History’s Worst Ideas
Donald Trump’s bizarre decisions to launch destructive, incoherent, trade-choking tariffs on the rest of the world—and then erratically retract some and launch others—has prompted us to think of other really, really large and terrible ideas.
Invading Russia—1
Napoleon’s idea was to punish Russians for failing to join in a blockade of Britain. So, confident of his military power, he invaded. But, faced with the Russians’ scorched earth policy and a bitter winter, Napoleon ended up losing nearly 400,000 soldiers and his cloak of invincibility. One hell of a destructive idea, even though it gave one Russian author material for one hell of a good novel.
Communism
Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and the thousands and thousands of people who believed in their idea for a more equitable society meant well. But Communism, at least at that stage of human development, soon proved not to work at all well. Subtracting the profit motive sharply and predictably reduced motivation and effort. And central planners proved remarkably inept at steering a country’s multiplicity of enterprises. Meanwhile, the state in Communist countries—which ruled a third of the world’s population at one point in the 20th century—stubbornly refused to “wither away”; indeed it remained dictatorial and, in many cases, oppressive.
The Treaty of Versailles
The countries that had been victorious in World War I imposed very harsh terms on Germany in this inflammatory peace treaty. The economic hardships resulting from those terms contributed to the rise of the Nazis and the start of World War II.
The Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act
The tariffs imposed by the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act in 1930 under Herbert Hoover are perhaps the closest bad idea to Trump’s. However, unlike Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs on foreign goods, these tariffs did not change value depending on the president’s whims. They did manage to dramatically reduce global trade and significantly worsen the ongoing Great Depression
The Maginot Line
This was a line of concrete fortifications built by the French along their border with Germany in the 1930s to defend against an attack by Germany. That attack did eventually come, but from a little further north: across Belgium and then from Belgium into France, where the France had not built any fortifications.
Hydrogen-Filled Blimps
Such airships were once considered a reasonable alternative to airplanes, since they could carry large payloads and didn’t require runways. But they also turned out to be slow, vulnerable to the weather and, yes, hydrogen could catch fire when mixed with air and ignited. Remember the Hindenburg!
The Internment of Japanese Americans
In February 1942, after Pearl Harbor, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 that resulted in the internment of Japanese Americans. Forty-six years later, the U.S. government formally apologized, acknowledging the injustice and providing reparations of $20,000 each to surviving victim of the interments.
Appeasing the Nazis
Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister, thought that ceding the German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany would appease Adolf Hitler. Hitler, as we know, wasn’t appeased.
Invading Russia—2
Not having learned from Napoleon, Hitler 130 years later, launched Operation Barbarossa, a surprise invasion of the Soviet Union. Not only did the operation eventually fail, it led to a prolonged and brutal war on the eastern front that ultimately contributed to Germany’s defeat in World War II on all fronts.
The Bay of Pigs invasion
In 1961, the CIA planned and executed an invasion of Cuba, aiming to overthrow the Communist government of Fidel Castro with a force of Cuban exiles trained in the United States. The invasion was a resounding failure and a major embarrassment for the United States. It also led to a strengthened Castro regime and increased Cold War tensions.
Launching the Iraq War
Not long after 9/11, and not having succeeded in punishing most of the masterminds of 9/11, George W. Bush decided to invade a country that most thought had nothing to do with 9/11. His administration apparently had convinced itself that Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. It didn’t. Thousands of American soldiers were killed in the fighting that ensued; tens of thousands were injured. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis were killed.
And here is one more truly lousy idea—one that did not involve the military or tariffs: New Coke.
Have any additional ideas that might have been as bad as Trump’s game of tariff roulette?
