Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at The
Federalist and your experienced Shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at fbr LST,
make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and
of course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is Ivan Eland, historian and author of
several books, including his latest Domestic Causes of American Wars,
Economic and political Triggers. Given what is taking place in
the world today and what has taken place for a
very long time in the world, it's a good time
to have this conversation. Ivan. Thank you so much for
joining us in the Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1: Man you Ben, Well, let's look at the underlying theme
of your book, and I think this is a critical
conversation to have as we try to remain out of
the major conflicts around the world. President Donald Trump has
done his level best to do that so far in
his second term, as he did in his first term,
but there are a lot of voices out there. You
contend that many US wars over our two hundred and
fifty year history were unnecessary for national security, nor were
they as heroic in upholding American values as commonly concluded.
And in a lot of this a lot of motivating factors,
of course, and you really stress in your book the
domestic and political factors involved, if you would take us
through all of that.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, we don't think of this. We don't think
of domestic factors or domestic effects as being that important.
You know. We see on TV, particularly you know, during
the Afghan and Rock Wars, and even before that in Vietnam,
we saw what was happening over over in those places,
but we didn't really see the domestic you know, causes
or implications of the wars. And this is very important,
because the domestic effects of wars are very probably the
most serious that most people don't pay attention to the
erosion of the republic at home because it almost always happens.
And I think that the problems that we have with
the checks and balances now in the system have not
been created by Donald Trump, but you're seeing them more
prominently while he's president, because he is taking a lot
of executive actions, but they go back, I would say,
to the Spanish American War. Those are the roots of
the imperial presidency. And of course the presidency has become
much stronger than the founders wanted it to be. The
Article one of the Constitution, they were worried about Congress
being becoming too powerful, and they made an independent executive
and judiciary branches to constrain in Congress. Now where we
have the Congress and the Supreme Court, you know, constrained
the executive. And as I said, this has been going
on since. So the Spanish American wars nothing new, It's
just it's been sort of incremental. And this is most
of this is happening. This key problem has happened because
of the wars from the Spanish American War on and
so these are very important to pay attention, even to
the worst foreign And we've only had a few instances
of domestic wars, the Civil War and the war against
the Indians, or that you should say, the wars against
the Indians very different tribes. But those are the only
two domestic wars that we've had, really, and the rest
of the foreign wars really and so this is we
pay attention to the foreign aspects of it, but not
on the aspects at home and also the politics. It's
it's very strange. You see, the wars are affected by
US elections, either getting into them or prosecuting them as
they're going on, and then of course in the aftermath.
And the same is true with the economy. The economy
has a lot to do with the wars as well
that we don't pay attention to the Well.
Speaker 1: There's a fashion of the economy, of course, and I
know you've delved into this in your book that shapes
wars as well. And that is what President I and
how were warned us of so long ago as he
was stepping away from the executive branch. It's the military
industrial complex. It is very real. It was real before
Eisenhower warned of that. It was arguably necessary in a
wartime economy in World War Two. But there are a
lot of industries that said, we can make a lot
of money off of wars, and that certainly has been
the case. We have seen it play out, we're watching
it play out in real time. How much of that
is put into the mix.
Speaker 2: Well, I think, particularly after World War Two, when the
military industrial complex really was born during the war, and
the reason for that was that the war was so
big that required for the GDP to go to defense
product that's almost half, and that would never even approach
that before or since. But what happened was the defense
industry was mainly in cities on the coasts and the
Great Lakes. Well, there was so much production needed that
the industry crept up out to suburban ex surban even
in rural areas and previous wars before World War Two,
what happened was we had commercial industries would Europe for
war production during the war, and then afterwards they would
just go back to whatever they were producing in peace time.
But in World War Two, the economy got so militarized,
and of course it did shrink somewhat after World War Two,
but there were a lot of areas outside the cities
which weren't as resilient economic and so they began to
a lot of their members of Congress to you know,
keep production high. And then we had so the industry
scaled back a little bit after World War Two, but
didn't go completely back to commercial. And then five years
after World War two, we had the Korean War, and
that's really what nailed down that we were going to
have a dedicated defense industry. You say, well, what's wrong
with that. The problem that we have now is the
defense industry doesn't produce anything commercially, or not much, and
so it's a sort of a ward of the state
and the Pentagon. When Donald Rumsoll was president, even excuse me,
the secretary of Defense, he said, very.
