US Role and Strategy in WWII

A new kind of liberalism, modern liberalism, which had its roots prior to this, but, really is kind of the face of that new movement, is FDR. But we'll be talking more about that in a, you know, different lectures. Today, we're talking about the US and the course of World War 2. So the major, questions we're gonna be dealing with in this lecture, we're gonna talk about the lead up to US involvement in World War 2. Initially, the US is gonna be isolationist and resisting getting in, but eventually certain events are going to transpire to bring us into the conflict. We'll talk about how American strategy influenced diplomacy, and then we'll talk about how the structure of international relations is gonna change, as a result of the war. But first, let's do a little bit of background. Alright? Particularly on European appeasement and American neutrality. So one of the big things to come out of world war 1, right, the peace treaty that brought that conflict to an end was the Treaty of Versailles. Right? And, we've kinda talked about this before that the Germans had to pay, these punitive reparations. They had to accept blame for having started the war even though, they didn't. And but as the Great Depression wore on, when it came to the reparations, remember that at at first we had talked about that the US had always been in the position of wanting to provide, some relief for Germany when it came to these reparations payments. Trying to convince, Great Britain and France to extend the, amount of time that, Germany had to pay back these reparations, hoping that doing so could, you know, avoid further devastation to the German economy. But initially, Great Britain and France were very much dead set against that. However, as the Great Depression, you know, kind of grinded on or ground on, eventually, Great Britain starts to take the, adopt a similar position to the United States. Right? That the, reparations were too much. It was really, handicapping and crippling, the German economy. But France refused to budge off of that position. Right? France, and, I mean, you could make an argument. France, they're the ones who got invaded during World War 1, not Great Britain. That France had suffered all the, you know, many lives lost, but, in particular, territorial devastation as a result of, German, German invasion. So one of the first things that Hitler does after he, takes power in Germany, is he abrogates the Treaty of Versailles. In other words, he stops, feeling like as though that Germany is bound by it. Right? So he stops making reparations payments. He starts to rearm the German military. Because, remember, one of the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, you have territorial loss, you have the financial reparations, and you have, the armament. And, Germany was forced to keep a very small and antiquated navy. They're not allowed to have an air force. The size of their army was limited to a 100000 men. Basically the bare bones minimum that would be needed, to defend their territory. Certainly not big enough to launch any kind of large offensive operations. So Hitler basically flips the double bird to the League of Nations, re arms the military, stops paying reparations payments, and begins a very aggressive program of re annexation. So you see some of these territories that were taken away from Germany, include this area here which was given to Poland, basically dividing the German state of Prussia into 2. Parts of Silesia were given away to Poland. Some of these territories were ceded to Czechoslovakia. Other parts, especially in the west, there's some of their land was ceded to Belgium, as well as to France. Right? So and again, a lot of that land in the west was land that was heavily industrialized. Right? So a lot of Germany's industrial capacity was in the Rhine River Valley. And, of course, the Rhine River, is, you know, basically that this industry, when it's taken away from Germany, it makes it less likely that they're gonna able, gonna be able to, pay back their reparations, in a timely manner. Right? So he starts re annexing territories that had been taken away from Germany, first of all, during the Treaty of Versailles. Right? And then he's going to expand that even more. Right? And this is part of Hitler's larger quest for what he referred to as Lebensraum. Right? So Lebensraum is a German term, that basically means living space. And not just living space for German citizens, but in particular, German Aryans. Right? Because Hitler was part of a group who believed that the Aryan race was the most superior race on the face of the earth, and that, basically, if you created this superhuman race of people and gave them enough space to be able to live, that this would, in time, allow Germany to be able to dominate the world. Alright? So, Hitler is going to then, after he takes back these territories that had been taken away, from Germany as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, he's gonna start annexing territories of people who spoke the German language. Right? So he remilitarizes the Rhineland, repopulates the Ruhr Valley, then he's going to annex countries like Austria, which is primarily German speaking. And then he's going to also, occupy the German speaking, area of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland. Alright. So the Sudetenland, is this outer ring, of Czechoslovakia, that has primarily a German speaking population. So under this up to this point, right, he can kind of say, like, well, we're just trying to give, all German speakers, a common government that they can, that they can belong to. But, right, there there is a, kind of an ulterior motive which will become more apparent in the coming years. Right? Because, then this is basically revealed when Hitler invades, Bohemia, Arabia, which again is another part of Czechoslovakia. Now the difference is is that this had not been at one point part of Germany, and the, population of this area was mostly, speaking, the Czech language, Czechoslovakia. Alright? So this, idea that they're expanding to unite all Germanic peoples is kind of the expansion into, Bohemia and Arabia and eventually into, Czechoslovakia, the Slovakian part. This reveals Hitler's designs of what they really were and that's basically a naked attempt at land expansion. Right? And he's trying to expand the size of Germany, for military and strategic purposes. And then, of course, right, all kind of pretenses to any kind of territorial expansion or any kind of expansion for other reasons is thrown out the window on September 1st, 1939 when Hitler invades Poland. Alright. So you have this very aggressive territorial expansion, that was kind of undercover but later becomes revealed, for what it truly was. Another thing is that Hitler starts building alliances. Alright? So Hitler sends his emissaries to negotiate, peace treaties, or alliances, with a number of strategic allies. The first of these is the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact, a nonaggressive pact with the Soviets that was signed in August of 1939. Whoops. Molotov Ribbentrop. Right? So, Molotov was the Soviet foreign minister. Right? Named the Molotov cocktail, was named after, Molotov, and then Ribbentrop was the German foreign minister. So they get together and they sign this non aggression pact, basically, for one thing, agreeing that the two sides weren't gonna fight each other. The second part of Volotov Ribbentrop is that they, had a secret agreement that once Germany invaded Poland, that Russia would invade Poland from the east, and they would basically divide the country of Poland right down the middle. Alright? So Hitler and Stalin. Even though Stalin had been a vocal critic against Hitler's territorial expansion, even though Hitler, had, declared that communism and socialism were, antithetical to the Nazi movement and enemies, of the Nazi movement. This is kind of an alliance of convenience. Right? Because Hitler realizes with his grand design of controlling Western Europe that he's not gonna be able to fight 2 fronts at once. Western Europe that he's not gonna be able to fight 2 fronts at once. He won't be able to fight the Soviet Union at the same time he's conquering, Western Europe. Then in, September of 1940, Hitler is going to negotiate the Tripartite Pact. The Tripartite Pact Ciano, who was the, the foreign minister of, Italy. And then, you see, Emperor Hirohito of, Japan. And basically the tripartite pact was a mutually binding defensive alliance, Right? That said that if any of the signatory members who signed this agreement were attacked by an enemy power, that the other 2 would agree to declare war. Right? So and this is basically directed at the United States. Right? Because at this time, as we'll talk about, the United States under, FDR, FDR wants to get involved in the war as Hitler is expanding his, influence and reach throughout, Europe. But at the time, there was a lot of domestic pressure on FDR to kind of hold back and to not fully get involved in the war. But in the event that the American population eventually turned towards supporting the war, these three parties, these three powers who became the Axis powers, are all wanting a mutual defense pact, to deter the United States. So how does the League of Nations react? Remember that the United States, was the major power who had conceived of the idea of a League of Nations, had been behind the Treaty of Versailles, trying to make it a little bit less punitive toward Germany, but then didn't wind up ratifying the treaty, or joining the League of Nations. So the League of Nations, reacts, in kind of a divided way. Right? England, as I mentioned, believed that the Treaty of Versailles was too punitive. Right? France disagreed. So, neither one of them really is going to have the ability to let up on reparations. But as Hitler started expanding his reach into Austria and into the Sudetenland, the, prime minister of Great Britain, Neville Chamberlain, as well as, France, meet with Hitler in Munich, in 1939, agreeing that it was okay that Hitler occupied the Sudetenland. But they basically say that that was the they secure a promise, from Hitler that he wasn't going to move, any farther. Right? So the Munich agreement between Neville Chamberlain there on the left, Daladier who was a French foreign minister, Hitler, Benito Mussolini, the, dictator of Italy, and then, Ciano, who I pointed out, earlier. Right? So they basically draw a line in the sand saying that Germany is not allowed to take any more territory. Right? And if they do, right, that would be considered belligerent and a violation of, the League of Nations, charter. So, but when Hitler invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia, right, he broke it. Right? So what, Chamberlain, called this, basically the policy of appeasement. Right? So and this