22 Work Weeks on the Golf Course

[Sicko FanAtic]

I was talking about the Revolutionary War.

So that resolved everything once and for all..? Ok...

As far as the USA getting out from under the thumb of King George III, it certainly did.

And we have not had a military battle with England since.  That's more than 200 years.

War of 1812

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[Billy Underdog]

Hold on there... there was a thing called the War of 1812 in which the USA declared war on England, ostensibly over freedom of the seas, but with the ulterior motive of acquiring Upper Canada. Following that, tensions did remain high, almost erupting into war over things like lumberjacks in Maine and pigs on the West Coast. Although treaties were able to settle boundary disputes, the USA almost got England to join with the CSA in the Civil War over intercepting Confederate diplomats en route to England on a British ship.

Since then, there was a healthy amount of anti-British skepticism in the USA until around after the Spanish-American War in which the USA acquired a global empire and became a good bit more like England as a result. Once on the world stage, having good terms with the world's biggest navy made sense.

Geopolitically, there is a lot of overlap in US and UK desires, so it's natural for them to stay allied... for now...

Sooo... It's like the war ended, but the conflicts kept on going? Weird...

It must really be nice to be able to see the world as isolated events instead of one continuous story...

[Typhon]

War of 1812

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Which ended in 1815 = more than 200 years.

Sooo... It's like the war ended, but the conflicts kept on going? Weird...

It must really be nice to be able to see the world as isolated events instead of one continuous story...

Well don't you have disagreements with friends, but are still friends?

[Billy Underdog]

Sooo... It's like the war ended, but the conflicts kept on going? Weird...

It must really be nice to be able to see the world as isolated events instead of one continuous story...

Well don't you have disagreements with friends, but are still friends?

Sure, but it never gets physical, as we know that doesn't solve anything. Neither is it at the expence of innocent civilians or at the risk of by-standers.

[Typhon]

Sooo... It's like the war ended, but the conflicts kept on going? Weird...

It must really be nice to be able to see the world as isolated events instead of one continuous story...

Well don't you have disagreements with friends, but are still friends?

Sure, but it never gets physical, as we know that doesn't solve anything.

Of course it does.  Look at the history between the U.S. and Japan:

 Japan backstabs us at Pearl Harbor --> the 2 nations are mortal enemies.
 Major conflict takes place --> Japan surrenders and a peace treaty is signed.
 Final result --> the 2 nations are now allies, doing business between them,
                        a kind of mutual respect now exists.

Again, I'm not saying a conflict is always the answer.  But, sometimes, it is the best answer in order to settle things once and for all.

[Zzzptm]

The US-England relationship nearly went to war on at least three separate occasions between 1815 and 1865... I'm not considering those 50 years as part of the "no wars" period, given that both nations had to keep plans handy just in case the events precipitated a war.

The idea of a war settling things once and for all is absolutely ludicrous once one puts nuclear weapons into the mix. Yes, things are settled, but in an extremely final way.

EDIT: As for Japan and Germany being friends, what choice do they have? Germany is an occupied country still and Japan has a massive US military presence surrounding it. Both nations are constitutionally restricted in their deployment of forces overseas. They really don't have much choice but to be a friend with the USA.

[Billy Underdog]

^^^ You're a smart, levelheaded person, Dozy. You seem to don't just take bullshit at face value, but actually stop to think about stuff thoroughly. A much needed trait in this chaotic world of ours.

[Typhon]

Japan has a massive US military presence surrounding it. Both nations are constitutionally restricted in their deployment of forces overseas. They really don't have much choice but to be a friend with the USA.

Yes, they had a choice.  They could have chosen to be another North Korea.

[Zzzptm]

Japan has a massive US military presence surrounding it. Both nations are constitutionally restricted in their deployment of forces overseas. They really don't have much choice but to be a friend with the USA.

Yes, they had a choice.  They could have chosen to be another North Korea.

Not sure where you got that... but North Korea is an edge case, alongside the Khmer Rouges in Cambodia.

The course of the war the Allies fought against Japan was fraught with missed opportunities on both sides. After the failure of the U-Go and Ha-Go offensives of 1944, Japan offered to have a negotiated peace. The USA refused to accept terms and insisted upon unconditional surrender. In early 1945, the USA initiated a firebombing campaign, killing roughly 2-2.5 million Japanese civilians in firestorms. By the way, this is a rate on par with the German extermination camps in 1944-1945, at the peak of their operating efficiency. General Le May admitted that had the Allies not won the war, he and his staff would be in the dock for crimes against humanity.

At any rate, after having most of their urban centers reduced to ashes, the Japanese offered to surrender, holding out the single condition that the person of the Emperor not be subjected to war crimes trials and be left in place. The USA refused and proceeded to use two nuclear weapons. Following those attacks, the Japanese again offered to surrender, and again held out a condition for the Emperor. The USA prepared for Operation Olympic, and expected upwards of a million US casualties and countless Japanese casualties.

