Like many of my threads, this essay came about as result of a TLDR response to a question, in this case one relating to a matter of history. I apologise for the clumsy opening and for the fact that I don’t detail Trump’s tendency to want to circumvent the courts. I assume most of my readers are not low information, and as sure of the ability of the Left to point out Trump’s desire to ignore due process, as of the ability of the Right to point out that American immigration and asylum seeking are civil processes, and in the past have entailed a more threadbare interpretation of due process standards as a matter of administrative necessity and the practical limitations of balancing fairness with public safety and economic/public resource stability.
As some might guess, the response began as a response to a question of American industrialist complicity with the rise of the Nazis and whether the FDR Admin might have had some sympathy for some of the goals of Nazism.
It's more accurate to say that the Nazis borrowed heavily from the FDR regime for their public works programme. The love affair was decidedly more one-sided than revisionist historians would care to admit. The Nazis were great admirers of the 'achievements' of American progressivism, although on race the Nazis were obviously more closely aligned with Woodrow Wilson than FDR. I know that many American industrialists were in bed with the Nazis, but I don't think there is any merit to the argument that FDR supported the Nazis. It's truer to say that FDR might have been more initially sceptical of Churchill's realisation of the historic threat of Hitler than many historians suppose, a fairer assessment would be that he was morally permissive towards U.S. business interests establishing close ties with the Nazis, and was part pragmatist and part naive optimist in relation to both the Nazis and the horrors of the Soviet Union.
People forget that history is a muddle. Politicians have a habit of making grave mistakes through the sin of permission and then come to vehemently oppose the force of which they were initially permissively ambivalent, never admitting or apologising for their earlier stance. The truer observation is that politicians are institutionally inclined to make cynical moral compromises in pursuit of a supposed greater good. For example, Roosevelt imagined the Soviet Union could be used to counter the threat of Imperial Japan, when all objective analysis of Soviet subversion strategies and industrial capacity should have led him to the conclusion that the Soviet Union was the far greater threat to America.
Indeed, the darker side of the FDR coin was in the Pacific. Cordell Hull's oil embargo was deliberately construed to provoke the Japanese to war. Don't get me wrong. FDR wasn't a cynic in pursuit of trade imperialism. He was full of Wilsonian idealism and missionary zeal for imposing democracy, commerce and trade- making the rather naive assumption that democracy is the birth right of all peoples, irrespective of culture, creed and historical tradition. It's the sort of hopeless optimism which led to the Forever Wars. “The peace of the world depends upon the prosperity of the world… America must lead not with armies but with commerce and the example of democracy.”
In practice, this philosophy all but guarantees wars. The British were at least smart enough to leave people alone to govern according to their traditions and beliefs, understanding that the key was appealing to vanity and avarice of local leaders, whilst creating an emerging native middle class (in the British sense) of property holders with strong property rights. The Sepoy Mutiny taught the British to avoid messing with people's religions, despite their earlier Christian missionary zeal. Democracy is not the natural state of man. If anything it's a fragile and precarious thing. It usually occurs through the slow inculcation of the belief in natural rights in a culture and its population, and is the work of generations. More often than not, it's paid for with the blood of patriots.
The best understanding of FDR is be obtained through one of my favourite C. S. Lewis quotes: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
People forget that FDR did everything in his power to undermine the Commerce Clause of the Constitution in pursuit of Federalism. Perhaps the most nefarious of his aims related to the Agricultural Adjustment Administration and involved destroying perfectly good food in the pursuit of agricultural stabilisation, especially at a time when so many people were hungry. In 1933, 10 million acres of cotton were ploughed under, and 6 million pigs were slaughtered. This did not improve land, labour, or capital efficiency but sought to raise prices through scarcity.
It was also a tax and spend policy, paid for by added taxes to basic food processing- like milling or animal slaughter- raising food prices for poor people struggling to feed their children. Understandably this provoked a huge public backlash, although in 1936 a majority were willing to swallow the bitter pill of higher food prices in return for the promise of employment. It doesn't sound at all like the FDR one was taught about in school or can find in history books, does it? Ironically, if one remembers one's West Wing- Jed Bartlett was against raising food prices on children to the benefit of farmers, even his own constituents. He was no FDR, despite idolising the false memory of the man.
In many ways, although FDR and Trump have diametrically opposed philosophies, with FDR seeking to federalise and indirectly corporatize commerce, and Trump seeking a return to heterodox localism, to unleash investment and empower entrepreneurship, they share the same ambivalence to the courts, their rulings and the pursuit of legal means to circumvent them. Pick your ideological poison. One man's public good, is another man's road to tyranny. Political leaders are best understand as neither sinners nor saints, but wearing their very own ideological blinders in pursuit of a particular focus and vision for a better society. Still, I suppose we should at least admire them for their conviction and a lack of the deep cynicism so common to politics, even as we recognise the dangers of the pursuit of ideological visions of any type. Whatever the promise, there is always a price for failing to recognise the sanctity of the individual.
You made several false statements in this essay. I will address three of them
1) Cordell Hull's oil embargo was deliberately construed to provoke the Japanese to war.
2) FDR wanted to avoid aiding Britian before the U.S. entered the war
3) Russia was the major threat at the time
The idea that Cordell Hull deliberately provoked war with Japan is false. It comes from revisionist historians determined to make the U.S. the bad guy because...well...evil western culture. The oil embargo placed on Japan was solely a function of Japan's genocidal war on China. In addition, despite what you stated: FDR wanted to help Britain. However, it was the U.S. congress that was reluctant to give him approval. That is why he came up with the lend-lease program. The prevailing opinion at the time was that Britain would quickly sue for peace and sending them money would be a waste. As for working with the Soviets, that was a deal with the devil. There was also some naivete in the U.S. (although not in Britain) about just how evil Stalin was. We didn't win WW II. Russia did, at a monstrous human cost. There were far more Russian casualties at Stalingrad than the combined casualties of both Britain and the U.S. during the entire war. Hitler lost the moment he invaded Russia.
Pearl Harbor was truly a surprise to the FDR administration. Our eyes were firmly on Europe. No one in the U.S. thought that Japan was a serious threat even after they took Singapore and sunk the Repulse and Prince of Wales. The fact that at the beginning of the war they not only had the best torpedo, but also the best fighter was a huge shock even though Chennault had been fighting Zeros for a while. No one believed him. Hindsight is always 20/20. But in order to fully understand history, you have to understand the thought processes at the time, not 85 years later. No one has perfect insight today and no one had perfect insight in 1939.
You’re right about the suspicions and confirmations of an impending attack, though. U.S. Ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew reported rumours of panning for an attack on Pearl Harbour in January 1941. It wasn’t taken seriously. Suspicions of an impending attack only began in earnest in late November 1941. They didn’t envision an attack on Pearl Harbour because of the shallowness of the bay. Japanese engineers solved the problem by fitting wooden ‘fins’, which allowed the Type 91 torpedoes to operate at shallower depths of 10-15 feet.
The other problem with geopolitics is that people get stuck in the ‘schoolyard bully; analogy. Human groups operate in radically different ways from individuals, especially when they exceed a certain size. Most groups exhibit a wide diversity of opinion ranging from close to pacifist to war hawk. An aggressive posture or action can solve problems in the short-term, causing an adversary to back down- but ultimately this will only lend weight to the more aggressive arguments within the group, as counter aggression becomes preferable to repeated humiliation and powerlessness.
In instances of power disparity this usually results in indirect attempts to sabotage the opposition. Over time it can push slightly antagonistic neutral to opponent to adversary to hostile. Of course, the reverse is also true. If the pacifists are in charge, then it’s an invitation to aggression. It why I made the point about the calculus of calibration.
Although Game Theory has some valid applications it has a terrible track record with regard to managing the potential for the possibility of war, provided the consideration is conventional warfare. It makes assumptions about rationality which simply aren’t true under times of stress, especially when fear and aggression are in play, and especially when one considers the different dynamics in play between individuals or very small teams and larger groups typical for managing escalation. In many ways the same flawed thinking is found in economics.