Speaker 1: Tellingly, no, no, I think you had it right.
Speaker 2: Well, it seemed like it. Yeah, he and Change were
certainly driving the I Rock work forward. But so Rumsfeld said,
he compared, in fact, on the day before nine to
eleven happened, he compared the US defense budget and budgeting
process to the five year plan of the communist world.
They always had five year plans, and he said, we
have a five year plan here at the Pentagony. And
he wasn't being complementary. He was actually trying to reform
that at the time. But he didn't, you know, he
didn't really do that. And so a lot of these
industries don't have much competition and they don't have much
commercial technology. So what you get a taxpayer get is
most weapons systems are way behind schedule. They gradually reduce
what they're going to produce that is the specifications of
what the taxpayer is going to get. And then of
course they did. It's much delayed and over cost cost
overruns our war, so that the industry does not operate
in a very efficient manner. So there's a lot of
waste in it. And they are also they build weapons
that are either unneeded or overspecified so that they can't
use cheaper commercial technology in there, and and that sort
of thing. So the military industrial complex is a problem,
and it also tends to drive up defense budgets and
it also tends to you know, these manufacturers need a
war to to to get more production. And so I'm
not saying that directly direct warmers, but it just incentive
is there for us to have a more expansive foreign
policy than we probably should, you know, And what are
the recent successes that we've had in Afghanistan and rock
O Libya, And to look back in the sixties and
seventies the Vietnam, not much success at all in any
of those places.
Speaker 1: Indeed, five year plans and new wrapped in golden chains,
as the Sages Creden's Clearwater Revival told this. Of course,
back in the late sixties early seventies. We mentioned the
politics driving a lot of this stuff, and particularly executive
branch politics. I think about they're all kinds of cases,
and you lay them out in your book, but I
think about Woodrow Wilson, you know, who campaigned for reelection
to nineteen sixteen. The theme was he kept us out
of war, and then immediately, almost immediately after he became
president of the United States, he got us into the
war or soon thereafter. Wars can be very popular things
for presidents in their polling and in sentiment in general.
So there's another inducement. How much of that has played
out over the history of war making and war fighting
in the United States.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, sometimes president's wannall boyd war to get reelected,
as Woodrow Wilson did, as FDR did, because if you
remember that he FDR said we're not going to get
into War two. It was a similar type of thing.
And there were certainly you say, well, the Japanese attacks
at Pearl Harbor, but there's a lot more to that story.
And also the German start. The war started with Germany
before before December forty one, So sometimes presidents delay the
war start until after they get reelected some but sometimes
presidents get pushed into war, and I would argue that
that's the case of bypolitics. And then that's the case
with the War of eighteen twelve. A Madison, who was
really a Republican in the small our sense, meaning the
Republican ideology at that time was to avoid wars because
they led to big government, which of course is a
is one of the biggest cause of big government in
human history and in US history is wars. And we
even you know, even things that we don't think were
related to wars happened during wars. And our current health
system as a result of World War two. Daylight saving
time is a ridiculous thing that was invented during World
War One. Those are just examples. But back in eighteen twelve,
he was reluctant to war initially, but then he discovered
that the presidents the parties nominated their presidential candidates at
the time in the congressional party caucus. And this impressment
of US sailors by the British and the orders in Council,
which were trade restrictions that Britain was fighting Napoleon at
the time. And this has been going on even before
Napoleon when they were fighting the French Revolutionary Wars. So
Britain had had this impressment and orders and council, these
trade researches long before Madison ever became president. But in
eighteen ten there was a very telling development. The warhawks
were in their Republican Party or the Democratic Republican Party
as it was called. Then they took power in Congress
and they really pushed Madison. They said, you know, you
don't support this going to the war with British, We're
going to not renominate for president. So he actually went
to war because of that reason. The other example of
that going to war for political reasons is William McKinley.
