Mature societies are fundamentally organized around anticipatory thinking. We spend incalculable amounts of time and money on insurance systems, risk management, actuarial experts, vaccination schedules and broader public health initiatives, infrastructure maintenance, military preparedness, financial planning and environmental protections, all resting on the assumption that waiting for complete certainty before acting is often irresponsible. Popular opinion, possibly the most fickle variable, plays no small role.
On the micro level, people plan ahead constantly. We save for retirement before poverty arrives. We wear seatbelts before collisions occur. We shop for food before our kitchens are empty and vaccinate before illness. Mature behavior is built around prevention rather than reaction. Yet when the subject shifts from personal life to geopolitics, this logic often disappears. Hunger is an immediate experience everyone wants to avoid. Geopolitical instability is less easily measured and harder to anticipate. Yet the observation can be made that the world repeatedly hesitates to confront emerging dangers until the cost of doing so becomes vastly higher.
Civilizations rarely justify violence without constructing moral and strategic rationales for doing so. In the society of nations, alliances exist, competition is valued but managed, ongoing assessments of financial strength and intent are made and vast amounts of intelligence are gathered in an attempt to anticipate intentions. When diplomatic efforts begin to reap diminishing returns, nations shape their narratives to render the opposition uniquely culpable, dangerous or illegitimate.
History offers conflicting lessons about anticipatory action. The failure to confront Nazi Germany early enough remains one of the defining moral and strategic failures of the modern era. Global fatigue from the horrid destruction of World War I was relatively fresh and the world had not climbed out of the real burden of The Great Depression. The logic of prevention also helped draw the United States into Vietnam, driven largely by fears about the spread of communist ideology. The 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq is now widely criticized due in no small part to flawed intelligence. Today, similar questions understandably surround the confrontation with Iran.
Was Tehran really weeks away from the development of a nuclear weapon? As with many preventative measures, what was avoided may be eternally debated. What we do know is that Iran has, for decades, pledged and acted toward the destruction of Israel and the U.S., the small and great Satans. Iran funded hostile actions toward Israel, the U.S. and their allies beginning as far back as the destruction of the Marine barracks in 1983. They avoid or deny any international oversight of their capabilities even after agreeing to them and domestically are prepared to respond to civil disobedience with deadly violence on a massive scale.
Democracies understandably fear repeating Vietnam or Iraq. But the fear of acting on uncertain threats can itself become distorting when it evolves into a demand for near-perfect certainty before any meaningful response is considered. History rarely grants that luxury.
No reliable algorithm for distinguishing Munich from Vietnam exists while events are still unfolding. The challenge to leadership is that these decisions must be made before absolute certainty exists, because by then it’s often too late, as 1938 shows. Waiting too long can prove catastrophic. Acting too early can prove catastrophic as well.
The challenge we have today is not choosing between paranoia and passivity. It is learning to recognize when a regime’s stated intentions, ideological consistency, military development and demonstrated violence cumulatively cross the threshold from hypothetical danger into strategic reality. Waiting for history to render its final verdict with complete clarity is not an option.
Moshe R. Manheim is a retired clinical social worker and psychotherapist. He writes on antisemitism, Jewish identity and social issues.
