Category Archives: Uncategorized

Zion Island 31.

Posted on by
Reply

Air Force Historical Research Agency (AFHRA)

600 Chennault Circle, Bldg. 1405

Maxwell AFB, AL 36112-6424

United States Air Force Oral History Collection. 

Interview of Major General (ret.), Samuel SIMMS, United States Air Force.

EXCERPT.

GB: General, I wonder if today we can begin by discussing your role in the development of guided weapons? 

SS: Well, let me begin by saying that it is a common-place popular belief that “arms races lead to war.”  This neglects the reality that both the approach of war and war itself stimulate rapid weapons development.  As Dr. Johnson said, “the prospect of being hanged concentrates the mind wonderfully.”  In the late Thirties, the looming prospect of war—in Europe, in the Far East—encouraged all sides to develop new weapons.  We all expected that there would be a much more dreadful re-run of the Great War.  In fact, the wars that followed were much more limited.  Still, there was an immense impetus to develop new weapons. 

GB: And was that true even in the United States? 

SS: Oh, very much so.  All of us who had gone through the Great War, who had seen what the modern technology of that time could do, were very alert to the issues. 

GB: Can you tell me what were the broad areas or categories of weapons that the Army Air forces sought to develop, and then about your own area of responsibility? 

SS: Certainly.  If we leave aside the development of new aircraft, then we sought to develop new weapons in several areas.  Bear in mind that other countries had jumped well ahead of the United States in several key areas.  The British had, unbeknownst to us, developed radar.  That, I think, enabled them to fend off Germany’s air attack in 1940 and achieve an acceptable negotiated peace.  The Germans had begun to develop guided missiles of several types.  One was the smaller plane-like weapon powered by a small jet engine.  The other was a long-range ballistic missile.  If the Germans had advanced far enough with either of these weapons by 1940, then I think that Britain would have been pounded into submission.  So, obviously, we felt the need to catch up in both of these areas.  Then there was the Manhattan Project.  I was not involved with any of these efforts at that time. 

GB: Which brings us to your own area of expertise and responsibility. 

SS: Indeed.  Beginning in 1939, my work focused on the highly accurate delivery of ordnance by means of remote controls.  Let me say, that this made me a bit of a black sheep in the Army Air Force community.  In general terms, there were the followers of Douhet and there were the air defense advocates of pursuit or “fighter” aircraft.  Some of us used to joke that our friends belonged to either “The bomber will always get through” school or to the “Not if I can help it” school. 

GB: You didn’t belong to either school? 

SS: No.  I did think that the bombers would get through the air defenses.  I just didn’t think that the bombers could inflict the kind of damage that would actually drive a country into submission.  Dropping hundreds of tons of high explosives on people would damage the targets, but the human spirit is very resilient.  Even in a bad cause.  Perhaps most of all in a bad cause.  I grew up in the South after all.  And in the process of not-quite-achieving the end-goal, you would be setting fire to grandmothers and five year-olds. 

GB: So the role of airpower would be best directed toward providing flying artillery to support ground forces? 

SS: Again, no.  I didn’t believe in just dumping ordnance on cities, even with the limited precision we could achieve with the Norden bomb-sight.  I had a different idea.  I believed that very discriminating and targeted attacks could unhinge the key elements in any modern society.  It is the infrastructure of transportation, communication, and energy that allow any highly-developed society to function.  If we could destroy bridges, power-plants, radio stations and telephone exchanges, we could put enemy military operations at a severe disadvantage.  Come to that, it is a comparatively few key decision-makers who decide the direction taken by a highly organized and bureaucratized society.  If we could strike at the enemy leadership in the same way that we struck at the infrastructure, then untold numbers of lives could be spared. 

GB: And this belief guided, so to speak, you own efforts?  Can you talk about specific programs or weapons systems intended to achieve this aim?    

SS: Of course.  There were two programs that I supervised.  The first of these sought to turn ordinary “dumb” bombs into steerable weapons that would not miss the target.  Take bridges for example.  They make difficult targets.  They don’t move, but they’re long and narrow.  The enemy defends important ones with anti-aircraft artillery.  The air defense drives the attacker higher, making targeting more difficult.  With bridges, going wide on a drop or having cross-winds shift the course of the bomb ever so slightly leads to a miss.  What we wanted was to be able to control the fall of the bomb very exactly. 