The first point is debatable. I will agree that at least some of those who argue this position are engaging in revisionist history, but that wasn't my intention. A more generous interpretation would be to state that Hull and FDR knew that their were huge risks involved, but were willing to take them in pursuit of obvious humanitarian goals. We know this because they were warned. Opponents of the embargo, like Admiral Harold Stark and General George Marshall, warned that cutting off oil was akin to an ultimatum, likely provoking war. Despite this, the policy continued, suggesting Hull and Roosevelt accepted the risk. So you make a valid point and I agree with your take on the motives for the embargo, but only add that Pacific Trade expansion was a major American goal. Geopolitics decisions are never monocausal.
America wanted to dominate trade in the region in much the same way that the British Empire operated, but far more benignly. We saw how those initially benign intentions played out in Central and South America- and it's worth noting that none of the American Presidents which followed FDR substantially deviated from America's perceived 'moral mission'- yet still the result were predictably dire whenever American interests, national or commercial, were threatened.
Here's my rebuttal. Motives don't matter. Morality should only ever a subsidiary role in geopolitics, otherwise the human costs are higher. Kishore Mahbubani is no John Mearsheimer or Jeffrey Sachs. He's considered an authoritative voice on geopolitics. His criticism of Western thinkers and politicians is that they are hopeless naive in aspiring to moral outcomes in geopolitics. He constantly emphasises that the West goes well beyond enlightened self-interest, and is keen to point out that geopolitics is often a nasty and dirty business- a game only to be played by deep pragmatists, acutely aware of their adversaries and partners motivations, and willing to make apparent moral compromises in pursuit of net utilitarian goals.
Don't get me wrong- everything up to the oil embargo was morally just and strategically well-calculated. But the oil embargo was a step too far. Hull and FDR should have known that the oil embargo would be perceived as an existential threat to Japan, and this is before one considers the history of anti-Japanese slights by America which had preceded the crisis. Besides, an analysis geared more to military, rather than economic and diplomatic considerations would have recognised that the Japanese were in the process of overextending themselves, and it was inevitable that they would be forced to negotiate. In short, they were stalemated and facing a long drawn-out war of attrition they couldn't maintain indefinitely. By 1941 they only held 10-15% of China's territory effectively, with guerrilla war rife in other occupied areas. They faced 15-20 million troops. The correct next ratcheting of pressure was to ramp up arms supply.
Point 2. I agree with on the constraints governing FDR and a congress intent on isolationism and neutrality. I didn't mean to suggest or imply otherwise. My point about FDR and Churchill was that Churchill recognised the implicit threat of Hitler far earlier, possibility because of his obsession with his ancestor the Duke of Marlborough, and the recognition that Hitler was just as aggressive and bent upon European hegemony as the Sun King. I was talking about the earlier period, before 1938.
FDR's toolbox was quite limited at the time. I get frustrated when people suggest Trevelyan could have closed exports during the Irish Famine, but didn't because he has rich banker friends. It wasn't in the vocabulary of the time, and would have been considered unthinkable. That being said, if Roosevelt had recognised the danger earlier there were several things he could have done. Sure, it probably wouldn't have restrained Henry Ford who received the Nazi Medal in 1938 (because he was ardently anti-communist). But there was ample leverage to slow and restrain German rearmaments through a number of different incentives and tax exemptions.
Point 3. The Soviet Union was a decided threat. The whole ethos was 'workers of the world unite'. The Soviets were quite explicit in their aims to overthrow capitalism and liberal democracy. Their efforts were highly successful in this regard. France, Spain and Germany were all targeted, as was America. In Spain, it provoked the Spanish Civil War. In Germany, the presence of the Soviet support for the existing communist movement caused many institutional forces which found Hitler distasteful to align with him in the hopes they could moderate his behaviour and defeat the communists. It weakened France substantially, making it vulnerable at the outbreak of war.
And make no mistake, Comintern and the various other Soviet techniques were not some enlightened attempt at universal brotherhood, the aim was the founding of communist world empire, with the Soviets at its head. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of naive and innocent useful idiots who flirted with communism and only later realised how evil it was. And McCarthy definitely targeted innocent people. But communism wasn't just a political party or an ideology, it was subservience to a foreign country which was quickly proving itself to be an evil entity. The mistake many made was in failing to recognise that Nazism was just as bad, or worse. By comparison, Italian Fascism was relatively benign compared to Soviet communism.
We know from Soviet decrypts that at least 349 Americans were passing vital information to the Soviets, some admittedly unwittingly. KGB archives confirm CPUSA’s role as a Soviet “auxiliary,” with ~1,000–2,000 members engaged in subversion (propaganda, recruitment, strikes) in the 1930s–1940s. Unions were a priority, with ~200–300 CPUSA operatives in CIO affiliates (e.g., UE, ILA, NMU). The FBI estimated 5,000–10,000 CPUSA members were “actively subversive” (propaganda, agitation) in the 1940s, with ~1,000 in unions. HUAC’s 1947–1950 hearings targeted CIO unions, claiming 10–20% of leaders were communist-aligned.
Let's not forget that only a few thousand communist activists in Russia were enough to plunge the country into an era of darkness and evil from which it wouldn't escape until 1991. Let's not forget the Bolsheviks only had 10,000 to 24,000 members by 1917. Pipes argues that 10,000 core Bolshevik activists working with 50,000-100,000 socialist activists were enough to overthrow Russia. If economic conditions hadn't improved in America, it's easy to see how the core CPUSA could have expanded and incorporated disaffected labour organisations and unions in order to overthrow capitalism, and incidentally, American democracy.
'Hindsight is always 20/20. But in order to fully understand history, you have to understand the thought processes at the time, not 85 years later.' I completely agree, but don't think I'm particularly guilty on this score. I admit that I'm guilty of motivational biases and faulty priors, but isn't everyone. Generally, I employ painstaking effort to trying and get myself in the head of the people of the time. I may lack archival experience, but I make it a habit to read historians who do. I am not a fan of the revisionists.
My biggest error was one of omission. The point about the moral busybody quote was related to a point that I didn't make, for the sake of brevity. It's my belief that America in the West more generally are beset by a hopeless naivety and optimism (other than internally). Democracy is not the natural state of man, in fact it's quite precarious. And it doesn't particularly essential to an advanced state- Singapore is a prime example.
Again, geopolitics should be cynical and pragmatic, not hopeful or focused on the self-evidently pathetic enforcement mechanisms of the UN and other supranational efforts. The West and a few of the other OECD countries are capable of operating a little above the level of enlightened self-interest, but cynics who would point to the American backing of coups in West Africa would argue that this is a pretence, as would journalists and authors like Chernoh Bah who would point to nearly a billion dollars spent on a power plant which was never built, with most of the money dispersed not to African despots and bureaucrats, but destined for offshore accounts and Western actors.
I sorry I didn't make this clear. I was saving it for a future essay on how people misread the Munich Agreement and the ways in which this misreading of history has been used by hardliners ever since. Chamberlain and a few others might have been pacifists and hopeless idealists, but almost everyone else had a very bleak and pessimistic assessment of what would happen to Britain in the event of a sustained bombing campaign or even gas attacks. The national archives support this conjecture and the Home Office estimated 600,000 within a few weeks of the commencement of a German bombing campaign alone. They hoped for time to build their own deterrent bomber fleet. In just 11 months they had increased tonnage of bombs capable of bombing Germany by 45%. Guernica and 'Things to Come' were at the forefront of British elites.
Anyway, that's the other component of my argument. Hopeless naivety prevails throughout the West, but in combination with overly aggressive posturing it's positively dangerous. All because, whenever the subject of concession is is broached the chorus of 'Appeasement!' resounds from DC and London. All from a misreading of history. It's not that aggressive posturing isn't often called for, but it has to be calibrated with extreme caution. That's a caution which is often entirely lacking.
So, I'm sorry I didn't mention the rest of my thinking. My other issue is that often domestic political considerations are prioritised over major international considerations.
“But the oil embargo was a step too far. Hull and FDR should have known that the oil embargo would be perceived as an existential threat to Japan”
Again you are arguing for perfect insight. but even if they believed this the answer is: So what! We currently have an oil embargo on Iran which is causing great damage to their economy. Even China has come under pressure to reduce imports. We do not particularly fear Iran just as we did not particularly fear Japan back in 1940. Many western countries refuse to buy Russian oil, who we do fear.
