First, I would like to say, people don't start wars, governments do.
No matter what your world view, a brief reading of history will show that the American's were drafted into the role of World Policeman. Before both World War I and II, the American people, primarily farmers, were against involvement. Events dragged us into WWI and an uglier threat arose leading to WW2. The rise of a quickly industrializing Asian country (Japan), hijacked by a military dictatorship, coupled with a rapidly re-industrializing fascist regime (IMO the WW1 indemnities were too severe, giving Hitler fertile ground) in a never very stable Europe led to a war involving nearly every country.
I would venture to say that 90% of the people in the world think the Americans came in, kicked arse, and took names.
To the contrary, the American victories were close and bathed in red. I will only speak of the Pacific campaign after a quick nod to the landings at Normandy, not to exclude Europe, but it is not an area I am as familiar with.
Pearl Harbor and our spat with the Japanese was largely due to economics and American-European economic goals in China. China, late to the industrial game due to Qing Neo-Confucian inertia, was being exploited by the Japanese, putting them against the Americans, British, French and to complicate things, Germany had interests in China also. The western peoples were exploiting the Chinese also, but the Japanese pushed for firmer control in Manchuria.
Pearl Harbor occurs, but was not the only assault by the Japanese. I have heard it said that the Japanese could not have won the war because they did not have the resources. They had just
seized the resources.
The battle of Midway Island (June 42) was won by the Americans by so small a margin that luck had a great deal to do with it. The heroism of the American torpedo squadrons is indescribable. Contributing factors such as the training of shipboard firefighting crews also helped to tip the scale. The essential code breaking trick, inspired.
The turning back of the Japanese in the Solomon Islands at (Guadalcanal) was another crucial battle, hinging on the main Naval engagements between Nov. 13-15th. Another knife edge fight that could have gone either way. The advance American cruisers had Radar giving them a technological edge. Some will draw a parallel between baseball and grenade throwing as a contributing factor to the island campaigns. At this time the legendary Japanese martial fanaticism (based on
bushido) became more apparent and had to be dealt with as a strategic factor.
This eerie (to the American mind) feeling came to a head at the battle of Okinawa (82 days in late spring of 45). This is partially due to the kamikaze attacks (almost 1500 of them) but more to the guerrilla type resistance (mixed Okinawan civilians, including woman and children with Japanese soldiers) and the mass suicides of Okinawan civilians. The loss of life (approx. 50,000 allied, 100,000 Japanese, and an unknown "tens of thousands" civilian) coupled with the barbaric ferocity of the battles set the tone for the expected invasion of Japan: Japan has a surface area 300 times of Okinawa, is mountainous, and is heavily forested. IMO the estimated casualty numbers (to invade Japan), have been steadily written downward over the years.
So, as has been much debated, the Americans decided to drop the atom bomb. IMO this was a no brainer if the slightest effort is made to place yourself in the times. The (American) soldiers coming back from Europe were being shipped out to the Pacific, possibly forever. I do not doubt for an instant that both Germany and Japan would have used nuclear weapons had they developed them first. We have the German set precedent of bombing civilians as a war strategy (the Blitz) accumulating in the backlashes at Dresden and Tokyo. I would also like to mention that the Japanese did not surrender only because of the atom bombs, and that the recently bored Soviet armies, with possible command elements that retain memories of their humiliation at the battle of Tsushima Straits in 1905 during the Russian-Japanese war, had nothing to do. So they surrendered to the Americans because they thought they would get "better treatment" (footnote "The Fall of the Rising Sun")
Viewing Japan today shows the wisdom of their choice to surrender to the Americans, essentially they chose Americans because of their ethics.
The idea the Americans dropped the A-bomb as a genocidal effort is to me, laughable, only put forth by ignorant or seditious people. I will not even bother to deflate it.
Post WWII left the Americans in a position dictators can only dream of: Military control of most of the world, the main exception being Communist Russia.
What did the Americans do? They helped the downtrodden and rebuilt everything they could.
What did the communists do? They exploited their people, and the others in their power sphere until they were bled whiter (having already been bled white by Stalin's purges and the war).
