From: larryd@stein.u.washington.edu (Larry Desoto)
Subject: Re: A Technical Request
Organization: University of Washington
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 1992 06:50:35 GMT

adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:

>larryd@stein.u.washington.edu (Larry Desoto) writes:

>>Depending on whether or not you consider the Persian Gulf a major war,
>>the USA has fought 4 or 5 wars in this century (not including minor
>>bloodlettings here and there).  Democratic presidents have taken us 
>>into the first four.

>I guess FDR asked the Japanese to bomb Pearl Harbor?  And of course, Truman
>asked the North Koreans to invade South Korea...

The short answer is sort of and yes...

What Roosevelt did was put the Japanese in an untentable position
by imposing a trade embargo, including oil, to try to force them out
of Manchuria.  He also threatened war if the Japanese moved on the
Dutch East Indies to obtain new sources of petroleum.  This coupled
with the military weakness of the US in the period between the wars,
and the perception in Germany and Japan that the US was decadent and
would not fight led the Japanese into a monumental blunder at Pearl
Harbor.

Conspiracy theories aside, it is unlikely that Roosevelt knew of the
impending attack or even wanted war with Japan.  He wanted to fight
Hitler, and quite rightly so (wanted is perhaps the wrong word..more
he recognized the necessity of doing so).  Although he must have been
in agony in the period between Pearl Harbor and Hitler's declaration of
war on the USA, Pearl Harbor eventually worked out best for him because
it put the US unequivocally in the war.

The Truman administration made a specific public policy statement in
late 49 or early 50 to the effect that the Korean peninsula was *not*
included in the US defense sphere.  Based on that, the North Koreans,
not surprisingly, elected to bring enlightenment to the south.  I
believe even Truman's closest advisors were surprised when he elected
to fight. 

The irony here is that Truman did specifically what George is accused of
doing; sending a signal to a dictatorial thug that the US wasn't interested
in what he was doing.  After the action started, Truman, like Bush, took
the problem to the United Nations.  In 1950, the Soviets were boycotting
the UN and weren't there to veto UN action (it was the last vote they
ever missed).  Now the big differences...Truman neglected to go to 
congress and get a declaration of war, perfering to call it a "police
action." The US found itself fighting a war a long way from home for
reasons that were never clearly explained and without a congressional
mandate to do it, a folly the Democrats would repeat in Vietnam the very
next time they took the presidency.

To add injury to injury, Truman, et al. permitted sanctuaries and, once
the line was stabilized along the 38th parallel, permitted the situation
to settle into a war of attrition.  Field commanders were not permitted
to take agressive action, again follies soon to be repeated in Vietnam
by the next Democrats to occupy the presidency.  The situation persisted
until, if you believe what Omar Bradley wrote in his autobiography,
Eisenhower lost patience, threatened to widen the war and support it with
whatever force it took.

Larry