China was a allay at the time. Japan was NOT!! Should we not aid allies because we fear the consequences? Biden and Obama pursued this policy and look where it got us. And to be more accurate, Marshal and Stark did not argue against the embargo because the feared war between the U.S. and Japan. They believed that the embargo would lead to Japanese invasion of the oil-rich Netherland East Indies, which happened anyway in 1942.
As with Germany, war with Japan was going going to happen whether an oil embargo was imposed or not. There was no “diversity of opinion ranging from close to pacifist to war hawk.” in Japan. It was all war hawks Yamamoto was privately opposed to war with the U.S. but he was the one who planned Pearl Harbor. The idea that Japan would have recognized that they were overextended in China does not bear historical analysis. The Chinese army was poorly armed, poorly led, highly politicized and highly corrupt. They never posed much of a threat. Japan’s beliefs at the time, like Germany’s were based on a sense of racial superiority. They were destined to rule Asia.
Japan thought that they could impose a highly enough cost on the U.S. to achieve a negotiated settlement which would allow them to keep their empire, right up until the atom bomb was dropped. They felt that if they were only willing to lose 20 million people, the U.S. would capitulate. In fact even after the bomb was dropped a militant faction tried to assassinate members of the government in order to get to the emperor to get him to change his mind. The war was only over when the Emperor’s address went out to the Japanese public.
On Russia, there is no question that Churchill saw them as a future threat. Roosevelt may have as well But both wanted Russia to bear the brunt of the fighting in Europe. We agree that communism was attractive to many upper class intellectuals in the 1930’s in both the U.S. and Britain. The Cambridge Five are the most famous example of this. Have you read Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia?
You make some good arguments, but the Iran oil embargo is an export embargo- it’s not comparable to an import embargo, which represented an existential threat to the Japanese, crippling both their economy and their military actions. I agree with your previous comment about the US not considering the Japanese a significant military threat- they didn’t learn from the Battle of Tsushima, which clearly demonstrated the Japanese to be the equal of any modern industrial power, at least pound for pound. However, my point and it’s supporting evidence remain- I clearly demonstrated FDR and Hull were made aware of the risk.
Look I agree with you on the motivations, but we have to remember that China Japan wasn’t the only conflict which was significant at the time within the region. Although Chang Kai-shek’s nationalists and the communists had arranged a temporary alliance, they were warring factions, and if run the question through Grok or Chat GPT 4.0 you will find that countries which emerge from civil wars almost always emerge as belligerents, because the society has been militarised and lacks stability. The UK and the US are no exceptions.
"Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out,
May waste the memory of the former days."
Let’s not forget that the education men who surrounded Hull and FDR would have been superb by comparison to todays standards, full of questions like ‘Does might make right?’ and considerations like ‘Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.’ It’s not the raw talent, merely the subject matter and a far deeper knowledge of history, philosophy, religion and the classics. To not expect China to emerge as a belligerent power is either the product of the typical hubris of the powerful which persists to this day, or naivety (also a problem today).
So let’s summarise. We have Japan, a belligerent power. We have China, a power very likely to become belligerent, once one of the two factions emerge victorious. I know this sounds callous, but there existed the possibility of doing nothing and allowing the pressure to build until Japan was forced to the negotiating table. It was the French Indochina invasion which prompted the embargo. Japan proposed withdrawing from parts of China as part of the trade normalization talks. There is every reason to believe that the strain on their economy and the overextension would have changed their calculus, forcing them to give further concessions.
Apart from anything else, the Army was the militaristic faction within the Japanese government, and the ongoing humiliation was forcing them to lose face in relation to their rivals the Naval faction. Perhaps that’s an overstatement. A more accurate assessment would be to argue that the Navy were far more strategically cautious. With the Navy faction flush from the Indochina gain, and the army increasingly humiliated by their stalemate (200,000 casualties by 1941), there is every reason to believe that an ascendant Navy faction would have been more amenable to diplomacy, especially as this would have robbed their chief political rivals of resources, power and prestige! The oil embargo changed the dynamic, and the strategic calculus- do you see what I mean? I’m sorry it’s not easier to trot out all my reasoning.
My point would be that without the Oil Embargo it’s highly unlikely that the broader Pacific conflict would have occurred- or at least not within the immediate timeframe, although the Dutch were obviously a very tempting target in a somewhat different category to Indochina.
The long comment about groups, Western naivety and American aggressive posturing was a more general comment about geopolitics and diplomacy, it wasn’t meant to apply to the Japan question specifically, although it does- though to a far lesser extent, given the cultural context of the time and Japan’s highly cohesive and hierarchal culture.
Home to Catalonia is one I haven’t read, but I am a great admirer of Orwell. Just bought it for 30 pence! Have you read Canetti’s Crowds and Power? The groups involved in geopolitics are best described as the Invisible Crowd which forms around around a common, often metaphysical or institutional belief-such as religion, ideology, or shared strategy. This was my observation (despite the tautology)- altogether too ideological and prone to wishful thinking. Another example would be America’s tendency to engage in Jus Post Bellum which in every instance I can think of since the former Yugoslavia, has been tantamount to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
It’s less highbrow, but if you like Sci Fi I would heartily recommend The Peacemaker’s Code by Deepak Malhotra. I liked almost every aspect of the book with the exception of one short liberal delusion about the state of nature prior to industrialisation.
Anyway, despite our disagreements, I have to say I’m greatly enjoying our discourse! I like disagreements which stretch me. I’ve already learned several things I didn’t know!
And to be honest, I had completely forgotten about the friction between the Army and Navy faction. It’s been decades since I read Gailey’s War in the Pacific, which first put me on to the underlying tensions between the IJA and IJN. Great book!
My point would be that without the Oil Embargo it’s highly unlikely that the broader Pacific conflict would have occurred- or at least not within the immediate timeframe, although the Dutch were obviously a very tempting target in a somewhat different category to Indochina.
We will agree to disagree. Japan wanted an empire that stretched over Asia. That would included British colonies such as Burma and India and U.S. possessions like Midway and Gaum sand likely Hawaii. They were inflected with what Japanese historians call “victory disease” during the early phases of expansion of the “Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, and no internal force was going to stop them. The allies were never going to allow that to happen. War was inevitable.
Well, I will admit my argument hinges upon the Naval faction on the ascendant. The problem is that they were constrained by events which had overtaken them. Whether the American position was played well depends upon their intelligence. If they had good intelligence they shouldn’t have pushed the oil embargo, because the embargo pushed the Naval Faction to concede to the Army Faction position. Similarly, if their intelligence was good, they should have known that the Army Factions position was weakening, due to ongoing embarrassment of the land war in China, which had reached stalemate, whilst continuing to be a drain on the Japanese economy.
But it all depends on their intelligence at the time. I understand that most oil embargo counterfactuals are revisionist, but the Naval faction argument is well-acknowledged by established historians.
Here’s what Grok said on the subject:
The view that the Navy faction was more amenable to diplomacy is widely accepted among historians, though nuanced. Scholars like John Toland (The Rising Sun), Akira Iriye (The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific), and Ian Kershaw (Fateful Choices) note the Navy’s relative caution and preference for negotiation, especially in 1940–41, contrasted with the Army’s belligerence. However, it’s not framed as a clear-cut divide, as both factions shared imperialist goals, and the Navy’s moderates were constrained by internal politics and the momentum toward war. The Navy’s diplomatic inclination is a standard point in academic accounts but tempered by recognition of its limited influence and eventual acquiescence to war.
So I will readily admit my theory is a stretch. It hinges on the speculation that in the absence of an oil embargo, the Naval hand would have been strengthened and less constrained by the momentum of events. I guess we will never know how things might have played out in the fact of the absence of an oil embargo, or indeed an oil embargo which was considerably delayed. It’s worth noting that by late 1941, domestic politics would have required FDR to impose an oil embargo anyway. A Gallup poll conducted in the summer of 1941, after Japan’s invasion of southern Indochina (July 1941), indicated that a majority of Americans supported taking firm steps to curb Japanese expansion, even at the risk of war. By late 1941, this figure had shifted to two-thirds or more of Americans.