kind of what goes on here in Munich redefines the word appeasement. Today, it has a very negative connotation. Right? It essentially means backing down in the face of being bullied. Right? That you appease something. But what does appeasement actually mean? Does anybody know like, if you have a little bratty younger brother who's kind of a pain in the ass and is bothering you, how would you appease your younger brother? Do you get him to shut up? How would you get him to shut up? That's a good question. Give them candy. Let them take a try on the video game. Whatever the case may be. Right? So that is appeasement. It used to be, kind of throwing somebody a little bit of something that they want to basically get them to calm down, to behave themselves. And that's kind of what Chamberlain and France thought that they were doing, here at Munich, that by letting Hitler take these lands that were German speaking, you know, letting them take, Czechoslovakia or the German speaking part, that that would quench his desire for territorial expansion. But when he goes into the rest of Czechoslovakia, at that point, it was too late. But they still don't declare war until, they drew the line in the sand at Poland. That if you cross this red line and if you invade Poland, that, the you you, the League of Nations will declare, war. But by the time the, by the time they actually declared war after the invasion of Poland, it was really already too late to stop Hitler. And the reason why is because one thing that Czechoslovakia was really good at was manufacturing armored tanks. Right? So when Hitler takes over Czechoslovakia, he basically controls all of the industrial capacity in Czechoslovakia to manufacture tanks, and that is gonna be, the backbone of Hitler's armor divisions, the Panzer tanks, that Germany became so famous for, during their attack, their blitzkrieg, operations, throughout, Western and Northern Europe. So England and France are gonna declare war on Germany after they invade Poland in September of 1939. Okay. So that's the situation in Europe. Right? The situation is slowly deteriorating over the course of a couple of years. But what is US involvement in these early days? Is the United States neutral power in this, or are we an arsenal for democracy? So, there's lots of fear inside of the American population about going to war, in 1938 and 1939. In fact, as late as October of 1939, less than 2 months or less than a month after the invasion of Poland, 93% of the American population did not want to go to war in Europe, right, during World War 2. And a lot of this is because of the legacy of World War 1. Right? Remember that at the end of World War 1, the United States got in and, by all respects, saved the day after Russia withdrew, their forces due to the Bolshevik revolution. However, when it comes to, the post war period, what did the United States do? Right? They start withdrawing inward. We refuse to join the League of Nations. We don't sign, as a signatory to the Treaty of Versailles. Alright. So this marks a turn toward isolationism. Right. And so during the 1920s, we talked about the United States is, you know, coming up with all kinds of, new consumer products. You have an economic boom time, that's going on. And then, of course, all of this is punctuated by the beginnings of the Great Depression. So between 1935 and 1939, the United States, congress passes a series of neutrality acts, which basically forbid trading arms to these belligerent powers. Both the allies, you know, Great Britain, namely, as well as, eventually, Russia, but also the Axis powers as well. Right? So in theory, this targets all of the belligerent powers. Right? A sign that the United States doesn't want to get involved. However, even these neutrality acts have some caveats or carve outs that really kind of belied the underlying, you know, the underlying desire of FDR to join the side, of Great Britain and France. And one of these provisions was called, cash and carry. So, basically, the idea behind cash and carry is that the United States would sell arms to another country if they agreed to pay cash money upon, receipt and if they would transport these weapons, back to Europe. So, essentially, the United States is acting like the Costco of arms dealers here. Right? That as long as you are willing to come in and pay cash that we're not extending credit to you. Right? As long as you come in and pay cash and take care of shipment so American merchant vessels aren't in the line of fire, at risk of being sunk, that the United States, would sell arms to you. So basically, this is, you know, even though it's in theory open to all comers, England at the time is really the only country in a position to take advantage of. Alright? So cash and carry. But some things are gonna change that are going to move the US and the American population away from strict neutrality. One of these things is Hitler's aggression and the failure of appeasement. Right? We had mentioned before, the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, followed 16 days later by the Soviet invasion of Poland, right, per the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact, where they divide Poland in half, right down the middle. So, you also have the invasion of France then, in, 1940. Right? That, Germany invades France through Belgium, driving, taking Paris in relatively quick fashion, and basically driving to about the midpoint of the country, effectively dividing, France, in half. You also have the Battle of Britain, which started, in the summer of 1940, continued until the fall of 1940. This left Great Britain on the brink of collapse. Right? So, this is basically, Hitler's plan was to, eventually use the German army to invade the mainland of England. But before he did that, he realized that he had to really soften up their defenses, and break the will of, the British Army. So Germany deploys their air force, the Luftwaffe, to bomb military targets all throughout Germany. Airfields, factories that were manufacturing munitions, and so forth. Rallying points for, the British Army. But basically, over time, Hitler starts to resort to nighttime bombing. Right? And nighttime bombing is a lot more, a lot less accurate than daytime bombing. It's safer for your bombers, but it's worse for the civilian population because you can't tell which targets you're aiming at. Alright. So this starts to devastate, you know, England, not just military targets, but the civilian population, as well. Alright. But no matter what, still, Great Britain's population doesn't fold. They continue to resist, and eventually, as we'll see, great, Germany agree, decides to give up their ambition of invading Great Britain, which is important because Great Britain at this time is the only thing standing between the Nazis in complete control over Western and Northern Europe. And this would have been a big problem because if the Nazis control all of Western and Northern Europe, that means they control all of the industrial capacity of Europe. Right? Meaning that British factories, which have been manufacturing planes, guns, and other kinds of things for the British Army, are now gonna be cranking out, German airplanes, German artillery, German guns. Right? And that would only boost, the power of Hitler's war machine. Pierce, did you have a question? Yes. So wasn't the German military called the Wehrmacht? Yes. It was called the Wehrmacht. Yeah. That's it. So you have the Wehrmacht. You have I'll just so because I keep saying these things. German army. Blitzkrieg is the lightning war. That's the, mechanized warfare that Germany is gonna use to, not only invade Poland with, armored tanks, but also, North Africa as well as Russia. So basically, England is the only thing standing in the way of Nazi control over all of Europe. And FDR is very concerned that if Great Britain falls, that meant that, what would stop Hitler from eventually invading Russia? If Russia falls, then he would control all of the industrial capacity, not only of Europe, but also, all of Asia. What would stop him from taking over all the natural resources in Africa? That eventually, if this all played out in the worst way possible, that maybe Hitler would even threaten the western hemisphere in the United States, itself. Not only that, another thing that's gonna shift the United States away from neutrality is that German u boats, German submarines, are gonna start to attack American merchant vessels in the Atlantic. Now these merchant vessels weren't transporting arms, right, because that was a violation of the Neutrality Act, but they are transporting, consumer goods as well as food, right, which are considered humanitarian relief and don't violate, the articles of war. But these cargo vessels are still being attacked by German U boats. Another thing that's gonna happen, in fact, is the election of Winston Churchill, as the prime minister of England in May of 1940. Roosevelt had had a very difficult relationship with Neville Chamberlain. They didn't see eye to eye on a lot of issues, but he gets along really well with Winston Churchill. Alright. In fact, FDR actually saw Churchill naked. That is a true story. So, basically, FDR famously had gone to 10 Downing Street, which is where the British prime minister lives, and he was staying downstairs. And Churchill was upstairs in a bath. And so allegedly, and this is a true story, Churchill calls FDR to the bath. And once FDR is wheeled in in his wheelchair, Churchill stands up butt naked and red because he was in a hot bath. And he says in his gravelly voice, there is nothing that the British prime minister hides from his closest ally, the United States. There's a chance that Churchill may have been drunk when this happened. So who knows? Churchill did like his his Scotch. But these 2 famously get along very well together even though they disagree on a lot of, political issues, but they do agree, that Germany must be stopped. Another thing that's going to, influence, FDR is, things going on in the, Pacific, battle. So, Japan is going to in, invade French Indochina, right, which is the present day, countries of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Japan is going to invade the northern part of Indochina and they'll start to drive through the rest of, Indochina, beginning in September of 1940. Now at this point, Japan had already been at war with China, since 1931. Right? So this is kind of almost 10 years of them expanding their influence, throughout East Asia. Now they're moving into Southern Asia, and the British colony of Burma is right there as well as the British colony of India. So, threatening America's closest allies' colonial possessions. So according to this idea of geopolitics and to think back to our lecture, about about imperialism. Does anybody remember what geopolitics, the basis behind that? Yeah. Hi. The