Was World War 2 a “good war?”

Politicians poorly planned WW2. The consequences were pernicious Retweet

By Perry Willis

To understand whether there was any positive value in U.S. wars and interventions we’ve thus far covered…

Now comes, perhaps the most controversial and, thus, most important article of the series…

Was World War 2 a “good war?”

WW2 is “Exhibit A” for anyone who wants to make a case for foreign intervention. That’s because people are sure they understand what the payoff was. That understanding goes like this…

We defeated the Japanese and stopped their wave of conquest
We defeated Hitler and saved the world from tyranny

This is partly true, but completely superficial.

Yes, the U.S. did stop Japanese imperialism.But too many people assume that war was the best path to that goal, and that the Pacific basin was better because of that war.

And yes, we did help defeat Hitler. But we actually saved only a small corner of Europe. Our politicians sold the rest of Europe into tyranny.

Please keep your mind open to the following explanation…

There was a possible peaceful path to avoiding Japanese imperialism.

Imagine that U.S. politicians had freed all the colonies we conquered from Spain in the Spanish-American War
Imagine that U.S politicians had not waged a war of conquest in the Philippines between 1899 and 1902
Imagine that Teddy Roosevelt had not encouraged the Japanese to start an empire of their own
Imagine that Teddy Roosevelt had not given Korea to Japan as their first imperial conquest on November 28, 1905
Imagine what might have happened instead had U.S. politicians urged the Japanese to follow a peaceful course

Maybe there would have been no conquesting Japanese empire to worry about. Instead, U.S. politicians did absolutely everything wrong, and Japan followed our example! In addition…

It’s possible that U.S. politicians actually chose the more evil side in the conflict between Japan and China

I’ve already shown how U.S. politicians made exactly this mistake in WW1. Well, a case can be made that U.S. politicians did it again with Japan and China. But first you have to understand how we ended up in that war. The Japanese didn’t just attack Pearl Harbor for no reason. There was a lot of prelude…

FDR began imposing trade restrictions on Japan in 1939.
In 1940 he began organizing fighter pilots to send to China (they became know as the Flying Tigers).
FDR also sent numerous ships into Japanese waters hoping to provoke an event that would lead to war.
When that failed FDR imposed an oil embargo on Japan. That provoked the response he wanted — the attack on Pearl Harbor.

So the question is…

Was FDR right to defend China against Japan?

That question overlooks something crucial. FDR was not mainly defending the Chinese people, he was defending China’s ruler, Chiang Kai-shek, who may actually have been worse than the Japanese. Consider…

Professor R. J. Rummel is the world’s leading expert on democide (death by The State). He has researched the number of murders committed by 20th Century rulers independent of those they caused through war. Look at his findings for Chiang vs. Japan…

Chiang Kai-shek murdered 10 million people
Japan murdered 5 million

By that measure…

Chiang was more evil than the Japanese
FDR was wrong to choose Chiang’s side

This is a mistake that both U.S. politicians and the American people have made repeatedly…

Too many Americans assume that every conflict must have a good side and a bad side.

Not true. More often than not both sides are bad. That was certainly the case both in WW1 and with Chiang Kai-shek versus Japan.

Adults realize that some situations are unfixable. You just have to wait them out because any effort to intervene just makes matters worse. Sadly…

The closer you look, the worse the case against the U.S. war with Japan becomes. If you’re going to pick a fight with someone, as FDR did with Japan, and then sacrifice vast wealth and innocent young lives to that purpose, you had better make damned sure you leave things better than you found them. But the exact opposite happened in the case of the Pacific War.

China ended up worse
Korea ended up worse
Vietnam ended up worse

In fact, so far as I can tell from my extensive reading about WW2, neither FDR nor his generals, nor Harry Truman, gave much thought to how things would be in Asia after they defeated Japan. Instead…

Our so-called leaders were incredibly simple-minded. Once they had their war with Japan they focused exclusively on winning that war, with hardly any thought for what would come after.

Korea is the “poster child” for that error.

Do you want to know where North Korea came from? It’s really simple — U.S. politicians created it! I can show you how…

First, Teddy Roosevelt encouraged Japan to conquer Korea on November 28, 1905
Second, Harry Truman invited Joseph Stalin to occupy the northern half of the Korean peninsula at the end of WW2

Bam! The result is North Korea and the Korean war that followed. Both were “Made in the USA” by U.S. politicians. But the worst was yet to come…

Instead of losing to the Japanese, Chiang Kai-shek lost to Mao’s communists.