One of the things which probably colours my thinking is that I’ve spent just over the last twenty years thinking about the Thucydides Trap. Given the internal problems and dissent currently occurring within China, it’s worth noting that we are probably closer to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan than at any other point in the last twenty years…
There are a lot of valid points there. I think you hit the nail on the head with your comment about the Ju88. Overy in 'Why the Allies Won' references the lack of standardization in the German war effort. Richard J Evans also details Goebbels attempts to change German efforts to a total war economy and how he ran into difficulties with other Nazi leaders fiefdoms. The way the Nazi state was configured guaranteed that their would be no standard weaponry and effort would be diffused and not focused.
Certainly the Luftwaffe was a tactically oriented air force but only because this was the most efficient and effective use of military aviation. Strategic bombing was a complete failure which the RAF miserably failed to realise. The possession of strategic bombers only really helped as a sop to Stalin ('look we're killing Germans) and to delay a European landing.
I disagree, but only somewhat. If one looks at armaments production by country for the major industrial powers, then it quickly becomes apparent that Germany didn’t experience the type of near exponential growth in tanks, aircraft, etc.
Some of this can be put down to resource constraints. Having read Dancey & Vajda’s excellent German Aircraft Production 1933-45, it’s also clear that there were other issues. The employment of better educated workers in pursuit of mass production was a clear problem. The book highlights an instance in a production batch where a variant of subtype of the Junkers 88 bomber exhibited a near one tonne different in weight from another plane in the same production batch! More educated workers didn’t seem to be able to resist the already strong German urge to innovate inline- not exactly conducive to mass production.
There was also the fact that Germany didn’t completely eliminate civilian consumption production when it should have. Hitler was worried about impacts on civilian morale, still stubbornly refusing to admit that the lost of the Great War weren’t due to Dolchstoßlegende, but more a matter of morale collapse through mass starvation and malnutrition. The late gearing for total war production might seem minor, but scaling up production is an incredibly difficult process which compounds over time.
For example, it can be difficult and a matter of years to get a new nightshift production up to 60% of dayshift capacity. It’s not just that people are less productive at night, or that skilled work at speed can take a long time to accrue, but a nightshift generally looses a lot of the residual support functions from the likes of maintenance engineers and stores.
That being said, sources like Richard Overy and United States Strategic Bombing Survey show that it was mainly indirect effects on the labour force which impacted production. Shift disruption, housing damage, worker morale, and civil defence duties all played a role. That being said, the case is probably somewhat overstated. People like to believe their approach was more effective than was actually the case.
Funnily enough, when I was working as a junior member of a manufacturing management team, we had a telecoms company cut through one of our power cables. Power to the plant was only down for three hours, but we lost about 85% of the expected production for the remainder of the shift, even though we only lost around 50% of the time. The telecoms company reimbursed us, despite an initial questioning of our figures- we were able to prove the disruption with our tracking and dispatch data.
The workers were on a piece rate. They were not happy campers- until that is we offered to pro rata up their pay to reflect the disruption. We weren’t paying for it, after all!
Where I completely agree with you is in the fact that strategic bombing is completely useless for any purposes other than disrupting production.
Munich is a bit more complex than is made out. Certainly Chamberlain was wedded to peace but possessed an arrogant belief in his own abilities particularly in the area of foreign relations. However, the surprising driver behind Munich was the RAF. Wedding themselves to the cult of the bomber they were blindsided when Hitler ignored the threat. The Germans though didn't have the capacity or the intention to launch a strategic bombing war. This failure of British intelligence is often overlooked.
The Germans were never really open to the possibilities of bombers beyond their tactical role. They had been bombing Soviet rail centres far more extensively in the run-up to the advance on Moscow. That’s being said it was unlikely to have been effective against Zhukov’s build-up of a near unbeatable force. The one time Stalin listened to his generals and it just happened to be decisive! Probably because his own horrible neck was on the line.
The German position might have been improved if they had managed to plan the replacement of Russian rail gauges with European gauges more effectively.
Meanwhile the Orange Oaf is a religiously and culturally illiterate nihilistic barbarian, a pathological liar. And a life-long professional grifter/con-man who along with his family is now ramping up his grifting on steroids.
So Vance is now Hitler? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like the sound of the book, but let’s not forget that actual communists were actually evil!
For example, contrary to the beliefs of many wishful thinking socialists Lenin was pure evil. A murderous psychopath by choice, not environment.
Don’t get me wrong- I have the deepest respect for the old class-based progressives, who genuinely worked for labour causes, or wanted to take talented kids from underprivileged backgrounds and give them a chance at social mobility.
But DEI was not a good thing. It actually increased racism rather than reducing it, and created working environments where Black and LGBT people were more likely to leave as result of DEI training- because it increased attributional ambiguity. It had noble ambitions, but if you really want to increase diversity fairly and without actually making things worse for Black people you have to look at systems like MEI- which uses data to cast a wider net. Even Charlemagne is on record as stating that there are now hundreds of studies concluding that DEI produces the opposite results of what’s intended.
I looked at DOGE. First of all, the claims of savings are highly exaggerated. For one thing they’re counting savings over several years as though they were within a single tax year. For another, some of the savings had already been announced. And yes, there have been genuine harms. Discounting the stupid instances of people fired and rehired within 24 hours, which is OK to bitch about, but doesn’t serve any useful purpose, there have been actual harms.
PEPFAR disruptions will cost lives, but nowhere near as many as hysterically claimed by the NYT. It’s also probably also not a good idea to dismantle FEWS NET- a food insecurity and logistics early warning system. I’m also not keen on the notion of them dismantling CFPB- even though, thus far, it’s only wishful thinking on their part.
Here’s the thing. There are plenty of public sector jobs which are vital, are a net positive, and shouldn’t be performed by the private sector for a number of reasons too numerous to list. But many office-based government jobs simply don’t fall into that category. The salaries and pensions are a substantial drain on resources which could either be deployed to other more worthy causes like direct payments to those in need or healthcare for Americans.
It’s worth than that because the employment also allocates labour which could be better deployed in far more productive roles. Any economist will tell you that government employment is naturally inflationary and lowers the general living standards of the population. The Left lies because they don’t tell you that much of the federal workforce is hidden at the state level- they may be employed by the state, but they have to obey the federal regulations in terms of continuing to maintain the welfare industrial complex.
The "Iron Law of Bureaucracy," a concept popularized by Jerry Pournelle, a lauded sci fi author and university professor, suggests that in any large organization, the people devoted to the bureaucracy itself (often the administrators) will eventually gain control, while those focused on the organization's goals will lose influence or even be eliminated. This principle highlights a tendency for internal processes and power structures to take precedence over the intended mission of the organization.
Don’t get me wrong, the Right goes too far as well. The types of cuts to the government workforce they want (but are not likely to get) would cut into healthy flesh, damaging state capacity. But they aren’t wrong that the workforce needs cuts.
I used to work in offices which used to employ 20 people, but were down to three. 53.8% of the federal workforce has a four year college degree or higher. Yes, the federal workforce needs smart, educated people and it also needs specialists. But government should exist to help blue collar citizens into better paying jobs. It should not be a glorified jobs program for college educated white collar workers. 25% of Americans polled state that they would quit their job tomorrow for a manufacturing job. 80% of Americans agree America needs more manufacturing.
Government should be about helping the working poor, not those who could shift to a far more fulfilling role which isn’t a make work position. The Left likes to highlight the low cost of Social Security admin for a reason. Once a claim is filed it doesn’t need any work until people die and the payments cease, barring the occasional change of bank details or change of address. Most mandatory spending bureaucracy isn’t like this.
Ask anyone who has ever filled the forms out, or been pestered by the bureaucracy. Other than the initial interview, most of this could be automated. Excluding social security and medical-related mandatory spending the admin cost is around 9% when one includes pensions for government workers. By making things easier, and perhaps directing some staff to fraud prevention, these admin costs could easily be halved.
I’m not a Trump fan, but a considerable portion of what they are doing is needed. That being said I was probably closer to Biden on many areas of tax.
Look I didn’t mean to be too argumentative. I try to aim for a conciliatory approach wherever possible, and was simply pointing out that the Right has a few things right. The other thing about DEI is that it’s the wrong approach. Equity will always mean bringing down some people to a lower level, rather than raising people up.
