Correspondent: ‘Old Times’ Op/Ed Left Out Some History

'Old Times' Op/Ed Left Out Some History
Editor, Times-Dispatch: Paul Greenberg's Op/Ed column, "Obama's Playing Appeasement," claims that the recent decision by the Obama administration not to deploy a missile defense system in Eastern Europe is analogous to the appeasement of the 1930s. Greenberg has either forgotten history or failed to learn it in the first place.

For starters, conditions in 1938 were far different from those of 2009. Britain was woefully unprepared for war in 1938 -- particularly the Royal Air Force, which was much inferior to the German Luftwaffe. Today, the United States is the world's strongest military power, particularly in terms of its unmatched air and sea power. Then Nazi Germany was the world's foremost military power; today Iran is among the also-rans in terms of military might.

Consequently, while Neville Chamberlain may have sincerely believed he had achieved "peace in our time" through negotiations with Hitler, in truth, because Britain's military was so weak, he had no other card to play. When WWII began and the Battle of Britain started in the summer of 1940, the RAF had just enough planes and pilots and had erected the all-important forward radar system to blunt Germany's air attacks and save Britain from invasion.

Greenberg also seems to have forgotten that the decision not to deploy the missile defense in Eastern Europe but instead rely on a mobile and more quickly deployed missile defense system was approved unanimously by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

That the decision had other geopolitical objectives, now coming to light, also seems to have escaped Greenberg's vision. Such facts obviously did not deter Greenberg's sarcastic treatment of the issue -- which gave him once more an opportunity to bash the Obama administration.

Phil True.
Glen Allen.