Credit to the US Army for two things in the run up to WWII. First, they figured it was very likely we would end up embroiled in it and conducted very large scale exercises to work out a lot of kinks – tactical and logistical, and despite Kasserine Pass they were mostly right. Second, they got the right Chief of Staff, GEN George C. Marshall. What Marshall did couldn’t possibly be repeated today – he autocratically bypassed the better part of senior officers in the ranks, and planned for the elevation of a whole new breed of general officer. Patton was one of the notable exceptions to both of these moves, as Patton was a 2-star when war was declared and he absolutely did not fit the model Marshall was looking for; Eisenhower and Bradley are the exemplars of Marshall’s program. [To prove he was human and fallible, Marshall had thought highly of Fredendall who commanded the disaster at Kasserine Pass.] I think Marshall was truly the indispensable man of the American war effort, for unlike a progressive he didn’t double down on failure. The bureaucracy that now surrounds the Army, and the other Services, would never tolerate that kind of initiative, or the substitution of group-think with clear decision making authority.
The contrast with the Navy (FDR had been an Assistant Secretary of the Navy during WWI) is notable. The Pacific fleet was based on the West Coast – beyond the reach of the Japanese, until FDR moved it out to Hawaii in 1940 for an exercise (ironically enough for “two weeks” that turned into 18 months) – as a show of force. The fleet languished there and was deteriorating, since Pearl was not capable of actually supporting normal operations and maintenance. It was only good fortune that prevented the Japanese from catching the carriers in port and from destroying the forward oil supply. This is the first clue to the incompetence of FDR that would undermine the victory and ruin the peace after the war. It may actually be inevitable that a progressive must become cosmopolitan – believing that they know not just best for one country, but for the entire world. Of course the inter-war years had consigned Wilsonian beliefs to the dark corners of academe, while non-intervention and outright isolationism reigned in the sunlight. Except for the man who occupied the White House and had already broken the honored precedent of only serving two terms as president because he believed himself to be indispensable.
Any study put into the effort to win the war leaves you rather astonished. It really shouldn’t have been possible then, and it would be unimaginable to duplicate today. The nation sacrificed blood and treasure, but the worst price was yet to be paid for winning – the transformation of the republic into an empire. This was a Pyrrhic victory for it bound the U.S. to the rest of the world, both allies and the vanquished. We imposed a peace and for the second time proposed a league of nations (and this time joined it), yet we also crafted an alliance at odds with that. The Long Telegram and containment policy can be viewed as realist statecraft, but it can’t logically be reconciled with the idealism of the U.N. – which only really existed because we willed it into existence. Nor should NATO have been a necessary organization if the U.N. had been meaningful. Yet we embraced both with equal fervor. This was, and is, nonsense even if the U.N. did not suffer from the defects that kept the U.S. out of the League of Nations. But Wilsonian dreams are seductive things to those with power and the hubris to believe that they anointed to lead mankind to a brighter future. Note the difference of that mindset with Franklin’s at the dawn of the republic.
The other feature of WWII that played prominently in the demise of the republic was the alliance with Britain, whom we bled mercilessly from 1939 to 41. This was something FDR enjoyed, for he was no Anglo-phile (giving the ultimate insult by sending old man Kennedy as ambassador to the Court of St. James). Churchill was a vastly more gifted statesman but was shunted aside as FDR actually believed he could charm Stalin like he did recalcitrant Republicans. Stalin duped FDR repeatedly, and as FDR’s health declined, Stalin took full advantage. This was in some ways a repeat of Wilson’s performance with Clemenceau and Lloyd-George – an American with an enormous ego that ended up the mark in a con. Churchill sacrificed the future of England, the empire most of all, to redeem his nation’s honor; no other English politician of the age would have done so. In doing that, he subtly shifted much of what the English had meant to the world onto the United States. It would be the U.S. Navy that would thence forward rule the waves.