more of, like, land you have, the more how do you have? Right. So it focuses on the external factors that drive imperialism. That, you know, because there is only a limited amount of land in the world, that if you control land, that is land that your enemies or your competitors can control so that gives you a strategic advantage. So, FDR is thinking about geopolitics when he's talking about, not only, Europe but also, Asia. Right? And he realizes that this is a threat, this Japanese movement into this area is threatening, to take control, not only, a big hit to the British Empire, but controlling all of these natural resources down here that at this point are under the control of the allies, but again, could help feed Hitler's war machine. Right? Because there's a lot of or feed the, Japanese war machine, especially when it comes to oil. But we'll get into that, here in a little bit. And so combine that with the fact that Japan had, signed the tripartite pact with Germany and Italy, essentially, what that does is it links the European theater of war with the Pacific. Right? It links these two conflicts, which up to this point have been separate, links them together. So, with in light of this, FDR is going to increase the amount of aid that he's providing to, Great Britain. So another kind of carve out, that came about with the neutrality acts was, this idea of destroyers for bases, which was, articulated first or developed in, September of 1940. And, basically, what destroyers for bases or bases for destroyers, the United States gave 50 decommissioned, World War 1 destroyers from the US Navy to England in exchange for the right to establish US naval bases on British colonial possessions in the Western Hemisphere. Alright? So the US eventually, was able to lease, military bases at Newfoundland, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Jamaica, and then all throughout the Lesser Antilles and even one in British Guyana. So, you know, all of these things are to boost US national security. That if things go sour in Europe, somehow, if Great Britain were to fall as a result of the Battle of Britain, which was going on at this time, that the United States would be able to defend the Western Hemisphere, because of having all of these, bases, with which to combat, the German Navy. And then finally, FDR approves Lend Lease, alright, in March of 1941. Because by this point, Great Britain is running out of all of their supplies. Their merchant, fleet is devastated from German u boat attacks on the North Atlantic. And Great Britain is also running out of cash. Alright. So the US agrees to lend them material. Right? More material, things like jeeps, trucks, cannons, ammunition, airplanes, and all those kind of things. Right? With the idea that they don't have to pay for it and it's not necessarily selling them on credit, but you're lending it to them hoping that you will get it back at the end of the war. Right? Which again is kind of obviously a more blatant violation of, lend labor of the neutrality acts because, if anybody in here is anybody familiar with what happens with bullets when they're shot out of a gun? Like explosion? They explode. Do you ever find people going around the dead bodies on the field of battle digging out bullets so you can give them back to the person that they lent that lent them to you or cannons. Right? So the point is that this kind of gets rid of all pretense of neutrality. The United States is actively giving weapons that aren't gonna be taken back. Right? Tanks that are blown up, you're not gonna give that back to the United States. But all these things are being sent over, to Great Britain to help them in their war against the Nazis. So you'd see, in terms of 1,000,000,000 of dollars worth of materiel, that 5,200,000,000 of that, was munitions, industrial items, agricultural products, even, shipping, helping repair, British merchant boats, and so forth. So, it also, in time is gonna become, open to other, allied powers. France is really taken out of the war, fairly early, but Soviet Union, after the Soviet, Union is invaded by Germany, lend lease is eventually opened up, to them. And, the United States eventually wound up supplying 25% of all of the equipment used by the allied forces, during World War 2. And so again, this is no pretense of national security or being open to all comers. Right? This is solely dedicated for, Great Britain as well as the Soviet Union. So any questions on that? Okay. So moving on to point c, the road to war. So by the summer of 1940, FDR has embraced this idea that he wants a Europe first strategy. In other words, he believes that the most important theater of this conflict of World War 2 is what is going on in Europe. Right? He thinks that this is more important than what is going on in the Pacific. And the reason why has to do with geopolitics. Right? That kind of what I had indicated earlier, that if the United States, actually, fell or if, all of Europe falls to Germany, if Great Britain falls, if the Soviet Union falls, that there would essentially be nothing left except the United States to stop Hitler at that point that he would become too industrially powerful, could have too many natural resources, that eventually he could threaten the western hemisphere, and possibly defeat the United States. Right? So the US, especially FDR, feel, that it is imperative to guarantee the territorial sovereignty of Great Britain as well as the Soviets. So by summer of 1941, the situation is growing even worse because in June of 1941, you have the German invasion of Russia, right, known as Operation Barbarossa. Barbarossa is German for red beard. Alright? So they are invading through Poland, invading the Soviet part of Poland, and then eventually coming within 30 miles of Moscow, right, before this offensive was ground to a halt. So, so close, in fact, that, German soldiers said they could see the spires of, the Kremlin off in the distance. Germany, and Italy are also on the advance in North Africa. And there is a concern, that if that progress continued, that if, Germany was able to take over all of Egypt, they would gain control over the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal, which is the easiest, most direct route, for the British, Navy to be able to access their colonies and help protect their colonies, in Burma, Malaya, as well as, India. And then you also have, Japan continuing their actions in French Indochina. They had previously conquered the northern part and now they're moving into southern Indochina, right, in danger of taking over the entire peninsula. And it's not to say that FDR doesn't see that the Japanese theater or the Pacific theater is important, but he doesn't see Japan as as big of a political threat or a geopolitical threat, as he does to Germany. So basically, he saw the Japanese theater, the Pacific theater, as a means to an end, and we'll explain, how he does that. Alright. So here's what, he is going to do. Basically, in, 1941, FDR imposes an oil and scrap metal embargo on Japan. So this is a pretty big deal because Japan, although it has a very advanced industrialized economy, as a landlocked country, they do not have 2 critical resources. There is no iron ore in the Japanese, islands, and there is also, no oil. So all of the oil and, iron ore or steel that they, have is all comes from imports. So the United States imposes an oil embargo, meaning that nobody's allowed to ship oil, to Japan, and they also ban scrap metal shipments to Japan as well. Right? So now Japan is going to have to find, other means of acquiring these, materials. The reason he does this is to save Russia for invasion or save them from invasion. Because, FDR's belief was that if you cut off the supply of oil and steel into Japan, that they would be forced to attack to the south, into the Philippines, into, Indonesia, which had a lot of, oil as well as, iron ore. Force them to go south to acquire those materials instead of concentrating their forces and attacking, the eastern part of the Soviet Union. Because FDR's biggest fear is that, Russia could fold if they're fighting a 2 front war, inside of their country in the east against Japan and in the west against Germany. So basically, Stalin at this point, has, you know, purged his officer corps. So, there were some ideological purges. He was purging people right before World War 2 started, who he thought were not sufficiently loyal to him, and, this wound up severely weakening the strength of his army. Right? So, FDR does this as a way to, save, a dual, threat attack, a pincher attack against the Soviet Union. And FDR is going to continue to support China funneling money as well as weapons through lend lease, to the Chinese nationalists, who are fighting under, who are being led by Chiang Kai shek. Chiang Kai shek. Right? He's the leader of, the Chinese nationalists. Now, China had been in a civil war since the 19 thirties, between the nationalist democratic capitalists led by Chiang Kai shek. On the other side, you have Mao Zedong. Right? He was the, leader of the Chinese communists. So Mao Zedong, basically, you know, the nationalists have been fighting for years. They're fighting against Japan as well. Both sides kinda put this civil war to the side. They're gonna fight the common enemy, Japan. But the United States is actively funneling money to Chiang Kai shek hopeful hoping that he can, keep up the fight and keep Japan tied down again, to tie down as many of their troops on, these other conflicts to event, prevent them from attacking, the Soviet Union. Okay. So where all this comes to a head is on December 7, 1941 when Japan launches a surprise attack against the American, Pacific Fleet, which at this point was stationed in Honolulu, Hawaii at Pearl Harbor. And the hope here, what Japan hoped to do is that by destroying, the battleships of, you know, the aircraft carriers and everything that, the US Army, the US Navy had in this area, that it would force the United States to, basically focus on Europe instead of focusing on the Pacific Theater. And that by the time the United States rebuild their navy and put it, on a combat footing, that Japan at this point would already have, conquered so much territory, that the US really wouldn't be able to do much to dislodge them. So in this attack, the deadliest attack, on US soil until, the attacks on 911. 24 100 Americans, were killed, civilians as well as sailors. 