The answer is fixing the K-12 pipeline. Here in the UK we’ve done it. Racial educational gaps have almost disappeared in national exams at 16., with the effect that 18-30 income levels have equalised. We did it by raising standards not lowering them. It did require modest public investment, but mainly through teacher training and continuous improvement in professional standards.
This approach did lead to added costs, but much of the expenditure can be attributed to the need to provide classroom cover for teachers whilst they were being trained. It’s a fiction that failing teachers need to be thrown on the scrapheap. It can and does happen, but the main failing appears to be a failure in preparation and training for the demanding task of holding and maintaining attention in a classroom. Too much theory, not enough practical skills. I feel sorry for younger teachers, thrown into the deep end, with a sink or swim attitude on behalf of the powers that be.
A very perceptive and impressive essay. Maybe a bit on the niave side in assuming cynicism is not operating in either case but this is a minor quibble.
Thanks. As a heterodox/independent my reading figures have been dropping off. I was desperate for a comment! The audience appetite tends towards the loudest voices these days. I’ve been thinking about writing something along these lines for some time- although I’ve also been giving some thought to an essay on the Munich Agreement. It’s my view that people underestimate the fear of German bombers.
Chamberlain may have been a hopeless idealist in pursuit of pacifist goal, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that a huge portion of his support structure was humouring him for the purposes of a delaying action to build up RAF bomber capacity and radar defences. I dislike revisionist histories, but a grittier analysis which delves into the mindset of the times often overturns more conventional and convenient narratives.
By cynicism I assume you mean political cynicism. I don’t deny that both bought into the oppositionalism of their times. Such is the nature of politics, although it’s become worse in the modern era with the emergence of echo chambers.
That being said, I don’t think it’s untrue to state that both FDR and Trump are/were uniquely ideological in their pursuit of a singular vision for society. Both take or took the Bull in a China shop approach. Neither are or were willing to make compromises. By comparison, despite the public persona, Obama was far more of a cynic on many issues. The Mitt Romney health plan would be a prime example. Obama wanted the public achievement and knew that in order to achieve it he would have to placate the special interests, despite the downstream costs to the consumer and employer.
Some have characterised FDR as a coalition builder. I think that’s a fiction outside of the wartime presidency. His singular pursuit was winning the argument at the ballot box.
You made several false statements in this essay. I will address three of them
1) Cordell Hull's oil embargo was deliberately construed to provoke the Japanese to war.
2) FDR wanted to avoid aiding Britian before the U.S. entered the war
3) Russia was the major threat at the time
The idea that Cordell Hull deliberately provoked war with Japan is false. It comes from revisionist historians determined to make the U.S. the bad guy because...well...evil western culture. The oil embargo placed on Japan was solely a function of Japan's genocidal war on China. In addition, despite what you stated: FDR wanted to help Britain. However, it was the U.S. congress that was reluctant to give him approval. That is why he came up with the lend-lease program. The prevailing opinion at the time was that Britain would quickly sue for peace and sending them money would be a waste. As for working with the Soviets, that was a deal with the devil. There was also some naivete in the U.S. (although not in Britain) about just how evil Stalin was. We didn't win WW II. Russia did, at a monstrous human cost. There were far more Russian casualties at Stalingrad than the combined casualties of both Britain and the U.S. during the entire war. Hitler lost the moment he invaded Russia.
Pearl Harbor was truly a surprise to the FDR administration. Our eyes were firmly on Europe. No one in the U.S. thought that Japan was a serious threat even after they took Singapore and sunk the Repulse and Prince of Wales. The fact that at the beginning of the war they not only had the best torpedo, but also the best fighter was a huge shock even though Chennault had been fighting Zeros for a while. No one believed him. Hindsight is always 20/20. But in order to fully understand history, you have to understand the thought processes at the time, not 85 years later. No one has perfect insight today and no one had perfect insight in 1939.
You’re right about the suspicions and confirmations of an impending attack, though. U.S. Ambassador to Japan Joseph Grew reported rumours of panning for an attack on Pearl Harbour in January 1941. It wasn’t taken seriously. Suspicions of an impending attack only began in earnest in late November 1941. They didn’t envision an attack on Pearl Harbour because of the shallowness of the bay. Japanese engineers solved the problem by fitting wooden ‘fins’, which allowed the Type 91 torpedoes to operate at shallower depths of 10-15 feet.
The other problem with geopolitics is that people get stuck in the ‘schoolyard bully; analogy. Human groups operate in radically different ways from individuals, especially when they exceed a certain size. Most groups exhibit a wide diversity of opinion ranging from close to pacifist to war hawk. An aggressive posture or action can solve problems in the short-term, causing an adversary to back down- but ultimately this will only lend weight to the more aggressive arguments within the group, as counter aggression becomes preferable to repeated humiliation and powerlessness.
In instances of power disparity this usually results in indirect attempts to sabotage the opposition. Over time it can push slightly antagonistic neutral to opponent to adversary to hostile. Of course, the reverse is also true. If the pacifists are in charge, then it’s an invitation to aggression. It why I made the point about the calculus of calibration.
Although Game Theory has some valid applications it has a terrible track record with regard to managing the potential for the possibility of war, provided the consideration is conventional warfare. It makes assumptions about rationality which simply aren’t true under times of stress, especially when fear and aggression are in play, and especially when one considers the different dynamics in play between individuals or very small teams and larger groups typical for managing escalation. In many ways the same flawed thinking is found in economics.
The first point is debatable. I will agree that at least some of those who argue this position are engaging in revisionist history, but that wasn't my intention. A more generous interpretation would be to state that Hull and FDR knew that their were huge risks involved, but were willing to take them in pursuit of obvious humanitarian goals. We know this because they were warned. Opponents of the embargo, like Admiral Harold Stark and General George Marshall, warned that cutting off oil was akin to an ultimatum, likely provoking war. Despite this, the policy continued, suggesting Hull and Roosevelt accepted the risk. So you make a valid point and I agree with your take on the motives for the embargo, but only add that Pacific Trade expansion was a major American goal. Geopolitics decisions are never monocausal.
America wanted to dominate trade in the region in much the same way that the British Empire operated, but far more benignly. We saw how those initially benign intentions played out in Central and South America- and it's worth noting that none of the American Presidents which followed FDR substantially deviated from America's perceived 'moral mission'- yet still the result were predictably dire whenever American interests, national or commercial, were threatened.
Here's my rebuttal. Motives don't matter. Morality should only ever a subsidiary role in geopolitics, otherwise the human costs are higher. Kishore Mahbubani is no John Mearsheimer or Jeffrey Sachs. He's considered an authoritative voice on geopolitics. His criticism of Western thinkers and politicians is that they are hopeless naive in aspiring to moral outcomes in geopolitics. He constantly emphasises that the West goes well beyond enlightened self-interest, and is keen to point out that geopolitics is often a nasty and dirty business- a game only to be played by deep pragmatists, acutely aware of their adversaries and partners motivations, and willing to make apparent moral compromises in pursuit of net utilitarian goals.
Don't get me wrong- everything up to the oil embargo was morally just and strategically well-calculated. But the oil embargo was a step too far. Hull and FDR should have known that the oil embargo would be perceived as an existential threat to Japan, and this is before one considers the history of anti-Japanese slights by America which had preceded the crisis. Besides, an analysis geared more to military, rather than economic and diplomatic considerations would have recognised that the Japanese were in the process of overextending themselves, and it was inevitable that they would be forced to negotiate. In short, they were stalemated and facing a long drawn-out war of attrition they couldn't maintain indefinitely. By 1941 they only held 10-15% of China's territory effectively, with guerrilla war rife in other occupied areas. They faced 15-20 million troops. The correct next ratcheting of pressure was to ramp up arms supply.
Point 2. I agree with on the constraints governing FDR and a congress intent on isolationism and neutrality. I didn't mean to suggest or imply otherwise. My point about FDR and Churchill was that Churchill recognised the implicit threat of Hitler far earlier, possibility because of his obsession with his ancestor the Duke of Marlborough, and the recognition that Hitler was just as aggressive and bent upon European hegemony as the Sun King. I was talking about the earlier period, before 1938.
