America’s World War II Mythology
Tags: Peace, History, Libertarian Socialism, War, World War II

The world acknowledges that America never stood taller than in World War II. However, World War II was actually the second chapter of the Great War (WWI). It reflects a unique moment in world history. It is a moment in history that is essentially “sequel” to a precursor event. Americans do not usually see the two wars as connected the way the rest of the world does, because other than Pearl Harbor there was very little action on American soil. World War II has colored American ideas about war, as it should. Unfortunately, Americans only seem to recall the glory and little of the grit that was essential to that story.

Drawing conclusions about war, especially the economics of war, based upon the sequel, which World War II was, without recognizing the prequel, World War I, leads to many misconceptions. This American disconnect with the Great War has led to some very real misconceptions about war. These misconceptions make it easier to goad the American public to military action. American conclusions about WWII are flawed by a lack of historical perspective.

Some powerful myths about war have grown in American culture due to the uniqueness of the WWII experience in the United States. These myths are so powerful that many Americans accept them as proven facts. These ideas borne out of World War II have been leveraged to create further dogma. The military-industrial complex has annexed this mythology for its own ends and uses it for self-promotion.

War Is Good For The Economy

Many Americans believe that war is good for the economy because the Depression appeared to be ended by WWII. However, FDR’s New Deal had brought much relief to the nation by 1936–7. Unfortunately, worries about socialism in Congress and the financial classes curtailed New Deal programs, causing another downturn in the later years of the decade. The myth of war’s economic benefits was strengthened by the fact that every one of the developed nations of the mid-twentieth century had their industrial infrastructure destroyed by war. Great Britain, Germany, Japan, China, and Russia/Soviet Union all had huge internal reconstruction to perform after the Second World War.

This reconstruction was made doubly difficult as it followed on top of the struggle to recover from the Great War. Two very destructive wars fought over two generations on their territories crippled Europe and Asia. An American economic hegemony was assured by 1945. Every potential competitor for the title of global economic leader was broken by the dual catastrophes of World War I and II.

America then used its immense economic output to make sure that there would be future markets for American goods via the Marshall Plan in Europe. General Douglas MacArthur’s rebuilding in Japan followed a similar plan. To guarantee the markets would be there for American business, the United States made the markets in its own image. America has reaped the rewards for more than half a century of this strategic rebuilding of its former enemies immediately following WWII. However, that unique situation cannot be used to drive future economic decisions.

The fact that Nazi Germany rebuilt its manufacturing infrastructure, so quickly under Hitler also feeds this myth that war is good for a nation’s economy. For some reason, it is often overlooked that rebuilding an economy is much easier when a nation does not pay workers a living wage or in the case of prison slave labor, pay the workers at all. Huge profits can be made at the expense of the dignity and freedom of the individual as was done by Hitler in Nazi Germany.

Americans easily forget that economies operating on a wartime footing tend to be tied more closely to the state with no need to provide workers a living wage. This industrial-military connection creates an authoritarian capitalism that can boost economic output quickly. Businesses love the guaranteed revenues and healthy profit margins from military customers. To some, the rightful name of the aforementioned political system is fascism.

Libertarian-Socialists do not dispute that wars can be good for economies, especially if the aggressor nation loots and pillages everything it can from the nations it conquers. Germany tried to do that at the beginning of World War II. The Nazis could not hold what they had gained due to the Allied choice to turn back Germany while fighting a holding action against Japan. A strategy meant to prevent Hitler from gaining access to the Middle East oil fields.

Looked at with ruthless eyes, the most abject failure of the neo-conservative toppling of Saddam Hussein through invasion and occupation is that it did not deliver the promised economic benefits. Control of the Iraq oil fields should have brought some very cheap gasoline among other financial benefits to the United States, but the exact opposite occurred. Whether this failure was due to: incompetence, corruption or ideological flaws will be debated for decades.

Libertarian-Socialists recognize that failure is real when one does the ruthless accounting of war and empire building. Libertarian-Socialists also recognize that during such confiscatory war, it can be difficult for the aggressor nation to invest in its own infrastructure, as it has to spend so much time occupying, administrating, exploiting and holding the vanquished. This was a different lesson from WWII that the Germans and Japanese understand far better than Americans.

The occupying nation must always expend resources to hold the occupied territories. Also, depending upon the persistence and resistance of the occupied, it can be a net negative even when a nation is confiscating all that is valuable from the conquered. The people of Afghanistan, who sit upon a treasure trove of natural resources at a geopolitical crossroads, have made it a habit of reminding empires through the centuries of the costs to hold and occupy the unwilling.

World War II Made America the World’s Police

Another myth from WWII is that all subsequent military engagements are NOT war, but police actions and therefore no formal declaration of war need be declared. Since World War II America has spent trillions of dollars on the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, et al and none of these wars have been declared. The patriotic libertarian and the patriotic socialist easily agree that the executive branch of government must have some latitude to deploy troops for quick response in this dangerous world. Nonetheless, the legislative branch is where wars should be given the official backing of the people. The patriotic libertarian and the patriotic socialist are in complete agreement, the aforementioned “police actions” were in fact wars, since no one refers to the Indo-China conflict as the Vietnam Police Action. Certainly not those that fought in that engagement.