At that point, a member of the Secretariat of the Navy suggested to Truman that the Japanese would never surrender. As long as the Emperor and one other Japanese soldier existed, the soldier would not surrender if it meant placing the Emperor in jeopardy. On that secretariat's advice, Truman basically lied to the American people and said that Japan was surrendering unconditionally. The war ended. At that point, Japan had no choice but to accept a US-dictated constitution, the presence of US bases, and to be firmly locked into the US' commercial and diplomatic sphere.

For its part, the USA did not want to partition Japan as had happened with Germany. The USSR was content to loot the industrial base of Manchuria as its reward for showing up to fight in the East.

[Zzzptm]

But back to the Golfer-in-Chief... the guy made a comment that he would never spend a day on the links while President. Republicans had ripped into Obama for his golfing during various moments of his presidency, so the golfing thing seemed to be a litmus test for the GOP. You go golfing, you suck as a president. No golfing, you might just be one of the greats.

Well, Trump has now golfed more than just about any other president I can think of, which points to his credibility. The man said one thing, did the complete opposite. And maybe it *is* a litmus test for how much stuff he's gotten himself and his staffers embroiled in. The work of the US Government goes on, of course. There are many large bureaucracies that carry out their work with guidance on points of emphasis from the top of the executive branch. But at the same time, the sheer chaos of the Trump presidency is matched only by its venality and kleptocracy.

The fact that his election campaign was rife with connections to Russian intelligence is only compounded by the hush money handed out in what seems to be violations of federal election laws. Trump is a deeply flawed person who is making a pig's breakfast of his presidency. Things that Republicans threw tantrums over when Obama did them, they look the other way at Trump and point at minor stories as if those cover up the real howlers coming out of his administration. The GOP itself has a massive internal issue in that they can't get decent people on their tickets in a number of elections. Districts they should be winning easily are going to the Democrats not only because Trump is such a terrible president, but the candidates themselves are basically running on a "don't look at his past, we can count on him to vote our way" ticket. The GOP couldn't stop an actual Nazi from getting their nomination in an Illinois congressional race, for heaven's sake.

In my own state, there is a massive wave of sentiment to vote in Beto O'Rourke for Senate and to thereby put Ted Cruz out of a job. Ted Cruz got elected only 6 years ago, so not a lot of demographics have changed in Texas voters. Texas had been a reliably Republican state since the Reagan Revolution, but now Trump has made it much easier for Texans to want to cut ties not only with Lyin' Ted Cruz, but with the party itself. If Trump's policies get Texas to flip to Blue, that's it for the GOP in national politics.

I don't think anyone will be convinced one way or another reading a political thread on a music message board... but if we step back and, whatever our politics may be, take a look at what's happening in the USA, we're witnessing a massive rejection of the GOP because of its close connections to things like the NRA, Big Oil, and white supremacist groups. Not all Republicans fit those descriptions, not at all: but there is a need for them to explain why it is that they're cheering for the same guy that the KKK is cheering for at times... and that explanation isn't washing with voters.

[Typhon]

At any rate, after having most of their urban centers reduced to ashes, the Japanese offered to surrender, holding out the single condition that the person of the Emperor not be subjected to war crimes trials and be left in place. The USA refused and proceeded to use two nuclear weapons. Following those attacks, the Japanese again offered to surrender, and again held out a condition for the Emperor.

The Japanese never offered to surrender.  The problem with your analysis is that the Japanese have their own definition of the word "surrender" and it was not with just 1 single condition.  You see, when 2 countries are at war with one another, and the side losing badly offers to surrender, but has a list of conditions that the winning side is suppose to abide by, then it is not actually a surrender, but an attempt to con the winning side into stopping the onslaught.  Truman did not fall for this and rejected this so-called offer.

[Zzzptm]

At any rate, after having most of their urban centers reduced to ashes, the Japanese offered to surrender, holding out the single condition that the person of the Emperor not be subjected to war crimes trials and be left in place. The USA refused and proceeded to use two nuclear weapons. Following those attacks, the Japanese again offered to surrender, and again held out a condition for the Emperor.

The Japanese never offered to surrender.  The problem with your analysis is that the Japanese have their own definition of the word "surrender" and it was not with just 1 single condition.  You see, when 2 countries are at war with one another, and the side losing badly offers to surrender, but has a list of conditions that the winning side is suppose to abide by, then it is not actually a surrender, but an attempt to con the winning side into stopping the onslaught.  Truman did not fall for this and rejected this so-called offer.

Conditions were included in the December 1944/January 1945 and early July 1945 set of offers. The late July 1945 offer was the single condition offer and was identical to the August 1945 offer after the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Thing is, the unconditional surrender concept was itself something put forward by Stalin to Roosevelt as it played to the Russian advantage in the war. Churchill was ready to work with Abwehr dissidents who would assassinate Hitler and then have a peace with status quo ante bellum borders, with Germany keeping Austria and the Sudetenland. Such a peace would have left Russia with nothing to gain in Europe, so Stalin pushed for Roosevelt to go with unconditional surrender. The war dragged on and, consequently, Russia was able to grind back the German armies and cut off a big slice of Eastern and Central Europe for its sphere. Same thing with Japan - had there been a negotiated finish to the war in January 1945, Russia would have been kept out of both Manchuria and North Korea. Korea would have been a single governmental entity and the Nationalists would have had the Manchurian industrial base to support their fight against the Communists.

