- Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School Belfer Center Newsletter

From the Director

| Winter 2009-10

President Obama is facing two of the most important foreign policy decisions of his presidency: whether to Americanize the Afghanistan war, and how to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. In thinking about these issues - as with many others lately - I find myself reflecting on my friend Ernest May, Charles Warren Professor of History and a longtime member of the Belfer Center board of directors, who passed away in the spring. Ernie had impeccable judgment about questions like these  - not only intellectual acumen, but also a concern about the real world. As my colleague Joe Nye has said, he was an extraordinary model for what the Harvard Kennedy School is all about.

Those of us who had the good fortune to know Ernie share similar stories about his analysis and judgment. Prior to his passing, I had more or less assumed there was an endless fountain there - I kept calling it up and getting a good answer. On the topics of Afghanistan and Iran, I now find myself asking WWED - "What Would Ernie Do?"

To answer that question, I took a look back at Ernie's reflections on the Vietnam War, which he articulated in a 1995 Forum with Robert McNamara, Thomas Vallely, Hue-Tam Ho Tai, and myself. At the event, Ernie drew three lessons from McNamara's book, In Retrospect:The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam, that, he argued, were applicable whenever our country contemplated going to war. (See full video clip at http://belfercenter.org/publication/19595)

Here they are, in Ernie's words:

  1. "When you are thinking about any foreign area - any other government or organized force in the world that has a different history and different culture -- you need to think about that history and culture, and not to project your own values - not to think that they'll behave the way you do. You have to think about them in their own context."
  2. "When we think about doing something in the world, we should always very closely inspect the premises we are operating on - always look at them very carefully. McNamara makes the point that the premises underlining the Vietnam War were accepted; they were not analyzed."
  3. "The conduct of foreign policy is not primarily the conduct of relations with other governments. It's primarily a matter of domestic leadership - this seems to me a tremendously important lesson.

As we think about the fateful choice President Obama faces in Afghanistan and Iran, each of those lessons deserve careful contemplation. Would that we had the benefit of Ernie answering his own questions.

"On Afghanistan, we should take a cue from Ernie and revisit the question of  whether Afghanistan is, truly, a "war of necessity." The decision on that will fundamentally shape President Obama's legacy.

For more information on this publication: Belfer Communications Office
For Academic Citation: Allison, Graham. From the Director.” Belfer Center Newsletter (Winter 2009-10).