Short-term troop deployments are one thing, but multi-year foreign occupations and invasions must be supported by a declaration of war. A full debate of the American Congress puts issues of killing and the making of war more clearly in front of the politicians. Pangs of conscience are possible even in this jaded crowd of sociopaths. The military-industrial complex understands a formal declaration of war can be very difficult to achieve without an EMINENT threat. Eminent threats are actually rare, so better to have these slowly growing conflicts that eventually become full blown long-term wars without having to face the public debate in the beginning. The profits still roll in, just slower at first.

The legislative branch has shown itself to be somewhat spineless on the issue of war declarations and has repeatedly allowed executive branch troop deployments to drag on without any oversight, let alone a formal declaration of war. Legislative cowardice allowed Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Afghanistan and Iraq to be prosecuted with no formal declaration of war. Though in the case of Korea, President Harry Truman’s coining of the term “police action” did put the legislative branch back on its heels.

In the case of the latter three, the legislative branch passed Authorizations to Use Military Force instead of debating a formal declaration of war. A formal declaration of war gives the executive branch additional powers. In the case of war, libertarian-socialists understand a need for the commander-in-chief to have more power, and demoting the Congress once war is actually declared. It is this Constitutional paradox that makes the formal debate of a declaration of war so important. If soldiers are to die, then the Congress must believe so strongly that war is necessary that it essentially cedes some of its powers for the duration. Instead, the legislative branch has sent soldiers into harm’s way without an honest debate about WAR. Congress preserves its power and abrogates itself of constitutional obligations through the AUMF.

This is where citizens must demand a formal declaration of war every time troops are deployed for extended periods of time. This prevents the legislature from turning its back on wartime responsibilities to publicly debate the goals for military action and then step back and let the commander-in-chief prosecute the war. Congress has proven they lack the political will without pressure from the people to debate a formal declaration of war no matter the consequences of their avoidance. Despite the many thousands of casualties in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq since World War II, Congress has not debated a war declaration resolution in 75 years!

The American Military Has Superpowers

One reason that the public allows these AUMFs is that mythology of WWII. The American military is believed to have super powers that can solve all manner of problems across the planet, at least if those powers are brought to bear forcefully. This belief is an article of faith. It is held with an almost religious fervor. This is not hyperbole as those that lived through it saw the defeat of the Third Reich as vanquishing Satan. Unfortunately, the Greatest Generation is no more and the circumstances of their victory a unique moment in time. The special powers fueled by unlimited money and an unsurpassed economic power are nearly exhausted. The world has changed too much. The United States can only work on itself and cannot control global evolution.

The actions of this century ended America’s status as the sole superpower. Though the libertarian-socialist agenda can help return America to greatness, the nation is not likely to regain sole superpower status. This truth must be accepted for the nation to evolve. America may be able to hold a position as a first among equals and stabilize finances, but it will be difficult to regain the historic super powers that most Americans have believed in for so long.

From the world’s point of view, if the United States were still a superpower, it would have successfully prosecuted the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. WWII was fought against a technologically equal military force and in some cases, a technological edge was held by the Axis powers. However, Hitler and Tojo were defeated in four years. The United States has been in Afghanistan for over 16 years, while being in and out of the Middle East theater for even longer than that. What does victory look like against this technologically inferior opponent and why cannot America achieve it?

The close alliance between the nation’s politicians with the military-industrial complex allows wartime profiteers to silently steer American foreign policy in directions that are not in the best interest of this nation. The most important consequence of this hijacking of the United States military by private corporate interests is that Americans must accept the fact the nation will no longer be able to draw upon its historic military super powers.

In the 1990s, America was perceived as the lone superpower. The world appeared to be in the beginnings of a Pax Americana. For the first time in many, many years, it was possible to travel to almost any place on the planet and not be in fear of conflict at the turn of the 21st century. Unfortunately, that all began to unravel with the 9/11 attacks and then the world was torn apart by the preemptive strike on Baghdad shattering the superpower mythology of the USA as the world’s police force.

The United States must get used to being a nation that has peers. The patriotic libertarian and the patriotic socialist reluctantly agree and acknowledge that saber rattling has little effect on America’s most formidable enemies now. The United States now exists in a dangerous multi-polar world, which has yet to solidify into stable power blocs.

America must recognize that it no longer resides in the bi-polar world of the Cold War or the unilateral Pax Americana that existed after the fall of the Soviet Union. The globe has in fact returned to the extremely dangerous and complicated multi-polar world that preceded the First Great World War. Again the world recognizes this return to a state of affairs much like what preceded WW1, but Americans are blinded by their myths and do not recognize the danger.

War Drives Invention and Innovation

One of the most enduring myths of World War II is that war drives invention and innovation. This is considered an unassailable fact in some quarters. The debate between the patriotic libertarian and the patriotic socialist brought this myth under close inspection and it does not stand up. History does not support this contention of great technological advance only occurs through war. War and the pressure to weaponize all technology often enhances great inventions, there is no question, but there is more nuance to be examined.

