In Memoriam
On Memorial Day, America remembers and honors those who died while serving in the military. It is altogether fitting and proper to ask: for what did they die? Do the rationales offered by the military and government officials who decide when and how the US will go to war, and embraced by the public, particularly those who lose loved ones, stand up to scrutiny and analysis? Some will recoil, claiming it inappropriate on a day devoted to honoring the dead. However, it is because war is a matter of life and death, for members of the military and, inevitably, civilians, that its putative justifications be subject to the strictest tests of truth and the most probing of analyses.
This is an excerpt. The rest of the article can be accessed via the link above.
This is an excerpt. The rest of the article can be accessed via the link above.
The army of a free country has a great responsibility: the right to use force, but not as an instrument of compulsion and brute conquest — as the armies of other countries have done in their histories — only as an instrument of a free nation's self-defense, which means: the defense of a man's individual rights. The principle of using force only in retaliation against those who initiate its use, is the principle of subordinating might to right. The highest integrity and sense of honor are required for such a task. No other army in the world has achieved it. You have."
Ayn Rand to the class of 1974 at the United States Military Academy at West Point, March 1974
Japan's Admiral Yamamoto advocated for the Pearl Harbor attack only if the American carriers were there. By freak circumstances, none were.
The Battle of Midway would have gone quite differently had not one Japanese scout plane had a radio malfunction which prevented it from exposing the location of the American Task Force.
If Germany had left the prosecution of the war for Africa in Rommel's hands instead of being micro-managed by the Fuhrer, the Allies never would have been successful in their landings there, creating a second front.
If Germany had simple pulled back from St. Petersburg until Spring rather than attempt to fight in the winter, they could have used artillery to bomb the city into submission. Instead, Hitler order the attack and ended up losing 80% to weather and lack of supplies, effectively ending the Eastern Campaign.
Without that second front in both the Pacific - the Japanese were invading Asia - and in the Atlantic, both Axis powers would have been able to prosecute the remainder of the war with only ONE front to concentrate on, and they would have won. Germany would have developed the atomic bomb in only another six months after the end of the war. Britain would have been forced to capitulate after a single V-2 - for which the British had no answer - laden with one of these had detonated over London. St. Petersburg (aka Stalingrad - the site of Germany's defeat on the Eastern front) would have similarly been turned to rubble.
An isolationist America during WW II would have resulted in the enslavement of the World.
That being said, is that justification for carrying the war to other nations in pre-emptive strikes? Not in my opinion. But the argument that a non-interference policy would have worked during WW II is contradicted by all military historians.
There is absolutely no way that Germany would have had an atomic bomb 6 months after the end of war. The German bomb effort was laughably rudimentary, amply documented in Thomas Powers's Heisenberg's War and Richard Rhodes The Making of the Atomic Bomb. The Germans lacked both the physicists and the industrial infrastructure to make a bomb, and Powers argues that the head of its program, Heisenberg, deliberately spiked the effort. So no, there would not have been atomic bombs dropping on either London or Stalingrad. The "German Atomic Bomb" was mostly dreamed up and perpetuated by US and British intelligence, which knew the truth, to keep scientists in the US working on our bomb and stifling the moral doubts many of them had about it.
Rejecting your main premise, I also reject that: "An isolationist America during WWII would have resulted in the enslavement of the world." While Americans like to think we won WWII, it was in fact the USSR which inflicted over 80 percent of Germany's casualities and was driving its forces back to Germany well before D-Day. Left unanswered from my article was how either Japan or Germany or both would have been able to invade and conquer the US across two oceans. Maybe US involvement was justified to keep Europe and Asia free from totalitarian domination (an argument that was undercut by our alliances with the USSR and Nationalist China), but the claim that if we hadn't fought we'd be speaking Japanese or German is, I believe, wrong, although of course it is impossible to prove or disprove an assertion based on a counterfactual.
The Germans besieged Leningrad (Soviet name for Sankt-Peterburg, the Russian version of Saint Petersburg) from Sep. 8, 1941 (i.e. two and a half months after their original invasion of Russia) until Jan 27, 1944, when the siege was finally lifted.
Stalingrad was the Soviet-renamed Tsaritsyn (in Russian it means "Empress's") and now named Volgograd. The famous battle of Stalingrad started Aug. 23, 1942 (well more than a year after the original invasion and well after the German failure to take Moscow) and ended with the surrender of von Paulus's army on Feb, 2, 1943, which made visible the beginning of the end of the German Third Reich.
Tsaritsyn was founded in the 16th century and is located on the right bank of the Volga river, at the Eastern end of Europe. Sankt-Peterburg was founded at the beginning of the 18th century and id located at the estuary of the Neva river into the Baltic Sea.
Both cities were defended with enormous casualties on both sides. The fact that the Germans never prevailed has remained a source of immense pride among the Russians.
Facts must remain facts here.