Then came an ugly game of struggle between the Soviets and the Americans that lasted for many years. The Soviets took countries by force and the Americans took countries by economics and political subterfuge.
The tarnish started to appear on American behavior at this time, some deserved, much of it not. Power politics is ugly and the weak culled early. For a good description of the "Great Game Deux" (Soviet-US jostling for countries) I suggest this book: "The Man who kept the Secrets" a biography (by a semi hostile writer) of Richard Helms, who ran the CIA from 1966 to 1973. While not the theme of his book, the various gambits and counter gambits tell the story of the Soviet-American push and shove. There are many other books, but this will do the job at a sitting. I suggest getting a game of "Risk" and fill out the board with counters for the Soviets, Chinese, and the American-NATO entities and play the 30 years 1945 to 75. It is an enlightening mind experiment.
Two high points of this game were the Korean and Vietnam wars. The Korean war was the first "limited" war. The war was limited by the fear of nuclear weapon exchanges. The Soviets supplied air elements against the Americans in Korea. The Chinese were obvious, taking their MiGs to 30,000 feet over China, then diving across the Yalu river to shoot at the American aircraft, then scurrying back to China. The first MiG kills by American pilots occurred over China, and were not recorded. The Soviet connection is harder to trace, but there are reports of red haired Caucasians in the water after some MiG downings. (add footnote "US Naval Air War in Korea" 1986 Richard Hallion)
Later,, came the Chinese troops, to insure the north stayed communist.
This was the first serious test of nuclear detente, and this balance of nuclear threat stopped the outbreak of a larger war. While diplomacy was forced because of this balance, it forced the Americans to fight "limited war" bringing us to roughly a tie in Korea.
As we know, Korea is divided as are it's people. They are divided into the prosperous thriving people of the south, and the oppressed starving people of the north. American ethics didn't make it north of the 38th parallel. This domino is still standing, but rocks occasionally from a northern wind that likes to blow hard.
Vietnam, our second limited war, was a disaster at so many levels, i will touch on only a few. The first "Television War" brought to you by DuPont, but i will get to the media later. Personally, it sickens me to think of the sedition that took place in America in the 60's. Many of the campus activists were agitated by communist elements, knowingly and unknowingly (note to self, disproven, at least until 1967 when then director of the CIA Richard Helms said "no evidence of any contact between the most prominent peace movement leaders and foreign embassies in the U.S. or abroad." summarizing the CIA's domestic spying (scandal) operation Chaos). The rise in drug supply (on the coasts of America) was also a possible state sponsored communist effort (it is a technique written down in a KGB how to operations book dated a few years before). It was also used by the British (via opium) to advance agendas in China (reprehensible). It was noted around 1975 that the number of antenna on the Soviet Embassy in San Francisco had almost tripled from the so called "peak" of the cold war in 1962 (Cuban missile crises). This rise in traffic is also due to the success of the southern bay area in many technological areas (aka the Silicon Valley).
Smilin' Joe Stalin once said: "America is like a healthy body and it's resistance is threefold: it's patriotism, it's morality, and it's spiritual life. If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within."
Television's role, or the media's manipulation of the Vietnam war, is another subject that much has already been written about. The turning of the American public's mindset into thinking anything in cammies was a baby killer is sedition. Many American Vietnam Veterans, or Vietnam era Veterans, can tell you stories of public humiliation or ostracism. My personal experience in the American military (1973-77) was sufficiently distasteful due to the low morale that I chose to serve just the one enlistment. Political limits on how the war was actually fought insured our failure. The concept of "open blockade" (humanitarian aid only) is flawed when in contact with reality. Enough black market items will come through despite the best efforts. A modern example is the Gaza blockade and the occasional flurry of rockets landing in Israel. The policy of "how long can we keep this at least a tie", increasing war profiteering for many, and to stay there without the political will to win is one of the greatest failures in American Government history. In this point, many of the anti war factions were correct, bring em home. What Eisenhower warned us of, and I will use his original term: the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex, had full rein.
Got tired, end part 1
