Brave Sir Robin

[morganbj]

Herwin is right about Lincoln and war weariness.  But let's take a look at what "weariness" we are talking about.  In 1864 the elctorate in the US was white, male property owners.  That's it.  Women could not vote, there were very few free blacks in the North who owned property, so it was not the full population by any stretch of the imagination.  This is important, because the only war weariness that counted back then was in the minds of those who had actual influence over the government.
 
Next, the North was greatly influenced by the Radical Rpublicans.  Congress had so many of them, in fact, that they basically set the legislative agenda.  They wanted Lincoln to end the war immediately, yes, but by crushing the South.  They were complaining that the war was lingering because of incompetence, not because of the horrendous casualties.  Remember, in those days, you could buy your way out of conscription, so many of them and their children didn't even go to war.  So, "weariness" at that time is not the same thing we see today.  "Weariness to day is associated with quitting at any cost, in 1864 it was winning, despite the cost to get it over with.  Very few were pacifists, like we see today.  Well, certainly that's true among the electorate at the time.
 
I do not deny that there was an element that wanted the war to just end, but those were the "let the erring sisters go" crowd from 1860-61.  They we weary of the war five minutes after hearing about Ft. Sumpter.  The "weariness" was predominately from these two mindsets.
 
To put this in perspective for today, I think that after WWII things fundamentally changed in the US.  Maybe it was the greater participation in all societal process by those who before then had been disenfranchised.  I don't know.  We could argue for days about it, I guess.  But something definitely changed.
 
From my parents, aunts and uncles, all who lived through WWII, all of the men having served in the military during the period, there was a total, complete sense of doing what had to be done.  Those who stayed behinbd were as gung ho as those who served. My mom was 17 when PH happened and spent the next 4 years gathering pots and pans, and serving coffee at the USO.  (She was deemed to be too small to work at the Boeing factory with her friends, who made B17's.)  Millions of others did the similar things.  While there was always an isolationist element in the US, some of it was by politicians who were isolationist only to pander to that element in society, and yes, there were still some who opposed US involvement abroad.  When PH happened, they were silenced for the duration.
 
We shouldn't underestimate the effect that PH had on the US war psychology.  It was unprecedented in US history and ensured that war weariness, as we understand the term today, would not happen for many, many years.  Japan didn't have much ability to drag it on long enough for that to happen, at least not logistically.  The Manhatten project shut the door on any other possibility they had.
 
As to why the propaganda, the Doolittle raid, etc.  It was not to gin up support for the war, it was to raise morale of those committed to the war.  There's a difference.  People with only a modern perspective can only see things through those modern filters.  Things in 1941 through 1945 were different.
 

[moses]

Given how things turned out, war weariness was not going to be much of a factor in 44-46. We were pretty clearly going to win and fairly soon. But given a different set of assumptions (plausable in 42) things could have been different.

1.) The US economy underperforms the historical outcome: Sure the Japanese were aware of the US industrial and scientific potential. But I don't think anyone thought that it would be so rapidly mobilized and so ultimately powerfull. Add to that the stunning economic over-performance of the Russian economy and the Axis powers were really screwed. Certainly the US was going to outperform Japan by huge margins. But throw a few bad decisions into the process and the overperformance need not have been so large.

2.) Japan over-performs economically. Japan (like Germany) never really got it going economically. Surely Japan could have done a little better given astute leadership.

3.) Germany does better: (or Russia does worse) Clearly a Russian collapse in 42 makes the US Pacific war more problamatic.

Under these conditions you could have a situation where the allies are struggling to make progress. After all invading fortified islands 1000's of miles from home requires a massive preponderance of force. In the actual event we had that in spades but even so Iwo Jima and Okinawa were hardly a walk in the park.

In any event if Germany is still a threat in 46 and the war in the Pacific is trudging along in bloody slow-motion, a negotiated peace (with Japan)might not seem so bad. War weariness might be a factor but mostly I think common sence comes in at some point. If you calculate that 200,000 lives are going to be needed to annihilate Japan you might decide to stop short of annihilation.

Naturally the A-bomb makes these calculations a lot easier but not many had any idea in 42 that such a weapon was possible.

So in retrospect the Japanese decision to go to war in 41 looks pretty clueless. But given rational assumptions as they probably looked in 1941, the strategy probably was rational and could be seen as having some reasonable probability of success.

[mdiehl]

Mike and Mdiehl, do you guys work for the government?

Not me.

Anthropology certainly has its fill of dogma, which is extra ironic cause they think they're so enligtened and open-minded.

Agreed.

The idea that 'war weariness' is something unique to the late 1960s, and simply did not occur in 1864 or 1944 is absurd.

