Military History Final

Why did the United States maintain neutrality in World War II? Prior to the declaration of war, what was the U.S. role in the war? How did that role change after Pearl Harbor?

After the end of the World War I, Americans had concluded that their participation in that war was a mistake that should not be repeated in future. The Neutrality Acts that were passed by the US Congress had barred the US from taking part in the WWII. According to the Acts, it was illegal for the US to sell arms or give loans to countries that were at war (Isserman, 2009). This was done hoping that it would prevent the US from joining any European conflict.
The United States tried to avoid losing American lives by engaging in European wars. In addition, the US somehow felt cheated as European leadership had promised that if the US assisted in defeating the central powers they would fight for a more formidable peace in the world than it was experienced after the previous wars (Isserman, 2009). However, this was not the case at the end of the WWI when the allied created a peace deal that was not acceptable to the American government and people. The US decision after the WWI was not to take part in future European conflicts. In addition, there was also a belief that economic and political means could be used to solve problems instead of engaging into war.

Prior to the declaration of war, the role of the US in the WWII was to assist the Allies by selling arms to them. This was after President Roosevelt requested the Congress to amend the neutrality laws. By advancing military aid to Great Britain and other countries that were fighting against Germany, the US did not see the need to be directly involved in the war. When a Japanese aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the situation changed and the US had no option but to join the WWII since it was attacked directly and had to protect its people against the enemies (Isserman, 2009). After the attack at the Pearl Harbor, the role of the US in the WWII changed from being neutral to a direct participant in the war.

What was the United States’ primary objective in the Korean War? Was American military involvement in the Korean War justified? Why or why not?
When Northern Korean army attacked the South Korea, the United States convened a meeting of the United Nations Security Council. The UN Council condemned the action of the Northern Korean army and made a demand that the army should withdraw from the South. The United State’s main objective for joining the Korean War was to stop the spread of communism from the North Korea to the South Korea (Malkasian, 2008). Moreover, the US believed that the attack of the South Korea by the Northern Korean armies was a clear indicator that communism was likely to be spread to the other parts of the world as well. The US also joined the Korean War to prevent it the war from spreading outside Korea. In a broader concept, the American leaders believed that if the invasion by the North Korea was not dealt with the Soviets would have been given a chance to engage in military expansionism to the rest of the world.

The military involvement of the US in the Korean War was justified. This is because the intention of the US using the military intervention was to stop the spread of communism from Northern Korea to the South Korea. In 1947, the US implemented a new foreign policy that aimed to curb communism. When the North Korea forces, who were mainly communists, attacked the non-communist South Korea, the US had no option but to use military intervention. This was done to safeguard its foreign policy of preventing the spread of communism (Malkasian, 2008). Although, the objective was not achieved fully, it was justifiable that the US tried its best to contain the situation.
3. Compare and contrast the war strategies of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon during the Vietnam War. How were they similar and how did they differ? Based on your informed opinion, did one strategy have greater chance of success than the others?

President Kennedy’s strategy in the Vietnam War involved the establishment of the Military Assistance Command of Vietnam (MACV) which aimed to provide Americans to offer training to the South Vietnamese army. Using this strategy, the US provided thousands of Americans as military advisors to the South Vietnam. Within a short time, the number of “military advisors” had increased to more than 16,000 and it was not clear whether they were real military advisors or military forces (Westheider, 2007). In order to deal with the Viet Cong forces, MACV made a decision to transfer all the South Vietnamese peasants into “strategic hamlets.” This enabled the US forces to protect the peasants and to identify the Viet Cong. This strategy did not work well because the hamlets were run as labor camps and hence forcing the peasants to join Viet Cong.

President Johnson applied a strategy that was similar to Kennedy’s. He continued sending more troops to Vietnam since he was driven by the fear that South Vietnam was likely to collapse and also influences other regions in the world. By sending the troops to the South Vietnam, President Johnson wanted to prevent this from happening.

Unlike Kennedy and Johnson, President Nixon applied a strategy of slowly withdrawing the American soldiers from Vietnam while supplying the Vietnamese soldiers with the necessary arms (Westheider, 2007). This strategy did no make the situation better and Nixon decided to send more troops Cambodia with an intention of interfering with the arms supply to Northern Vietnam. Again this did not work as intended. In my opinion none of the strategies had a higher chance of succeeding since they all failed. Instead, different strategies were required at Vietnam.

4. Examine the strategy of the U.S. military from its beginning up to Desert Storm. Ignoring the obvious technological advances how has the role of the American military and its strategy evolved from the Revolutionary War to Operation Desert Storm?

The US military has experienced a lot of changes over the years since the Revolutionary War until the Operation Desert Storm. During the Revolutionary War, the strategy that was used by the military was to try and eliminate the maximum number of enemies. The strategy was to make use of the advanced military equipment owned by the US (Metz, 2008). During the Revolutionary War, the US forced concentrated more of their equipment than on the strategy for using that equipment. In addition, the US military also made use of spies in gathering more information about their enemies. This is a strategy that is used even in the recent military operations like the Desert Storm. The main difference that is evident in that in the Desert Storm, the US military ensured that the finer details of the operations were not released to the press. This ensured that the information did not leak to the enemies before the attacks were done.

In the past, as observed during the Revolutionary War, the US military was mainly concerned with proving their supremacy over other military forces in the world (Metz, 2008). As the military has evolved, the objective of the most operations has changed from just proving their supremacy to bringing peace in the world. With this in mind, it is clear that the Desert Storm operations

References.

Isserman, M. (2009). World War II, Updates Edition. Michigan: Infobase.

Malkasian, C. (2008). The Korean War. New York: Rosen Publishing.

Metz, S. (2008). Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy. New York: Routledge.

Westheider, J. (2007). The Vietnam War. New York: Routledge.

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