germany in the Treaty -economic, military, and political- were based on the assertion that the whole conflagration had been entirely German’s fault”. (Kissinger, 1994, p. 245).
The territorial implications involved, however, were even heavier than the economic, military and political ones. As a result of them, about 13% of Germany’s European territory and roughly 7 million of its citizens became part of seven neighboring countries, most of them weaker ones. (O’Neill, 2024; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum).
The Treaty of Versailles in Henry Kissinger’s words was too “punitive for conciliation, [yet] too lenient to keep Germany from recovering”. (Kissinger, 1994, pp. 239). This, of course, represented the perfect prescription for a future war. As France’s Marshal Foch presciently said: “This is not Peace. It is an Armistice for twenty years”. (Churchill, 2013, p. 6). Hitler’s emergence and World War II represented, indeed, the boomerang effect resulting from the Treaty of Versailles.
Many other examples of this boomerang effect can be found in recent decades. And in multiple countries, of course. Focusing on the United States, however, makes sense, as it has been for eighty years a hegemonic world power.
Mentoring China
Since 1978, when Deng Xiaoping became China’s paramount leader and put in motion a process of economic reform and opening up, the U.S. convinced itself that the final outcome of it could be none other than the conversion of China into the values of liberal democracy and free market. By virtue of such conviction, the U.S. gave its unrestricted support to China.
Good examples of such support could be found in the actions taken by presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush and Clinton. In accordance with Presidential Directive 43, signed in 1978 by the first of them, numerous scientific and technological American developments in the fields of energy, agriculture, education, space, or geosciences, were transferred to China. Moreover, the Carter administration granted China the “most-favored nation” trade status. This approach was followed by Reagan, who helped China in the development of several technological areas such as genetic engineering, automation, space technology, manned space-flight, lasers and biotechnology, among others. George H.W. Bush, on his part, kept actively supporting China under the argument that “no nation on Earth has discovered a way to import the world’s goods and services while stopping foreign ideas at the border”. Clinton, in turn, provided the necessary backing to China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization (WTO). This, under the assumption that it would promote “prosperity in America, reform in China, and peace in the world”. (Pillsbury, 2015, locations 1377/7620, 1390/7620 and 1403/7620; Bush, 1991; Clinton, 2000).
America’s mentorship vision of itself in relation to China, though, ended up crashing with reality. Meaning, that of a nation poised to attain global leadership in direct rivalry with the United States. By failing to grasp how deeply China’s self-conception informs its trajectory, Washington was extremely naïve. Moreover, its behavior was historically unprecedented. Indeed, never before had a leading power helped in such a manner a potential rival. From an American perspective this was a big mistake.
Fomenting jihad
Another case of boomerang effect was the role played by the Reagan administration in giving shape to an Islamic jihad against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Between 1979 and 1989 the Soviet Union fought an agonizing war in that country. As Ahmed Rashid wrote: “With the active support of the CIA and the intelligence services of Pakistan, an effort was made to turn the Afghan jihad into a global war of the Muslim against the Soviet Union, in which around 35,000 Muslim radicals from forty Islamic countries joined in the war in Afghanistan”. (Rashid, 1999). For the United States, indeed, radical Islam became the ideal barrier against communism.
In so doing, Washington ignored that for Islamism the enemy is secular materialism and that it matters little, if it took the form of Marxist historical materialism or Western hedonist materialism (basically symbolized by the United States). As Samuel Huntington remarked: “The war [in Afghanistan] left behind a coalition of Islamic organizations which seek to advance Islam against all non-Muslim powers. It also left a legacy of combat experience and experienced soldiers…an extensive network of trans-Islamic organizational and personal relations…and, most important of all, a reckless sense of power and self-confidence, together with a thirst for new military victories”. (Huntington, 1996, p. 247).
September 11, 2001, represented the direct impact of the returning boomerang, whose ramifications would include America’s “forever wars” in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Incorporating billions of low-wage workers into the global labor market
America’s role in promoting economic globalization is another good example of the boomerang effect. President Clinton, as well as many other Western leaders, it must be said, were convinced that globalization would play to the advantage of developed liberal societies. They were, presumably, the best suited to capitalize on a fast and fluid global market-place.
But instead, Western democracies in general and the United States in particular experienced middle-class wages’ stagnation, the hollowing out of industries and jobs, and a sharp rise in social and economic inequality. As Kishore Mahbubani wrote: “The rest of the world, paradoxically, is more ready than Americans for a globalization that Americans themselves created”. (Mahbubani, 2011).
By promoting the incorporation into the global labor markets of billions of low-wage workers from developing economies, American and Western leaders turned their economies and societies upside down. Moreover, they helped in creating the conditions for the emergence of powerful populist movements in the U.S. and around the Western world. From an American and Western perspective, this represented a huge mistake.
The liberal order, as a result, is living on borrowed times. Indeed, it’s been squeezed out of oxygen by the combined pressure of illiberal juggernauts like China on the outside, and populist illiberal governments from the inside of Western societies themselves. Definitely, not a good deal for the United States.
