(Bloomberg Opinion) — It was reported last week that Iran’s missile inventory has been depleted from about 5,000 to a thousand or so, and that the U.S. and its allies are now firing one or two Patriots at each incoming aerial threat, instead of the clusters unleashed at the start. In other words, both sides are running low on ammunition.
But my longer-term concern is the depletion—actually the exhaustion—of another American weapon that I believe is more important than mere hardware: belief in the truth of what the US leader tells the world about war, peace, and everything else.
Matters have come to a head as President Donald Trump claims his administration is holding promising talks with Iran, while the Iranians deny it, and there is uncertainty worldwide whether to accept his version or the version put out by Tehran fanatics. Likewise, when he says the war is “almost won,” no one knows whether this is a prelude to new American bombing, a ground invasion, or a cease-fire.
Throughout history, governments have sometimes lied, especially during wars. There was a saying among Napoleon’s soldiers when they started losing battles: “Lie like a bulletin.” They lost faith in the official leaflets from Paris.
As early as two centuries ago, visitors to Russia complained about the chronic mendacity of its people, which is undiminished today among its leadership. In the early years of World War II, the British government found it increasingly difficult to shake off the humiliating defeats of its armies.
But none of this then means that it doesn’t matter if a great nation loses its reputation for credibility, as the US has done under Trump. In the midst of war, it is impossible to tell the whole truth. But it is worth noting that “our side” – whatever it is – should be more trustworthy than the enemy. Almost no European ally believes the president’s claim, a linchpin of his justification for going to war, that Iran’s nuclear ambitions pose an imminent threat to both Israel and the West.
I have just re-read the little handbook that was issued to every American soldier landing in Britain during the Second World War by the War Department. Among other words of wisdom, the GI said, “We can defeat Hitler’s propaganda with our own weapon: simple, common sense, understanding the obvious truths.” Likewise, Winston Churchill and his ministers realized that one of their most effective tools was the famous truth-teller of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
Contrary to the illusion of many Americans, the BBC is not a government-run body, it is an independent corporation managed by trustees and funded by public subscription. During World War II, millions of people in occupied Europe risked their freedom to hear her messages. The punishment for those caught listening in on German detector vans was deportation to a concentration camp.
The magic words with which his perfectly modulated announcers began their announcements – “this is London” – echoed around the world. After 1945 the BBC custom persisted. Tens of millions of people – especially in Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia – even now prefer the Beeb’s foreign-language news to the local variety, heavily censored by their own governments. The Voice of America never achieved the same authority or reputation as Impartiality, but it was still useful and influential.
The British and American governments have often harshly criticized the output of both the BBC and VOA. Churchill sometimes railed against the former’s alleged disloyalty. Margaret Thatcher deplored his allegedly excessive impartiality, as she saw it, especially during the Falklands War in 1982. But on the British side of the Pond, no government dared do worse to the BBC than moan about it. Politicians, including Churchill, understood the inestimable value of his perceived integrity.
The Nazis took the opposite approach to propaganda by employing an American-Irish renegade named William Joyce to smear the British. Throughout the conflict, he broadcast a daily stream of lies from Berlin, chuckling as he delivered them in a voice that made Churchill known to the nation as Lord Haw-Haw.
A Berlin bulletin might contain this kind of mockery rooted in fake news: “You should ask your Prime Minister to tell you where the aircraft carrier Illustrious is… I’ll tell you where the Illustrious is—at the bottom of the sea where her crew are feeding fish, along with many other British ships and their crews. Gairman (his pronunciation) is sending them all to torpedoes!” The tones of joy were not unlike those of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth as he described the plight of Iranians under American bombing.
However, it is doubtful whether dancing on the graves of enemies and wildly exaggerating one’s own achievements will impress anyone. The British learned to enjoy listening to Lord Haw-Haw’s fantasizing, which gave them a much-needed laugh, even if it didn’t stop Joyce from being hanged in 1946.
Today, Trump attacks the authorities of truth while peddling blatant lies, such as his claim that the Tomahawk missile that apparently hit a Tehran school was Iranian. He is seeking to shut down VOA and is suing the BBC for billions of dollars in a Florida court. Even worse, the head of the Federal Communications Commission, a Trump lackey, is threatening to revoke the licenses of American stations that do not broadcast the government’s fictitious war narrative.
Trump’s attack on reality reminds me of the 1917 Punch cartoon of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, raging on the front page of a British newspaper, saying, “I never saw a more hideous tissue of deliberate truths!
White House standard-bearers would say — at least privately — that we now live in a post-truth world; that their MAGA people do not expect their leaders to tell them what is real, nor do they mind being lied to. One defiant Florida woman told a British reporter last month: “Who cares if what Trump says is true?” She loved him anyway.
Such people forget how low America has sunk. Still, it matters a lot, not just for now or even for the balance of Trump’s term, but for the future of the US. If it chooses to speak and behave in ways that are morally indistinguishable from those of its rival superpowers, why shouldn’t other nations choose China or Russia as partners rather than America?
“To every man and nation there comes a time when he decides,” wrote the New England poet James Russell Lowell nearly two centuries ago. “In the strife of Truth and Lies, for good or evil.” It is exceedingly dangerous for any country, however rich and dominant, to base its entire polity on the belief that it will forever enjoy military and economic superiority; only it can maintain its hegemony.
America is no longer seen, especially in Europe, as trustworthy. To quote that American soldier’s handbook from 1942 again: “It is militarily stupid to criticize one’s allies.” Even superpowers need friends, but there are few left in America who, after enduring so many insults from Washington, genuinely respect those in charge there or believe what they say.
Truth is not just a virtue. It is a weapon that this administration willfully broke with its own hands, even as it wages a shooting war in which hardly anyone but the Israelis see merit or reason.
This column reflects the personal views of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Editorial Board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.
Max Hastings is a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. His history includes ‘Inferno: The World At War, 1939–1945’, ‘Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy 1945–1975’ and ‘Abyss: The Cuban Missile Crisis 1962’.
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