End of Empires: who and what was responsible? (post WW2)

[davidbfpo]

I repeat an earlier Moderator's intervention:The WW2 British slogan 'Keep Calm and Carry On' appears to fit here and now. In recent days the tone has broken down, so stay within the SWC rules please.

Steve Blair has also posted as a Moderator.

This thread has gathered momentum, with posts that I have found interesting in a niche area (Saigon 1945) and others have raised valid arguments that FDR was one factor in the demise of empires. If you are not familiar with 'grace and humour' that is my shorthand for the SWC rules.

[Dayuhan]

But do yourself a small favour and look back over the #77 posts in this thread and see whether Dayuhan has provided any source or link or whatever to support his opinion.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Negative_proof

A negative proof is a logical fallacy which takes the structure of:

X is true because there is no proof that X is false.

If the only evidence for something's existence is a lack of evidence for it not existing, then the default position is one of skepticism and not credulity. This type of negative proof is common in proofs of God's existence or in pseudosciences where it is used to attempt to shift the burden of proof onto the skeptic rather than the proponent of the idea. The burden of proof is on the individual proposing existence, not the one questioning existence.

[Backwards Observer]

I repeat an earlier Moderator's intervention:The WW2 British slogan 'Keep Calm and Carry On' appears to fit here and now.

Huzzah for sensible moderation. If I may, a joke from the colonial times:

Q: Why does the sun never set on the British Empire?

A: Because God doesn't trust the Englishmen in the dark.

Jolly good.

(image from alvarezguitargirl.net)

[davidbfpo]

Dayuhan,

Taking a different angle and having skimmed the thread you asked, akin to "What could FDR have done to stop the Communists taking over in China?"

FDR died on April 12th 1945, VE Day was May 8th 1945 and VJ Day was August 14th 1945. His successor Harry Truman apparently knew little of what policy had been:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_S._Truman

I've been puzzled, albeit on limited reading, why an entire USMC Corps was deployed to Northern China, to supervise Japanese repatriation and played a role in supporting the Nationalist Chinese cause;

The very presence of the Marines in North China holding open the major ports of entry, the coal mines, and the railroads was an incalculably strong military asset to the Central Government. And the fact that the U.S. had provided a good part of the arms of the troops scheduled to take over North China and Manchuria made the situation even more explosive.

The cited article has many fascinating parts:http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/V/USMC-V-V-3.html

The USMC Corps was run-down after two years and by 1948 the Division in place, at Tsingtao mainly was supervising Western repatriation amidst the civil war.

I suggest that FDR may have been aware of the planning for a post-war China, especially after the agreement - probably at Yalta - for the Soviet Union to attack Manchuria (which they subsequently occupied and looted before the Chinese took over). Presumably like the agreements on French Indo-China, where the Nationalist Chinese occupied the north and the British the south (actually Saigon and little further).

Just a thought from my armchair.

[Bob's World]

The problem was not one of what we could have done to prevent the Communists from prevailing, the real question is one of what we could have done to recognize that (ideology aside, we always get distracted by that) how could we have identified that the Communists represented more of the populace and were the force destined to carry China out of a Feudal/Colonial past into a sovereign future?

We picked the wrong team for the wrong reasons.

I know how we would feel about China working to "prevent" some political party from taking office in the US...

It is time to re-frame old questions. Even now the largest argument for defending Taiwan is to "prevent China from doing something we don't want them to do" even though we recognize Taiwan to be part of China. We need to evolve and move on. We have bigger issues to apply our energy against. The "control freak" approach to world leadership is not much more satisfactory than it is at any other level, particularly when we seek to control things that are really little of our business.

[JMA]

We picked the wrong team for the wrong reasons.

Who is the we here Bob? Surely FDR.

He got it wrong with both his reading of China and Chiang Kai-shek as he did with Stalin and the Soviets.

Is there anything this man got correct?

[Bob's World]

Who is the we here Bob? Surely FDR.

He got it wrong with both his reading of China and Chiang Kai-shek as he did with Stalin and the Soviets.

Is there anything this man got correct?

Read the work of Dr. (Father) Wilson MisCamble (sp) of Notre Dame University. He offers some insights into the strategic thinking of the man that I found very helpful as I thought about and then wrote the cover piece for the current issue of Defense Concepts.

Using FDRs platform for advancing US Grand Strategy coming out of WWII (which he never implemented for the obvious reasons) I used that as a centerpiece for looking at how the US might best approach the world emerging about us today.

http://www.c4ads.org/sites/default/f...inter-2011.pdf

[Backwards Observer]

The "control freak" approach to world leadership is not much more satisfactory than it is at any other level, particularly when we seek to control things that are really little of our business.