GB: Did you succeed? 

SS: Yes and no.  My men developed a tail-package that could be bolted on to the bomb in place of the normal fins.  The tail-package had rudders to steer the bomb left or right along the azimuth.  They were radio-controlled from the plane.  We had less success with ailerons to control the pitch of the bomb.  What they did manage to achieve was the installation of a gyroscope that kept the bomb from rolling on its axis in air.  Finally, it had a flare installed in the tail.  The smoke from the flare helped the bombardier keep the bomb in sight as he sought to guide it to the target.  So long as the plane was directly over the target, you had a great probability of hitting it.  Because it was steerable only to left or right on the azimuth, it was called an Azimuth Only (or Azon) bomb. 

GB: You mentioned a second project. 

SS: Yes, “Aphrodite.”  This was a vastly more complicated project.  The steerable bombs I just mentioned were intended to be dropped from a bomber directly over the target.  This solved one problem, but moved us on to the next one.  They were only heavy to very heavy pieces of ordnance: 1,000 pound bombs at first, then 2,000 pounders.  That may seem like a lot.  It is if you’re attacking a relatively soft-shelled target like a bridge. 

But the tendency from the 1920s on had been to “harden” the physical structures containing key facilities.  Our own Malinta Tunnel on Corregidor offers a good example.  We knew from intelligence reports that the Germans had constructed bunkers at Zossen outside Berlin.  These would house their signals intelligence people and their high command in case of war.  All these were buried deep in the earth and had heavy reinforced concrete roofs.  Even a 2,000 pound bomb wouldn’t do enough damage to a site like this.  Yet these were exactly the sort of places that we would need to destroy in my theory of how air war should operate. 

After much feverish work, the team attacking on this problem arrived at a solution.  It was to create a system of remote controls for an aircraft, then to pack that aircraft with a huge amount of high explosives.  As much as 10,000 pounds.  Essentially, the plane would become a flying bomb that could be directed to a target, then crashed into the target.  It would detonate on impact. 

GB: How was it controlled?  Fully or partially?  From the ground or from an accompanying aircraft? 

SS: Well, these were early days, so the system was bulky and crude.  I won’t rehash the whole history of the development of autopilot systems since 1912.  Suffice it to say that it already was possible to have an on-board mechanism fly a plane straight and level on a compass course.  From that starting point, we added refinements of the steerable bomb.  One refinement came with the placing of small television cameras—then very new—in the remotely controlled aircraft.  One camera observed the instrument panel; the other looked downward at the ground.  Essentially, these allowed us to greatly refine the course as the plane approached the target.  In addition, the new developments allowed the plane to dive onto the target. 

GB: And were these flying bombs to be controlled from the ground from take-off to target? 

SS:  No.  Again these were early days.  A pilot and flight engineer would get the plane aloft.  Then they would arm the bomb and turn-over control of the plane to a mother-ship.  After that, they would bail-out.  The mother ship would guide the plane to target, then send it into a dive. 

GB: How close did the mother ship have to be? 

SS: Oh, within about a mile, and above the bomb-plane. 

GB: so, it couldn’t be controlled from the ground after take-off? 

SS: We never tried that. 

Zion Island 30.

Posted on by
Reply

SECRET. 

BEGINS.

TO: J. Edgar Hoover, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

FROM: SAC Jeffrey Morton, Salt Lake City, Utah.

DATE: 15 January 1953. 

RE: Possible loss of plutonium from Hanford Works.   

            Bureau agents have continued their inquiries.  If we reject the Idaho-Nevada route, then alternative routes include West toward Seattle-Portland, Southeast toward Salt Lake City, and then East toward New York. 

            Agents were dispatched along each of these axes. 

            No leads were discovered along the Nampa-Seattle route. 

            Leads were discovered to the eastward of the Nampa-Salt Lake City route.  Gas station operators along Highway 80 in Nebraska and Illinois vaguely recall fueling both a large sedan and a 2.5 ton truck. 

