Transcript World War II: Continuation of the Trend toward Total or

World War II: Continuation of the
Trend toward Total or Pure War
• Background:
– US enters the war to end all wars and to make
the world safe for democracies: Revolutionary
aims vs. European imperial system for global
order and legitimacy
– Versailles Treaty to end the war with Germany
establishes the Wilsonian principle of collective
security: end the balance of power
Flaws of the Versailles Treaty and
the Principle of Collective Security
• The U.S. returns to a traditional isolationist
position in European security and politics
– President Wilson’s ideas of collective security, end of
empires and self-determination, and democratic rule are
rejected
– United States refuses to join the League of Nations
• Germany is not re-integrated into the community
of states as Napoleonic France was in 1815
– Germany is accused of starting the war and must pay
burdensome reparations
– Germany’s military forces are limited and under the
control of the liberal democratic states -- but without
the US
Failures of the League of Nations
and Collective Security
• Japanese invasion of Manchuria (1931) and war
with China (1937-45)
• Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935
• German reoccupation of the Rheinland in 1935
• Russian invasion of Finland in 1939-40
• German attack on Poland in September 1939
• World War II begins
German Empire, 1941-42
United States Enters the War
• Japanese Pearl Harbor attack, December 7, 1941
• Japanese War Aims: Protect Japanese Empire
against U.S.
– Eliminate the threat to Japan from U.S. naval forces
– Seek a sphere of influence understanding with the
United States
• Similar to German-Soviet agreement in August, 1939
• US sphere of influence extends to Hawaii; Japan’s sphere in
the western Pacific, China and Southeast Asia: Dutch
Indonesia and French Indo-China; and British Hong Kong and
Singapore
United States War Aims: Total
Political and Military Victory
• Return to Wilsonian revolutionary aims of a new
global order:
– Victory of Liberal democratic coalition
– Destruction of the German and Japanese empires and
political regimes
– End of Europe’s empires and the global institutional
principle of self-determination
– Creation of a postwar liberal, global trading system
– The democratic rule of a system of nation-states under
United Nations auspices dedicated to a peaceful world
order
American and Allied Strategic
Military Aims
• Destruction of the military forces of
German and Japan and their allies
• Complete political submission of the
German and Japanese states, regimes, and
peoples to allied rule
Japanese Empire: 1942
Total Warfare in Europe and
Pacific
• Germany defeated in May 1945
• Japanese surrenders in August, 1945 in the
wake of atomic bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki
Atomic Bomb over Hiroshima,
1945
Destruction of Hiroshima, 1945
World War II as Total War:
Hobbes and Clausewitz Return
• 72 million civilian and military deaths
– Civilian: 47 million
– Military: 25 million
Total Casualties in Percentages of
Allied and Axis Deaths
Flaws of the Allied Coalition and
the Cold War” 1945-1991
• Liberal Democracies vs. Soviet Union
• United States vs. European Empires
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France
United Kingdom
Netherlands
Portugal
Belgium