Same thing happened. He was reluctant to war. He had
been in the Civil War and this was an eighteen
ninety eight with the Spanish American War, and he was
very reluctant to do that, but he was pushed into
it because the Democrats. He was a Republican. The Democrats started,
you know, war mongering, and his Republicans started to get
it very scared because there was a lot of public
support for the war. So he went to war in
eighteen ninety eight. So that he wouldn't get loose Congress
because it was a congressional by election that year. So
you can actually sometimes presidents want to avoid the war
fel after the election, and sometimes they want to do
it before the election, like eighteen twelve and eighteen ninety eight,
so they can, you know, for electoral purposes. It's a
good politics. War, it's a good politics. So it just
depends on the war.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, the antecedents of the Spanish American are tubious, to
say the very least. If you've read anything on that,
and clearly, over history we know that the cause of
what is supposedly the direct cause of the war was
not as it was presented, and we had interesting to note.
The kind of journalism that was going on then in
many regards hasn't changed over the last one hundred and
twenty years or so. But McKinley really was pushed into it.
He really did see the horrors of war firsthand, one
of the most terrific wars, the Civil War. Having thought
in that, but you know, that's the thing. It's it's
politics so much of the time, the fear of losing
power and position that drives these decisions. But so do
land grabs, and that was a big part of the
Spanish American War and others as well.
Speaker 2: Correct, Yes, yes it was, and it was We got Cuba,
Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and we were able to annex Hawaii,
which was defeated before that, the annexation of Hawaii. They
were able to use the war to uh annex Hawaii.
Hawaii wasn't involved in the war, and of course, Q
you say, well, Cuba's not in the US. Well, Cuba
became a protect protective protector excuse me of the United States,
so we ran Cuba for decades after that war, so
it never came into the United States. Like Puerto Rico
and the Philippines, was an official column, but Cuba was
where the war started really, and the Cuban rebels were
able to condense the American public through their public relations
people that there was all these atrocities committed by the Spanish. Well,
the Cubans were also committing on a lot of atrocities.
And then Spanish fired the general who was supposedly creating
these concentration camps, and they were certainly there were no
picnic to be in them. But the reason they called
them concentration camps, not like the ones in Germany, was
because they were trying to concentrate the people in these
camps so they could open fire on the rebels and
the people wouldn't be killed, the civilians. But of course
the conditions in the campandpoint very good, so people were dying.
But it wasn't because the Spanish were committing all these
atrocities on the civilians. It was because they put them
in this camp to keep them out of the fire
firing against the guerrilla fighters. So this was the same.
This was the same policy that the US newsed in Vietnam,
but they called it strategic hamlet programs instead of concentration camps,
which of course by then have been this term had
been discredited by the Nazis world War two. So this
is where it started. And the American press, Pulitzer and
Hearst chains where it was the first national press. Really,
they had these networks of newspapers and they were competing
for readers, and they made all these accusations about the
Spanish that weren't They were either partially true or were
just totally made up. They paid people to make up these,
you know, hilacious stories that really didn't really weren't true,
and that's how they proceeded. You know, it was a
lying to war. It wasn't the case in the government
was lying this time. But the press called it yellow journalism.
But oftentimes a lot of lives are told in the
world to war. The famous saying, uh, truth is the
first casualty of war.
Speaker 1: It's really true, and it was particularly true then. Yellow
journalism was a great way of putting it. And like
I said, the more things change, the more they stay
the same. Remember Pulitzer is the guy, uh, the namesake
of the prize given to all kinds of journalists who
have you know, had some problems with facts, to say
the least, if not the truth in general. They still
have been awarded those Pulitzers based on a guy whose
publications made up things to help bring the United States
into a war that you could argue was unnecessary. You
can make that argument for a lot of wars, and
you do in your book, of course. Our guest today
is Ivan Eland, historian and author of several books, including
his latest Domestic Causes of American Wars, Economic and political Triggers.
