The Good War....or the Not So Good War: Part II

Scott McConnell, editor of The American Conservative and historian, made the argument that the Second World War was not a good war for the United States. (Many of today's conservatives, like Pat Buchanan, are staunch America First-ers.) He claimed that "most victories carry the seeds of their own undoing: 1945 left America more prone to seek military solutions than the chastened and war-exhausted Europeans." So, according to McConnell, America's victory in 1945 led to America becoming a war-prone, militaristic society that uses its might to assert its hegemony over the rest of the world. World War II was not the good war.

McConnell then attempted to make the connection between America's victory in WWII and the current war in Iraq (which McConnell opposes). He wrote: "The current Iraq morass is in part an outgrowth of the strategy the United States adopted without discussion at the end of the Cold War—that of seeking unilateral global hegemony. Making the United States stronger militarily in every part of the world than any regional power was deemed vital to American security. The neoconservatives were explicit in advocating this, but mainstream liberals hardly objected. Virtually the entire bipartisan Washington establishment now considers it normal that the United States spends as much militarily as the rest of the world combined." This is just bad historical thinking. It is just plain foolish to the plant the seeds of the current war in the outcome of WWII. By this logic one could argue that if it weren't for the crusades than 9/11 would not have happened. This is preposterous! It was not the victory over Nazi Germany that created the current state of affairs in the world. To claim so would be to ignore the decades of the Cold War and the developments that took place during that era.

America's attempt to assert hegemony over other peoples through military force pre-dates 1945. One needs only to look to America's dealings with Latin America to see that the US asserted power over other peoples through use of its military might, which was stronger than any force that any Latin American state could muster to counter America's thrust. (Here's a list of instances in which the US used its military might to dominate other peoples: the Northwest Indian War, 1790s; the Creek War, 1813-1814; Black Hawk War, 1832; the Mexican-American War, 1846; conquest of the Plains Indians, 1840s/50s-1890; Spanish-American War, 1898; occupation of Cuba, 1898-1902, annexation of Puerto Rico, 1898; invasion and occupation of the Philippines, 1898-1946; annexation of Hawaii, 1898; the invasion and occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934.) As you can see, America's use of military powers to assert hegemony was not a result of WWII.

McConnell eventually concluded that the US, as a result of WWII, is now in a position similar to that of pre-1914 Germany. He concludes: "Future historians will ponder the attitudes of the contemporary American establishment, leading a country armed to the gills, desperate to convince itself that it faces existential threats from minor powers, its spirit at once fearful and bullying. We might pray that analogies to Wilhelmine Germany never fit too well." McConnell, though he doesn't come out and say, is making an America First argument that even Charles Lindbergh would have been proud to make. I don't think that McConnell makes any valid points and his argument rests on a view of history that is so tainted by his current political views that is would seem laughable to many serious historians.

McConnell's full article.

Part I.

Part III.