1200 wounded. There are a bunch of airfields around, the Pearl Harbor naval base. 347 of the 390 aircraft which were parked on those, airstrips, were destroyed or damaged. And then 19 out of the 100 ships that were anchored at Pearl Harbor that day, were sunk or damaged, including 3, which were basically sunk and lost, including very famously the USS Arizona. Which you can see here, you can see it, today. I visited Pearl Harbor over the summer and you can see the ship, the oil still bubbling up out of, the tanks, below the surface. So, the US declares, war on Japan the next step. Yeah. Pierce. Didn't Japan attack the US because of the trade embargo? Was that one of the reasons why they attacked the US? Yeah. I mean, they wanted to relieve it, but they also wanted to try to get an advantage. Like, they were not satisfied with just conquering China, already being in control of Korea and Indochina. They, I mean, they were looking to expand. The day after they attacked Pearl Harbor, they, invade the Philippines. So it's part of a larger, military strategy to assert, themselves throughout the Pacific. So, the US declares war on Japan the next day. On December 11, 1941, Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. Right? So remember what I had mentioned before about the tripartite pact, that the tripartite pact was a mutually binding defense alliance. That the other two powers are only obliged to, declare war if one of the other powers was attacked. Right? So, this was really a big strategic blunder for Hitler because it gave FDR exactly what he wanted. Right? That it allowed him to pursue that Europe first strategy by getting into the war, by declaring war unnecessarily, which, obviously, once Germany declares war on the United States, that alleviates or gets rid of any resistance in the American population, about getting involved in the war in Europe. So, you know, Hitler kinda gets, a little bit crazy, declares war. You know, and at this point, the United States is fully supported. The population is fully supportive of not only going to war in the Pacific against Japan, but also in Europe against Germany and Italy. So, I'll let you because we have a limited amount of time, I'll leave what happens in Europe up to, the book to explain to you. But I wanna focus specifically on what the US does in the Pacific, when fighting the war against Japan. So when it came to deciding what kind of strategy to use to ultimately bring about a surrender, by Japan, there are really 2 options that the US considered. You have the continental strategy and then you have the island hopping strategy. So basically, what the continental strategy was is that the United States and Great Britain would invade into China through Burma and India, opening up, a road to Chungking and then driving overland, trying to take Shanghai, basically driving Japan up into Manchuria, then eventually trying to drive them through Korea and back into Japan. Right? So this is a massive planned land invasion that would involve millions of ground troops as well as armored tanks and everything. And this is the one option eventually leading to, air strikes against Japan, and ultimately a mainland, invasion. The other option here was the island hopping strategy. And, basically, what island hopping would involve is using combined forces of naval power, air power, and land forces, to slowly close in this, arc around the mainland of Japan. Right? So using these combined forces to take island after island, setting up a forward base, and then continuing, to kind of close this ring around Japan, ultimately until you get close enough to launch bombing raids against the mainland of Japan to soften their defenses before you send US troops for a massive invasion. So when FDR and his military, generals were debating which of these strategies, they ultimately chose, the island hopping strategy. The fear there's a number of fears with the continental strategy. 1, is it would have, caused would have required a very big reliance on the Chinese nationalists who had been very ineffective despite getting a lot of military assistance, equipment, weapons from the United States, have been very ineffective at holding off the Japanese. That Japan was actually expanding their territory in China instead of retreating. So the US didn't rely or didn't want to rely on the Chinese nationalists. Not only that, but there also would have required, a lot more ground troops, which FDR knew that he would need for, an invasion of Europe. Right? The tanks as well as the ground forces. And it would have also led to, a lot more casualties, American casualties, going over. Them. So, FDR and his advisers ultimately decide on this island hopping strategy, which winds up being ideal because the US Navy, the United States Marines, who were the ground troops being used, they were ideally suited for this kind of island hopping strategy, and it allowed the United States to maximize their resources, right, using their technological superiority, in the Pacific while saving all of their ground troops and armor, the bulk of it for the conflict in Europe. So over the next 3 years, the US methodically captures island after island, exacting a great toll not only upon the Japanese, but on these American soldiers as well, as well as Japanese, civilians who were living in these outlying islands. As America approaches Japan, they were able to begin launching air strikes against the mainland with a start exacting a very heavy human toll. One example of this was the firebombing of Tokyo, killed over 100,000, Japanese citizens, injured over 1,000,000, which left the, which left the big, decision of whether to drop the atomic bombs, which were finally tested in, middle of 1945 or proceed with this massive ground invasion. Alright. Ultimately, the United States decides to drop the atomic bombs in order to, avert a what was estimated at at least half a 1000000 American casualties and millions upon millions of Japanese, citizens and soldiers, on the Japanese islands, which brings us to, our final point here about preparing the post war world. Alright? Preparing the post war world. FDR and the Allied Powers held several conferences during the war to negotiate, what the post war world would look like. The first of these was held at Casablanca, in Morocco in Northern Africa in January of 1943 where the allies, the United States, Great Britain, and Soviet Union agreed that the Axis would be held to the, the, idea of unconditional surrender. Right? Meaning that they would be able to request no special terms, that they would have to lay down their arms and quit fighting the war, with no special considerations. The US did this to provide reassurance to Stalin. Stalin, during this entire time, was begging Churchill and FDR to open up another front in Europe, right, because of the pressure that Russia was facing on its western border. But, even though FDR and Churchill kinda thought that it would be best, to start slowly, to start in North Africa and eventually work their way to Europe once the army was better prepared. At Bretton Woods in July of 1944, the, basically, the United States agrees, or develops a plan, for global economic, cooperation. Right? Because one of the failures of the prewar period, was this economic collapse of the Great Depression which affected Europe as well as the United States. So in this, FDR proposes at Bretton Woods, the creation of 2 international organizations that would help to, you know, stabilize the global economy. The World Bank, right, which, the goal of the World Bank was to basically provide, money through loans, to poor countries to help them industrialize, as well as the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, which was designed to monitor and regulate the global economy to promote free trade, and free exchange of currencies. Dumberton Oaks Conference in December of 19 or in August of 1944, that was about creating a new, international organization to replace the League of Nations. Right? Remember, the big weakness of the League of Nations was that the US didn't join. So the United States develops this plan to create the United Nations, in which the US would take a very prominent role, in organizing, creating a UN Security Council that had 5 permanent seats. Right? Eventually, this would be the 5 permanent members, the United States, Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and China. Right? What do all those powers have in common? Those were the victorious powers in World War 2. Right? So you heard the term, to the victor belong the spoils. Right? So the 5 permanent seats on the UN Security Council would be occupied, by the victorious Allied powers from World War 2. And then finally, in Yalta, 1945, by this point, World War 2 was winding down. The German army was on the brink of collapse in Europe. The Soviet Union had pushed almost into Berlin at this time. The Americans and the British were crossing in the process of crossing over the Rhine River into the western part of Germany. Japan is also losing, but they're not yet ready to surrender. It was gonna take time before they were ultimately defeated, whether that be through a prolonged and very costly, ground campaign or as we'll see, by the atomic bombs. So Yalta essentially establishes the post war world order that the Soviet Union, it was agreed that they would be allowed to take control over not only Poland, but a lot of the countries in Eastern Europe to, establish kind of a buffer security zone, against, Western and Central Europe. It was decided that Germany was going to have to pay reparations, although not monetary reparations. We'll get into that, in another lecture. And also secured a secret Soviet agreement that, within 90 days of the end of the war in Europe, that the Soviet Union would join the United States in a full invasion, of the Japanese mainland. And then finally, to put an end on this, FDR dies in on, April 12, 1945. Right? So, which and this was a very tragic day for many Americans because for many Americans, right, FDR was the only president to serve more than 2 terms, breaking a precedent that was had been established by George Washington. He had been the president since 1932. He had just won, in, the previous November of November of 44, an unprecedented 4th term. Right? So there were people who had basically lived, a significant portion of their lives, in which FDR was their only president, led them through the great depression and through, the vast majority of World War 2. He was 63 years old when he died. Right? And if you look it up the r, it's kind of amazing to think this picture was taken in February of 1945. It's amazing to think that he was only 63 years old. Because when you look at him, he had lived a very hard life. He had suffered polio, as an adult. He was a chain smoker, a heavy drinker, and basically died of, a cerebral hemorrhage, but he had all kinds of, other health problems, by the time he died. Right? But, his good relationship that he had with Churchill, as well as with, Joseph Stalin, forged during the battles of World War 2. This company would quickly come to an end once he is replaced by his vice president, Harry Truman. But that is a story for another day. Questions? Alright. Well, that's all I got. Enjoy your weekend unless you got classes later today or tomorrow.