There was no plan to return to normalcy in the 50s (and the falsity of the notion of returning to pre-war norms – which wasn’t even true in the 20s). Whereas the 20s roared, the 50s were haunted by the spectre of atomic annihilation and a Cold War that found numerous ways to be hot. Eisenhower’s triumph over Taft was also signal, in that a man dedicated to allied operations in winning the war would feel at ease in such international entanglements that were to become our new normal. I always marvel how both left and right can be so nostalgic for that era, for each is only looking at it out of one eye. While winning the war cannot be downplayed in terms of our national pride – it was a stunning, defining, moment in our history – we took upon ourselves a new point of view that would grow into an arrogance that would have a comeuppance half a century later. And that wouldn’t come without warnings – Viet Nam (much more so than Korea), our national malaise (and the incompetence of our response in Iran); even that we failed utterly to predict (and be prepared for) the end of the Cold War (and the many false lessons we took from that). No, we just did a victory dance and concluded that nothing could stand against our inevitable march to a glorious future – where the whole world would be remade in our image.
I’ve mentioned before my fondness for the analysis and writing of Christopher Lasch. He explored the deep roots of contemporary events and trends, unlike the typical American pontificater who is long on moralizing (whether from the right or left) and rarely sees past the end of his own nose (or lifespan). I am striving to imitate Lasch in looking at the accumulation of effect over time. You can’t simply say, ah – here is the point where it all went wrong, even if you accept my premise that it was victory that was our [not-quite-final] undoing. I did give short-shrift to all that FDR (and the Democrats) did prior to the war, as well as the economic crisis that led to FDR’s first two administrations. There were many steps along the way, but the final loss of the republic was in the victory in WWII. That placed our country in a situation which the Constitution was inadequate to address; and as we had found and would continue to find – the living, ever-morphing, constitution of imagination was more amenable to our needs than the dusty old paper and ink.
Now, I’d like to bring your attention back to a part of Franklin’s speech, for it will weigh heavily in where we are and where we are bound, absent some shock that forces a full rethinking of our society and government:
…and can only end in Despotism, as other forms have done before it, when the people shall become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other.
In our commentary on Part 1, many touched on this, so congratulations – you spotted the ultimate conclusion to this essay. We find ourselves inexorably drawn to a despotic governance – because the people have become incapable of any other. Franklin anticipated Breitbart, or Breitbart read Franklin. Spooner’s criticism of the Constitution was well anticipated, for no words on paper will have meaning when the people yield their understanding of what was written in favor of their passions and prejudices. The Progressive movement is of course the single most destructive element, second only to slavery across the span of our history, when it comes to the Constitution and governance based there on. But the social effect is far greater than the legal/political effects, for the Progressives transformed the the relationship of citizen to state into one of client and provider. If we only had to unwind the former, the task would be hard but achievable; alas I can see no way, absent some truly traumatic event to the body politic, to undo the damage done with the latter.
You have to search through the videos to find the complete sessions, but here is the Mises channel’s ”Liberty versus Power” podcast, which focuses on the early days of the American Republic.
I was just watching a documentary on the Pacific war, in which my uncle took part as a Marine – he took a Japanese bayonet through the shoulder in Iwo Jima and almost died of sepsis. Nasty campaign, that, on both sides.
But the thing I didn’t know – apparently, by the summer 0f 1944, the U.S. Pacific Fleet had more combatant ships than all the other navies of the world combined, including the U.S. Atlantic Fleet. Most of those ships had been built since 1941. That’s pretty frickin’ amazing.
Yamamoto was proven right in the end.
56 was a smart man.
Yeah, can you imagine an aircraft carrier being built in 2 or 3 years these days?
Granted a lot of them were escort or “jeep” carriers, made by slapping a flight deck on a cargo hull, but, yeah.
The US built 22 heavy carriers during the war and over 100 escort carriers.
Essex were all fleet carriers.
Nearly 5800 ships were built in US shipyards, with a quarter in Kaiser Shipyards. Henry Kaiser deserves more recognition that he gets now.
2700 Liberty Ships. Avge. construction time by the end of the war: 39 days.
We visited the museum at Boeing Field in Seattle last week. That site at the height was producing 14 war planes a DAY (c17 iirc) Amazing to think about.