Agreed. Fotrunately, no one here has made the claim that war weariness did not occur in 1864 or in 1944. The only claim that has been made was that the theory that a nation would give up a war on account of war weariness was tried against the US during 1861-65, and 1941-1945, and that theory failed. It failed despite numerous setbacks and very heavy casualties, especially during the War of the Rebellion, in which fight the USA lost more people as a matter of mere frequency (and a much higher proportion of the male population of the US, and much higher proportional casualty rates for units in combat) than during WW2. Despite these loss rates, not only did Lincoln WIN the election of 1864, he won it by a WIDE MARGIN.

So attributing my position to dogma is, at best an error that you have made because of your ignorance of the facts.

You guys are certainly entitled to harbor nostalgic notions...

And, one supposes, you are entitled to say things about others motives as a kind of feeble substitute for making a claim that you can back up with facts.

The facts still remain: the boss of the U.S. at that time seems to have been very concerned about the risk that the national will to prosecute the war with vigor would flag if lots of special efforts were not made to bolster morale and fighting spirit.

The other facts also still remain, that ALL war leaders in times of crisis have been concerned about civilian morale. Your suggestion that the United States was somehow exceptional in this matter has no merit at all. Moreover, the United States did not during the War of the Rebellion or during WW2 ever come close to throwing in the towel on account of casualty rates. Given that the US did not negotiate the outcome desired by the Third Reich, Imperial Japan, or a bunch of elitists in Richmond Virginia, despite high casualty rates, and given that the US did negotiate the outcome desired by North Viet Nam, despite relatively low US casualty rates, an intelligent person would attempt to understand why a nation would not succomb to war fatigue in very bloody, expensive wars, but would succomb to war fatigue in relatively bloodless wars.

That is why my assessment is that the US fights "elective wars" less successfully than wars perceived to have been thrust upon the US. The evidence overwhelmingly supports my claim. Casualty rates were highest in terms of raw numbers, proportion of population, and proportion of units engaged, during the war of the Rebellion. They were second highest (in terms of proportion of population and raw numbers) during WW2. Both wars were fought to a very successful conclusion. Casualty rates during the Viet Nam war were very low by any index, yet the public lost confidence in the war primarily because of a widespread perception that it was completely unnecessary. Casualty rates during the current Iraq war are the lowest, in terms of raw numbers, proportion of the population, and proportion of units engaged, of any war the United States has ever prosecuted, yet its unpopularity (measured in polls) now exceeds the worst polls taken during the Viet Nam war. Yet the same casualty rates more or less are experienced in Afghanistan, which polls quite well in the US public even now, despite the fact that the Afghanistan war & occupation has lasted a year longer than the massively unpopular Iraq war. The difference is that Americans now perceive the Afghanistan war as a necessary response to an attack, and the Iraq war as an unnecessary adventure.

If you were less dogmatically determined to remain ignorant, you'd be able to understand the argument that Mike and I have made.

[DaveB]

Two quotations from this thread follow, to illustrate a point - so apologies to the originators, I'm not using them to say your arguments are wrong - I'm using them to show why I think many people aren't exaclty right...<?>

1) From page 29 of Miller, War Plan Orange, ""The prime uncertainty was whether the American public would tolerate a lengthy war, say of a year or two years' duration, for goals not vital to national survival."

and

2) The facts still remain: the boss of the U.S. at that time seems to have been very concerned about the risk that the national will to prosecute the war with vigor would flag if lots of special efforts were not made to bolster morale and fighting spirit.

- and why I think these mislead - I am sure both points are correct, I wouldn't dream of arguing, but they both describe the political leadership making decisions based on their perception of what the people they led were willing to endure - and quite frankly most politicians, most of the time, make stunningly incorrect assessments of how their constituents will react to any given set of circumstances. It's almost a case of 'what the president thought wasn't worth a damn' ... the fact is that the politicians involved underestimated the resolve of their people.

Leaders exist in a bubble - their attitudes and understanding isn't formed by experience of input from the people they govern, it's formed by having public opinion filtered through aides and the media. To a large degree the media do form public opinion - I've lost count of the times that a headline saying 'People don't like cute puppy dogs - in a recent poll a massive 32% of people said they hated the Andrex Puppy' (for non-UK viewers substitute something cute).... now to me that means 68% are fans, and it's a vote FOR the item in question - but the media continually obfusticate the issues by presenting lesser percentages as majority votes. These tricks regularly help form public opinion - no issue with that - but they also make our leaders, eager for the next soundbyte, as they know those they lead have limited attention span for the most part, think that the population somehow are aginst what they are actually quite in favour of.