One thing you address in one thing that has certainly
been a theme throughout war fighting in the United States
of America is wars often lead to the erosion of
the American founders Constitution and of the civil liberties and
constitutional checks and balances therein while enabling the rise of
an imperial presidency. I think there are myriad examples of that.
There are some tests of that constitution, I think, not
necessarily in recent memory, but more recent memory. When I
think of the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and the tests
of the power of the executive over the war making
authority of the first branch. If we could, let's delve
into those areas.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the Golf of Tonkin resolution was a very
broad resolution that was passed after there was a minor
well there alleged to be two minor incidents where North
via these patrol boats attack US destroyers and the second
one is very dubious. And LBJ ran with this to
get a congressional approval and he famously said, well, the
resolution is just like my grandmother's night, and it covers everything.
Speaker 1: Uh he had away with words, didn't they Yes, it
certainly did, and some of them were even worse than that. Yes, yes,
so anyway, so anyway, he and one thing he did
was he retaliated even before that with bombing of the
North vietnamees.
Speaker 2: For these little incidents and which no one was killed
on and they finally found a bullet hole in one
of the destroyers. But the second one was based on radar. Uh,
a storm came up or something in the radar went
uh uh, you know, showed that there was an pack
coming when there wasn't one. But anyway, he got he
was so anxious to get on primetime TV that he
he he sort of did what we've said similar to
what we've seen recently, and that is he went to
the press and said or to the media and went
on national television and said, well, our race, these bombing
raids are on North Vietnamese, on North Vietnam. Are you know,
have you know really you know, bank wrist the enemy
or whatever he said, you know, And unfortunately the planes
hadn't got there yet. He was selling a rush to
get on TV bad. The a lot of people got
killed because the North Vietnamese were watching the TV two
and they have great they had great Soviet air defenses
back there, and so they shot down some of the
aircraft US aircraft because the president told them that the
attack was coming. So it's this type of thing that
but the resolution.
Speaker 1: And he wanted it in prime time, right, I mean
he wanted because you know, there was not so much
today because we have all these streaming devices, but there
was a prime time when everybody was across the country
was tuned in. So we wanted to make that announcement
when the most people would see it. Unfortunately, the Vietnamese
saw it too. For the Northern Vietnacs, I should say, yes.
Speaker 2: Right, and they said the enemy has a vote. But
the enemy also has a TV set, so that's right.
So anyway, but these are the types of things that happened.
I mean, there's some equally appalling things happened during the
Keupan missile crisis. It wasn't a war, but I had
that as a chapter in the book too. But so
we had this really broad resolution. Well, of course, they
some of the senators were saying, well, this is kind
of broad. I mean, couldn't this be we escalated the
ground ground forces in Vietnam. And Olbright, who was managing
the war at the time he later became an opponent
of the war for Johnson, who's managing the war resolution,
he said, well, yes, that could happen, but they kind
of sold it overall. Olbright would say yes, individual questions,
but then they were selling it us. Oh no, there's
going to be no escalation. And he secretly LDJ in
nineteen sixty five, after he won a landslide election in
nineteen sixty four, he escalated the wars pretty much secretly
so that people wouldn't so the Congress. He still was
trying to get his Great Society program through the Congress,
and he didn't want to be shut down before it
was all passed, and he knew that he couldn't have
guns and butter at the same time, so he escalated
secretly and put up half a million American troops in Vietnam.
And you know, of course, then it went downhill from
there with Nixon and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Yes, it certainly did, and it went downhill precipitously. Now,
I mean, there is a I think some revisionist history
on that front that you know, the protests that were
occurring that started to spark in you know, sixty six,
sixty seven and exploded after the Tet offensive, that Johnson
and his war were lost to the American public. That
was not the case. Public opinion still remained in fairly
full support or at least majority support of the war
in Vietnam. The conflict, however you want to describe it.
But it's proof positive, of course, or negative, as the
case may be, that wars can be costly for presidencies.