The subject of your WSC quote sounds like a wrong ‘un. https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stafford_Cripps
Churchill loved tormenting Cripps.
OT – I didn’t even know New York had a Lt Governor again – And he’s already been arrested for corruption.
Sorry if rectal narcotics are involved, I’ve been busy.
If that’s a picture of him, he has no business being in elected office if his judgment is so poor as to choose that shirt.
Good stuff, ji.
…absent some shock that forces a full rethinking of our society and government:
A shock like jamming a stick into the spokes of a massively complex economy, followed by inflation and capped off with a goddamn famine? That kind of shock?
I’m thinking along the lines of what the Carrington event would do to us now.
Or a massive slip at the San Andreas fault.
That might actually help. (JK, JK!)
The problem is that is a slip-strike fault, not a subduction zone (like off the Oregon/Washington coast).
You need subduction for the most dramatic kinds of landscape changes.
Sodom-on-the-Sound is right on top of a hellacious, inevitable earthquake of the subduction persuasion.
Relevant…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHcmnowjfrQ
Also relevant
https://youtu.be/tWiwYApseDk
Yes, that would be bad.
It may be moot, though.
SF’ed link, even after I deleted the stray “x” at the beginning of the URL.
https://twitter.com/TheInsiderPaper/status/1513893114016157703
SMOD
OT:
The NY Post article about the NYC shooting was possibly edited to remove the eyewitness mentioning race.
” She said she saw the suspect — who was described as a 5-foot-5 man, around 170 pounds and wearing an orange vest and gas mask — drop “some kind of cylinder that sparked at the top.”
First, they figured it was very likely
weBidenFDR would maneuver the US to beend upembroiled in it and started enslavement during peacetime well over a year before Pearl Harbor, mobilized the reserves, and when war didn’t occur during the twelve month call up period, kept them on orders indefinitely in violation of the original call up all while still not at war.Lewis Hershey ranks right up there with Wilson, FDR, and Thomas Parran on the evil Americans list.
I may be jumping the gun, here, but there is another event that is important to this study: the assassination of JFK.
Here is my favorite (pro-conspiracy) video regarding the assassination.
Heh. The best “telling” of the JFK assassination is James Ellroy’s American Tabloid.
WKUK on the Kennedy assassination.
Good stuff, I assume there will be a part 3?
Not that I planned. My contention is that winning WWII was the end of the republic. Once we assumed the mantle leader of the free world, we stopped being a country free to do what it chose (and to allow others the same latitude).
Creating and joining the U.N. bound us up in foreign entanglements that we were supposed to be free from. Same with NATO, and all other mutual defense treaties we created during the Cold War.
Interesting take on the British to US Empire handoff of Empire after WW2. I do believe the British Empire was already circling the toilet in 1939.
1902 Britain develops modern concentration camps in South Africa during the Boer Wars, to hold captured women and children. A quarter of them die of starvation and disease.
1918 European colonists fight a World War in which Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans lose. One million Indian soldiers serve in British army, of which 74,000 are killed.
1919 In India, the Amritsar massacre occurs when British officers trap and fire on unarmed protesters, killing 400. This helps ignite India’s independence movement.
1919 After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Britain promises Palestine to both the Arabs and the Jewish Zionists, leading to ongoing wars and sectarian tensions.
1943 The Bengal famine kills 4 million people whilst Churchill was exporting its food to British armies.
They were real bastards. Look at all of the future conflict that was caused.
What will our list and legacy look like in 40 years. The Korean and Vietnam wars as well as the Central American skirmishes could be considered separate from the Empire period as the solo superpower. Iraq/Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq again, followed by several smaller proxy wars across the the ME can not.
Might have to add the shit in Ukraine, depending how things have happened and will happen.
FDR hastened the demise of the British Empire by dealing more favorably with Stalin and the USSR than he did with Churchill and England. I believe that Churchill knew he was sacrificing the empire’s future for the honor and defense of the home country, and it wasn’t a decision that any other British leader would’ve made. Anyone else would’ve sued for peace with Germany after Dunkirk, which may have preserved the empire a little longer.
And full agreement on the English (with some help from the French) in creating the mess that is the modern Middle East.
