George Friedman
We are at the 70th anniversary of the end of
World War II in Europe. That victory did not usher in an era of universal
peace. Rather, it introduced a new constellation of powers and a complex
balance among them. Europe's great powers and empires declined, and the United
States and the Soviet Union replaced them, performing an old dance to new
musical instruments. Technology, geopolitics' companion, evolved dramatically
as nuclear weapons, satellites and the microchip — among myriad wonders and
horrors — changed not only the rules of war but also the circumstances under
which war was possible. But one thing remained constant: Geopolitics,
technology and war remained inseparable comrades.
It is easy to say what World War II did not
change, but what it did change is also important. The first thing that leaps to
mind is the manner in which World War II began for the three great powers: the
United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom. For all three, the war
started with a shock that redefined their view of the world. For the United
States, it was the shock of Pearl Harbor. For the Soviet Union, it was the
shock of the German invasion in June 1941. For the United Kingdom — and this
was not really at the beginning of the war — it was shock at the speed with
which France collapsed.
Pearl Harbor Jolts the American Mindset
There was little doubt among American leaders
that war with Japan was coming. The general public had forebodings, but not
with the clarity of its leaders. Still, neither expected the attack to come at
Pearl Harbor. For the American public, it was a bolt from the blue, compounded
by the destruction of much of the U.S. Pacific fleet. Neither the leaders nor
the public thought the Japanese were nearly so competent.
Pearl Harbor intersected with another shock to
the American psyche — the Great Depression. These two events shared common
characteristics: First, they seemed to come out of nowhere. Both were
predictable and were anticipated by some, but for most both came without
warning. The significance of the two was that they each ushered in an
unexpected era of substantial pain and suffering.
This introduced a new dimension into American
culture. Until this point there had been a deep and unsubtle optimism among
Americans. The Great Depression and Pearl Harbor created a different
sensibility that suspected that prosperity and security were an illusion, with
disaster lurking behind them. There was a fear that everything could suddenly
go wrong, horribly so, and that people who simply accepted peace and prosperity
at face value were naïve. The two shocks created a dark sense of foreboding
that undergirds American society to this day.
Pearl Harbor also shaped U.S. defense policy
around the concept that the enemy might be identified, but where and when it
might strike is unknown. Catastrophe therefore might come at any moment. The
American approach to the Cold War is symbolized by Colorado's Cheyenne
Mountain. Burrowed deep inside is the North American Aerospace Defense Command,
which assumes that war might come at any moment and that any relaxation in
vigilance could result in a nuclear Pearl Harbor. Fear of this scenario — along
with mistrust of the wily and ruthless enemy — defined the Cold War for
Americans.
The Americans analyzed their forced entry into
World War II and identified what they took to be the root cause: the Munich
Agreement allowing Nazi Germany to annex parts of Czechoslovakia. This was not
only an American idea by any means, but it reshaped U.S. strategy. If the
origin of World War II was the failure to take pre-emptive action against the
Germans in 1938, then it followed that the Pacific War might have been
prevented by more aggressive actions early on. Acting early and decisively
remains the foundation of U.S. foreign policy to this day. The idea that not
acting in a timely and forceful fashion led to World War II underlies much American
discourse on Iran or Russia.
Pearl Harbor (and the 1929 crash) not only led
to a sense of foreboding and a distrust in the wisdom of political and military
leaders, but it also replaced a strategy of mobilization after war begins, with
a strategy of permanent mobilization. If war might come at any time, and if
another Munich must above all be avoided, then the massive military
establishment that exists today is indispensible. In addition, the U.S.-led
alliance structure that didn't exist prior to World War II is indispensible.
The Soviet Strategic Miscalculation
The Soviet Union had its own Pearl Harbor on
June 22, 1941, when the Germans invaded in spite of the friendship treaty
signed between them in 1939. That treaty was struck for two reasons: First, the
Russians couldn't persuade the British or French to sign an anti-Hitler pact.
Second, a treaty with Hitler would allow the Soviets to move their border
further west without firing a shot. It was a clever move, but not a smart one.
The Soviets made a single miscalculation: They
assumed a German campaign in France would replay the previous Great War. Such
an effort would have exhausted the Germans and allowed the Soviets to attack
them at the time and place of Moscow's choosing. That opportunity never
presented itself. On the contrary, the Germans put themselves in a position to
attack the Soviet Union at a time and place of their choosing. That the moment
of attack was a surprise compounded the challenge, but the real problem was
strategic miscalculation, not simply an intelligence or command failure.
The Soviets had opted for a dynamic foreign
policy of shifting alliances built on assumptions of the various players'
capabilities. A single misstep could lead to catastrophe — an attack at a time
when the Soviet forces had yet to recover from one of Josef Stalin's purges.
The Soviet forces were not ready for an attack, and their strategy collapsed
with France, so the decision for war was entirely Germany's.