Playing hardball with the bomb
The result of George W. Bush’s hardball policy towards North Korea is another example of the boomerang effect. Pyongyang’s communist regime’s main characteristic has always been paranoia. Not in vain, though. The U.S. has had tens of thousands of its soldiers stationed in South Korea, while it has systematically refused to sign a peace treaty putting a formal end to the hostilities between both countries that ended decades ago.
When the country had not yet attained the nuclear bomb, President Clinton almost bombarded North Korea’s nuclear installations. However, a cost-benefit evaluation of the situation ended up by presenting that option as unreasonable. With ten thousand highly fortified North Korean artillery pieces pointing Seoul (located at just 48 kilometers of the border between both Koreas), the 20 million inhabitants of South Korea’s capital would have become reprisal hostages to such an action by the U.S.
As a result, in 1994 Pyongyang and the Clinton administration signed an agreement. According to it, the former accepted to stop enriching uranium while Washington pledged itself to supply North Korea with two light water nuclear reactors for electricity generation. Both accorded, as well, to normalize their relations. Neither side, however, honored what was agreed.
When in October 2022 the Bush administration confronted Pyongyang for not fulfilling its part of the agreement, they pointed out that neither had Washington. However, they committed themselves to respect their part of the accord if the U.S. provided guarantees that it would not attack North Korea, and that it would normalize diplomatic relations. Bush, though, decided to play hardball.
Clyde Prestowitz synthetized the situation as follows: “Suppose that instead of calling North Korea part of an ‘Axis of Evil’, the president had maintained contact with North Korea’s President Kim Jong-il, and assured him delivery of the promised electricity-generating equipment he so much needs. Suppose we had offered to negotiate a peace treaty to finally end the Korean War, and had offered diplomatic recognition to North Korea as we promised, and hadn’t made such a big deal out of deploying a National Missile Defense to defend against ‘rogue nations like North Korea’. Would we have a Korea crisis on our hands?…I think the answer is no. We have contributed mightily to the development of the bad choices now confronting us”. (Prestowitz, 2003, pp. 271, 272).
Fact is that after North Korea acquired the nuclear bomb in 2006, there was no way back to that kind of agreement. The boomerang effect resulting from Bush’s inability to deal with North Korea’s nuclear threat in a rational way, is clear. Nowadays, that country is estimated to possess 50 assembled nuclear warheads with enough fissile material for up to 80-90 total weapons, together with a wide and growing inventory of nuclear capable delivery vehicles, which include the rapid development of submarine-launched ballistic missiles. This, while being an active member of the revisionist axis together with China, Russia and Iran. (SIPRI Yearbook, 2024).
The former are but a few examples, which could also include Bush’s utterly unnecessary invasion of Iraq. In addition to having stuck the U.S. in a long and bloody quagmire, this action cracked down the natural contention wall against Iran represented by Iraq (within the negative equilibrium of forces that restrained both countries). As a result of it, Iran became a regional juggernaut and a highly disruptive international actor. Although Iran’s regional strength has now receded, it caused numerous headaches to Washington.
In sum
In sum, America’s actions helped in promoting a potent geopolitical and economic rival, in bringing the nightmare of Islamic terrorism upon itself, in seriously disrupting its social fabric and liberal democracy, in unnecessarily pushing an old-time foe into becoming a freshly armed nuclear threat, and in transforming a contained disruptive force into a regional giant.
Most certainly, the United States it’s not a lonely boomerang player, with multiple other countries being active in this game. However, it must be said, it has excelled in it.
References:
Bush, George H.W. (1991). “Remarks at the Yale University Commencement Ceremony in New Haven, Connecticut”, May 27.
Clinton, Bill (2000). “Clinton Statement on House PNTR Vote (1250)”, American Institute in Taiwan, May 24.
Churchill, Winston (2013). The Gathering Storm. New York: RosettaBooks.
Huntington, Samuel (1996). The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Kissinger, Henry (1994), Diplomacy. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Mahbubani, Kishore (2011). “The seesaw of power: A conversation with Joseph Nye, Dambisa Moyo and Kishore Mahbubani”, International Herald Tribune Magazine, June 24.
O’Neill, Aaron (2024). “German territorial and resources losses as a result of the Treaty of Versailles”, Statista, August 9.
Pillsbury, Michael (2015). The Hundred Year Marathon. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
Prestowitz, Clyde (2003). Rogue Nation. New York: Basic Books.
Rashid, Ahmed (1999). “The Taliban: Exporting Extremism”, Foreign Affairs, November/December.
SIPRI Yearbook: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security (2024). Oxford Academic, September.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “German Territorial Loses, Treaty of Versailles, 1919”.
Author: Alfredo Toro Hardy, PhD – Retired Venezuelan career diplomat, scholar and author. Former Ambassador to the U.S., U.K., Spain, Brazil, Ireland, Chile and Singapore. Author or co-author of thirty-six books on international affairs. Former Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Professor at Princeton and Brasilia universities, as well as academic advisor to the University of Westminster. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Geneva School of Diplomacy and International Relations and a member of the Review Panel of the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center.
(The views expressed in this article belong only to the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of World Geostrategic Insights).