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.