We'll talk about how American strategy influenced diplomacy, and then we'll talk about how the structure of international relations is gonna change, as a result of the war. But first, let's do a little bit of background. Alright? Particularly on European appeasement and American neutrality. So one of the big things to come out of world war 1, right, the peace treaty that brought that conflict to an end was the Treaty of Versailles.

Right? And, we've kinda talked about this before that the Germans had to pay, these punitive reparations. They had to accept blame for having started the war even though, they didn't. And but as the Great Depression wore on, when it came to the reparations, remember that at at first we had talked about that the US had always been in the position of wanting to provide, some relief for Germany when it came to these reparations payments. Trying to convince, Great Britain and France to extend the, amount of time that, Germany had to pay back these reparations, hoping that doing so could, you know, avoid further devastation to the German economy.

But initially, Great Britain and France were very much dead set against that. However, as the Great Depression, you know, kind of grinded on or ground on, eventually, Great Britain starts to take the, adopt a similar position to the United States. Right? That the, reparations were too much. It was really, handicapping and crippling, the German economy.

But France refused to budge off of that position. Right? France, and, I mean, you could make an argument. France, they're the ones who got invaded during World War 1, not Great Britain. That France had suffered all the, you know, many lives lost, but, in particular, territorial devastation as a result of, German, German invasion.

So one of the first things that Hitler does after he, takes power in Germany, is he abrogates the Treaty of Versailles. In other words, he stops, feeling like as though that Germany is bound by it. Right? So he stops making reparations payments. He starts to rearm the German military.

Because, remember, one of the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, you have territorial loss, you have the financial reparations, and you have, the armament. And, Germany was forced to keep a very small and antiquated navy. They're not allowed to have an air force. The size of their army was limited to a 100000 men. Basically the bare bones minimum that would be needed, to defend their territory.

Certainly not big enough to launch any kind of large offensive operations. So Hitler basically flips the double bird to the League of Nations, re arms the military, stops paying reparations payments, and begins a very aggressive program of re annexation. So you see some of these territories that were taken away from Germany, include this area here which was given to Poland, basically dividing the German state of Prussia into 2. Parts of Silesia were given away to Poland. Some of these territories were ceded to Czechoslovakia.

Other parts, especially in the west, there's some of their land was ceded to Belgium, as well as to France. Right? So and again, a lot of that land in the west was land that was heavily industrialized. Right? So a lot of Germany's industrial capacity was in the Rhine River Valley.

And, of course, the Rhine River, is, you know, basically that this industry, when it's taken away from Germany, it makes it less likely that they're gonna able, gonna be able to, pay back their reparations, in a timely manner. Right? So he starts re annexing territories that had been taken away from Germany, first of all, during the Treaty of Versailles. Right? And then he's going to expand that even more.

Right? And this is part of Hitler's larger quest for what he referred to as Lebensraum. Right? So Lebensraum is a German term, that basically means living space. And not just living space for German citizens, but in particular, German Aryans.

Right? Because Hitler was part of a group who believed that the Aryan race was the most superior race on the face of the earth, and that, basically, if you created this superhuman race of people and gave them enough space to be able to live, that this would, in time, allow Germany to be able to dominate the world. Alright? So, Hitler is going to then, after he takes back these territories that had been taken away, from Germany as a result of the Treaty of Versailles, he's gonna start annexing territories of people who spoke the German language. Right?

So he remilitarizes the Rhineland, repopulates the Ruhr Valley, then he's going to annex countries like Austria, which is primarily German speaking. And then he's going to also, occupy the German speaking, area of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland. Alright. So the Sudetenland, is this outer ring, of Czechoslovakia, that has primarily a German speaking population. So under this up to this point, right, he can kind of say, like, well, we're just trying to give, all German speakers, a common government that they can, that they can belong to.

But, right, there there is a, kind of an ulterior motive which will become more apparent in the coming years. Right? Because, then this is basically revealed when Hitler invades, Bohemia, Arabia, which again is another part of Czechoslovakia. Now the difference is is that this had not been at one point part of Germany, and the, population of this area was mostly, speaking, the Czech language, Czechoslovakia. Alright?

So this, idea that they're expanding to unite all Germanic peoples is kind of the expansion into, Bohemia and Arabia and eventually into, Czechoslovakia, the Slovakian part. This reveals Hitler's designs of what they really were and that's basically a naked attempt at land expansion. Right? And he's trying to expand the size of Germany, for military and strategic purposes. And then, of course, right, all kind of pretenses to any kind of territorial expansion or any kind of expansion for other reasons is thrown out the window on September 1st, 1939 when Hitler invades Poland.

Alright. So you have this very aggressive territorial expansion, that was kind of undercover but later becomes revealed, for what it truly was. Another thing is that Hitler starts building alliances. Alright? So Hitler sends his emissaries to negotiate, peace treaties, or alliances, with a number of strategic allies.

The first of these is the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact, a nonaggressive pact with the Soviets that was signed in August of 1939. Whoops. Molotov Ribbentrop. Right? So, Molotov was the Soviet foreign minister.

Right? Named the Molotov cocktail, was named after, Molotov, and then Ribbentrop was the German foreign minister. So they get together and they sign this non aggression pact, basically, for one thing, agreeing that the two sides weren't gonna fight each other. The second part of Volotov Ribbentrop is that they, had a secret agreement that once Germany invaded Poland, that Russia would invade Poland from the east, and they would basically divide the country of Poland right down the middle. Alright?

So Hitler and Stalin. Even though Stalin had been a vocal critic against Hitler's territorial expansion, even though Hitler, had, declared that communism and socialism were, antithetical to the Nazi movement and enemies, of the Nazi movement. This is kind of an alliance of convenience. Right? Because Hitler realizes with his grand design of controlling Western Europe that he's not gonna be able to fight 2 fronts at once.

Western Europe that he's not gonna be able to fight 2 fronts at once. He won't be able to fight the Soviet Union at the same time he's conquering, Western Europe. Then in, September of 1940, Hitler is going to negotiate the Tripartite Pact. The Tripartite Pact Ciano, who was the, the foreign minister of, Italy. And then, you see, Emperor Hirohito of, Japan.

And basically the tripartite pact was a mutually binding defensive alliance, Right? That said that if any of the signatory members who signed this agreement were attacked by an enemy power, that the other 2 would agree to declare war. Right? So and this is basically directed at the United States. Right?

Because at this time, as we'll talk about, the United States under, FDR, FDR wants to get involved in the war as Hitler is expanding his, influence and reach throughout, Europe. But at the time, there was a lot of domestic pressure on FDR to kind of hold back and to not fully get involved in the war. But in the event that the American population eventually turned towards supporting the war, these three parties, these three powers who became the Axis powers, are all wanting a mutual defense pact, to deter the United States. So how does the League of Nations react? Remember that the United States, was the major power who had conceived of the idea of a League of Nations, had been behind the Treaty of Versailles, trying to make it a little bit less punitive toward Germany, but then didn't wind up ratifying the treaty, or joining the League of Nations.

So the League of Nations, reacts, in kind of a divided way. Right? England, as I mentioned, believed that the Treaty of Versailles was too punitive. Right? France disagreed.

So, neither one of them really is going to have the ability to let up on reparations. But as Hitler started expanding his reach into Austria and into the Sudetenland, the, prime minister of Great Britain, Neville Chamberlain, as well as, France, meet with Hitler in Munich, in 1939, agreeing that it was okay that Hitler occupied the Sudetenland. But they basically say that that was the they secure a promise, from Hitler that he wasn't going to move, any farther. Right? So the Munich agreement between Neville Chamberlain there on the left, Daladier who was a French foreign minister, Hitler, Benito Mussolini, the, dictator of Italy, and then, Ciano, who I pointed out, earlier.

Right? So they basically draw a line in the sand saying that Germany is not allowed to take any more territory. Right? And if they do, right, that would be considered belligerent and a violation of, the League of Nations, charter. So, but when Hitler invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia, right, he broke it.

Right? So what, Chamberlain, called this, basically the policy of appeasement. Right? So and this kind of what goes on here in Munich redefines the word appeasement. Today, it has a very negative connotation.

Right? It essentially means backing down in the face of being bullied. Right? That you appease something. But what does appeasement actually mean?

Does anybody know like, if you have a little bratty younger brother who's kind of a pain in the ass and is bothering you, how would you appease your younger brother? Do you get him to shut up? How would you get him to shut up? That's a good question. Give them candy.