If we remember our Dickens, (and by George who doesn't?):

There is a character in the works of Charles Dickens who is increasingly coming to symbolize the spirit of the age in which we now live.

Readers of Dickens will recall the figure of Mrs. Jellyby in "Bleak House," a lady who was full of good intentions and advice about the welfare and standards of distant peoples in Africa and elsewhere, but unfortunately overlooked and neglected the conditions in her own family and her own home. Dickens depicts her as a "telescopic philanthropist," fixated on distant causes at the expense of her own family and home values.

West resembles Mrs. Jellyby - Japan Times - May 28, 2009

Among the many memorable characters populating Charles Dickens’s novel Bleak House is the formidable Mrs. Jellyby, a woman living in London who resolutely devotes every waking hour to a project in Africa that she refers to as the “Borrioboola-Gha venture.” Her goal is the resettlement of impoverished Britons among African natives, all of whom will support themselves through coffee growing. Mrs. Jellyby is convinced that no other undertaking in life is so worthwhile or would solve so many social problems, in both Africa and England, at a stroke.

Mrs. Jellyby and the Domination of Causes - In Communion, website of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship - Feb 19, 2006

[Dayuhan]

He got it wrong with both his reading of China and Chiang Kai-shek as he did with Stalin and the Soviets.

Whether he read it wrong or not may not be all that important. No matter how he read situations, here's nothing FDR could have realistically done that would have prevented Chiang from falling to the Communists, there's nothing he could have realistically done that could have dislodged the Soviets from Eastern Europe, and there's nothing he could realistically done to have prevented the dissolution of the European empires. History was going to roll on no matter what FDR said or did. God he was not. Attributing all that happened after to His words or opinions (you don't seem to be citing any actions) is an overestimation of his power.

Is there anything this man got correct?

Winning the war?

If you want to assign the man blame for all that went wrong after his watch, surely you should give him credit for all that went right during his watch...

I've been puzzled, albeit on limited reading, why an entire USMC Corps was deployed to Northern China, to supervise Japanese repatriation and played a role in supporting the Nationalist Chinese cause;

Many decisions late in the Pacific theater war were very hastily patched together. Because of the secrecy of the nuclear program there was little hint given that a surrender was imminent, and planning was very sketchy. Decisions on who would occupy what and who would accept surrenders where were slapped together, sometimes with lasting impact... for example, if the British had not been assigned to deal with southern Indochina it is likely that the French recovery of control in the south would have been much delayed.

I don't know the specific reasons for the Marine deployment. There was a great deal of concern, though, that the relatively fresh Japanese forces in China might refuse to accept the surrender and resist. That may have been one reason to deploy a fairly large force. It's also very possible that there may have been preparation for a larger effort in support of the nationalists then was ultimately pursued.

Speculation, of course, but either or would be reasonable.

[tequila]

I've been puzzled, albeit on limited reading, why an entire USMC Corps was deployed to Northern China, to supervise Japanese repatriation and played a role in supporting the Nationalist Chinese cause;

Truman deployed some 40k U.S. Marines to secure China for the KMT. He was quite explicit about this in his own autobiography. IJA troops were specifically instructed not to surrender their arms to Chinese troops, but instead to hold the line against the Communists until American or KMT forces airlifted by Americans arrived.

"It was perfectly clear to us that if we told the Japanese to lay down their arms immediately and march to the seaboard, the entire country would be taken over by the Communists. We therefore had to take the unusual step of using the enemy as a garrison until we could airlift Chinese National troops to South China and send Marines to guard the seaports".


There were over 100k American troops still in China in 1946, and there are abundant letters written by those soldiers and Marines wondering why they were still in a foreign country, guarding sites alongside an enemy (the IJA) they were ostensibly supposed to be disarming.

Similar use of IJA forces by the British and French in French Indochina is well documented.

I have no idea how JMA can blame FDR for the fall of KMT China in 1948, years after his death. Truman had set his own foreign policy by then, and it's not as if the U.S. can be accused by anyone of skimping aid to the KMT. The fact that PLA troops in Korea in 1950 were killing Americans largely with American equipment captured from the KMT is telling.

[davidbfpo]

Looking at the thread it has two themes: what was responsible for the empire's demise and was FDR responsible?

I am interested in both, although less with FDR's role or lack of one as after his death.

So can we leave FDR alone now?

[Steve Blair]

So can we leave FDR alone now?

I would hope so.

