Jumping into WWII?

[gjts00]

Can anyone explain to me why the US needed direct provocation to enter WWs I & II? Before entering "The war to end all wars" we were smuggling contraband materials to the Allies, which caused the Lusitania to be sunk with one torpedo. And in WWII we had to sacrifice the bulk of the Pacific fleet to get our pass to the fighting. In my line of thinking, I'd rather just jump in to help those fighting the good fight, than sacrifice human life & valuable materials. Although public opinion is an important factor. I'd like to get some other opinions on the matter.

------------------
Listen, strange women lying around in ponds, distributing swords is no basis for a system government.

 

[SunTzu]

Well we the US, have been Isolationist for awhile. We didn't want to get directly involved in Europes problems. Actually the Lusitania wasn't the actually main cause of the US entering WW1 it was the Zimmerman Telegram that Germany sent to Mexico trying to get Mexico to enter WW1 against the US.
WW2 was the Japs attacking Pearl Harbor.
We've always supported the Allies. Why do we need to enter a war when it doesn't involve us? We entered the war when it finally directly involved us(Zimmerman Telegraph and Pearl Harbor)
The main reason of us waiting for direct provokcation was because our g'ment and citizens had a policy of Isolationism for a long time.

------------------
Civilization God of War & Economic Prosperity
http://www.civfanatics.com Staff and Forum Moderator
Apolyton Who?!

 

[Knight-Dragon]

There's a theory that the British sabotaged the Lusitania in order to get the Americans mad at the Kaiser. It was just too coincidental.

Anyway, like SunTzu said, the American people was quite isolationalist at that period in time. Many were immigrants or had parents or grandparents who were immigrants from Europe who came to pursue the American Dream and leave all their problems behind in their original homelands. They had a deep suspicion of the European powers and would rather leave them to their infighting.

Therefore although some would want to join in the war against the Central/Axis powers, they couldn't sway enough of the public opinion until the idiots in Germany and Japan directly provoked America. The Germans kept underestimating the Americans' will to fight cos a lot of Americans were of German descent. They didn't understand that the German-Americans probably disliked the German aristocrats who ruled back home and the reason, direct or indirect, why they emigrated to America in the first place. Hitler later made the same mistake.

As for the Japanese, they were desperate. America had cut off oil imports a couple of months ago. They wanted to knocked out the American Pacific Navy, grabbed South-east Asia and its oil fields, entrenched its forces there and then forced a peace with America. It was the tactic they used to win the Russo-Japanese War of 1902. Then they took out the Russian Pacific fleet in a lightning raid, took out the Russian armies in Manchuria and the Amur region, destroyed the Russian Baltic fleet which had been sent all the way from the West and forced a peace on them, mediated by the Americans.

So keep note for Civ3, keep your special resources coming otherwise your military machine is going to come to a halt. <IMG SRC="http://forums.civfanatics.com/ubb/wink.gif" border=0>

[This message has been edited by SKM (edited July 12, 2001).]

 

[Magnus]

It was about MONEY! The U.S. traded far more heavily with the Allied powers than the Central Powers/Axis, so naturally the capitalists would take the side of the more lucrative trade.

 

[starlifter]

BTW, the sinking of the Lusitania did not direcly result in the US entry into WW I, but that is a frequent assumption since most are not too up on WW I history 85 years later.

And in WWII we had to sacrifice the bulk of the Pacific fleet to get our pass to the fighting. In my line of thinking, I'd rather just jump in to help those fighting the good fight, than sacrifice human life & valuable materials.

The problem in WW II was who controlled the press... quite literally the bulk of the press was controlled by the liberals of the day, and socialists in particular. Moreso than today, the news press influenced American sentiment. It is likely that Roosevelt knew of the attack on Pearl Harbor, yet "allowed" it to unfold with little release of timely and accurate information to the pacific command, in particular Admiral Kimmel and General Short.

Even in retrospect, the "right" thing to do was to help stop the evils of the Nazis, Russians, and the Japanese. Italy is not included because as has always been true since the fall of the Roman Empire, the Italians were a joke, militarily... at least as a threat to world peace.

I agree that when the world sinks into war, America should act sooner rather than later... lives will be save in the long run.

Similarly, the US should have finished the Korean war in 1951, but a weak and cowardly President, for the first time in US Military history, put Americans under fire and directly caused their deaths, while denying them the abilty to fight the war militarily, or withdraw. Over 10 years later, we saw that mindset applied by another Democratic President.

Presidents need to learn the lessons taught by General George S. Patton, Jr., among others... namely that there comes a time when one must fight, and ask not about the short term daily casualties, but how many lives will be spared by ending the conflict. One of the worst Generals in American history, McClellan, taught this lesson to Abraham Lincoln in the American Civil Wat, too, BTW... but as a an negative example, vs. Patton's positive example.