Let them take a try on the video game. Whatever the case may be. Right? So that is appeasement. It used to be, kind of throwing somebody a little bit of something that they want to basically get them to calm down, to behave themselves.

And that's kind of what Chamberlain and France thought that they were doing, here at Munich, that by letting Hitler take these lands that were German speaking, you know, letting them take, Czechoslovakia or the German speaking part, that that would quench his desire for territorial expansion. But when he goes into the rest of Czechoslovakia, at that point, it was too late. But they still don't declare war until, they drew the line in the sand at Poland. That if you cross this red line and if you invade Poland, that, the you you, the League of Nations will declare, war. But by the time the, by the time they actually declared war after the invasion of Poland, it was really already too late to stop Hitler.

And the reason why is because one thing that Czechoslovakia was really good at was manufacturing armored tanks. Right? So when Hitler takes over Czechoslovakia, he basically controls all of the industrial capacity in Czechoslovakia to manufacture tanks, and that is gonna be, the backbone of Hitler's armor divisions, the Panzer tanks, that Germany became so famous for, during their attack, their blitzkrieg, operations, throughout, Western and Northern Europe. So England and France are gonna declare war on Germany after they invade Poland in September of 1939. Okay.

So that's the situation in Europe. Right? The situation is slowly deteriorating over the course of a couple of years. But what is US involvement in these early days? Is the United States neutral power in this, or are we an arsenal for democracy?

So, there's lots of fear inside of the American population about going to war, in 1938 and 1939. In fact, as late as October of 1939, less than 2 months or less than a month after the invasion of Poland, 93% of the American population did not want to go to war in Europe, right, during World War 2. And a lot of this is because of the legacy of World War 1. Right? Remember that at the end of World War 1, the United States got in and, by all respects, saved the day after Russia withdrew, their forces due to the Bolshevik revolution.

However, when it comes to, the post war period, what did the United States do? Right? They start withdrawing inward. We refuse to join the League of Nations. We don't sign, as a signatory to the Treaty of Versailles.

Alright. So this marks a turn toward isolationism. Right. And so during the 1920s, we talked about the United States is, you know, coming up with all kinds of, new consumer products. You have an economic boom time, that's going on.

And then, of course, all of this is punctuated by the beginnings of the Great Depression. So between 1935 and 1939, the United States, congress passes a series of neutrality acts, which basically forbid trading arms to these belligerent powers. Both the allies, you know, Great Britain, namely, as well as, eventually, Russia, but also the Axis powers as well. Right? So in theory, this targets all of the belligerent powers.

Right? A sign that the United States doesn't want to get involved. However, even these neutrality acts have some caveats or carve outs that really kind of belied the underlying, you know, the underlying desire of FDR to join the side, of Great Britain and France. And one of these provisions was called, cash and carry. So, basically, the idea behind cash and carry is that the United States would sell arms to another country if they agreed to pay cash money upon, receipt and if they would transport these weapons, back to Europe.

So, essentially, the United States is acting like the Costco of arms dealers here. Right? That as long as you are willing to come in and pay cash that we're not extending credit to you. Right? As long as you come in and pay cash and take care of shipment so American merchant vessels aren't in the line of fire, at risk of being sunk, that the United States, would sell arms to you.

So basically, this is, you know, even though it's in theory open to all comers, England at the time is really the only country in a position to take advantage of. Alright? So cash and carry. But some things are gonna change that are going to move the US and the American population away from strict neutrality. One of these things is Hitler's aggression and the failure of appeasement.

Right? We had mentioned before, the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, followed 16 days later by the Soviet invasion of Poland, right, per the Molotov Ribbentrop Pact, where they divide Poland in half, right down the middle. So, you also have the invasion of France then, in, 1940. Right? That, Germany invades France through Belgium, driving, taking Paris in relatively quick fashion, and basically driving to about the midpoint of the country, effectively dividing, France, in half.

You also have the Battle of Britain, which started, in the summer of 1940, continued until the fall of 1940. This left Great Britain on the brink of collapse. Right? So, this is basically, Hitler's plan was to, eventually use the German army to invade the mainland of England. But before he did that, he realized that he had to really soften up their defenses, and break the will of, the British Army.

So Germany deploys their air force, the Luftwaffe, to bomb military targets all throughout Germany. Airfields, factories that were manufacturing munitions, and so forth. Rallying points for, the British Army. But basically, over time, Hitler starts to resort to nighttime bombing. Right?

And nighttime bombing is a lot more, a lot less accurate than daytime bombing. It's safer for your bombers, but it's worse for the civilian population because you can't tell which targets you're aiming at. Alright. So this starts to devastate, you know, England, not just military targets, but the civilian population, as well. Alright.

But no matter what, still, Great Britain's population doesn't fold. They continue to resist, and eventually, as we'll see, great, Germany agree, decides to give up their ambition of invading Great Britain, which is important because Great Britain at this time is the only thing standing between the Nazis in complete control over Western and Northern Europe. And this would have been a big problem because if the Nazis control all of Western and Northern Europe, that means they control all of the industrial capacity of Europe. Right? Meaning that British factories, which have been manufacturing planes, guns, and other kinds of things for the British Army, are now gonna be cranking out, German airplanes, German artillery, German guns.

Right? And that would only boost, the power of Hitler's war machine. Pierce, did you have a question? Yes. So wasn't the German military called the Wehrmacht?

Yes. It was called the Wehrmacht. Yeah. That's it. So you have the Wehrmacht.

You have I'll just so because I keep saying these things. German army. Blitzkrieg is the lightning war. That's the, mechanized warfare that Germany is gonna use to, not only invade Poland with, armored tanks, but also, North Africa as well as Russia. So basically, England is the only thing standing in the way of Nazi control over all of Europe.

And FDR is very concerned that if Great Britain falls, that meant that, what would stop Hitler from eventually invading Russia? If Russia falls, then he would control all of the industrial capacity, not only of Europe, but also, all of Asia. What would stop him from taking over all the natural resources in Africa? That eventually, if this all played out in the worst way possible, that maybe Hitler would even threaten the western hemisphere in the United States, itself. Not only that, another thing that's gonna shift the United States away from neutrality is that German u boats, German submarines, are gonna start to attack American merchant vessels in the Atlantic.

Now these merchant vessels weren't transporting arms, right, because that was a violation of the Neutrality Act, but they are transporting, consumer goods as well as food, right, which are considered humanitarian relief and don't violate, the articles of war. But these cargo vessels are still being attacked by German U boats. Another thing that's gonna happen, in fact, is the election of Winston Churchill, as the prime minister of England in May of 1940. Roosevelt had had a very difficult relationship with Neville Chamberlain. They didn't see eye to eye on a lot of issues, but he gets along really well with Winston Churchill.

Alright. In fact, FDR actually saw Churchill naked. That is a true story. So, basically, FDR famously had gone to 10 Downing Street, which is where the British prime minister lives, and he was staying downstairs. And Churchill was upstairs in a bath.

And so allegedly, and this is a true story, Churchill calls FDR to the bath. And once FDR is wheeled in in his wheelchair, Churchill stands up butt naked and red because he was in a hot bath. And he says in his gravelly voice, there is nothing that the British prime minister hides from his closest ally, the United States. There's a chance that Churchill may have been drunk when this happened. So who knows?

Churchill did like his his Scotch. But these 2 famously get along very well together even though they disagree on a lot of, political issues, but they do agree, that Germany must be stopped. Another thing that's going to, influence, FDR is, things going on in the, Pacific, battle. So, Japan is going to in, invade French Indochina, right, which is the present day, countries of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Japan is going to invade the northern part of Indochina and they'll start to drive through the rest of, Indochina, beginning in September of 1940.

Now at this point, Japan had already been at war with China, since 1931. Right? So this is kind of almost 10 years of them expanding their influence, throughout East Asia. Now they're moving into Southern Asia, and the British colony of Burma is right there as well as the British colony of India. So, threatening America's closest allies' colonial possessions.

So according to this idea of geopolitics and to think back to our lecture, about about imperialism. Does anybody remember what geopolitics, the basis behind that? Yeah. Hi. The more of, like, land you have, the more how do you have?

Right. So it focuses on the external factors that drive imperialism. That, you know, because there is only a limited amount of land in the world, that if you control land, that is land that your enemies or your competitors can control so that gives you a strategic advantage. So, FDR is thinking about geopolitics when he's talking about, not only, Europe but also, Asia. Right?