[Dayuhan]

Truman deployed some 40k U.S. Marines to secure China for the KMT. He was quite explicit about this in his own autobiography. IJA troops were specifically instructed not to surrender their arms to Chinese troops, but instead to hold the line against the Communists until American or KMT forces airlifted by Americans arrived....

Similar use of IJA forces by the British and French in French Indochina is well documented.

Are there any recorded instances of IJA forces actually fighting communist forces in China post-surrender? I don't know of any, but there might be some. In Indochina the Japanese were technically responsible for maintaining order but in fact exercised virtually no effort to contain the violence. These orders may have been given but I'm not at all sure they were carried out.

[Dayuhan]

Looking at the thread it has two themes: what was responsible for the empire's demise and was FDR responsible?

I am interested in both, although less with FDR's role or lack of one as after his death.

So can we leave FDR alone now?

I'd also be happy to leave the shade of FDR in the shade.

If we speak specifically of the British Empire, one question I'd have for someone on your side of the water would revolve around the extent to which the election of Clement Attlee and the subsequent shift to what have been referred to as "socialist" policies drove the acceptance of colonial breakaways. I'm thinking not only of Attlee's actual policies but also that his victory might in part represent a general shift in public opinion away from the ideal of an Empire that had brought far more benefit to the social elite than to the exchequer or the common Briton..

It seems to me that India's break from the Empire was in many ways the loss of the keystone that brought the arch tumbling down. India was the crown jewel of the Empire and an example for the other subjugated peoples; in a practical sense it had also been a major source of troops deployed to keep other subjugated peoples subjugated.

I have to wonder... given the size of India and the nationwide resistance that was kicked off after the Royal Indian Navy mutiny in Feb '46, and given the generally war-ravaged state of the home military and the populace, is there any realistic way that even a thoroughly imperialist PM could have deployed enough force to India fast enough to prevent a breakaway? Possibly in a smaller colony, or a localized rebellion in India, or in an Indian rebellion that did not involve the Indian armed forces as a center of resistance, but that's not what came up.

Was Attlee's move toward Indian independence a conscious decision to move Britain away from Empire or an acknowledgement that Britain simply no longer had the capacity to hold India against its will? To what extent was that decision forced by popular unwillingness to engage in major military action in support of Empire?

I cannot prove, of course, that the disembodied spirit of a dead American was not whispering words of appeasement in dear Clement's ear, or inciting rebellion in Mumbai and Calcutta, but since the affair was conducted among the governments and populaces of Britain and India it seems reasonable to look for answers there.

[tequila]

Are there any recorded instances of IJA forces actually fighting communist forces in China post-surrender? I don't know of any, but there might be some. In Indochina the Japanese were technically responsible for maintaining order but in fact exercised virtually no effort to contain the violence. These orders may have been given but I'm not at all sure they were carried out.

I doubt either the IJA or the CPC were looking for fights on anything but a local level. The Communists were busy taking over the countryside in the North, which was how they defeated the KMT over the next four years, which the IJA happily conceded to them. The IJA's main role was to keep the cities and industrial centers/railroads out of Communist hands, and the Communists chose not to waste their strength challenging them there.

I do know that the CPC occasionally launched attacks on the U.S. Marine forces that took over for the Japanese after 1946, occasionally killing some Marines in ambushes or sniping at them on the coal trains, but I've never seen anything more than local attacks probably ordered by resentful local commanders.

[JMA]

Read the work of Dr. (Father) Wilson MisCamble (sp) of Notre Dame University. He offers some insights into the strategic thinking of the man that I found very helpful as I thought about and then wrote the cover piece for the current issue of Defense Concepts.

Using FDRs platform for advancing US Grand Strategy coming out of WWII (which he never implemented for the obvious reasons) I used that as a centerpiece for looking at how the US might best approach the world emerging about us today.

http://www.c4ads.org/sites/default/f...inter-2011.pdf

Bob, for what it's worth I found your article a good read.

Idealists, dreamers - visionaries if you like - tend to scare the hell out of me. Especially when they start talking about stuff like "freedom from fear and want" one wonders it they are in touch with reality.

In your article you lay out FDR's vision. Despite his best efforts his vision failed to be fulfilled and as can be or should have been anticipated the resulting failure was a train smash. Truman (and the rest of the free world) had to deal with the wreckage.

For three terms and 82 days FDR prepared the ground work for his vision and as such a series of activities had been set in motion and as has been stated the ghost of FDR still haunts US foreign policy to this day. His sudden death did not bring all that he had started to an immediate halt. There was momentum which carried his vision forward.

His Four Policemen idea relied on emasculating the British and consigning them to a subservient role to the US and tasked with "looking after" western Europe. In this he succeeded.