            The Iowa State Highway Patrol reports that a 2.5 ton Army-surplus truck collided with a car on 29 December 1952.  The collision was minor: there were no injuries and little body damage to the vehicles.  A State trooper happened to be passing and stopped to investigate.  The trooper judged that the driver of the automobile, rather than the driver of the truck, was at fault.  He collected information and then sent them on their way. 

            The license on the truck was from Kentucky.  The name of the truck driver was Jack Zelig.  His driver’s license was from Ohio.  No Buick sedan was observed. 

            No reports have been received from gas station operators east of Illinois. 

            This information suggests that it is possible that the thieves are operating from eastern Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, northern Kentucky, or Western Pennsylvania. 

            We have requested information on the license plate number from the Kentucky State Police on an urgent basis. 

            Request any information on Jack ZELIG. 

SECRET. 

Zion Island 29.

Posted on by
Reply

 

SECRET. 

BEGINS.

TO: J. Edgar Hoover, Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation. 

FROM: SAIC Jeffrey Morton, Salt Lake City, Utah.

DATE: 10 January 1953. 

RE: Possible loss of plutonium from Hanford Works.   

            Bureau agents conducted a wide-ranging investigation following the derailment of the UP freight train near Nampa, Idaho on 24 December 1952. 

            Bureau agents discovered the following facts:

  1. Mr. Kenneth Hashimoto observed six men in the dining room of the Dewey Palace Hotel on the evening of 24 December 1952. 
  2. Mr. Hashimoto is a prosperous potato farmer in the Nampa area and a deacon of the Methodist church.  He had brought his family to the hotel dining room before attending Christmas evening services. 
  3. Mr. Hashimoto approvingly noticed the men because they were quiet and were not drinking, which was out of character for the other male patrons of the restaurant on this occasion.  In retrospect, he believed that they were not members of the Church of Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons).  This judgement is based solely on their physical appearance.  The men “didn’t look Mormon.” 
  4. Examination of the Dewey Palace Hotel records revealed that six men had occupied three rooms in the hotel from 23 to 25 December 1952, although the clerk did not recall seeing any of the men on 25 December.  The group paid in cash in advance.  The ledger reveals only that the rooms were booked to a “Tom Smith and party.” 
  5. Hotel parking records reveal that two vehicles were parked at the hotel for the same 23-25 December 1952 period. 
  6. The parking attendant believes that one of the vehicles was a Buick sedan and the other a General Motors “deuce-and-a-half” truck.  He also recalls that both vehicles had Nevada license plates.  (The attendant is a disabled military veteran previously stationed at the Nevada Proving Grounds.)  The parking attendant kept no record of the plate numbers. 
  7. Idaho Highway 51 and Nevada Highway 11 provide the most direct route between Nampa and Nevada.  Bureau agents thoroughly questioned gas station operators and hotel managers along this route.  No one recalled the party of six or the pair of vehicles.  None recalled fueling a GM 2.5 ton truck.  These trucks have a 40-gallon fuel tank, so fueling them would have been both a time-consuming experience and a significant pay-off for a gas station operator. 
  8. We can only conclude that if the Buick sedan. GM truck, and the six men from the hotel were involved in the derailment of the UP freight train, then they did not go to Nevada by the most direct route. 
  9. Investigation continues pending further orders. 

SECRET. 

ENDS. 

Zion Island 28.

Posted on by
Reply

United States National Archives.

RG 457.2: Records of the National Security Agency/Central Security Service, 1917-1993. 

TOP SECRET. 

US Army, Signals Intelligence Service. 

Germany.                                                        Ref.  No.: XXXXXXXXX

                                                                        Issued:

                                                                        Copy No.: 221

From: Theresienstadt. 

To: Berlin. 

the Office of the Fuhrer for the attention of SS Brigadefuhrer EICHMANN, BERLIN. 

State secret! 

Subject: Status Report on EINSATZ ERFURT.[1] 

            The doctor reports satisfactory completion of the laboratory stage of the project.  The substantial conceptual and practical problems of vaccine development have been overcome. 