And he realizes that this is a threat, this Japanese movement into this area is threatening, to take control, not only, a big hit to the British Empire, but controlling all of these natural resources down here that at this point are under the control of the allies, but again, could help feed Hitler's war machine. Right? Because there's a lot of or feed the, Japanese war machine, especially when it comes to oil. But we'll get into that, here in a little bit. And so combine that with the fact that Japan had, signed the tripartite pact with Germany and Italy, essentially, what that does is it links the European theater of war with the Pacific.

Right? It links these two conflicts, which up to this point have been separate, links them together. So, with in light of this, FDR is going to increase the amount of aid that he's providing to, Great Britain. So another kind of carve out, that came about with the neutrality acts was, this idea of destroyers for bases, which was, articulated first or developed in, September of 1940. And, basically, what destroyers for bases or bases for destroyers, the United States gave 50 decommissioned, World War 1 destroyers from the US Navy to England in exchange for the right to establish US naval bases on British colonial possessions in the Western Hemisphere.

Alright? So the US eventually, was able to lease, military bases at Newfoundland, Bermuda, the Bahamas, Jamaica, and then all throughout the Lesser Antilles and even one in British Guyana. So, you know, all of these things are to boost US national security. That if things go sour in Europe, somehow, if Great Britain were to fall as a result of the Battle of Britain, which was going on at this time, that the United States would be able to defend the Western Hemisphere, because of having all of these, bases, with which to combat, the German Navy. And then finally, FDR approves Lend Lease, alright, in March of 1941.

Because by this point, Great Britain is running out of all of their supplies. Their merchant, fleet is devastated from German u boat attacks on the North Atlantic. And Great Britain is also running out of cash. Alright. So the US agrees to lend them material.

Right? More material, things like jeeps, trucks, cannons, ammunition, airplanes, and all those kind of things. Right? With the idea that they don't have to pay for it and it's not necessarily selling them on credit, but you're lending it to them hoping that you will get it back at the end of the war. Right?

Which again is kind of obviously a more blatant violation of, lend labor of the neutrality acts because, if anybody in here is anybody familiar with what happens with bullets when they're shot out of a gun? Like explosion? They explode. Do you ever find people going around the dead bodies on the field of battle digging out bullets so you can give them back to the person that they lent that lent them to you or cannons. Right?

So the point is that this kind of gets rid of all pretense of neutrality. The United States is actively giving weapons that aren't gonna be taken back. Right? Tanks that are blown up, you're not gonna give that back to the United States. But all these things are being sent over, to Great Britain to help them in their war against the Nazis.

So you'd see, in terms of 1,000,000,000 of dollars worth of materiel, that 5,200,000,000 of that, was munitions, industrial items, agricultural products, even, shipping, helping repair, British merchant boats, and so forth. So, it also, in time is gonna become, open to other, allied powers. France is really taken out of the war, fairly early, but Soviet Union, after the Soviet, Union is invaded by Germany, lend lease is eventually opened up, to them. And, the United States eventually wound up supplying 25% of all of the equipment used by the allied forces, during World War 2. And so again, this is no pretense of national security or being open to all comers.

Right? This is solely dedicated for, Great Britain as well as the Soviet Union. So any questions on that? Okay. So moving on to point c, the road to war.

So by the summer of 1940, FDR has embraced this idea that he wants a Europe first strategy. In other words, he believes that the most important theater of this conflict of World War 2 is what is going on in Europe. Right? He thinks that this is more important than what is going on in the Pacific. And the reason why has to do with geopolitics.

Right? That kind of what I had indicated earlier, that if the United States, actually, fell or if, all of Europe falls to Germany, if Great Britain falls, if the Soviet Union falls, that there would essentially be nothing left except the United States to stop Hitler at that point that he would become too industrially powerful, could have too many natural resources, that eventually he could threaten the western hemisphere, and possibly defeat the United States. Right? So the US, especially FDR, feel, that it is imperative to guarantee the territorial sovereignty of Great Britain as well as the Soviets. So by summer of 1941, the situation is growing even worse because in June of 1941, you have the German invasion of Russia, right, known as Operation Barbarossa.

Barbarossa is German for red beard. Alright? So they are invading through Poland, invading the Soviet part of Poland, and then eventually coming within 30 miles of Moscow, right, before this offensive was ground to a halt. So, so close, in fact, that, German soldiers said they could see the spires of, the Kremlin off in the distance. Germany, and Italy are also on the advance in North Africa.

And there is a concern, that if that progress continued, that if, Germany was able to take over all of Egypt, they would gain control over the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal, which is the easiest, most direct route, for the British, Navy to be able to access their colonies and help protect their colonies, in Burma, Malaya, as well as, India. And then you also have, Japan continuing their actions in French Indochina. They had previously conquered the northern part and now they're moving into southern Indochina, right, in danger of taking over the entire peninsula. And it's not to say that FDR doesn't see that the Japanese theater or the Pacific theater is important, but he doesn't see Japan as as big of a political threat or a geopolitical threat, as he does to Germany.

So basically, he saw the Japanese theater, the Pacific theater, as a means to an end, and we'll explain, how he does that. Alright. So here's what, he is going to do. Basically, in, 1941, FDR imposes an oil and scrap metal embargo on Japan. So this is a pretty big deal because Japan, although it has a very advanced industrialized economy, as a landlocked country, they do not have 2 critical resources.

There is no iron ore in the Japanese, islands, and there is also, no oil. So all of the oil and, iron ore or steel that they, have is all comes from imports. So the United States imposes an oil embargo, meaning that nobody's allowed to ship oil, to Japan, and they also ban scrap metal shipments to Japan as well. Right? So now Japan is going to have to find, other means of acquiring these, materials.

The reason he does this is to save Russia for invasion or save them from invasion. Because, FDR's belief was that if you cut off the supply of oil and steel into Japan, that they would be forced to attack to the south, into the Philippines, into, Indonesia, which had a lot of, oil as well as, iron ore. Force them to go south to acquire those materials instead of concentrating their forces and attacking, the eastern part of the Soviet Union. Because FDR's biggest fear is that, Russia could fold if they're fighting a 2 front war, inside of their country in the east against Japan and in the west against Germany. So basically, Stalin at this point, has, you know, purged his officer corps.

So, there were some ideological purges. He was purging people right before World War 2 started, who he thought were not sufficiently loyal to him, and, this wound up severely weakening the strength of his army. Right? So, FDR does this as a way to, save, a dual, threat attack, a pincher attack against the Soviet Union. And FDR is going to continue to support China funneling money as well as weapons through lend lease, to the Chinese nationalists, who are fighting under, who are being led by Chiang Kai shek.

Chiang Kai shek. Right? He's the leader of, the Chinese nationalists. Now, China had been in a civil war since the 19 thirties, between the nationalist democratic capitalists led by Chiang Kai shek. On the other side, you have Mao Zedong.

Right? He was the, leader of the Chinese communists. So Mao Zedong, basically, you know, the nationalists have been fighting for years. They're fighting against Japan as well. Both sides kinda put this civil war to the side.

They're gonna fight the common enemy, Japan. But the United States is actively funneling money to Chiang Kai shek hopeful hoping that he can, keep up the fight and keep Japan tied down again, to tie down as many of their troops on, these other conflicts to event, prevent them from attacking, the Soviet Union. Okay. So where all this comes to a head is on December 7, 1941 when Japan launches a surprise attack against the American, Pacific Fleet, which at this point was stationed in Honolulu, Hawaii at Pearl Harbor. And the hope here, what Japan hoped to do is that by destroying, the battleships of, you know, the aircraft carriers and everything that, the US Army, the US Navy had in this area, that it would force the United States to, basically focus on Europe instead of focusing on the Pacific Theater.

And that by the time the United States rebuild their navy and put it, on a combat footing, that Japan at this point would already have, conquered so much territory, that the US really wouldn't be able to do much to dislodge them. So in this attack, the deadliest attack, on US soil until, the attacks on 911. 24 100 Americans, were killed, civilians as well as sailors. 1200 wounded. There are a bunch of airfields around, the Pearl Harbor naval base.

347 of the 390 aircraft which were parked on those, airstrips, were destroyed or damaged. And then 19 out of the 100 ships that were anchored at Pearl Harbor that day, were sunk or damaged, including 3, which were basically sunk and lost, including very famously the USS Arizona. Which you can see here, you can see it, today. I visited Pearl Harbor over the summer and you can see the ship, the oil still bubbling up out of, the tanks, below the surface. So, the US declares, war on Japan the next step.