FDR's toolbox was quite limited at the time. I get frustrated when people suggest Trevelyan could have closed exports during the Irish Famine, but didn't because he has rich banker friends. It wasn't in the vocabulary of the time, and would have been considered unthinkable. That being said, if Roosevelt had recognised the danger earlier there were several things he could have done. Sure, it probably wouldn't have restrained Henry Ford who received the Nazi Medal in 1938 (because he was ardently anti-communist). But there was ample leverage to slow and restrain German rearmaments through a number of different incentives and tax exemptions.
Point 3. The Soviet Union was a decided threat. The whole ethos was 'workers of the world unite'. The Soviets were quite explicit in their aims to overthrow capitalism and liberal democracy. Their efforts were highly successful in this regard. France, Spain and Germany were all targeted, as was America. In Spain, it provoked the Spanish Civil War. In Germany, the presence of the Soviet support for the existing communist movement caused many institutional forces which found Hitler distasteful to align with him in the hopes they could moderate his behaviour and defeat the communists. It weakened France substantially, making it vulnerable at the outbreak of war.
And make no mistake, Comintern and the various other Soviet techniques were not some enlightened attempt at universal brotherhood, the aim was the founding of communist world empire, with the Soviets at its head. Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of naive and innocent useful idiots who flirted with communism and only later realised how evil it was. And McCarthy definitely targeted innocent people. But communism wasn't just a political party or an ideology, it was subservience to a foreign country which was quickly proving itself to be an evil entity. The mistake many made was in failing to recognise that Nazism was just as bad, or worse. By comparison, Italian Fascism was relatively benign compared to Soviet communism.
We know from Soviet decrypts that at least 349 Americans were passing vital information to the Soviets, some admittedly unwittingly. KGB archives confirm CPUSA’s role as a Soviet “auxiliary,” with ~1,000–2,000 members engaged in subversion (propaganda, recruitment, strikes) in the 1930s–1940s. Unions were a priority, with ~200–300 CPUSA operatives in CIO affiliates (e.g., UE, ILA, NMU). The FBI estimated 5,000–10,000 CPUSA members were “actively subversive” (propaganda, agitation) in the 1940s, with ~1,000 in unions. HUAC’s 1947–1950 hearings targeted CIO unions, claiming 10–20% of leaders were communist-aligned.
Let's not forget that only a few thousand communist activists in Russia were enough to plunge the country into an era of darkness and evil from which it wouldn't escape until 1991. Let's not forget the Bolsheviks only had 10,000 to 24,000 members by 1917. Pipes argues that 10,000 core Bolshevik activists working with 50,000-100,000 socialist activists were enough to overthrow Russia. If economic conditions hadn't improved in America, it's easy to see how the core CPUSA could have expanded and incorporated disaffected labour organisations and unions in order to overthrow capitalism, and incidentally, American democracy.
'Hindsight is always 20/20. But in order to fully understand history, you have to understand the thought processes at the time, not 85 years later.' I completely agree, but don't think I'm particularly guilty on this score. I admit that I'm guilty of motivational biases and faulty priors, but isn't everyone. Generally, I employ painstaking effort to trying and get myself in the head of the people of the time. I may lack archival experience, but I make it a habit to read historians who do. I am not a fan of the revisionists.
My biggest error was one of omission. The point about the moral busybody quote was related to a point that I didn't make, for the sake of brevity. It's my belief that America in the West more generally are beset by a hopeless naivety and optimism (other than internally). Democracy is not the natural state of man, in fact it's quite precarious. And it doesn't particularly essential to an advanced state- Singapore is a prime example.
Again, geopolitics should be cynical and pragmatic, not hopeful or focused on the self-evidently pathetic enforcement mechanisms of the UN and other supranational efforts. The West and a few of the other OECD countries are capable of operating a little above the level of enlightened self-interest, but cynics who would point to the American backing of coups in West Africa would argue that this is a pretence, as would journalists and authors like Chernoh Bah who would point to nearly a billion dollars spent on a power plant which was never built, with most of the money dispersed not to African despots and bureaucrats, but destined for offshore accounts and Western actors.
I sorry I didn't make this clear. I was saving it for a future essay on how people misread the Munich Agreement and the ways in which this misreading of history has been used by hardliners ever since. Chamberlain and a few others might have been pacifists and hopeless idealists, but almost everyone else had a very bleak and pessimistic assessment of what would happen to Britain in the event of a sustained bombing campaign or even gas attacks. The national archives support this conjecture and the Home Office estimated 600,000 within a few weeks of the commencement of a German bombing campaign alone. They hoped for time to build their own deterrent bomber fleet. In just 11 months they had increased tonnage of bombs capable of bombing Germany by 45%. Guernica and 'Things to Come' were at the forefront of British elites.
Anyway, that's the other component of my argument. Hopeless naivety prevails throughout the West, but in combination with overly aggressive posturing it's positively dangerous. All because, whenever the subject of concession is is broached the chorus of 'Appeasement!' resounds from DC and London. All from a misreading of history. It's not that aggressive posturing isn't often called for, but it has to be calibrated with extreme caution. That's a caution which is often entirely lacking.
So, I'm sorry I didn't mention the rest of my thinking. My other issue is that often domestic political considerations are prioritised over major international considerations.
You stated:
“But the oil embargo was a step too far. Hull and FDR should have known that the oil embargo would be perceived as an existential threat to Japan”
Again you are arguing for perfect insight. but even if they believed this the answer is: So what! We currently have an oil embargo on Iran which is causing great damage to their economy. Even China has come under pressure to reduce imports. We do not particularly fear Iran just as we did not particularly fear Japan back in 1940. Many western countries refuse to buy Russian oil, who we do fear.
China was a allay at the time. Japan was NOT!! Should we not aid allies because we fear the consequences? Biden and Obama pursued this policy and look where it got us. And to be more accurate, Marshal and Stark did not argue against the embargo because the feared war between the U.S. and Japan. They believed that the embargo would lead to Japanese invasion of the oil-rich Netherland East Indies, which happened anyway in 1942.
As with Germany, war with Japan was going going to happen whether an oil embargo was imposed or not. There was no “diversity of opinion ranging from close to pacifist to war hawk.” in Japan. It was all war hawks Yamamoto was privately opposed to war with the U.S. but he was the one who planned Pearl Harbor. The idea that Japan would have recognized that they were overextended in China does not bear historical analysis. The Chinese army was poorly armed, poorly led, highly politicized and highly corrupt. They never posed much of a threat. Japan’s beliefs at the time, like Germany’s were based on a sense of racial superiority. They were destined to rule Asia.
Japan thought that they could impose a highly enough cost on the U.S. to achieve a negotiated settlement which would allow them to keep their empire, right up until the atom bomb was dropped. They felt that if they were only willing to lose 20 million people, the U.S. would capitulate. In fact even after the bomb was dropped a militant faction tried to assassinate members of the government in order to get to the emperor to get him to change his mind. The war was only over when the Emperor’s address went out to the Japanese public.
On Russia, there is no question that Churchill saw them as a future threat. Roosevelt may have as well But both wanted Russia to bear the brunt of the fighting in Europe. We agree that communism was attractive to many upper class intellectuals in the 1930’s in both the U.S. and Britain. The Cambridge Five are the most famous example of this. Have you read Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia?
Some things never change 😞
You make some good arguments, but the Iran oil embargo is an export embargo- it’s not comparable to an import embargo, which represented an existential threat to the Japanese, crippling both their economy and their military actions. I agree with your previous comment about the US not considering the Japanese a significant military threat- they didn’t learn from the Battle of Tsushima, which clearly demonstrated the Japanese to be the equal of any modern industrial power, at least pound for pound. However, my point and it’s supporting evidence remain- I clearly demonstrated FDR and Hull were made aware of the risk.
Look I agree with you on the motivations, but we have to remember that China Japan wasn’t the only conflict which was significant at the time within the region. Although Chang Kai-shek’s nationalists and the communists had arranged a temporary alliance, they were warring factions, and if run the question through Grok or Chat GPT 4.0 you will find that countries which emerge from civil wars almost always emerge as belligerents, because the society has been militarised and lacks stability. The UK and the US are no exceptions.
"Be it thy course to busy giddy minds
With foreign quarrels; that action, hence borne out,
May waste the memory of the former days."
