Not sure if anyone is interested in reading more homework or not, but this is my first post for my on-line class (the Pacific War.) It is a lot of reading, I admit.
The topic was this: Clemenceau remarked that war was too complicated an endeavor to be left to the generals alone. Can the same be said about diplomats and trade representatives? Bismarck insisted that in order to achieve a lasting peace, settlements should not fill the vanquished with a burning desire to avenge its defeat.
Using Costello's introductory chapters (1-6), as well as other material you have read or studied, why is it so difficult for diplomats and/or trade representatives to achieve lasting and peaceful settlements?
My response:
Message: The question posed for the discussion board can be answered several ways. "Why is it difficult for the representatives of nations to achieve a lasting peace?" could be answered solely with no particular nations in mind. When discussing the decades leading to the Pacific War, the realities of the situation make a cookie-cutter solution impossible. In today’s day and age, there are relatively few countries who are as forceful in their foreign relations as the main belligerents in WWII were.
The Japanese were especially forceful in their dealings with other Asian countries; most notably China. The Japanese feelings toward the non-Asian tradesmen were not good in the first place due in part to anti-Japanese and Asian policies and journalism during the first decade of the twentieth century (27). During the mid thirties, however, they began to resent the presence of Europeans in a market they saw as their own and they began more aggressive expansion into Manchuria and other parts of China. The English and American response to this was motivated by two factors: first, they did not want to be forced out of what was seen as a burgeoning market, and second, they felt an obligation to the Chinese to help protect them. This was especially true in the case of the Americans. Roosevelt choose to "uphold the sanctity of international treaties" and had the "deepest sympathy" for China (47). At the same time, investments in China were not near as sizable as the English ones; limiting the reason for a increasingly antagonistic relationship with Japanese (48).
The Japanese, for their part, were growing more and more nationalistic and militaristic all the time. The USS Panay was sunk by Japanese warplanes, angering the United States. The Rape of Nanking, which was to shock the Chinese Nationalists into surrender, only strengthened the resolve of the Chinese and disgusted the rest of the world. Cabinets were also frequently dissolved or subject to assassination. This meant there was a constantly shift in policy and that only cabinets that pleased the nationalists and militarists stayed in power. It also led to the military having no fear of the civil authorities as evidenced by the July 29, 1939 attack into Russia (60). An attack that had been expressly forbidden.
The English and Americans vowed to stop this expansion. The only problem was that there was no threat to back up the big talk. The Joint Board held in 1939 came to the conclusion that the US should withdraw from its base in the Philippines in order to protect Hawaii and the US West Coast (63). As a result of this perceivable weakness, the Japanese continued to push for trade rights and take over more Asian territory. To counter this, the US threatened one of the few things it could threaten Japan with: oil. When the incoming supply of oil dried up, the militarists set a deadline for war to begin before their planes, tanks, and ships would stop. Time ran out and war began.
One constant in the world is the use of force. A gun is a morally neutral device. Bad in the hands of one who would do ill with it, good in the hands of someone who would stop the evil. On a larger scale, there will always be nations led by people that are intent on using force against other nations who are not as strong. The only thing they understand is force and the arithmetic one does to gage chances of victory. The Japanese saw only weakness in the American/English threat that was posed to them. The same was true of Saddam Hussein. In the case of Iraq, even after a crushing defeat in the Gulf War, he remained defiant after UN resolution after resolution was shown to be meaningless. With no force behind them to back them up, they, too, were "scrapes of paper." Only the overwhelming force that was eventually brought to bear on both countries brought an end of the conflict.