Learning from History

On War: 
World War II teaches us many lessons.

To begin with, right until Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, equally patriotic Americans argued about whether we should care at all about "helping England preserve its Empire" or whether we should care how long Germany and the USSR remained at war. Roosevelt was a "war-monger," of course, and the America First crowd were "unthinking isolationists." Once the war began, except for a tiny group of Pacifists, Americans rallied to the cause -- but our government and military leaders throughout the war continued to have serious differences about how the war should be fought.

The first argument was: Since Japan attacked us, we should make the Pacific War our top priority. No, Hitler must be defeated first.

About Europe, the fierce debates raged about: when and where a second front should be mounted -- Cross Channel, Southern France, "soft underbelly of Europe" (the Balkans). Compromises led to fighting in North Africa, then in Sicily, then in Italy. There were arguments about whether Great Britain's General Montgomery was a brilliantly cautious commander or a cowardly martinet, about whether our General Patton deserved more honors or dishonorable discharge. Given today's tendency to blame somebody quickly, it is interesting that none of the top generals was threatened with more than a slap on the wrist for some pretty horrendous errors, like missing the German build up which led to the Battle of the Bulge.

About Japan, It is now undeniable that Roosevelt and the Chiefs of Staff lied to MacArthur -- promising reinforcements in men and planes they knew weren't available because they were concentrating on Europe first. . . . The Navy and the Army disagreed over how the Pacific War should be fought -- over which part of the giant ocean we should move first to take back, to control. . . . Our military and Britain's military were frequently at odds. . . . One may be forgiven for believing in miracles when victory came despite the fact that China's goal was to eliminate Communism, Britain's was to maintain her Asiatic empire, and America's was to defeat Japan.

We were not alone: the Japanese Navy and Army argued with each other about when and where to mount their hoped-for "decisive battle." . . . Even after multiple defeats trying to recapture Guadalcanal from us, it was only the fear that there might not be enough military strength left to defend the Home Islands that forced the Japanese military to compromise and quit that island. . . . With more than a million troops still fighting in China, Japan had repeated arguments about whether to move north -- to protect against Russia, or to move south -- to gain access to the raw materials in threatened English, French, and Dutch colonies. . . . From before Pearl Harbor through the days after Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, the War Party and those we would call "peaceniks" remained at odds.

The point of all this: Except for the unavoidable occasional individual incompetence and dishonesty, there were no foreseeable completely right decisions. In war, we are always dealing with judgment calls. That "ego" drove/drives some of the debates is not worrisome. God, I wouldn't want military and government leaders who don't have ego. -- FJV

Sought or not, world power brings world responsibilities
In the first half of the 19th Century, one of the developments in southern Africa which led to the England's Boer War was the Boer (essentially ethnic Dutch) inability to quell completely the raids on their settlements by Zulus and Bushmen. Reluctant to ignore its early responsibility for the settlements, England would not stop attempting to impose overall control "until the Boers have established a stable government of their own."

In early skirmishes between the Boers and the English, the firepower of England's traditional kneel-and-fire volleys was unable to overcome the Boers' guerilla tactics of weapon-fire from behind trees and rocks.

Simultaneously, World Power England was fighting in Afghanistan, India, Crimea, New Zealand, everywhere.

Sound familiar? -- Sep 2006

Remember when Japan was our enemy?
Remember when Japan was our enemy? When Iran was our friend? When India was our "non-aligned" Cold War irritant? When Turkey sided with Germany in World War I but with us in World War II?

Now, Japan helps us maintain economic/political/military stability in Asia. Iran thumbs its nose at the West. Polls in India show 74% of them have a favorable impression of the United States. Turkey is hoping to become the first non-Christian member of the European Union.

Things change, eh?

Even now, though, consider that Iran:

• Since 2003 has officially played a generally constructive role in Iraq.

• Was the first country in the region to send an official delegation to deal with the Iraqi Government.

• Extended financial aid and export credits to Iraq.

• Has offered to help to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure.

Of course, Iran is also helping Iraq's Shiite militias and is a supporter of Hezbollah.  Nevertheless, remember that  Iranians are Persians, not Arabs. Mideast observers have commented, "Iran has much to fear from a civil war in Iraq."

Damn, life is complicated. -- 06 Sep 06

World War I fear: civil war in America
Our understandable concern about possible civil war among the contending religious and ethnic groups in Iraq makes it difficult to relate to the fact that one major reason that President Wilson thought he had to keep the country neutral for so long was the WASP fear of what was termed America's "tribal syndrome." There was extensive uneasiness in government circles that German Americans, Hungarian Americans, and Italian Americans, labeled the "average ethnocentric citizen," identified with "the country of their ancestral extraction." Added to the groups named above were American Jews, who had "deep seated antipathy against tsarist Russia," and the English-hating Irish.

Here's how one historian described the situation: "Government leaders assumed that the nation could never take part on either side without bringing on a civil war at home."

Learning from history
When the British withdrew from India --
after almost 200 years of colonial occupation -- no civil war erupted, but "British India's professional army was sliced along [Hindu and Muslim] lines" and "millions of people died or became refugees." Way before that, the English-trained Indian troops mutinied, and there were massacres conducted by the Indians and by the English. Great Britain was . . . embarrassed? weakened? relieved of the burden? essentially unaffected?

There's lesson here re Iraq, but does it teach us to "stay the course" or to "cut and run"?

About FDR
'History's final verdict will not be known to this generation.'
In 1955, historians Alice and John Durant (not Will and Ariel Durant) wrote of Franklin Delano Roosevelt:

Roosevelt, say his adherents, was president during the greatest depression and the greatest war in the history of the world, and he defeated them both.