And we learned that in nineteen sixty eight when Johnson
came out with his famous speech saying that he would
not accept the nomination of his party for president. And
some of the communications from that time are just amazing
to see a man who is devoured by really his
own demons over this war. He wanted to get out,
but he just couldn't get out. And I think it's
remarkable the toll that wars can have on the presidents
who you know, originally benefited from them, but in Johnson's case,
of course consumed him.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, it's even worse than that, because when he
was escalating war, he was desponding that there was no
way out of doing it, and he had just want
to In November of sixty four, he had just want
a landslide victory over Goldwater, just a crushing victory victory,
one of the most one sided elections we've had in
the United States ever. And so there was really no
need to go to war in Vietnam because most people
couldn't at that point, could couldn't tell you where it
was on a map. They knew we had some advisors
and stuff in southern Stasi or maybe, but they didn't
really know why we were there, what we were doing,
and they've oh, he never even heard of Vietnam itself.
So but so there's no public pressure for him to
escalate the war, but he did it for purely political reasons.
He thought, well, you know, uh, the Goldwater Republicans are
still around and they want to they'll criticize me. And
also Robert F. Kennedy, he was a political rival in
the Democratic Party of LBJ. He figured, well, he's going
to attack me for losing Vietnam because that was Kennedy's
ramped up the number of advisors in Vietnam, and so
it's kind of kind of a Kennedy War before becoming
became LBJ and RK. He figured RFK would you know,
run against him in sixty eight, but by saying, well,
you ruined my my brother's legacy. You know, he took
over from my brother and you ruined it. And but
ironically in sixty eight RFK ran for the presidency, but
he ran as a peace candidate to get out of war.
So Johnson, even when he was escalating the war, he
just saw no way out of it. But he also
believed in the domino theory, where was it one communist
country when communist it would cause this domino effect that
communism is in the entire region, And that happened in
Laos and Cambodi, but that's where it stopped in the end.
So the Domino would be was sort of discredited during
the Cold War, but Johnson believed in it as well.
Speaker 1: We know that successful prosecution of wars can be very,
very good to ratings for presidents. I think of George H. W.
Bush and the Gulf War, and he was riding high
until something else domestically took place, and that was the
recession going into the early nineteen nineties. We've learned over
time that it truly is the economy stupid, as James
Carvill put it back in the run for Clinton's presidency
the campaign of nineteen ninety two. I guess the question
here is how long can presidents expect to have higher
popularity ratings even with successful wars? And I think of
not just the United States States, but I think of
Winston Churchill is a perfect example of this as well.
The economy trumps everything else, does it?
Speaker 3: Not?
Speaker 1: Even wars? And even in times of war.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's exactly right. I mean people in the United States,
the voters here usually vote on domestic issues, and I
think they did probably in other countries as well, now,
although that's not my area of expertise, simply because of
their daily lives, they know that the prices are going up,
whether they lost their job or whatever. But they don't
know how many tanks or how many missiles you need
to fight this or that war, and so all they
see is people dying on the screen. The war is
not perceived as being necessary for US security, and it's
dragging on, killing a lot of people. That's when the
bottom drops out of the war. I mean, the bottom
dropped out of the Korean War before LBJ even you know,
was president under Truman and he didn't get real he
didn't get he dropped out of the race as well.
People forget that it's the same. The same thing happened
in the Vietnam Wars happened in the Korean War. And
you know this is so you don't get too much
credit for mean, first of all, even if you do
have a smashing battlefield victory like Since Churchill did in
World War Two, or George H. W Brush as you
just mentioned in the first goal for it's short lived
because they both got voted out. And it is the economy.
And I think that it really is the economy stupid,
and people vote for domestic reasons, primarily the economy.
Speaker 1: I'm not a pacifist by any means, I believe that
there are justifications for war. National security, of course, is
vital to the continuation of a republic or any country really,
But I'm not naive. I know that even in the
best cause wars as they have been explained over the years,
explained in contemporary their contemporary times, and explained through history,
I know that there are people involved and power involved,
and when people in power get together, that can be
a dangerous combination. Do you argue that World War II,
with the just the atrocities that were going on in
that war before leading up to that war and through
that war, do you assess that as a justifiable war?
What about World War One? It was certainly described as
a justifiable war, at least justifiable that the Americans got
involved in that war at the time. What do you
see as a justifiable war? Are there such things as
justifiable war?