Even with the idea of unconditional surrender, the Allies pretty much fought without imagination. Their superior numbers, either with mass attacks from Russian and Chinese armies or with piles of American equipment in the British, Canadian, and US armies, meant basically that the Germans were going to run out of bullets and shells before the Allies ran out of bodies, bombers, and tanks. The entire Italian campaign was a merciless slog up the mountains and the Eastern Front was one pile of bodies after another. Actual Russian casualties are expected to have been a good deal greater than the 20 million officially reported.

In the fight against Japan, MacArthur had a simple strategy: From Australia, go back up the island chains until getting back to the Philippines. From there, cut off the Japanese petrochemical supplies from the Dutch East Indies and the Japanese would be unable to fight. The US Navy revolted at the idea, refusing to be a taxi service for the Army, especially after the debacle of Pearl Harbor. The Navy had to have its own Central Pacific strategy, which split American efforts and dragged the war out. The Navy even failed to put oil tankers on its list of priority targets and did not use wolfpack tactics against Japanese shipping. For practically the whole war, the Japanese oil supplies were uninterrupted. Once MacArthur took the Philippines back and the Ha-Go offensive was spent, the Japanese had no oil reserves for major army operations and knew that the USAAF could disrupt the shipping that the USN had ignored.

But, no matter to Uncle Joe. If another ten million Russians died, or the Americans bumbled their way across the Pacific, or the War in Europe went on an additional 3 years because Churchill's Abwehr connections were denied, he didn't care. His own power was more secure with the longer the war took to complete. Unconditional surrender did just that.

Unconditional surrender is itself a demand that's had particular appeal to American commanders, going back to the Mexican-American War and the Civil War for particular commanders that made a name for themselves by demanding the unconditional surrender of a fortress. Ulysses S. Grant was perhaps the most famous for his demand of the unconditional surrender of Vicksburg. U.S. Grant was then "Unconditional Surrender" Grant for about a year, until the carnage of The Wilderness Battles made him "Butcher" Grant.

And as far as wars settling things, the Civil War is an example of a war not settling much of anything. The conventional military conquest of the South was undone by a coordinated guerrilla campaign conducted by murderous extremists.

[Typhon]

^^^^^^
Thanks for the world history synapsis.  I would have to take a 2 semester history course to fact check it all, which I am not going to waste my time doing.  Don't quite understand why you brought up the Civil War.  But that war certainly prevented the South from succeeding from the Union.

[Zzzptm]

^^^^^^
Thanks for the world history synapsis.  I would have to take a 2 semester history course to fact check it all, which I am not going to waste my time doing.  Don't quite understand why you brought up the Civil War.  But that war certainly prevented the South from succeeding from the Union.

Ah, so you've noticed I have a tendency to ramble...

If you're looking for some reading suggestions, I'd recommend "Brute Force" by Ellis for a critique on WW2 grand strategy and "The New Dealer's War" (forgot author's name) for a critique on WW2 political machinations.

And, yes, the Civil War closed the book on the question of secession: becoming a state is a one-way street. But I brought it up because the secondary goal of the Civil War was to refashion the South. It was not a goal shared by all supporters of the North, but was definitely a goal of the Republican Party, which controlled the politics of the nation in the Reconstruction period. And though the South was in abject ruin after the Civil War and there was no question whatsoever that it had lost the conflict completely and utterly, Southerners persisted in resisting Reconstruction efforts to alter the structure of Southern society.

In that sense, the decisive military victory did not translate into winning the peace, as it were. The Southern resistance embarked upon a campaign of terrorism, including elements of religious fanaticism, and demonstrated the efficacy of such tactics when the Union soldiers eventually returned to their barracks in 1877 and the white Southerners were able to create the legislative framework of their terror and fanaticism in the laws that established segregation of the races.

That lesson is important when considering new wars: I'm pretty sure the USA can win any war it enters. The question, however, is whether or not we can win the peace?

We were on the edge of conflict with North Korea - what is the endgame of such a conflict, and would it justify the war fought for it?

We are threatening attacks on Syria that could essentially paint us as the aggressor in a conflict between nations - is this what we want? And, again, what is the endgame of such a conflict and will it justify the war fought for it?

[Billy Underdog]

That lesson is important when considering new wars: I'm pretty sure the USA can win any war it enters. The question, however, is whether or not we can win the peace?

Soo, which war has the US won after WWI? WWII doesn't count, as everyone who's not USAian knows it was really "won" by the Brits and Sovjet (which is an exaggeration as most conflicts we see now can be traced back there). US only came and gave a helping hand at the very end. And every war the US've been involved in after that have been pathetic, to put it mildly.