The ancient Greeks had a concept of excessive pride that they called ‘hubris’. Hubris is characterized by narcissism, overconfidence, and the inability to accept criticism or advise. The ancient Greeks believed that human hubris angered the gods who would then punish the offender with humiliation and tragedy. In the aftermath of World War Two, the United States became the most powerful military force in the history of the world. Hubris has played a major part in U.S. foreign affairs.
Who Lost China?
Shortly after World War II, Mao Tse-tung successfully led a Communist revolution in China. Conspiracy theorists in the United States believed that the Chinese revolution could have succeeded only if there were Communist subversives in our government working towards that end. Playing to the conspiracy crowd, Wisconsin Republican Senator Joe McCarthy claimed to have a list of Communists working in the State Department. McCarthy’s baseless claims made him a national figure. Republicans had been out of power since the Great Depression. Now they finally had an issue that they hoped would bring them back into office. They accused Democrats of losing China and “20 years of treason.” McCarthyism caused the diplomatic corps to be purged of seasoned foreign affairs experts. Knowledgeable experts were discredited and replaced by those who relied entirely on American military might as foreign affairs policy. McCarthy’s unfounded but effective attacks made Democrats fearful of being labeled as weak on Far East policy… or worse, intentionally enabling Communism. Both political parties wanted to be seen as tough and powerful.
Once the diplomatic corps had been discredited and purged the diplomatic corps, the loudest voices in politics insisted that U.S. foreign policy be driven by military might alone. There is an old saying, ‘when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail’.
Korea, Vietnam, and now Iran
North Korean forces attacked South Korea in 1950. Fearing Communist influences from the Soviet Union and China, the United States committed air, ground, and naval forces to the United Nations effort to defend South Korea. In World War Two, Air Force General Curtis LeMay had run massive fire bombing operations against Japanese cities. He was brought in to oversee the bombing campaign in Korea. LeMay embodied the McCarthy anti communist tough guy approach to foreign conflict: never mind weak kneed diplomacy- use American military might to bomb adversaries into submission. LeMay took pride in having ‘burned down every town in North Korea.’ During the Vietnam War LeMay advocated bombing the North Vietnamese ‘back to the stone age.’ Some of LeMay’s other observations: “If you kill enough of them, they stop fighting.” “I think there are many times when it would be most efficient to use nuclear weapons.” “There are no innocent civilians. It is their government and you are fighting a people, you are not trying to fight an armed force anymore. So it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing the so-called innocent bystanders.” Secretary of ‘War’ Pete Hegseth echoed that last comment when he said that there would be “no stupid rules of engagement” in the Trump war on Iran.
Early in Trump’s career his mentor was Joe McCarthy’s right hand man, Roy Cohn. Like Joe McCarthy, Trump does not value negotiators who are seasoned diplomats with expertise in mid-east history. President Trump has threatened that Iran’s “… whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.” Trump has bragged that U.S. missile strikes have destroyed Iran’s military. And yet the war goes on.
The most powerful military in the history of the world was not able to win the wars in Korea and Vietnam. Today there is a seventy year old Korean War armistice in place. The armistice is only a cease fire agreement; it did not end the war.
Saigon is now Ho Chi Minh City. As of this writing, the war in Iran seems likely to be the downfall of the Trump movement. Mere belligerence alone is not foreign policy.
The hubris of our macho foreign policy, relying on military might alone, led the United States into the unwinnable quagmires in Korea, Vietnam, and now Iran. As in Greek tragedy, the gods would intervene to discipline and humiliate those with hubris.
Sources
https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/hubris
https://time.com/archive/6877668/books-hangover-from-hubris/
https://www.rentonreporter.com/2019/03/15/jfk-and-lbj-americas-best-and-brightest/
https://www.historynewsnetwork.org/article/david-halberstam-iraq-and-the-shadow-of-vietnam
https://www.npr.org/2026/06/07/nx-s1-5846872/trump-says-irans-military-is-totally-destroyed-heres-where-their-stockpiles-stand
https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2025/06/irans-nuclear-facilities-have-been-obliterated-and-suggestions-otherwise-are-fake-news/
https://www.jfklibrary.org/events-and-awards/kennedy-library-forums/browse-all-forums/transcripts/vietnam-and-the-presidency-keynote-by-david-halberstam
https://www.brainyquote.com/authors/curtis-lemay-quotes
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/4/7/trump-on-iran-a-whole-civilisation-will-die-tonight
https://www.military.com/feature/2026/03/05/hegseths-stupid-rules-of-engagement-line-and-what-roe-actually-do.html
https://retroreport.org/uncategorized/the-most-notorious-general-youve-probably-never-heard-of/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-we-negotiate-with-bombs-hegseth-says-of-u-s-air-campaign-in-iran
https://elliotkirschner.substack.com/p/the-arrogance-of-power
https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/research/online-documents/korean-war
Ho by David Halberstram, Vintage Books, 1971
Thanks and a tip of the hat to Donald J. Trump for the image.