Here are the factors that get affected by a non-intervention strategy by the US in WW II in Europe
- no bombing raids by the US from England on Germany's manufacturing and R&D efforts
- no bombing raids on the V1 and V2 launch platforms
- no heavy bombers ever get developed for use in the war - arguably the most devastating single advancement of the war
- no threat of a second front opening up allows for more forces on the Eastern Front against the Russians
- no reinforcements to the English forces at El Alamein, ceding Africa to the combined German/Italian forces
- no hope for the beseiged British leads to capitulation under unceasing V2 attacks - even conventional ones
On the other side of the world
- invasion of Australia and New Zealand by Japanese forces (aborted after Battle of Coral Sea)
- China gets completely overrun by the Japanese and its people are systematically butchered (no Fighting Tigers)
- first Midway, then the Hawaiian islands become Japanese advance bases and territories
- an assault on the Aleutian Islands (originally part of a feint along with the attack on Midway) turns into an invasion of portions of Alaska and possibly Canada
At the very best, the US and Canada are left with a hostile force occupying Alaska (and its oil) while England is forced to capitulate and Russia is overwhelmed.
Now since everything is a hypothetical, there is no definitive answer one way or the other. But the _likelihood_ of Russia holding out and the _likelihood_ of Britain repulsing the Germans all without overt US action is in my book very small indeed.
An interesting read, it goes into depth as to how the respective Constitutions would be merged, respecting the generally commonly held traditions of elective representative government, and the traditions of Anglo Common Law.
But to the point here, Streit makes one rather compelling argument in favor of the idea. If Great Britain were to succumb to Germany, Britain's world dominating Navy would then be Germany's Navy. A rather daunting prospect should Germany have then ruled the waves. America's Navy was yet quite unprepared, running a close game with a rampaging Japan after Pearl Harbor. Things may have indeed turned out quite different. Recall the concern and motive for Britain to attempt to scuttle the captured French Mediterranean Fleet rather than allow the ships to fall into German hands.
Alternative What If histories are a lot of fun to pursue, but geez, many things could have changed the course of that war at hundreds of junctures. The code breaking history is incredible in itself.
When I joined, we were told that the navy existed for two purposes: sea control and force projection. But absent all out war, trying to force change on those not ready for it is akin to pushing on a rope. We should remember the Chinese axiom that, "When the student is ready, the teacher appears."
you cite from Pinnacle:::
“You don’t fight for your country, you fight for your
government.”
I fought for my country, in spite of my government.
I was overseas during Nixon's resignation. . None
of the news made me drool over my government.
But the nation of my birth, with which I [like Rand]
had fallen desperately in love, in which my family
and friends lived, where I hoped to live for a long
time and raise a family -- this nation was my mistress.
My wife of one year was left behind. . She was not
pregnant. . I wanted to return in one piece.
While I bought your book and love it, I fought
for my nation. . john mason, usaf lt col retired
.
From your own words, if you believed you were fighting for your country, "in spite" of the government, that implies that the interests of the nation and the government were opposed at the time you served. Contradictions, as Ayn Rand often noted, cannot exist. It was the government you were fighting for, whose orders you were following. If the interests of the nation and the government were opposed, you were fighting against the interests of the nation.
wished I was serving, for the family and friends whom
I wished I had been serving well, and for the future
which I wished I had had. . and I busted my ass. . for
what? . we lost more than 50,000 lives defending
freedom for people who were mostly pawns in an
international tussle between us, the ussr and china.
if we had treated it like korea, it would have been
different. . we still have korea under our wing. . hey,
we still have germany under our wing. . and the
phillippines. . some of these overseas adventures
have been more of a success than others.
I was a kid, 24, and y'all taxpayers had paid for
much of my ME degree. . I was fighting for you, as
a loyal employee. . it's just that the orders weren't
yours -- they were "theirs" -- that nameless they
who have led this nation to the cliff and are now
trying to push it over. . awsh!!....... -- j
p.s. OK, "they" do have names -- I just didn't
want to get into that right now. . very long list.
p.p.s. I had been studying Rand for 9 years then,
and knew that the contradiction was there -- and
taking its toll on the nation. . it has since been
resolved. . we're essentially sunk.
.
another, for our people here in the u.s. -- is stronger
than it is with other people, in my experience. . trying,
with your life on the line, to do your best to prevent
damage to yourself, your team, your family, your
friends, your nation -- it's a strong feeling.
like Galt and Rand, we love life and all of the aspects
of it which are valuable. . very heartily. -- j
.
I am equally worried about my grandchildren. The country has changed a lot since we immigrated as newlyweds (Jan. 1967). I think that people get the governments they deserve. I also think if we could find few excellent leaders among some of the politicians, they could lead the people to a bit more wisdom and less blind trust in the government and more of it as the solution for everything. Remember Reagan after Carter?
Thank you again for the benefits I received because of your choices.