Speaker 2: Well, I think you can argue that World War II
is justifiable because the US was attacked. Now, of course,
US was attacked because we were trying to strangle Japanese
to oil sanctions. And it's very interesting because FDR apparently
didn't want to put full oil sanctions of the Japanese,
but Dean Atchison, who later became Secretary of State and
had an instrumental in getting US involved in the Korean War.
He was kind of kind of a hawk, so he
put complete oil sanctions on and FDR didn't countermand them
for whatever reason. And so World War two, you know,
certainly the enemies were vile and really beyond the pale,
especially the Nazis, and they're killing of twelve million people,
six million of which were Jewish, for no reason other
than racial or religious animosity. And so but we had
the stress that that wasn't why the US got into them.
The US got into them because of the great power reasons.
And in fact, during the war the United States turned
away Jewish Jewish ship, the Saint Louis, Carryingjewish immigrants. And
also terrible, terrible moment rabbis. Several rabbis visited FDR during
the war and say, hey, can you bomb Auschwitz. That's
the worst extermination camp the Nazis have in Poland? Can
you vomit me? He goes, well, because we have to
win this war, We've got other targets, so we can't
say the effect of the war was to liberate those camps.
And to uh, you know, uh save saved some Jews
from the Holocaust, but that was not the purpose of
the war. And just like the Civil War didn't start
out to free the slaves, but it exactly did. So
I think we have to I think we have to
put that. And also even before Pearl Harbor, FDR was
secretly trying to go to war with the Nazis by
teaming up with the British to hunt the U boats
in the Atlantic, but Hitler wouldn't take the Bay. Then
later took Thebate after Pearl Harbor. He felt he had
to support his nominal ally, the Japanese. So there's lots
of strange things about World War Two. I think you
can make an argument that you have that you probably
had to do it sooner or later anyone. But FBR
was very secretive and one of the reasons. And now
I'm going to get into World War one question. After
World War One, Americans didn't want to go to war
in World War two, even you know, as late as
you know four nineteen forty and forty one. They knew
what was happening in Europe, but they just didn't want
to get into it. Because the World War one had
been so traumatizing for Americans. Now the ate of the
rate of casualties in World War One was so high.
We only had there were fewer casualties in World War
one US casualties than World War Two. But the US
was only in there were probably about six months with
their with their troops. Uh, it took a while the
trained troops up and in six months it was just
a meat grinder, and so people and then after the
war it came out that that the British our allies
were just trying to gobble up and expand their empires.
When Woodwill Wilson was saying, well, this is you know, uh,
you know, make the world safe for democracy, and then
his ally Lillly George said this is the war to
end all wars, right, And so they were saying stuff
like this. But really after the war, uh, you know,
the British and frenchhips gobbled up in the East and
so people were really disillusioned. And that is why this
fact always gets dropped. Why people were so resistant. They
were saying, well, the people are isolationists, and ftrsts had
to kind of trick them in, you know, dealing with
Teddler and the Japanese and that that's true. But the
reason that they were reluctant to wars is because World
War One was just a total disappointment for everybody concerned.
Speaker 1: Since we're around this time the anniversary of the end
of World War two and how the world, how World
War two ended in Japan with the bombing of two
cities in Japan, and we're talking about justification. Everybody has
a different point of view on this. History has informed
us a great deal. But at the end of the day,
the question remains, was it justifiable to bomb, to unleash
the nuclear age on these two cities in Japan to
stop World War Two?
Speaker 2: Well, I think that the question should not be should
Truman have dropped the bombs? The US and the British
were engaged in bombing civilians on purpose. The British even
said they were doing it by saying they were terror
bombing of Germany and Germany, but they also the US
was fire bombing in Japan. I was using fire bombs
because a lot of the houses were made out of
wood and paper, and they wanted to incinerate whole cities,
and FDR started that. Not Truman. The only thing the
atomic bomb did well. First of all, it opened the
atomic agent, which was the main thing. But as far
as the war went on, it was just a more
efficient way to kill large numbers of the civilians because
it only took two bombs to kill over one hundred
thousand people, whereas you know, the Tokyo raids actually killed
more people. But of course there were waves of bombers
to ventual bombers, and tons and tons and tons of bombs,
so it was a more efficient way of killing. The
question comes, I think that's almost never explored in the
popular press, was that the many, many of the military
people were against it, included colluding Curtis LeMay, who was
in charge of Air Wing and he was a super
hawk and he just thought he just thought, you know
that they thought that this was a barbaric weapon because
it was so powerful and you can kill even more civilians,
and so they were all against. Eisenhower was against dropping it.
