December 7th

Tomorrow is December 7th, a day that shall live in infamy.  Lest we forget, it is the day that brought the US into World War II.  For most of us we only know what we see in the history books, but it is the 9/11 of my parents and my grandparents generation.

It is the day a nation, that prided itself on its warrior culture and honor, apparently allowed the Army and Navy to pursue a plan of deception to begin this conflict.  (Howard W. French (December 9, 1999). "Pearl Harbor Truly a Sneak Attack, Papers Show". The New York Times.)  Popular history has always said they just screwed up the timing and initiated its attacks before it declared itself.  According to Wikipedia, 2,402 US personnel were killed and 1,282 were wounded.  It also indicated that 65 Japanese were killed and one was captured.

This singular event spun a nation that had mixed feeling about global engagement into what is today a global super power.  With our industrial capacity we were able to replace allied losses of material and dominate the global struggle.  The Axis powers of Germany and Italy joined with Japan were never in a position to make up for that disadvantage.  It would be an interesting speculation on what alternative course the world would have taken if Germany and Italy had not declared war on us.

So where are we some 69 years later?  Well, for one thing we clearly don't have the industrial capacity we had then.  We've shut down most of our critical manufacturing plants and moved those industries overseas.  One has only to look at the number of textile plants we have, or the number of heavy industry plants like steel to realize we are no longer self sufficient.  I would think our jobless rates reflect we are becoming a nation of services, dependent on others, just as Great Britain was dependent on Empire at the onset of the second great war.  There are only so many McDonalds jobs available if only 1 in 15 is actually producing a product that will bring in profit from the global market.

We no longer have the natural resources we had back then.  We've never been keen on the commitment to renewing our environment when it interfered with profit. As the economy has become more and more dependent on hydrocarbon based natural resources the dependance on those countries with access to them has increased.  Clearly our foreign policies must take into account the relationships we have with them as we determine what is in our national interest.

National will, in the 1942 we were willing to commit to whatever it took and our citizens were asked to make significant sacrifices.  After 9/11 our leaders made the commitment to pursue a vague and uncertain enemy, but not to ask our citizens to alter their life styles to accomplish this.  So it should not be surprising that a nation that has become dependent on fast food, would lose interest and demand a change, just as they did in the Viet Nam conflict.

I would recommend a book called On Strategy by Harry Summers should be reviewed so we understand that none of our leaders seem to know or recognize the Strategic issues we face, choosing rather to focus on the Tactical problems because they are easier to deal with.