Anybody who seriously thinks the US population would have settled for anything other than resounding military victory against the Japanese is, in my opinion, wrong. That the political leadership could misjudge this is not a surprise - politicians still, continually, misjduge opinion...that's (one reason) why the people in power get voted out. There's a tendency to mistake the opinion of the leadership with the will of the people - politicians do this constantly - it's incorrect to base an appreciation of what the population would stand for on the opinion of their leaders. Churchill discovered that in the first post war election <g>

Dave

[herwin]

ORIGINAL: moses

Given how things turned out, war weariness was not going to be much of a factor in 44-46. We were pretty clearly going to win and fairly soon. But given a different set of assumptions (plausable in 42) things could have been different.

1.) The US economy underperforms the historical outcome: Sure the Japanese were aware of the US industrial and scientific potential. But I don't think anyone thought that it would be so rapidly mobilized and so ultimately powerfull. Add to that the stunning economic over-performance of the Russian economy and the Axis powers were really screwed. Certainly the US was going to outperform Japan by huge margins. But throw a few bad decisions into the process and the overperformance need not have been so large.

2.) Japan over-performs economically. Japan (like Germany) never really got it going economically. Surely Japan could have done a little better given astute leadership.

3.) Germany does better: (or Russia does worse) Clearly a Russian collapse in 42 makes the US Pacific war more problamatic.

Under these conditions you could have a situation where the allies are struggling to make progress. After all invading fortified islands 1000's of miles from home requires a massive preponderance of force. In the actual event we had that in spades but even so Iwo Jima and Okinawa were hardly a walk in the park.

In any event if Germany is still a threat in 46 and the war in the Pacific is trudging along in bloody slow-motion, a negotiated peace (with Japan)might not seem so bad. War weariness might be a factor but mostly I think common sence comes in at some point. If you calculate that 200,000 lives are going to be needed to annihilate Japan you might decide to stop short of annihilation.

Naturally the A-bomb makes these calculations a lot easier but not many had any idea in 42 that such a weapon was possible.

So in retrospect the Japanese decision to go to war in 41 looks pretty clueless. But given rational assumptions as they probably looked in 1941, the strategy probably was rational and could be seen as having some reasonable probability of success.

I've seen the minutes of the Japanese cabinet meetings in late 1941 on the subject--they estimated they had about 40% chance of a stalemate and there was a 60% chance that America would be able to establish a close blockade (the original goal of War Plan Orange).

[Panther Bait]

I think at least some of the reason that politicians wanted "victories" to tout in WWII were that they needed to protect their jobs, either at that moment or in the future.&nbsp; It is not so much that they were worried about the US populations willingness to continue the war, but to justify the idea that the people in control were doing a good job.&nbsp;
&nbsp;
They always had to worry about being one debacle away from being voted out of office.

[mjk428]

ORIGINAL: Anthropoid

Anthropology certainly has its fill of dogma, which is extra ironic cause they think they're so enligtened and open-minded. But I've come to conclude that (some, not all) WiTP players can present some rather dogmatic caricatures.

The idea that 'war weariness' is something unique to the late 1960s, and simply did not occur in 1864 or 1944 is absurd. Certainly the frequency, etiology, intensity, etc., might have had different distributions in the populations in question during those different time periods, but to argue that it simply is incommensurable makes about as much sense as to argue that they are equivalent!

. . . anyway, 'the good guys' won and that is the main thing . . .

But then arguing on the internet is like running in the special olympics, so don't expect me to flail too much. You guys are certainly entitled to harbor nostalgic notions that 194os U.S. society was orders of magnitude more solidary and homogeneous in its devotion to the national cause if you like.

The facts still remain: the boss of the U.S. at that time seems to have been very concerned about the risk that the national will to prosecute the war with vigor would flag if lots of special efforts were not made to bolster morale and fighting spirit.

I recently asked my 84 year old mother if she thought the US would enter the war prior to Pearl Harbor. She said "absolutely". She hoped that it wouldn't happen but she expected the US to be drawn in somehow. I asked if she thought there was ever any chance that the US would stop fighting because the homefront grew weary. She said "no way". Just an anectdote but one that could be repeated millions of times over by people that lived through those times.

At 16 my dad was working in the Maryland shipyards. At 19 he was a Sgt in the US Army. From '41 through mid '45 my parents spent only a few days together totalling maybe a month. In WWI, my grandpa headed North and joined the Canadian Army. He didn't see his wife & kids for almost 5 years. Hardship was commonplace and people endured. It would take a lot for them to become dispirited. Plus, they didn't have talking heads urging them to give up the fight all day, every day.

FDR may have made efforts to bolster morale and fighting spirit because that's the sensible thing to do. It doesn't mean that he was walking on eggshells with the public. He was beloved in many parts of the country and he likely got where he was by not taking anything for granted.

[jwilkerson]

Well I guess I surprised that this one lasted as long as it did before dropped below the 'personal attacks' line .. but it certainly has .. from multiple players ... so locked ...