            The delivery component remains under development.  However, the doctor is confident that this essential step will be overcome “in the near future.”  He is very grateful for the generous support so far provided. 

            Human trials will then begin.  Necessarily this may take an uncertain amount of time.  I have communicated to the doctor the urgency of arriving at a viable treatment. 

Commander of Sipo-SD Lange, Theresienstadt, Madagascar, Standartenfuhrer.  

State secret! 

[1] “Operation Erfurt.”  Erfurt is a city in Germany.  Code names are most often randomly selected.  However, at one time the addressee, Lange, commanded the security services in Erfurt.  Nostalgia? 

Zion Island 27.

Posted on by
Reply

Garrett Mattingly Papers; Rare Book and Manuscript Library, 6th Floor, Butler Library, Columbia University, 535 West 114th Street, New York, New York.

Box #5.

Professor Garret Mattingly

Department of History

Fayerweather Hall, Columbia University

New York, NY USA

Dear Professor Mattingly,

      Coincidentally, October 2015 will mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of Germany’s victory in the Second World War. 

      In light of this anniversary, the Editorial Board of the Encyclopedia Germanica wishes to formally commission an article by you on the history of postwar Europe.  (The board is particularly impressed by your previous works, Sea Lion and Reformation Diplomacy.)  If you accept this commission, please be sure to deal with the following topics. 

                  European political and economic integration under German auspices. 

                  The social welfare, educational, and immigration policies of “Europe.” 

                  Relations between “Europe” and the former Soviet Union, the English-speaking world (Britain, the Commonwealth and Empire, the Free Trade Area of the Americas), the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, and the national homeland for the Jewish people on Madagascar. 

                  The fate of the colonial empires. 

                  The impact of generational change in the mid-Sixties and the early 21st Century. 

                  Please append a brief bibliography of, say, five key books for understanding Nazi Europe. 

      We are in a position to pay an honorarium of DM 5,000.  Alas the currency policies of Europe do not allow the exchange of these funds for dollars.  However, you would be free to spend the money within Europe or even in one of the Klub Med resorts overseas. 

                                                      Sincerely yours, G. Grass, Assistant Editor. 

Zion Island 26.

Posted on by
Reply

“Notes on the Varieties of Zionism,” by Dr. Emmanuel Ringelblum.

Submitted to General Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski at his request.

            “Zionism” is the idea that Jews alone should not be the only civilized people without a nation-home of their own.[1] 

            From the late Roman period through the 18th Century, European Jews had labored under many legal disabilities.  The subsequent legal emancipation of European Jews came soonest where nationalism triumphed.  It came later and more haltingly where multi-ethnic, multilingual, and multi-religious empires resisted nationalism as the price of their survival.  Whenever it came, Emancipation allowed the assimilation of Jews into the various European nations, if they chose to assimilate.  Judaism itself split into several currents. 

            Legal emancipation ran ahead of social acceptance.  “Anti-Semitism” remained a powerful force.  Sometimes it was water flowing underground in the form of snobbery, stereotypes, and social exclusion.  Sometimes it broke out in the open in judicial persecution, or noisy street movements, or even in political parties.  Occasionally it turned violent. 

            Historians commonly tell one another that “You’re right, but it goes back much farther than that.”[2]  The same is true of Zionism.  During the 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries, schemes for a “return to Zion” appeared and disappeared like soap-bubbles.  In the 1890s, however, Theodore Herzl (1860-1904) became the founder the movement called “Zionism.”  Repulsed by the overt political anti-Semitism in Austro-Hungarian Empire, Herzl devoted his great abilities and energy to the creation of a Jewish state in the ancestral homeland of Palestine.  He died before the Great War, the “Balfour Declaration,” the partition of the Ottoman Empire that put Palestine in British hands, and the Arab “Awakening.”  It fell to his followers to make “Zion” a reality. 

            These followers were of several minds about the practical problems.  Much Zionist thought amounted to applications of European ideas of the pre-1914 period.  On the one hand, “Labor” Zionism and “Liberal” Zionism represented the left wing of European politics: socialist, communalist, reformist, democratic, tolerant of religious differences, and hopeful of a peaceful resolution of disputes over land with the Arabs.  These forms of Zionism appealed to the best in the Jewish community: idealistic, educated, compassionate, and “practical.” 