+1 Sykes-Picot
Sykes-Picot-Sarazanov, rather–Sazanov being the Russian Foreign Minister who worked directly with Sykes and Picot to plan a carve-up of the Ottoman Empire.
(See “The Ottoman Endgame” by Sean McMeekin.)
“Stalin’s War” by Sean McMeekin is good source for information about Roosevelt II and Harry Hopkins helping Stalin.
The British Empire was dying even as it was born. Look at the Sepoy riots in the 1850’s and see how they killed the East India Company and forced the crown into the job of private companies.
I’d suggest America’s transformation into a domestic empire had begun as early as the end of the Civil War. However, you’re absolutely right that it was the post-WWII transformation that represented America’s final transformation into a global empire. The irony is that global empire was sold on the right, at least, as a temporary, one-off, tactic against the rise of communism. Much of the Old Right was inclined toward an anti-imperialist view. To be fair, who could have predicted that that temporary, one-off would mean a generation or two knowing nothing but America as a global empire.
Really? There’s a good argument for the run up to the Mexican American war as the beginning of the end.
He may have been play acting at self sufficiency, but Thoreau spent time in jail over war taxes.
Of course, we always practiced imperialism against the Indians.
‘To be fair, who could have predicted that that temporary, one-off would mean a generation or two knowing nothing but America as a global empire.’
Eisenhower? Of course it was too late by then.
I see your point, but I’d argue that, prior to the end of the Civil War, the U.S. lacked the centralization of authority to be considered an empire. Prior to that, it had the makings of empire, but power was more widely dispersed.
Wrong Republican – Taft knew and refused to accept the role; Ike knew and considered it our role, just as it had been in the war.
I’d suggest America’s transformation into a domestic empire had begun as early as the end of the Civil War.
I wonder if “empire” hasn’t been in our DNA since before the Founding. The US started as colonies of, arguably, three budding empires – mainly the English, but also France and Spain. It expanded by continually colonizng the Western frontier, with the biggest single jump being the purchase of France’s colonial (imperial?) possessions in North America. If colonizing = empire building, we’ve never not been either an imperial possession or, after independence, an empire.
While I don’t remember the specifics that made me think this, but I remember getting the impression from Alexander Hamilton’s writings that he not only wanted a King in America, but he wanted to be that King or at least in control of that King.
He definitely wanted a more aristocratic system – life time senators and such. No fan of limiting and partitioning power (which makes his Federalist papers a splendid example of his sophistry).
Well, we pretty much have life time senators, so there’s that I guess.
Is an aggressive, expansionist, state sufficient for an empire? If so, I’d say you and Lackadaisical are right. To me, it has to involve more than that. It has to involve the consolidation of power over multiple peoples under one central authority. American expansionism usually wasn’t about ruling over the Native Americans, so much as chasing them off (or killing them).
It has to involve the consolidation of power over multiple peoples under one central authority.
I think that’s a fair definition. At some point, though, I think a successfully aggressive, expansionist state is going to cross that line.
I think we’ve always had the tension between the pull towards empire and the ideals of individual liberty/nonintervention. As an empire we’re pretty shitty at not exploiting our vassal states. As noninterventionists we suck ass.
Never understood the love for Hamilton. Madison was far the superior mind in terms of a Republic and even Adams, even though he shit the bed as president.
The Federalists were a big-tent considering how little use Adams and Hamilton had for the other.
No, we just did a victory dance and concluded that nothing could stand against our inevitable march to a glorious future – where the whole world would be remade in our image.
I read “Long March” there on my first read through.
Not all that different. Both believe in the arc of history bending to a particular point, with themselves in power.
Excellent reading, JI
Years and years ago (about 35 or more) I began to predict a revolution. My scenario was something like that there would be a massive civil uprising in Mexico, with 100s of 1000s of refugees headed north. They would pack together at the border and then the dam would break and they’d flood north. Hungry people would do what hungry people have to do and every food source along the way would be looted.