To this his critics reply that the depression was deepening in 1937 after four years of Roosevelt (which it was) and that prosperity was restored only because of European war orders. As for the war, while Roosevelt was promising again and again to keep us out, he was at the same time deliberately, secretly, and unlawfully steering us into it. Furthermore, they say, everything gained in the war was lost at Yalta.

History's final verdict will not be known to this generation.

Given the frequency with which "history" is re-interpreted and revised these days, there will probably never be a "final" verdict.

How national and international affairs intertwine
Early in our Civil War, when the Confederacy was doing well militarily, France and England were poised to recognize the South as a separate country, for reasons of their own, and Abraham Lincoln recognized that preserving the Union was of no concern to Europeans. England was especially interested in protecting its supply of cotton from the southern states. That country had put troops in Canada, hoping to help defeat the North.

Remembering that it was England which first moved against slavery, Lincoln pulled the Emancipation Proclamation off his desk, where it had been for quite a while, and announced it as the Union's policy a few days after the Battle of Antietam eliminated the threat of an invasion of the North by Robert E. Lee. As one historian reports, The Emancipation Proclamation proved to be "a powerful document that practically prohibited any foreign nation of intervening" in American affairs." -- May 2006

Communists/Socialists/Fascists are not completely bad!
American conservatives, some of us, are uncomfortable acknowledging that not everything the communists proclaim is bad for mankind. Even Puritans have to agree with the intentions, if not the practices, of communists relative to motherhood, families, schooling, health. For some reason, though, lefties seem to have a harder time recognizing that fascists had some good points too. After World War I, remember, it was almost impossible to find any European intellectual who was not either a socialist/communist or a fascist. Both camps hated democracy, especially parliamentary democracy. The choice was between authoritarianism of the left or of the right.

To this day, the snide comment that Mussolini's greatest accomplishment was to "make the trains run on time" demonstrates ignorance about and a lack of understanding of post-war Europe's communist-driven instability. In Italy, the communist-led transportation workers refused to operate any train intended to transfer police or military personnel to where they were needed. By restoring functionality to the trains, the Italian dictator took a giant step forward -- both pragmatically and symbolically -- to re-establish stability and civility in a chaotic society.

Look at the map of Europe. Had it not been for, first, Spain's Franco, then Italy's Mussolini, and finally Germany's Hitler, that self-proclaimed "freedom-loving democracy," the USSR, would today be forcing its brand of freedom from the Urals to the English Channel. -- May 2006

Do these words sound familiar?

• the growing importance of world opinion

• American imperialists want America to have an empire

• the tendency to equate power with virtue

• the long down-slide into Western civilization

• Americans feel qualified to perform the teaching of democracy

• the idea of being responsible for the whole world

• we will never go back on a commitment, no matter how unwise

• the reduced role of the Congress and the enhanced role of the President

• without reference to the United Nations

Those are among the sentiments, which many readers will apply to Iraq and to the war on terror, made in a 1966 book by Democrat Senator J. William Fullbright, who contended that -- under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson -- America was "unmistakably" showing signs of "arrogance of power" -- the title of his book.

Not quite a doctrinaire pacifist, Fullbright nevertheless found it difficult to consider any war "just." He included our Civil War among those wars he labeled "unnecessary."

[Federalist Papers re strong, 'unitary' president]

Does the U.S. want, need, a "unitary" executive?
A debate over the pluses and minuses of a "unitary" presidency has resulted from Bush's insistence that he has the right to do some of the things he is doing: continue the fight in Iraq, retain prisoners, listen to conversations of suspected terrorists, chop wood on his ranch. Not many of those making proclamations for or against a strong executive recall or ever knew that our Founding Fathers debated the issue at length. One faction, led by such eminent thinkers as Ben Franklin, feared a possible kingly tyranny so much that they suggested a triumvirate executive, three guys sharing presidential powers.

The decision was to establish a strong presidency. The winning arguments were summarized in Federalist Paper Number 70, written by Publius, actually Alexander Hamilton. The Founding Fathers drew heavily on the experiences of Rome when writing our constitution; terms like "Tribunes," "Decemvirs of Rome," and "Consuls" appear often in their writings. Here, with original spelling and style retained, are excerpts from Federalist Paper Number 70:

There is an idea, which is not without its merits, that a vigorous Executive is inconsistent with the genius of republican government.

Energy in the Executive is a leading character in the definition of good government.

A feeble Executive implies a feeble execution of the government.

A government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.

The ingredients which constitute energy in the Executive are, first, unity; secondly, duration; thirdly, an adequate provision for its support; fourthly, competent powers.

That unity is conducive to energy will not be disputed. Decision, activity, secrecy, and despatch will generally characterise the proceedings of one man in a much more eminent degree than the proceedings of any greater number; and in proportion as the number is increased, these qualities will be diminished.

The experience of other nations . . . teaches us not to be enamoured of plurality in the Executive.

In the legislature, promptitude of decision is oftener an evil than a benefit.

But one of the weightiest objections to a plurality in the Executive . . . is that it tends to conceal faults and destroy responsibility.

All multiplication of the Executive is rather dangerous than friendly to liberty.

And from Federalist Paper Number 71:

To what purpose separate the executive or the judiciary from the legislative, if both the executive and the judiciary are so constituted as to be at the absolute devotion of the legislative?

It is one thing to be subordinate to the laws, and another to be dependent on the legislative body.

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Related Links

The Arrogance of Power

Unitary President

How long will Iraq war last?

France & England forever at war

World Affairs