Let’s not forget that the education men who surrounded Hull and FDR would have been superb by comparison to todays standards, full of questions like ‘Does might make right?’ and considerations like ‘Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.’ It’s not the raw talent, merely the subject matter and a far deeper knowledge of history, philosophy, religion and the classics. To not expect China to emerge as a belligerent power is either the product of the typical hubris of the powerful which persists to this day, or naivety (also a problem today).
So let’s summarise. We have Japan, a belligerent power. We have China, a power very likely to become belligerent, once one of the two factions emerge victorious. I know this sounds callous, but there existed the possibility of doing nothing and allowing the pressure to build until Japan was forced to the negotiating table. It was the French Indochina invasion which prompted the embargo. Japan proposed withdrawing from parts of China as part of the trade normalization talks. There is every reason to believe that the strain on their economy and the overextension would have changed their calculus, forcing them to give further concessions.
Apart from anything else, the Army was the militaristic faction within the Japanese government, and the ongoing humiliation was forcing them to lose face in relation to their rivals the Naval faction. Perhaps that’s an overstatement. A more accurate assessment would be to argue that the Navy were far more strategically cautious. With the Navy faction flush from the Indochina gain, and the army increasingly humiliated by their stalemate (200,000 casualties by 1941), there is every reason to believe that an ascendant Navy faction would have been more amenable to diplomacy, especially as this would have robbed their chief political rivals of resources, power and prestige! The oil embargo changed the dynamic, and the strategic calculus- do you see what I mean? I’m sorry it’s not easier to trot out all my reasoning.
My point would be that without the Oil Embargo it’s highly unlikely that the broader Pacific conflict would have occurred- or at least not within the immediate timeframe, although the Dutch were obviously a very tempting target in a somewhat different category to Indochina.
The long comment about groups, Western naivety and American aggressive posturing was a more general comment about geopolitics and diplomacy, it wasn’t meant to apply to the Japan question specifically, although it does- though to a far lesser extent, given the cultural context of the time and Japan’s highly cohesive and hierarchal culture.
Home to Catalonia is one I haven’t read, but I am a great admirer of Orwell. Just bought it for 30 pence! Have you read Canetti’s Crowds and Power? The groups involved in geopolitics are best described as the Invisible Crowd which forms around around a common, often metaphysical or institutional belief-such as religion, ideology, or shared strategy. This was my observation (despite the tautology)- altogether too ideological and prone to wishful thinking. Another example would be America’s tendency to engage in Jus Post Bellum which in every instance I can think of since the former Yugoslavia, has been tantamount to snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
It’s less highbrow, but if you like Sci Fi I would heartily recommend The Peacemaker’s Code by Deepak Malhotra. I liked almost every aspect of the book with the exception of one short liberal delusion about the state of nature prior to industrialisation.
Anyway, despite our disagreements, I have to say I’m greatly enjoying our discourse! I like disagreements which stretch me. I’ve already learned several things I didn’t know!
And to be honest, I had completely forgotten about the friction between the Army and Navy faction. It’s been decades since I read Gailey’s War in the Pacific, which first put me on to the underlying tensions between the IJA and IJN. Great book!
You state:
My point would be that without the Oil Embargo it’s highly unlikely that the broader Pacific conflict would have occurred- or at least not within the immediate timeframe, although the Dutch were obviously a very tempting target in a somewhat different category to Indochina.
We will agree to disagree. Japan wanted an empire that stretched over Asia. That would included British colonies such as Burma and India and U.S. possessions like Midway and Gaum sand likely Hawaii. They were inflected with what Japanese historians call “victory disease” during the early phases of expansion of the “Greater Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere, and no internal force was going to stop them. The allies were never going to allow that to happen. War was inevitable.
I enjoy the discussion as well
Well, I will admit my argument hinges upon the Naval faction on the ascendant. The problem is that they were constrained by events which had overtaken them. Whether the American position was played well depends upon their intelligence. If they had good intelligence they shouldn’t have pushed the oil embargo, because the embargo pushed the Naval Faction to concede to the Army Faction position. Similarly, if their intelligence was good, they should have known that the Army Factions position was weakening, due to ongoing embarrassment of the land war in China, which had reached stalemate, whilst continuing to be a drain on the Japanese economy.
But it all depends on their intelligence at the time. I understand that most oil embargo counterfactuals are revisionist, but the Naval faction argument is well-acknowledged by established historians.
Here’s what Grok said on the subject:
The view that the Navy faction was more amenable to diplomacy is widely accepted among historians, though nuanced. Scholars like John Toland (The Rising Sun), Akira Iriye (The Origins of the Second World War in Asia and the Pacific), and Ian Kershaw (Fateful Choices) note the Navy’s relative caution and preference for negotiation, especially in 1940–41, contrasted with the Army’s belligerence. However, it’s not framed as a clear-cut divide, as both factions shared imperialist goals, and the Navy’s moderates were constrained by internal politics and the momentum toward war. The Navy’s diplomatic inclination is a standard point in academic accounts but tempered by recognition of its limited influence and eventual acquiescence to war.
So I will readily admit my theory is a stretch. It hinges on the speculation that in the absence of an oil embargo, the Naval hand would have been strengthened and less constrained by the momentum of events. I guess we will never know how things might have played out in the fact of the absence of an oil embargo, or indeed an oil embargo which was considerably delayed. It’s worth noting that by late 1941, domestic politics would have required FDR to impose an oil embargo anyway. A Gallup poll conducted in the summer of 1941, after Japan’s invasion of southern Indochina (July 1941), indicated that a majority of Americans supported taking firm steps to curb Japanese expansion, even at the risk of war. By late 1941, this figure had shifted to two-thirds or more of Americans.
One of the things which probably colours my thinking is that I’ve spent just over the last twenty years thinking about the Thucydides Trap. Given the internal problems and dissent currently occurring within China, it’s worth noting that we are probably closer to a Chinese invasion of Taiwan than at any other point in the last twenty years…
There are a lot of valid points there. I think you hit the nail on the head with your comment about the Ju88. Overy in 'Why the Allies Won' references the lack of standardization in the German war effort. Richard J Evans also details Goebbels attempts to change German efforts to a total war economy and how he ran into difficulties with other Nazi leaders fiefdoms. The way the Nazi state was configured guaranteed that their would be no standard weaponry and effort would be diffused and not focused.
Certainly the Luftwaffe was a tactically oriented air force but only because this was the most efficient and effective use of military aviation. Strategic bombing was a complete failure which the RAF miserably failed to realise. The possession of strategic bombers only really helped as a sop to Stalin ('look we're killing Germans) and to delay a European landing.
I disagree, but only somewhat. If one looks at armaments production by country for the major industrial powers, then it quickly becomes apparent that Germany didn’t experience the type of near exponential growth in tanks, aircraft, etc.
Some of this can be put down to resource constraints. Having read Dancey & Vajda’s excellent German Aircraft Production 1933-45, it’s also clear that there were other issues. The employment of better educated workers in pursuit of mass production was a clear problem. The book highlights an instance in a production batch where a variant of subtype of the Junkers 88 bomber exhibited a near one tonne different in weight from another plane in the same production batch! More educated workers didn’t seem to be able to resist the already strong German urge to innovate inline- not exactly conducive to mass production.
There was also the fact that Germany didn’t completely eliminate civilian consumption production when it should have. Hitler was worried about impacts on civilian morale, still stubbornly refusing to admit that the lost of the Great War weren’t due to Dolchstoßlegende, but more a matter of morale collapse through mass starvation and malnutrition. The late gearing for total war production might seem minor, but scaling up production is an incredibly difficult process which compounds over time.
For example, it can be difficult and a matter of years to get a new nightshift production up to 60% of dayshift capacity. It’s not just that people are less productive at night, or that skilled work at speed can take a long time to accrue, but a nightshift generally looses a lot of the residual support functions from the likes of maintenance engineers and stores.
That being said, sources like Richard Overy and United States Strategic Bombing Survey show that it was mainly indirect effects on the labour force which impacted production. Shift disruption, housing damage, worker morale, and civil defence duties all played a role. That being said, the case is probably somewhat overstated. People like to believe their approach was more effective than was actually the case.
Funnily enough, when I was working as a junior member of a manufacturing management team, we had a telecoms company cut through one of our power cables. Power to the plant was only down for three hours, but we lost about 85% of the expected production for the remainder of the shift, even though we only lost around 50% of the time. The telecoms company reimbursed us, despite an initial questioning of our figures- we were able to prove the disruption with our tracking and dispatch data.