Yeah. Pierce. Didn't Japan attack the US because of the trade embargo? Was that one of the reasons why they attacked the US? Yeah.

I mean, they wanted to relieve it, but they also wanted to try to get an advantage. Like, they were not satisfied with just conquering China, already being in control of Korea and Indochina. They, I mean, they were looking to expand. The day after they attacked Pearl Harbor, they, invade the Philippines. So it's part of a larger, military strategy to assert, themselves throughout the Pacific.

So, the US declares war on Japan the next day. On December 11, 1941, Germany and Italy declare war on the United States. Right? So remember what I had mentioned before about the tripartite pact, that the tripartite pact was a mutually binding defense alliance. That the other two powers are only obliged to, declare war if one of the other powers was attacked.

Right? So, this was really a big strategic blunder for Hitler because it gave FDR exactly what he wanted. Right? That it allowed him to pursue that Europe first strategy by getting into the war, by declaring war unnecessarily, which, obviously, once Germany declares war on the United States, that alleviates or gets rid of any resistance in the American population, about getting involved in the war in Europe. So, you know, Hitler kinda gets, a little bit crazy, declares war.

You know, and at this point, the United States is fully supported. The population is fully supportive of not only going to war in the Pacific against Japan, but also in Europe against Germany and Italy. So, I'll let you because we have a limited amount of time, I'll leave what happens in Europe up to, the book to explain to you. But I wanna focus specifically on what the US does in the Pacific, when fighting the war against Japan. So when it came to deciding what kind of strategy to use to ultimately bring about a surrender, by Japan, there are really 2 options that the US considered.

You have the continental strategy and then you have the island hopping strategy. So basically, what the continental strategy was is that the United States and Great Britain would invade into China through Burma and India, opening up, a road to Chungking and then driving overland, trying to take Shanghai, basically driving Japan up into Manchuria, then eventually trying to drive them through Korea and back into Japan. Right? So this is a massive planned land invasion that would involve millions of ground troops as well as armored tanks and everything. And this is the one option eventually leading to, air strikes against Japan, and ultimately a mainland, invasion.

The other option here was the island hopping strategy. And, basically, what island hopping would involve is using combined forces of naval power, air power, and land forces, to slowly close in this, arc around the mainland of Japan. Right? So using these combined forces to take island after island, setting up a forward base, and then continuing, to kind of close this ring around Japan, ultimately until you get close enough to launch bombing raids against the mainland of Japan to soften their defenses before you send US troops for a massive invasion. So when FDR and his military, generals were debating which of these strategies, they ultimately chose, the island hopping strategy.

The fear there's a number of fears with the continental strategy. 1, is it would have, caused would have required a very big reliance on the Chinese nationalists who had been very ineffective despite getting a lot of military assistance, equipment, weapons from the United States, have been very ineffective at holding off the Japanese. That Japan was actually expanding their territory in China instead of retreating. So the US didn't rely or didn't want to rely on the Chinese nationalists. Not only that, but there also would have required, a lot more ground troops, which FDR knew that he would need for, an invasion of Europe.

Right? The tanks as well as the ground forces. And it would have also led to, a lot more casualties, American casualties, going over. Them. So, FDR and his advisers ultimately decide on this island hopping strategy, which winds up being ideal because the US Navy, the United States Marines, who were the ground troops being used, they were ideally suited for this kind of island hopping strategy, and it allowed the United States to maximize their resources, right, using their technological superiority, in the Pacific while saving all of their ground troops and armor, the bulk of it for the conflict in Europe.

So over the next 3 years, the US methodically captures island after island, exacting a great toll not only upon the Japanese, but on these American soldiers as well, as well as Japanese, civilians who were living in these outlying islands. As America approaches Japan, they were able to begin launching air strikes against the mainland with a start exacting a very heavy human toll. One example of this was the firebombing of Tokyo, killed over 100,000, Japanese citizens, injured over 1,000,000, which left the, which left the big, decision of whether to drop the atomic bombs, which were finally tested in, middle of 1945 or proceed with this massive ground invasion. Alright. Ultimately, the United States decides to drop the atomic bombs in order to, avert a what was estimated at at least half a 1000000 American casualties and millions upon millions of Japanese, citizens and soldiers, on the Japanese islands, which brings us to, our final point here about preparing the post war world.

Alright? Preparing the post war world. FDR and the Allied Powers held several conferences during the war to negotiate, what the post war world would look like. The first of these was held at Casablanca, in Morocco in Northern Africa in January of 1943 where the allies, the United States, Great Britain, and Soviet Union agreed that the Axis would be held to the, the, idea of unconditional surrender. Right?

Meaning that they would be able to request no special terms, that they would have to lay down their arms and quit fighting the war, with no special considerations. The US did this to provide reassurance to Stalin. Stalin, during this entire time, was begging Churchill and FDR to open up another front in Europe, right, because of the pressure that Russia was facing on its western border. But, even though FDR and Churchill kinda thought that it would be best, to start slowly, to start in North Africa and eventually work their way to Europe once the army was better prepared. At Bretton Woods in July of 1944, the, basically, the United States agrees, or develops a plan, for global economic, cooperation.

Right? Because one of the failures of the prewar period, was this economic collapse of the Great Depression which affected Europe as well as the United States. So in this, FDR proposes at Bretton Woods, the creation of 2 international organizations that would help to, you know, stabilize the global economy. The World Bank, right, which, the goal of the World Bank was to basically provide, money through loans, to poor countries to help them industrialize, as well as the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, which was designed to monitor and regulate the global economy to promote free trade, and free exchange of currencies. Dumberton Oaks Conference in December of 19 or in August of 1944, that was about creating a new, international organization to replace the League of Nations.

Right? Remember, the big weakness of the League of Nations was that the US didn't join. So the United States develops this plan to create the United Nations, in which the US would take a very prominent role, in organizing, creating a UN Security Council that had 5 permanent seats. Right? Eventually, this would be the 5 permanent members, the United States, Great Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and China.

Right? What do all those powers have in common? Those were the victorious powers in World War 2. Right? So you heard the term, to the victor belong the spoils.

Right? So the 5 permanent seats on the UN Security Council would be occupied, by the victorious Allied powers from World War 2. And then finally, in Yalta, 1945, by this point, World War 2 was winding down. The German army was on the brink of collapse in Europe. The Soviet Union had pushed almost into Berlin at this time.

The Americans and the British were crossing in the process of crossing over the Rhine River into the western part of Germany. Japan is also losing, but they're not yet ready to surrender. It was gonna take time before they were ultimately defeated, whether that be through a prolonged and very costly, ground campaign or as we'll see, by the atomic bombs. So Yalta essentially establishes the post war world order that the Soviet Union, it was agreed that they would be allowed to take control over not only Poland, but a lot of the countries in Eastern Europe to, establish kind of a buffer security zone, against, Western and Central Europe. It was decided that Germany was going to have to pay reparations, although not monetary reparations.

We'll get into that, in another lecture. And also secured a secret Soviet agreement that, within 90 days of the end of the war in Europe, that the Soviet Union would join the United States in a full invasion, of the Japanese mainland. And then finally, to put an end on this, FDR dies in on, April 12, 1945. Right? So, which and this was a very tragic day for many Americans because for many Americans, right, FDR was the only president to serve more than 2 terms, breaking a precedent that was had been established by George Washington.

He had been the president since 1932. He had just won, in, the previous November of November of 44, an unprecedented 4th term. Right? So there were people who had basically lived, a significant portion of their lives, in which FDR was their only president, led them through the great depression and through, the vast majority of World War 2. He was 63 years old when he died.

Right? And if you look it up the r, it's kind of amazing to think this picture was taken in February of 1945. It's amazing to think that he was only 63 years old. Because when you look at him, he had lived a very hard life. He had suffered polio, as an adult.

He was a chain smoker, a heavy drinker, and basically died of, a cerebral hemorrhage, but he had all kinds of, other health problems, by the time he died. Right? But, his good relationship that he had with Churchill, as well as with, Joseph Stalin, forged during the battles of World War 2. This company would quickly come to an end once he is replaced by his vice president, Harry Truman. But that is a story for another day.

Questions? Alright. Well, that's all I got. Enjoy your weekend unless you got classes later today or tomorrow.

Transcript for:US Role and Strategy in WWII

Transcript for:
US Role and Strategy in WWII