The Deception Dividend: FDR's Undeclared War

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 133-165 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M. Schuessler
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Important Implication ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
Selection Effect ◽  
National Interest ◽  
The United States ◽  
Selection Effects ◽  
World War ◽  
Franklin Roosevelt

When do leaders resort to deception to sell wars to their publics? Dan Reiter and Allan Stam have advanced a “selection effects” explanation for why democracies win the wars they initiate: leaders, because they must secure public consent first, “select” into those wars they expect to win handily. In some cases, however, the “selection effect” breaks down. In these cases, leaders, for realist reasons, are drawn toward wars where an easy victory is anything but assured. Leaders resort to deception in such cases to preempt what is sure to be a contentious debate over whether the use of force is justified by shifting blame for hostilities onto the adversary. The events surrounding the United States' entry into World War II is useful in assessing the plausibility of this argument. President Franklin Roosevelt welcomed U.S. entry into the war by the fall of 1941 and attempted to manufacture events accordingly. An important implication from this finding is that deception may sometimes be in the national interest.

Sailor

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
David F. Schmitz
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
National Security ◽  
American Foreign Policy ◽  
American Exceptionalism ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Franklin Roosevelt ◽  
Dominant Paradigm

Franklin Roosevelt found the traditional American foreign policy of reliance on the Monroe Doctrine, neutrality, and hemispheric defense inadequate, out-of-date, and dangerous. As a sailor, he successfully tacked and navigate in order to establish internationalism as the dominant paradigm of American foreign policy. Roosevelt's support of internationalism was based on his belief in American exceptionalism and conviction that the United States had to act as a world leader to secure peace and prosperity through collective security, and international cooperation through multilateral organizations. In the process, he developed the concept of national security that guided post-World War II American foreign policy.

Epilogue

2019 ◽  
pp. 322-329
Author(s):  
J. Casey Doss
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Foreign Policy ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Historical Perspective ◽  
Use Of Force ◽  
The United States ◽  
Great Powers ◽  
World War

This epilogue places the challenges of landpower examined in this volume into a historical perspective since World War II. It argues that the American use of landpower is both ambivalent and Janus-faced. Ambivalent in that the United States has a militarized interventionist foreign policy but looks to withdraw once the complications of conflict become apparent. Janus-faced in that the United States seeks to use landpower in two opposing roles: as a foreign policy deterrent against other great powers and as a global constabulary. That the United States has neither resolved this dilemma nor overcome this ambivalence has curtailed the possibilities inherent to the use of force and must be taken into account when considering the American use of landpower since 9/11.

Socialists and Vlasovites

2019 ◽  
pp. 72-92
Author(s):  
Benjamin Tromly
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Interest ◽  
The United States ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union

This chapter examines a project of the late 1940s to forge a transatlantic alliance in the Russian emigration. The unlikely initiators of this scheme were elderly Russian socialists in the United States, including Russia’s former premier Aleksandr Federovich Kerenskii, who attempted to build an alliance against Stalin with the Vlasovites in Germany. The intended partnership was troubled from the start, as émigré attempts to mobilize against communism instead gave rise to divisive debates about collaboration during World War II and the Russian Revolution. As seen throughout the book, exile mobilization against the Soviet Union gave rise to debilitating conflicts to define the Russian national interest.

Bones of Contention: China’s World War II Military Graves in India, Burma, and Papua New Guinea

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 52-99 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linh D. Vu
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Papua New Guinea ◽  
New Guinea ◽  
The United States ◽  
World War ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Chinese State ◽  
International Status

Abstract Exploring the construction and maintenance of Nationalist Chinese soldiers’ graves overseas, this article sheds light on post-World War II commemorative politics. After having fought for the Allies against Japanese aggression in the China-Burma-India Theater, the Chinese expeditionary troops sporadically received posthumous care from Chinese veterans and diaspora groups. In the Southeast Asia Theater, the Chinese soldiers imprisoned in the Japanese-run camps in Rabaul were denied burial in the Allied war cemetery and recognition as military heroes. Analyzing archival documents from China, Taiwan, Britain, Australia, and the United States, I demonstrate how the afterlife of Chinese servicemen under foreign sovereignties mattered in the making of the modern Chinese state and its international status.

Do We Need a Postmodern Anthropology for Mission in a Postcolonial World?

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-169 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Rynkiewich
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
The United States ◽  
Symbiotic Relationship ◽  
World War ◽  
Fields Of Study ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cross Fertilization

Abstract There was a time when mission studies benefitted from a symbiotic relationship with the social sciences. However, it appears that relationship has stagnated and now is waning. The argument is made here, in the case of cultural anthropology both in Europe and the United States, that a once mutually beneficial though sometimes strained relationship has suffered a parting of the ways in recent decades. First, the article reviews the relationships between missionaries and anthropologists before World War II when it was possible to be a ‘missionary anthropologist’ with a foot in both disciplines. In that period, the conversation went two ways with missionary anthropologists making important contributions to anthropology. Then, the article reviews some aspects of the development of the two disciplines after World War II when increasing professionalism in both disciplines and a postmodern turn in anthropology took the disciplines in different directions. Finally, the article asks whether or not the conversation, and thus the cross-fertilization, can be restarted, especially since the youngest generation of anthropologists has recognized the reality of local Christianities in their fields of study.

The German Problem: 1945–1950

1968 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Klaus Epstein
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Orientation ◽  
World War ◽  
Narrative History ◽  
German Question ◽  
The Future

Schwarz's study Vom Reich zur Bundesrepublik is, in the opinion of this reviewer, the single most important book on the occupation studyperiod in Germany after World War II that has yet appeared. It is not an ordinary narrative history—indeed, it presupposes a good deal of prior knowledge—but is rather a topical analysis of the following problems: the various possible solutions to the German question in the years after 1945; the policies toward Germany of the four victorious powers—Russia, France, Britain, and the United States; the development of German attitudes on the future political orientation of one or two Germanies; and finally, the factors that led to the voluntary acceptance of Western integration by most West Germans even though this integration meant the partition of Germany.

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