            On the other hand, “Revisionist Zionism” represented those harsher times that came after the Great War.  It’s prophet, the fanatic Ze’ev Jabotinsky (1880-1940), argued that “Zion” could only be built by a strong state with a strong army that could, first, define a territorially-large country, and second, force the Arabs to accept it.  “Zionism is a colonising adventure and it therefore stands or falls by the question of armed force. It is important to build, it is important to speak Hebrew, but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot….”  This movement developed a wide appeal in the former Poland.  It had a group, “Betar,” that tried to instill military virtues in the young.  It attracted many ruthless, rigid minds. 

            All these debates have been put to rest by our migration to this place. 

[1] For Pity’s sake, even the Rumanians have a country!

[2] Or, alternatively, “You’re right, but that’s not true in Breslau.” 

Taiwan Troubles.

Posted on by
Reply

            Is Zi Jinping a conventional/traditional “Marxist” leader, bent upon using China’s immense power to advance the world revolution?  Or is Zi Jinping a conventional/traditional Chinese emperor, bent upon using China’s immense power to shatter the American-created international system?  Does it matter?  It is an axiom that you plan for the capabilities of other players, not for their intentions. 

            Since the end of the Second World War, the United States has been the most powerful and most influential nation in Asia.  That power and influence has rested on military superiority, economic dynamism, the sheer appeal of America’s values in comparison to those of its rivals, and strategic alliance-building.  Chief among these allies have been Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and Taiwan. 

            The murkiest of these alliances has been the alliance with Taiwan.  When the Communists won the Chinese Civil War in 1949, many of the defeated Kuomintang (KMT or “Nationalist”) supporters retreated to the island of Taiwan.  Long a Chinese possession, it had been conquered by Japan in one that country’s early forays into imperialism.  Still, at first it seemed that the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) would soon complete the reconquest of territory lost to imperialist during the dark hours of China’s impotence.  After the Korean War began, the United States recognized Taiwan as an independent state.  The KMT created a separate Chinese state, then build a prosperous industrial economy, and eventually moved toward democracy.  In sum, Taiwan is far more of a legitimate state than it was in 1949.  Richard Nixon’s “opening” to China pushed the US-Taiwan relationship into “strategic ambiguity.”  China has always intended to retake Taiwan, just as it intended to retake Hong Kong.  The United States had an interest in Taiwan remaining independent.  The US and China had a big stake in not coming to blows over Taiwan.  So all sides let things sit.  See what shook out. 

            What shook out was Zi Jinping.  China’s “Belt and Road” infrastructure initiative, military build-up, and the forced change in status of Hong Kong illustrate his determination to reshape the Asian order to China’s advantage.  Now alarm bells are ringing over Taiwan.[1] 

            By what means might China seek to establish control over Taiwan?  Would it begin by fomenting some kind of low-intensity conflict?  Would it just cut to the chase by staging an out-right invasion with overwhelming force?  Would the Taiwanese fight?  Do they have the means to mount an effective resistance?  How would the United States respond?  Would it huff and puff, then accept Chinese conquest as happened with Hong Kong?  Would it adapt the same policy as it has done with Ukraine: supplying arms, money, and intelligence while avoiding direct involvement?  Would it decide that Taiwan is the Czechoslovakia “of our time”?[2]  If the United States did fight, what would be the outcome?  Could it win a “conventional” (i.e. non-nuclear) war in the Western Pacific and Far East?  How great is the danger that a conventional war could slide into a nuclear war—of uncertain magnitude? 

            Is there an alternative?  Perhaps, but anything that looks like or amounts to backing down would most likely have a devastating impact on America’s other alliances in Asia.       

[1] See, for example, Elbridge Colby, The Strategy of Denial: American Defense in an Age of Great Power Conflict (2021).  On Colby, see: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elbridge-colby-7484a0168/details/experience/ 

[2] That analogy has gotten us into trouble before.  See: Vietnam. 

My Weekly Reader 6 June 2022.