What the Soviets took away from the June 1941
invasion was a conviction that political complexity could not substitute for a
robust military. The United States ended World War II with the conviction that
a core reason for that war was the failure of the United States. The Soviets
ended World War II with the belief that their complex efforts at coalition
building and maintaining the balance of power had left them utterly exposed by
one miscalculation on France — one that defied the conventional wisdom.
During the Cold War, the Soviets developed a strategy
that could best be called stolid. Contained by an American-led coalition, the
Soviets preferred satellites to allies. The Warsaw Pact was less an alliance
than a geopolitical reality. For the most part it consisted of states under the
direct military, intelligence or political control of the Soviet Union. The
military value of the block might be limited, and its room for maneuver was
equally limited. Nonetheless, Soviet forces could be relied on, and the Warsaw
Pact, unlike NATO, was a geographical reality that Soviet forces used to
guarantee that no invasion by the United States or NATO was possible.
Obviously, the Soviets — like the Americans — remained vigilant for a nuclear
attack, but it has been noted that the Soviet system was significantly less
sophisticated than that of the Americans. Part of this imbalance was related to
technological capabilities. A great deal of it had to do with the fact that
nuclear attack was not the Soviet's primordial fear, though the fear must not
be minimized. The primordial fear in Moscow was an attack from the West. The
Soviet Union's strategy was to position its own forces as far to the west as
possible.
Consider this in contrast to the Soviet
relations with China. Ideologically, China ought to have been a powerful ally,
but the alliance was souring by the mid-1950s. The Soviets were not ideologues.
They were geopoliticians, and China represented a potential threat that the
Soviets could not control. Ideology didn't matter. China would never serve the
role that Poland had to. The Sino-Soviet relationship fell apart fairly
quickly.
The Soviet public did not develop the American
dread that beneath peace and prosperity lurked the seeds of disaster. Soviet
expectations of life were far more modest than those of Americans, and the
expectation that the state would avert disaster was limited. The state
generated disaster. At the same time, the war revealed — almost from the
beginning — a primordial love of country, hidden for decades under the ideology
of internationalism, that re-emerged spontaneously. Beneath communist fervor,
cynical indifference and dread of the Soviet secret police, the Russians found
something new while the Americans found something old.
France's Fall Surprises Britain
As for the British, their miscalculation on
France changed little. They were stunned by the rapid collapse of France, but
perhaps also relieved that they would not fight in French trenches again. The
collapse of France caused them to depend on only two things: One was that the
English Channel, combined with the fleet and the Royal Air Force, would hold
the Germans at bay. The second was that in due course, the United States would
be drawn into the war. Their two calculations proved correct.
However, the United Kingdom was not one of the
ultimate winners of the war. It may not have been occupied by the Germans, but
it was essentially by the Americans. This was a very different occupation, and
one the British needed, but the occupation of Britain by foreign forces,
regardless of how necessary and benign, spelled the end of the British Empire
and of Britain as a major power. The Americans did not take the British Empire.
It was taken away by the shocking performance of the French. On paper, the French
had an excellent army — superior to the Germans, in many ways. Yet they
collapsed in weeks. If we were to summarize the British sensibility, after
defiance came exhaustion and then resentment.
Some of these feelings are gone now. The
Americans retain their dread even though World War II was in many ways good to
the United States. It ended the Great Depression, and in the aftermath, between
the G.I. Bill, VA loans and the Interstate Highway System, the war created the
American professional middle class, with private homes for many and distance
and space that could be accessed easily. And yet the dread remains, not always
muted. This generation's Pearl Harbor was 9/11. Fear that security and
prosperity is built on a base of sand is not an irrational fear.
For the Russians, the feelings of patriotism
still lurk beneath the cynicism. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the
collapse of Russia's sphere of influence have not resulted in particularly
imaginative strategic moves. On the contrary, Russian President Vladimir
Putin's response to Ukraine was as stolid as Stalin's or Leonid Brezhnev's.
Rather than a Machiavellian genius, Putin is the heir to the German invasion on
June 22, 1941. He seeks strategic depth controlled by his own military. And his
public has rallied to him.
As for the British, they once had an empire.
They now have an island. It remains to be seen if they hold onto all of it,
given the strength of the Scottish nationalists.
While we are celebrating the end of World War
II, it is useful to examine its beginnings. So much of what constitutes the
political-military culture, particularly of the Americans, was forged by the
way that World War II began. Pearl Harbor and the American view of Munich have
been the framework for thinking not only about foreign relations and war, but
also about living in America. Not too deep under the surface there is a sense
that all good things eventually must go wrong. Much of this comes from the
Great Depression and much from Pearl Harbor. The older optimism is still there,
but the certainty of manifest success is deeply tempered.
George Friedman, Stratfor, May 12, 2015
"World
War II and the Origins of American Unease is republished with
permission of Stratfor."
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