The workers were on a piece rate. They were not happy campers- until that is we offered to pro rata up their pay to reflect the disruption. We weren’t paying for it, after all!
Where I completely agree with you is in the fact that strategic bombing is completely useless for any purposes other than disrupting production.
Munich is a bit more complex than is made out. Certainly Chamberlain was wedded to peace but possessed an arrogant belief in his own abilities particularly in the area of foreign relations. However, the surprising driver behind Munich was the RAF. Wedding themselves to the cult of the bomber they were blindsided when Hitler ignored the threat. The Germans though didn't have the capacity or the intention to launch a strategic bombing war. This failure of British intelligence is often overlooked.
The Germans were never really open to the possibilities of bombers beyond their tactical role. They had been bombing Soviet rail centres far more extensively in the run-up to the advance on Moscow. That’s being said it was unlikely to have been effective against Zhukov’s build-up of a near unbeatable force. The one time Stalin listened to his generals and it just happened to be decisive! Probably because his own horrible neck was on the line.
The German position might have been improved if they had managed to plan the replacement of Russian rail gauges with European gauges more effectively.
Speaking of the road to tyranny it seems to me that this reference described such a path
http://www.thenerdreich.com/unhumans-jd-vance-and-the-language-of-genocide
Meanwhile the Orange Oaf is a religiously and culturally illiterate nihilistic barbarian, a pathological liar. And a life-long professional grifter/con-man who along with his family is now ramping up his grifting on steroids.
So Vance is now Hitler? Don’t get me wrong, I don’t like the sound of the book, but let’s not forget that actual communists were actually evil!
For example, contrary to the beliefs of many wishful thinking socialists Lenin was pure evil. A murderous psychopath by choice, not environment.
Don’t get me wrong- I have the deepest respect for the old class-based progressives, who genuinely worked for labour causes, or wanted to take talented kids from underprivileged backgrounds and give them a chance at social mobility.
But DEI was not a good thing. It actually increased racism rather than reducing it, and created working environments where Black and LGBT people were more likely to leave as result of DEI training- because it increased attributional ambiguity. It had noble ambitions, but if you really want to increase diversity fairly and without actually making things worse for Black people you have to look at systems like MEI- which uses data to cast a wider net. Even Charlemagne is on record as stating that there are now hundreds of studies concluding that DEI produces the opposite results of what’s intended.
I looked at DOGE. First of all, the claims of savings are highly exaggerated. For one thing they’re counting savings over several years as though they were within a single tax year. For another, some of the savings had already been announced. And yes, there have been genuine harms. Discounting the stupid instances of people fired and rehired within 24 hours, which is OK to bitch about, but doesn’t serve any useful purpose, there have been actual harms.
PEPFAR disruptions will cost lives, but nowhere near as many as hysterically claimed by the NYT. It’s also probably also not a good idea to dismantle FEWS NET- a food insecurity and logistics early warning system. I’m also not keen on the notion of them dismantling CFPB- even though, thus far, it’s only wishful thinking on their part.
Here’s the thing. There are plenty of public sector jobs which are vital, are a net positive, and shouldn’t be performed by the private sector for a number of reasons too numerous to list. But many office-based government jobs simply don’t fall into that category. The salaries and pensions are a substantial drain on resources which could either be deployed to other more worthy causes like direct payments to those in need or healthcare for Americans.
It’s worth than that because the employment also allocates labour which could be better deployed in far more productive roles. Any economist will tell you that government employment is naturally inflationary and lowers the general living standards of the population. The Left lies because they don’t tell you that much of the federal workforce is hidden at the state level- they may be employed by the state, but they have to obey the federal regulations in terms of continuing to maintain the welfare industrial complex.
The "Iron Law of Bureaucracy," a concept popularized by Jerry Pournelle, a lauded sci fi author and university professor, suggests that in any large organization, the people devoted to the bureaucracy itself (often the administrators) will eventually gain control, while those focused on the organization's goals will lose influence or even be eliminated. This principle highlights a tendency for internal processes and power structures to take precedence over the intended mission of the organization.
Don’t get me wrong, the Right goes too far as well. The types of cuts to the government workforce they want (but are not likely to get) would cut into healthy flesh, damaging state capacity. But they aren’t wrong that the workforce needs cuts.
I used to work in offices which used to employ 20 people, but were down to three. 53.8% of the federal workforce has a four year college degree or higher. Yes, the federal workforce needs smart, educated people and it also needs specialists. But government should exist to help blue collar citizens into better paying jobs. It should not be a glorified jobs program for college educated white collar workers. 25% of Americans polled state that they would quit their job tomorrow for a manufacturing job. 80% of Americans agree America needs more manufacturing.
Government should be about helping the working poor, not those who could shift to a far more fulfilling role which isn’t a make work position. The Left likes to highlight the low cost of Social Security admin for a reason. Once a claim is filed it doesn’t need any work until people die and the payments cease, barring the occasional change of bank details or change of address. Most mandatory spending bureaucracy isn’t like this.
Ask anyone who has ever filled the forms out, or been pestered by the bureaucracy. Other than the initial interview, most of this could be automated. Excluding social security and medical-related mandatory spending the admin cost is around 9% when one includes pensions for government workers. By making things easier, and perhaps directing some staff to fraud prevention, these admin costs could easily be halved.
I’m not a Trump fan, but a considerable portion of what they are doing is needed. That being said I was probably closer to Biden on many areas of tax.
https://www.konstantinkisin.com/p/the-truth-about-vladimir-lenin-a
Look I didn’t mean to be too argumentative. I try to aim for a conciliatory approach wherever possible, and was simply pointing out that the Right has a few things right. The other thing about DEI is that it’s the wrong approach. Equity will always mean bringing down some people to a lower level, rather than raising people up.
The answer is fixing the K-12 pipeline. Here in the UK we’ve done it. Racial educational gaps have almost disappeared in national exams at 16., with the effect that 18-30 income levels have equalised. We did it by raising standards not lowering them. It did require modest public investment, but mainly through teacher training and continuous improvement in professional standards.
This approach did lead to added costs, but much of the expenditure can be attributed to the need to provide classroom cover for teachers whilst they were being trained. It’s a fiction that failing teachers need to be thrown on the scrapheap. It can and does happen, but the main failing appears to be a failure in preparation and training for the demanding task of holding and maintaining attention in a classroom. Too much theory, not enough practical skills. I feel sorry for younger teachers, thrown into the deep end, with a sink or swim attitude on behalf of the powers that be.
https://educationblog.buckingham.ac.uk/2020/07/29/why-are-schools-in-london-so-successful-by-barnaby-lenon/
A very perceptive and impressive essay. Maybe a bit on the niave side in assuming cynicism is not operating in either case but this is a minor quibble.
Thanks. As a heterodox/independent my reading figures have been dropping off. I was desperate for a comment! The audience appetite tends towards the loudest voices these days. I’ve been thinking about writing something along these lines for some time- although I’ve also been giving some thought to an essay on the Munich Agreement. It’s my view that people underestimate the fear of German bombers.
Chamberlain may have been a hopeless idealist in pursuit of pacifist goal, but there is plenty of evidence to suggest that a huge portion of his support structure was humouring him for the purposes of a delaying action to build up RAF bomber capacity and radar defences. I dislike revisionist histories, but a grittier analysis which delves into the mindset of the times often overturns more conventional and convenient narratives.
By cynicism I assume you mean political cynicism. I don’t deny that both bought into the oppositionalism of their times. Such is the nature of politics, although it’s become worse in the modern era with the emergence of echo chambers.
That being said, I don’t think it’s untrue to state that both FDR and Trump are/were uniquely ideological in their pursuit of a singular vision for society. Both take or took the Bull in a China shop approach. Neither are or were willing to make compromises. By comparison, despite the public persona, Obama was far more of a cynic on many issues. The Mitt Romney health plan would be a prime example. Obama wanted the public achievement and knew that in order to achieve it he would have to placate the special interests, despite the downstream costs to the consumer and employer.
Some have characterised FDR as a coalition builder. I think that’s a fiction outside of the wartime presidency. His singular pursuit was winning the argument at the ballot box.