Then we went through a rather long spell that made me think I was wrong. Now I’m of the belief that we are in that flood, at the beginning. It’s not playing out as I predicted but more and more and more are coming in with no consequences. They are not all Mexicans but mostly Central and South Americans. There is no reason to not believe that boatloads of Africans and Asians could be included.
Even if they only came in numbers to greatly influence elections a very quick evolution would result. We are seeing a government that has tied it’s own hands. Every president in my memory starting with FDR has been worse than his predecessor, because he always builds on to the precedence, the status quo. We think Biden is peak derp but we ain’t seen nothing yet.
We think Biden is peak derp but we ain’t seen nothing yet.
Malice always says that people think Trump was the river, when in reality he was the dam. I think that’s exactly right.
Hang on, folks, it’s gonna get a little bumpy.
Trump was that hissing sound on a boiler, before the final containment failure.
That reminds me:
Got the email this morning: 1,000 rounds of 9mm is on its way to Casa Dean.
Shhhhhh. Things we shouldn’t know
This will sound a little odd, but I’m kinda in a hurry… To be “good at being an Empire”, you have to be deliberate about the fact that that’s what you’re doing. The US insists (and always has), that it’s not, so it’ll inevitably suck.
Now, by being “good at” it in the classical sense, I mostly mean enriching your own/home nation and upping its standard of living. Think the Khanate, Rome, Britain, etc. They were all unabashedly Imperial – hence some (not total) success. American ambitions insist on pretending otherwise. So the “Empire” is just a net drain on the country, while admittedly enriching certain cronies.
Shorthand version: see what Smedley Butler was (rightly) complaining about. That’s the sign that you suck at Empire, since you’re lying about it.
Tis the nature of democracy. As such, I predict that the remaining pretense of democracy will soon be dropped in favor of imperial desires.
Taibbi just nails it, time and time again.
Great line.
And a good summation of pretty much everyone in the Imperial City.
I’d happily ship that lardass Kagan and his wife, “Cookies” Nuland, to Mariupol to fight the good fight.
Nuland is his wife? ?♂️ Of course she is.
The American foreign policy establishment is nothing if not incestuous.
Paul Gottfried recently made an interesting observation about the neocons. He prefaced it with “I’m probably going to take a heaping of crap for this.” He was discussing their motivations and his point seemed relevant. It was that all of the original neocons were Jewish (like him) and in private discussion they would admit that a large portion of their impetus was to make the world safe for Jews. All other considerations fell to the wayside. In order to make their policies more accepted, they actively recruited non-Jews (specifically Catholics like George Weigel) to also push their agenda. At some point, it became more about “muscular liberalism” and globalism than preventing another Holocaust.
I had never considered it that way, but it does provide some rationale for motivations that I never understood.
Do you have a link for that quote? Or is it from one of his books?
His latest substack article.
https://taibbi.substack.com/p/give-war-a-chance?s=r
I see it’s below the fold, but the top half is still worth it.
Ah, thanks! The first half is a good read.
I also now know what Substack is.
Greenwald is there too.
The 30T really doesn’t care what the horsepower thinks, it’s already biting us in the ass.
https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=summertime+and+the+living+is+easy+song&atb=v198-1&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DfKSq_gmfe40
We haven’t had this is a long, long time
Yeah, we’ve arrived in some parallel Bizarroworld where Matt Taibbi is one of the voices of reason.
There are quite a few voices of reason where you wouldn’t expect them.
Bill Maher being a notable one
How dare he suggest Russia might be corrupt. Only Ukraine can be corrupt.
To some extent, I don’t care if Russia is corrupt, that’s their problem.
Ukraine however, is corrupt with a bunch of American politicians and state apparatchiks playing around in it, grifting off our foreign aid dollars , and perverting our foreign policy as a result. I care about that.
It’s possible some cheap shit aftermarket (and naturally illegal in NY and super illegal in NYC) Glock magazine may have done us all a favor.
Brooklyn subway shooting suspect’s gun jammed during carnage: police sources
Well, since it wasn’t a Ghooooooost Gun, the police can easily track down the malefactor.
Who wasn’t even using a Glock switch smdh.