But you know, there there's there's a debate about whether
the Japanese really surrendered because of that. A lot of
people say it was because the Soviets entered the war
and they knew because there were the Japanese were already
trying to surrender through the Soviets, but then when the
Soviets joined the war, it was uh, you know, as
the writing was on the wall. But I always said,
you know, if you didn't want to, they were. One
of the justifications was that well, a million people, a
million US soldiers would have died. And then this was Trueman.
I don't know if you use a million, because it's
a very soft it's a very soft estimate, but he said, well,
you know, we had to do this because we would
have the Japanese would buy from the death and any invasion.
But of course the Navy basically had, according to ok
Japan because of a completely defeated Japanese fleet. So you know,
one alternative might have been just to allow enough food
medicine in so that people could have basic uh you know,
living living uh and not subject of famine, and say listen,
we're not going to take this off until you surrender.
I mean, we really need to to bomb sit or whatever,
when uh, we didn't really need to invade, is what
I'm saying. And that's one alternative, So I think you
can I think there's some good arguments on the other
side of not dropping it, and some people say that
Truman did it because they waited until for the atomic test.
They kept postputing the summit until the atomic test happened
because it was delayed, and then when they when the
test was scheduled, they had the Potsdam summit of the
Stalin and uh, I think it was Atchison who said
that Truman swaggered around with the atomic weapon on his hip.
But of course Stalin already knew about the Manhattan Project
by the spies that he had there, and so you know,
he just kind of didn't say much at all of
it when Truman told him that he had the bomb
and then so so it's very uh, it could have
been you know, that may be some indication that they
also had in mind pressing the Soviets with this new superwomen.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that isn't discussed enough
as we take a look at that moment in time
in those critical decisions was the culture of Japan, the
culture of the warrior of Japan. These were people who
simply did not surrender. They were taught not to surrender.
We've seen battles where you know, in entire armies have
been destroyed in Japan and just refusing to surrender because
they had this belief in a godlike emperor. And obviously
that changed throughout the course of the war. But you
don't have Khama Kazis without some sense of just absolute
loyalty to a cause that I don't think a lot
of Americans can fully understand. Final question for you as
we look at these contemporary times, and that is we
have seen over the last several decades a couple of
generations in this country, liberals democrats positioning themselves as anti war.
Suddenly in this day and age they have become pro
war complete in that effect when it comes to Ukraine
and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Are you amazed at the
turn of events that we've seen in Congress and in
the American left in general becoming quite hawkish when it involves,
you know, this particular battle going on in Europe.
Speaker 2: Well, I think this has happened before. There's always usually
a historical analog, and in the Spanish and the lead
up to the Spanish American War before William McKinley, who
was a Republican and who we were, as we said,
you know, I was reluctant to go to war, but
was pressured by his own party because the Democrats were hot,
and there were the Democrats were forcing the Republicans to
be hawks, you know, because of the eighteen ninety eight elections,
and McKinley was afraid that he was going to lose.
He didn't go to war, he was going to lose
the election. The Democrats before that, under Grover Cleveland, Grover
Cleveland had avoided war during his second term. The rebellion
was going on in Cuba, and there been starts and
stops at the Cuban rebellion for a long time. But
so the Democrats were anti war and then they converted
to they converted to grow war, and that dragged Republicans
with them, and then you know, the same is true.