Posted on by
Reply

            Stories of individual historical events, the more dramatic the better, command the attention of readers.  Yet those striking events always happen in some larger context that includes cause, effect, and related events happening elsewhere.  Stepping back from the individual event to see the context in which it occurred provides greater understanding.[1]  The farther one steps back, the more the dramatic events recede as the larger patterns emerge.  Always there is a trade-off and the question of where to strike the balance. 

            During the Nineteenth Century, the West rapidly industrialized and international trade grew by leaps and bounds.  These advances required an improved system of reliable and fair international payments.  Answering this need, the Gold Standard set an exchange rate against gold for every country’s national currency.  So nations acquiring gold got piled on top of the eternal human quest for “the color.”  Fortunately for the developing world economy, there were major gold strikes in California (1848), Australia (1851), and South Africa (1886) among many other places.[2]  Gold greased the wheels of economic growth, while creating individual fortunes.[3] 

            They also created unanticipated effects.  The lure of gold drew in many immigrants from distant parts.[4]  Westerners were not alone in seeking their fortunes in a new land.  In the mid-Nineteenth Century, a gigantic civil war racked Qing China. The “Taiping Rebellion” spread death, starvation, disease, and poverty throughout the empire.  Hundreds of thousands of Chinese migrated all over the Pacific.[5]  Some went to the United States, some went to Australia, many went to other places.  Later, others would attempt to go to South Africa. 

            All these were White-ruled societies busily resting control of the lands’ resources from indigenous inhabitants.  They both needed cheap labor and despised the Asian immigrants who would provide it.  Appearance, language, religion, and culture all set the two groups apart from one another.  The white working class and middle class took an especially harsh view of the “coolie labor” that they believed undermined their own efforts at self-enrichment.  Anti-Chinese violence followed in many places.  Both seeking to profit from this hatred and to restore order, politicians stepped forward to give voice to the concerns of the working man.  The American “Chinese Exclusion Act” (1882-1943), the South African Asian exclusion policy (1880s-1980s), and the “White Australia” policy (1901-1973) all manifested this fear of Chinese competition. 

            All this happened in the distant past and most vestiges of the age in laws have been removed.  Yet people still fear Asian states when they become economically powerful, as has been the case with Japan in the Seventies[6] and China today.  The competition is seen as “unfair.” 

[1] The first two essays in Gerhard Weinberg, World in the Balance: Behind the Scenes of World War II (1981) provide a clear and concise introduction to the essential strategic problems of the war.  Steven Runciman, The Sicilian Vespers: A History of the Mediterranean World in the Later Thirteenth Century (1958) uses a small event—the Sicilian massacre of occupying French troops—to examine the complex politics of Medieval Europe, the Papacy, and the Byzantine Empire. 

[2] For an extensive list, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_rush 

[3] As Montgomery Burns chortled, “We’ll be rich as Nazis!”

[4] My great-great grandfather had left his family home in Rhode Island for the “West” of the 1830s and 1840s, the Ohio River valley.  When news came of the gold strike at Sutter’s Mill, he hot-footed it to California. 

[5] Mae Ngai, The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes and Global Politics (2021).  Reviewed by Andrew Graybill, WSJ, 12 August 2021. 

[6] Herman Kahn, The Japanese Challenge (1979); Rush Doshi, The Long Game (2021). 

Zion Island 26.

Posted on by
Reply

            Henry Picker, editor, Heydrich’s Table-Talk (1973).  (My translation.) 

            Gruppenfuhrer Klein (extract):  “Well, you know, he wasn’t prone to run on at the mouth.  Not like some people, as I’m sure you know.  Not likely to surround himself with suck-ups either, who would put up with harangues.  Much more terse.  More like those Spartan fellows I’ve read about.  Laconic. 

            Still, sometimes over brandy after dinner he would say things after Lina [Mrs. Heydrich] had taken the ladies away.  Once, I don’t remember the date, he said something like “Perhaps the Fuhrer was wrong.  To let them go, I mean.  They are still very powerful in Britain.  Even more so in America.  No, we have not finished with the struggle.”  Something like that anyway.  Then we rejoined the ladies.  Generally for singing.  He loved music.” 

Biden and China.