I hear those Glocks are invisible to X-rays and skinheads can sneak them on to airplanes.
Seriously, I’ve been on that line and stop before. I was a bit nervous as a good friend of mine takes that train to Manhattan every day. NYC has been living a golden age of safety and a relative crime free decade. I think things are going to get worse before they get better. Desperate people do desperate things, crazy people are not being helped or supported by the community as they were in the past (or put into institutions), and having lawlessness without consequence makes for a bad situation.
Fake news. I was assured that Glocks never jam.
If the guy used a legal magazine and reduced it to the NY required 10 rounds he wouldn’t have had this problem. And he’d be facing fewer charges too!
This means it’s a planted red herring, it goes along with the mysterious “camera malfunction” and the “U-Haul van with AZ plates.”
One the operative successfully exfiltrates, they’ll “find” the patsy.
Every thug should have a Glock!
That channel is a hoot!
Spirited Away-Always with Me on the Glockenspiel
48 hour rule, pass the tinfoil, etc.
“From time to time” is meant to sound like “occasionally, like all technical equipment”, when it really probably means “from 2 days after installation (that’s a time) to right now (that’s a time too)”.
Damn all these random people on the train knew Epstein and/or the Clintons?
No, just one. The others are to make it look like a random mass shooting.
Thx JI. These late morning/early afternoon discussions are some of the best reading on the inner tubes.
Man, and here I was thinking I was special because I received one of these postcards
I… I think xer being sincere.
Shit, I was just looking for a local story about the postcards, didn’t really read that.
Now I feel dirty for sharing that arrant nonsense (I’m not talking about the card).
The back is some quality crazy.
RIP 🙁
Awwww. Sad.
Nooo!
That sucks.
Saw this cool pic in the replies.
If Jeff Ross dies soon, we be witnessing a real life deadpool.
“may be”
Would.
Gaaah! We have an infestation of marketers!
Time-traveling marketers. Work “mission-critical” in their somewhere and it could be 1995.
https://gizmodo.com/real-ancient-d20s-greece-egypt-rpgs-gallery-1848779772
Fun.
Elon Musk continues to have his hand in my pocket, but my respect as well.
Twitter ‘a s–t-show’ for employees since Elon Musk took major stake: report
We do not deserve that man.
Is the other one hailing a taxicab?
Since the deal fell through, I’d just like to note that I am
available to sit on the board of Twitter. I’d even be willing,
reluctantly, and for a small consideration, to limit my
position in Twitter to 14%. So, Elon, if you’re listening,
feel free to reach out to me and I’ll get back to you as soon
as i can.
How many of you thought a laser procedure to repair a retinal abnormality could be the highlight of your day? It absolutely can be; the right opthalmologist can give eyesight to the blind.
Damn, I could have had my eyes fixed while I was out there.
It was an extremely uncomfortable procedure, yet somehow was tolerable.
Roof Estimate is in – $8400, which is lower than I expected. By default they’re going with 50-year shingles.
Any kickbacks to the local .gov required?
Not by the permitting rules, as repairs are required. Repairs don’t require permits. And it’s a like for like replacement, so zoning doesn’t have to be consulted.
That seems like a regulatory oversight that needs to be rectified.
Surely there needs to be a pre- and post- inspection done to make sure he didn’t perform unauthorized upgrades.
Wow, I had no idea roofies were so pricey. Think I’ll just go downtown and spend
twentyfortya hundred dollars.Sounds pretty reasonable.
UnCiv’s house is only 8’x12′
That’s not true!
It’s 9’x12′
Sounds good, UCS. When do you expect the work? The crew I had a couple years ago did my house in about 7 hours, but the replacement was steel so it went faster, I think. About 7 workers and all knew the solution before there was a question. El Salvadoreans
They estimate five hours, but no more than one workday.
My house was done in about 7 hours over 2 days. It took 2 days because it was done on one of the days with the shortest amount of daylight.
That’s not so bd.
50-year? You could get a good 25, 30 years out of those. Hopefully.
I don’t intend to be in the house another 25 years.
Thanks for the article. Definitely interesting to think on these things and trace the path of the decline.