The result was another 50-80 million Chinese corpses.

In short, the U.S. war against Japan was mostly a disaster. Its only accomplishment was the end of Japanese militarism. All its other consequences were calamitous. So…

What about the European Theater?

We tell ourselves we defeated Hitler. This claim largely ignores the Soviet contribution. If there was one book I wish every American would read about the European theater, it’s this one — No Simple Victory by Norman Davies. Mr. Davies compares the Soviet contribution versus that of the U.S. and Britain. After you review his evidence, you’ll likely reach these two conclusions…

The U.S. contribution to Hitler’s defeat was relatively small compared to the Soviets
Hitler was probably doomed the moment he invaded the Soviet Union, whether the U.S. entered the war or not

One way you can know this, short of reading Davies’ book, is by looking at two dates…

Everyone acknowledges that the German defeat at Stalingrad was the turning point in the war. From that point on the Nazis were in constant retreat. That defeat happened on February 2, 1943.

Significant U.S. and British ground forces didn’t reach Europe until D-Day, June 6, 1944 — nearly a year and a half after the German retreat began. There were U.S. forces fighting German troops in Italy prior to that. However, their numbers were small relative to the Eastern Front, and they were bogged down by the Italian terrain.

So you should ask yourself some questions…

Would the Nazi retreat have stopped if either D-Day had failed or never happened? Or would the Soviets have continued rolling forward, all the way into Berlin, without the U.S. being there?

I think the Soviets were going to defeat the Nazis whether D-Day happened or not. So, the real U.S. accomplishment in WW2 was not defeating Hitler, it was something else entirely.

The real U.S. accomplishment was preventing Stalin from rolling all the way to the English Channel.

Our intervention in WW2 saved West Germany, Italy, France, and the Benelux countries from Stalin. That’s an important achievement! Unfortunately, that positive result is almost perfectly counterbalanced by the negative facts that we…

Allied ourselves with Stalin
Aided Stalin
Requested nothing in return for that aid, and thereby…
Helped Stalin conquer Eastern Europe, while giving him North Korea as a bonus prize.

Bottomline: We saved Western Europe but doomed Eastern Europe. I call that a zero sum outcome.

Worst of all, NONE of this would have happened had we not intervened in WW1 in the first place. (See how U.S. intervention in WW1 helped give rise to both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany).

So look where we find ourselves after reviewing all the major U.S. wars and interventions up to WW2…

Did U.S. interventions defend freedom? The answer is clearly no.
Did U.S. interventions make Americans more secure? The answer is clearly no. They made us profoundly less safe.
Did U.S. interventions make the world better or worse? The evidence is overwhelming that U.S. interventions made the world profoundly worse. They led to tens of millions of unintended deaths, trillions in lost wealth, and untold suffering.

What should we conclude from this as Veterans Day approaches? I suggest two things…

We must find ways to severely limit how politicians use the military.
We must stop using patriotic holidays, like Veterans Day, to offer false platitudes about how U.S. politicians employed the soldiers under their control. Those soldiers certainly wanted to defend America, defend freedom, and improve the world. But that’s not how the politicians used them. We must find more honest ways to honor our soldiers lest we contribute to more needless suffering.

Thank you for being an ACTIVE DC Downsizer.

Perry Willis

Co-founder, Downsize DC

Co-creator, Zero Aggression Project

P.S. Previous articles in this series include…

Were early U.S. wars good or bad? (covering the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War, and the conquest of the Philippines)
Did Teddy Roosevelt co-found the Japanese empire? (Covering TR’s betrayal of Korea)
Did U.S. politicians choose the more evil side in Word War 1?
How U.S. politicians helped create the Soviet Union
Did blundering U.S. politicians spark the rise of Nazi Germany
How U.S. intervention in WW1 led to the rise of radical Islam

PPS: Here’s a list of books I’ve consulted in this series. If you buy these books using the links below, Downsize DC will get credit we can use to expand our research library. Thank you for your interest and support.

World War 2

The Russian Revolution

World War 1

The Spanish-American War, the conquest of the Philippines, and Teddy Roosevelt’s betrayal of Korea...

The Mexican War

A Wicked War by Amy S. Greenberg

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November 10, 2016

Was World War 2 a “good war?”

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