Posted on by
Reply

            Sailors were the first Americans to reach the Pacific and the Far East: fur traders in Nootka Sound, tea clippers in China, whalers in the South and Central Pacific, and Commodore Perry’s squadron “opening” Japan to the West.  All this happened while the rest of the country was pre-occupied with other matters: industrialization, immigration, urbanization, civil war, and territorial expansion across the continent.  The two strands came together at the end of the Nineteenth Century.  The Spanish-American War (1898) made the United States a territorial power in the Pacific and Asia (Hawaii, Guam, the Philippines).  American Christian missionaries joined those of Western European nations.  The “China Market” became an even more attractive lure for American industry.  Still, American interests and ideals combined to oppose anyone ripping China to shreds.  Instead, the United States defended the idea of the “Open Door.”  All nations should have an equal right to trade in China, while the Chinese Empire should preserve its territorial integrity. 

Color lithograph by J.S. Pughe – Library of Congress – https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2012647332/ , Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-ppmsca-28534Color lithograph by J.S. Pughe – Library of Congress – https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2012647332/ , Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-ppmsca-28534

            During the Twentieth Century, the central question in the Far Eastern policy of the United States became how to prevent any one power from dominating Asia to the detriment of the United States.   At first, this meant opposing Imperial Japan’s expansionist appetite.  That appetite seemed to grow over time, from the “Fifteen Demands” levied on China during the First World War to the seizure of Manchuria to outright invasion of China to the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere” of the Second World War. 

Then the United States shifted to opposing Communist expansionism in Asia.  At the time, many disasters befell American military policy: the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, fighting to a draw in Korea, being defeated in Vietnam.  Over time, however, a different strand of American policy succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its exponents.  The U.S. supported societies engaged in rapid economic development.  As time passed, and in uneven measure, they became democracies.  Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the Philippines have become important American partners in the Far East.  Mot striking of all, since the Nixon Administration’s “opening” to the Peoples Republic of China, Beijing has profited enormously from the American-led system. 

More recently, that system has appeared to be in decay.  First, a series of poor presidents with deficient understanding of foreign affairs left the American system badly led for almost thirty years.[1]  Second, the 9/11 attacks required a devastating response against Islamist terrorism, but the decisions to extend that riposte into a long-run nation-building operation in Afghanistan and a disastrous invasion of Iraq soaked up American blood, treasure, and attention.  Third, the United States has been undermined by prolonged economic and social crises that defy easy solution.[2]  The current evening news broadcasts showing the United States Air Force flying advanced weapons to Ukraine and flying foreign baby formula to the United States nicely captures some of our issues.[3]  In any event, it isn’t difficult to understand why American leadership has come under challenge from Russia and China first and foremost, but also by lesser countries which once consulted Washington.[4] 

The Biden administration has now announced steps to reform the post-war American international system to better address the challenge from China.[5]  Declaring that the 2020s will be a “decisive decade,” Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced that the United States will work hard to rebuild economic and diplomatic bonds with long-time allies.  The proposed revival falls short on some details and will take time to implement.  Moreover, it is beyond Blinken’s authority to offer a plan for addressing the underlying problems of America.  Nevertheless, partly from preference for the American system and partly from fear of China, there seems to be a deep well of support in the Indo-Pacific region for an American return. 

[1] Bill Clinton (1992-2000), George W. Bush (2000-2008), Barack Obama (2008-2016), and Donald Trump (2016-2020).  Three normal children and one feral child. 

[2] This subject could fill and book and has.  Many, actually.  For social issues, see: https://bookriot.com/100-must-read-books-understanding-u-s-social-policy/  It is perhaps telling about the nature of the crises that it is much easier to find a long list of books on contemporary social problems than it is to find a similar list about American economic problems.  In other words, Americans are better informed about their social problems (almost always to be solved by throwing money at them) than they are about their economic problems (which is where the money will come from). 

[3] Or perhaps I just sent too much time watching the recent George Carlin documentary. 

[4] Notably Israel and Saudi Arabia, but now the Solomon Islands as well. 

[5] Walter Russell Mead, “Blinken’s Indo-Pacific Blueprint,” WSJ, 31 May 2022.