Libertarian-Socialists need to remind Americans of the surprising number of the great inventions that have changed the world over the last couple of centuries that were NOT created by or for war. The list of the great peacetime inventions is actually quite long: the bicycle, automobile, telephone, radio, television, electric light, airplane, steam ships and locomotives are peacetime inventions all. These are undeniable peacetime inventions. Inventions created because of the peacetime information sharing that promotes huge leaps in creativity.

Some inventions seem to be undeniably weapons of war, but were really peacetime ideas. The liquid fueled rocket was invented by American Robert Goddard with the idea of going into space. The computer came about in the 1930s, before World War II, though code breaking drove an incredible advancement of it during that war. Even the basic ideas of how to use nuclear fission to create energy were there before WWII drove the United States to weaponize it as the first atomic bomb. There is no denying that war can drive the refinement of existing technologies to more power and efficiency. However, history indicates that seminal technological leaps come from the synergies created through peace, not war.

There is a simple reason for the creativity found in peacetime and lack of it during wartime and that is the ever present specter of national security interests. Wartime tends to lock up knowledge, not distribute it freely. Secrecy causes a loss of innovation. Americans might want to consider the history of its greatest rival, China, for confirmation. A thousand years ago, China was a country with huge technological leads on rest of the world, gunpowder, rockets, and bombs were in the Chinese arsenal centuries before they are used in the West. Somehow, though, this technological lead had disappeared by the time of the Opium Wars in the 19th century. The mainstream history of China that Westerners traditionally heard indicated these technological advantages were never weaponized, but that is myth.

The world is now facing recent revelations in Chinese archaeology and history that indicate these technologies were weaponized. The Chinese did not just build fireworks; they built bombs and other explosive missiles. The Chinese enjoyed a technological advantage militarily. They deployed these weapons against their enemies controlling an enormous portion of the Asian continent. With such a technological lead, how did the Chinese fall so far behind?

These weapons existed at the time of Marco Polo, but these were likely hidden from a foreigner. Despite the national security interests of China, the secrets of gunpowder eventually did make it to Europe. Europe was a chaotic geopolitical battleground and ideas on how to weaponize gunpowder spread quickly and widely. The lack of effective secrecy and nationalist conflicts on the European continent allowed for far more rapid development of gunpowder weaponry.

The Chinese held a technological lead, but it began to shrink. The Chinese became more insular and inward looking. As their military advantage shrank, the Chinese attempted to further lock down the secrets of this technological lead. Gunpowder became a national security secret to preserve a military advantage. Unfortunately, over time this secrecy eroded the Chinese technological lead. As China sought to cut-off contact with the outside world, they were cutting off the free exchange of ideas, which led to the loss of their technological advantage.

Since WWII, the US government has largely controlled innovation, creating a very similar dynamic. It is harder to find late 20th century examples of peacetime inventions, because true peacetime has not existed since the Cold War. One world changing invention that has come is the Internet, which started out as a DARPA military project. The internet has become a source of further great innovation, in spite of the government and military’s desires to keep the secrets locked away. However, even this is based upon a peacetime invention…the computer.

The internet was invented in the sixties and enhanced in the relative peacetime of the seventies. Invented in this special time in America, it is a special case. Even under military oversight, it is an innovative exception due to the rebellious spirit of the time in the United States. It was this rebellious attitude that was driving innovation despite military desires for secrecy. Additionally, what the world sees as the internet is actually the World Wide Web. The “www” that precedes so many websites stands for the World Wide Web and this was invented by a foreigner, Tim Berners-Lee. The internet blossomed as a public entity, because the inventors refused to cooperate with the military-industrial complex thus allowing anyone, even non-Americans, to innovate on the platform.

Such rebellion could not occur today, because the freedom of the individual has been greatly curtailed (another reason to protect privacy) in the United States since the mid-20th century. Here we have an example of a military invention whose great contributions to the peacetime infrastructure were forced upon it by the rebellious inventors of the technology. The inventors refused to make its architecture secret or embed surveillance technologies within it, allowing a foreigner like Berners-Lee to build the World Wide Web. Without these rebels, the original hackers forcing an open and transparent design, the internet never could have become the great global information highway.

Secrecy Preserves Technological Advantage

Secrecy limits the sharing of information, and without a collaborative knowledgebase, the synergies that accelerate development and invention simply cannot happen. In the case of China, it took hundreds of years before the European innovation machine surpassed the Chinese. It took time, but the West did indeed eclipse Chinese technological advantages by the late 18th century and early 19th century. When the two sides met again, China was at a distinct disadvantage.

Currently, the pace of change is far greater. Presuming the United States still has an advantage; it is evaporating at quite a rate. Libertarian-Socialists must spread the word that the American advantage is tenuous given Chinese quantum computing advances. Patriots must spur citizens to regain the transparency peacetime brings to jump start real innovation in America again. It will be a tragic irony for the West, if we meet the East again in conflict this century with the exact opposite outcome.