As stated and proved by history he backed the wrong horse in China.

His supposed "understanding" of Stalin was a disaster. He was so desperate to bring and keep Stalin on board that he was prepared to be manipulated by Stalin at just about every turn. To the extent that he was prepared to exclude eastern European countries from his third pillar "The Right of Self-Determination" and allow Stalin a free hand. 50 years later eastern Europe is trying to recover.

His post colonial outcome was naive to say the least. The mind boggles that he thought that it would work by "Enabling formerly colonial societies to achieve independence through an evolution of governance, rather than revolution against governance; all under the watchful eye of the four policemen."

And these four objective policemen would guide these nations to "Self-Determination" and independence "through an evolution of governance"? Come on.

Back to your paper. I suggest that one "visionary" US President is about all the world can stand. One certainly hopes (and prays) that the world is spared another one.

As an aside I am somewhat taken aback at the denial displayed by some in relation to the effect of FDR on the world. If his foreign policy was positive for the US I can't for the life of me see how. He was certainly not good for Europe, Africa and large chunks of Asia. So for who and where did FDR idealism work?

[JMA]

I have no idea how JMA can blame FDR for the fall of KMT China in 1948, years after his death.

I never said anything of the kind.

[JMA]

Using FDRs platform for advancing US Grand Strategy coming out of WWII (which he never implemented for the obvious reasons) I used that as a centerpiece for looking at how the US might best approach the world emerging about us today.

Bob, to pick up on Grand Strategy as opposed to down the line strategies of a military kind.

I have found the lack of understanding of the difference between a nation's Grand Strategy and other subordinate strategies to be widely prevalent.

From my own little war one hears nonsense like "Tactical Victory, Strategic Defeat" and when challenged about which strategy the result is silence.

I borrow from your article where you quote Dr. Peter Feaver on Grand Strategy as follows:

“Grand strategy is a quintessentially interdisciplinary concept, approach, and field of study:
 Grand strategy is the art of reconciling ends and means. It involves purposive action – what leaders think and want.
 It operates in peacetime and wartime, incorporating military and non-military tools, and aggregating subsidiary tactics, operations, and policies.
 Grand strategy begins with theory: leaders‘ ideas about how the world and what is or ought to be their states‘ roles in that world. Yet it is embodied in policy and practice: government action and reaction in response to real (or perceived) threats and opportunities

Note: I left the last point out as I don't see it contributing to the definition of Grand Strategy.

You may want to consider starting a discussion on this topic as you seem to be one of the few who seems to grasp the subject clearly.

[Backwards Observer]

One of the best sources on Vietnam in this period is Archimedes Patti's Why Viet Nam.

Major Archimedes Patti of the OSS makes a brief interview appearance at about 4':37" in this clip from "The Ten Thousand Day War - Episode 2, Dien Bien Phu". There's also a brief interview with General Sir Douglas Gracey in another episode, but I can't recall which one. As far as I remember, General Gracey appears to experience genuine consternation when asked why he re-armed Japanese troops rather than working with the 'wascally webels' of the Viet Minh. Damned scallywags, the very idea!

The Ten Thousand Day War - Ep2 Dien Bien Phu - Youtube

[davidbfpo]

dayuhan,

In Post 93 you asked:

Are there any recorded instances of IJA forces actually fighting communist forces in China post-surrender? I don't know of any, but there might be some. In Indochina the Japanese were technically responsible for maintaining order but in fact exercised virtually no effort to contain the violence. These orders may have been given but I'm not at all sure they were carried out.

When I read the USMC history re the Corps in China there were references to railway guards etc. I do not recall a greater role,it was a quick read. See:http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USMC/V/USMC-V-V-3.html and the successive chapters.

In Indochina the IJA did respond to General Gracey's orders, as part of the agreements and surrender protocols, with defensive and offensive action. I rely on 'The First Vietnam War' by Peter M. Dunn (Pub. 1985) which makes numerous references to the IJA fighting, in particular two infantry battalions outside Saigon and the curious affection the IJA showed when the 20th Division left - replicated in China too.

Yes, some IJA did not obey, others deserted (especially in north Indochina) and others joined the Viet Minh. The vast bulk of the IJA, with masses of civilians in China, wanted to get home and only the Allies were going to get that done.

What happened in north Indochina is less clear and little is said in Dunn's book. The Chinese Nationalists occupied the area, although unclear if beyond Tonkin and Hanoi, say south to Hue (they also visited Laos, to get two opium crops harvested). How the IJA were evacuated is unknown to me.