I think, you know, people are politically shall we say, opportunistic,
and I think it's very interesting because yes, in this
particular war, they were all out for support for Ukraine
and the Republicans were less so. And although there have
been some Republican hawks from the old days.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, no doubt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so yes, I was surprised. It's not really surprising,
I don't think, because these parties adopted a position and
then it's in their interest to oppose it, Like the
Democrats used to be really pro tariffs too, and they're
not as pro tariffs and war because Trump is pro tariffs.
So and and you know, the Republicans were free traders
before that, but they were pro tariffs since the Civil
War up until nineteen twenties at least, so you know,
after World War Two they became free traders. But now
the back of tariff so it's it kind of runs
in cycles with some of these, uh, these positions that
people take.
Speaker 1: Lincoln was a tariff's guy. McKinley was a tariff's guy,
and that was the main.
Speaker 2: That was the main. Actually, Trump has just taken you
probably can party back to where it was because the
terror was the issue for the Republicans for years and
years and years exactly.
Speaker 1: And on that final point, Trump is walking a tightrope.
There's no doubt about it. It's clear. I think his
I think his motives are clear. He wants to end
this war, this bloody war between Russia and Ukraine. You
have two players, the two principal players there, who have
caused a great deal of heartburn for everybody involved, particularly
you know, putin the President of Russia. But he has
interest in motivations as well. He's not going to give
up territory, certainly that he has sent hundreds of thousands
of Russian soldiers in to die for. So there is
the reality of peace negotiations. There is the reality of
what can be done and what will ultimately happen. Where
do you see all of this going with President Trump,
in my estimation, earnestly trying to broker a peace deal
between these two warring countries.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, one of Trump's pluses is I think he
does have an aversion to war. I think you would
also like to soul the Israeli Gaza war. I mean,
excuse me, the Israeli a moss war over Gaza. It's
very interesting. In both of those conflicts you see domestic
factors really playing a big role. And the one that
you just mentioned Ukraine Russia. Yes, Putin made a big mistake,
but I think you just take Ukraine and Ukraine won
that war very start by, you know, by renaming a
country after Putin was going to try to take it over.
But you know it's since gone into stalemate. But you're right,
Putin has to come up with some reason to justify
all this killing of his own people, his own soldiers
in a massive amounts, and so he wants to get
He is demanding the rest of Luhansk, and don't ask
Dawn Boss to do that because he wants to say, well,
you know, I took over the Russian the Ukrainians, or
of using the Russian speaking peoples, and I at least
took over this this entire area, so the Russian speakers
are saved. Zelenski on the other hand, he has, you know,
the people fighting and dying in his country to keep
the Russians up. So if he gives up territory that
the Russians haven't earned on the battlefield, that's just a
no go for him. So I think it's late to
this differences of domestic politics that actually led to the
war's stalemate up to this point, and it seems that
Trump is trying to battle that to solve it. But
he has this problem where during the Biden administration, US
was on clearly on the side of Ukraine in a
big way, and Trump is coming in and trying to
be more of a mediator between the two sides, so
that that's kind of a difficult transition to make in
any negotiation. Teddy Roosevelt solved the Russia Japanese War in
nineteen oh five. But he hadn't. The US hadn't. Really
there were pro pro Japanese, but only in you know,
name only. He wasn't on either side when he tried
to solve that. But Trump has a very difficult mission here.
Speaker 1: Well, I think he's got one of the biggest incentives
in play of any president to end this war, and
that is Hiller. Clinton has pledged that she would nominate
Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize if he is
able to end that war, under of course, her certain conditions,
of course, and we know that Trump would certainly love
to stick it to his former opponent in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 2: Sounds like those embarrassing beats of your team on the
Super Bowl. If my team wins, yeah, I'll shave my head.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, Maybe that should be the deal. If
Trump gets peace, not only does he get the Nobel
Peace Prize, but Hillary Clinton has to shave her head
as well.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 1: I think it would make politics more interesting. One thing
we do know, though, is we've had this conversation, and
your book tells the story over and over again. It's
all just a little bit of history repeating thanks to
my guest today. I've an Eland historian and author of
several books, including his lateststic Causes of American Wars, Economic
and political Triggers. You've been listening to another edition of
The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent
at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then,
stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray.