October 09, 2012

Untangling the Good War

Jason Fritz at Ink Spots has an excellent
up of Anthony Beevor’s new single-volume history of World War II. I
haven’t read the work (although Fritz’s review has moved it further up my
to-read list), but the post raises some excellent points about how we view
World War II which have vital implications for today. First, Fritz praises
Beevor for attempting to highlight the political and strategic complexity of
the conflict:

As a big-picture example, the
The United States faced resource competition between Stillwell’s command
supporting the Chinese Nationalists, MacArthur’s forces, Halsey’s forces, the
socialists, fascists, colonialists, revolutionaries, and democratists. All
decisions required in this complex world, multiply these considerations by the

We frequently hear in foreign policy circles that the 21st
century’s geopolitics is vastly more complex than that of the 20th,
particularly with reference to the relative simplicity of great power politics
in a state system or the simple strategic viewpoints which sufficed for the
clash of bipolar blocs, along with changing trends in economics, technology, and
society. Yet looking at WWII and its preceding decades show a world’s
complexity that would be mind-boggling even to the sharpest, forward-looking policymakers
and strategists today.

World War II featured a system with a much more pronounced multi-polarity,
both diplomatically and ideologically, and with a patchwork of sub-state party
systems, insurgents, and factions of all kinds attempting to seize control of
state machinery and the mass populace. The political tumult of 1930s Japan,
with the vying Imperial Way and Control Factions seeking influence over the
military and the state generally, emerged from a context of ideological,
social, and political discord and actual false flags and outright coup attempts
puts today’s grappling with modern political transitions in some perspective.
Even in amidst the great power clash of WWII, non-state actors with obscure
ideologies could exert profound effect. Take for instance Darlan’s
assassination at the hands of a French Resistance cell led by an
ultraconservative with monarchist and integral nationalist tendencies.

 While this world was
undoubtedly different, dismissing it
as irreconcilably simpler in a geopolitical sense risks privileging a post-hoc
teleology. Despite the growth and change in populations, technologies, and
economies, making the case for a policy-relevant epochal great is likely to
obscure a far greater deal more than it reveals. While tacticians and students
of operational art and military strategy frequently plumb the depths of World
War II, the policy planning, diplomacy, and general foreign policy issues of
the period frequently appear as so beholden to antiquity as to be irrelevant,
or so straightforward as to become unexamined mantras.

That brings us to the next issue, which is the problematic “good
war” narrative of World War II. As Fritz explains:

It is important to note that Beevor
individual and mass tragedy, the corruption of power politics, ideological
unbelievable sadism and unpredictable compassion.”

The historical lessons of World War II are far too often
transmuted and echoed through the experiences of the Cold War and the War on
Terror. While a narrative of the U.S. grappling with ideologically-extreme foes
provides a satisfying continuity to the past three quarters of a century, the
historical lessons most often drawn from WWII often seem simplistic in the

There is the perpetual invocation of Pearl Harbor, without
adequate consideration for the diplomatic and domestic political maneuvering,
sanctions, and U.S. policy decisions, and Japanese provocations and reactions,
which preceded war’s outbreak (December 7th was, as Gaddis has
noted, hardly a surprise in the way 9/11 was). There is the even more frequent
agonizing over Munich, appeasement and the importance of prevention, without
regard for the diplomatic issues, the military unpreparedness for launching an
efficacious attack on Germany, or the possibility that an unpopular and
hastily-conceived war might have brought pro-Axis or anti-war politicians
greater influence by peaceful means in their home countries.

What is rarely invoked in public policy discourse is equally
telling. The avoidance or ignorance of how the European theater of the war, in
brute material and human terms, was actually won is politically and
rhetorically understandable but historically incomprehensible. The messy deals
and compromises of interwar and World War II era are uncomfortable, but potentially
illuminating to those who seek to put “the study of dilemmas” into practice in
ways the good war narrative, useful for polemical nostalgia, can never be.

The myriad difficulties of waging World War II that Fritz
earlier outlined culminated in human tragedy and moral compromise, which
challenges both the simple label of the “good war,” and for today, demands we
scrutinize our contemporary context rather than reinforcing the whitewashed symbols
and credos of the mythologized past. In recognizing the complexity of World War
II, we not only refine our historical understanding, but also recognize
relevance of its lessons at the highest levels of strategy, policy, and
politics without resort to tired clichés.