Does US ever take over the Allied faction?

[Pro_Consul]

On this part I'd say that's because for Americans there is such a thing as an unacceptable peace. That can mean many different things for different people but Americans generally will not accept a "peace" in which the Nazis can run rampant, and more modern-day Americans usually will not accept a "peace" where terrorists have a decent chance of striking on American soil when it can be prevented, or another country gets away with the kinds of things we can't talk about on this forum. The US proper being generally safe from conventional war plays a part in what you're perceiving, but Americans are also inherently morally motivated. Whereas Europe has a history of power struggles for the sake of power, corruption, etc. everything in America has been motivated by a "cause" of some sort, whether that's defending freedom and democracy in the War for Independence, defeating slavery in the American Civil War, or defeating the Nazis in World War II.

Umm....no. Not remotely true. In fact, it is totally contrary to historical reality. The majority of the US populace was dead set against fighting the Nazis (or anyone else for that matter), even as the democracies of Europe were falling one by one to German and Italian invasions. Isolationism, remember? It was a thing.

The USA entered WWII not to fight for some noble or moral cause. They declared war because they were royally and completely pissed off after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. It was France and the UK who showed the only moral backbone in WWII, standing up to Hitler's aggression after they (finally!) saw how rapacious Hitler's ambitions were. And even there the spine grew in a bit late for the patient to avoid serious secondary trauma - in other words their moral stand came too late to achieve its desired outcome because they started out by repeatedly cringing away from any hint of real conflict.

Edited to add: that statement about "only moral backbone" went too far. I realized the moment I committed the post. The peoples in many of the nations under Nazi occupation showed almost unbelievable morality and humanity, despite all the nastiness heaped upon them.

 

[Tacticus101]

Meaning?

Well, you just implied that the USA is some great moral crusader whilst the rest of the world fights selfish and corrupt wars. You will find that the rest of the world finds that insulting, arrogant and wrong; exactly the reputation Americans tend to have.

 

[hkrommel]

Well, you just implied that the USA is some great moral crusader whilst the rest of the world fights selfish and corrupt wars. You will find that the rest of the world finds that insulting, arrogant and wrong; exactly the reputation Americans tend to have.

Quote where I said that. Haven't you learned not to infer on the internet?

 

[cellinis]

On this part I'd say that's because for Americans there is such a thing as an unacceptable peace. That can mean many different things for different people but Americans generally will not accept a "peace" in which the Nazis can run rampant, and more modern-day Americans usually will not accept a "peace" where terrorists have a decent chance of striking on American soil when it can be prevented, or another country gets away with the kinds of things we can't talk about on this forum.

1. Actually, historically, until Pearl Harbor, Americans (with a few exceptions) did accept a 'peace' where Nazis ran rampant in Europe much as pretty much nobody lifted a finger after the massacre of Nanjing.

2. I'd say nobody, no country, no civilization will accept peace where its own population is threatened continuously. The question is whether you accept 'peace' where populations other than your own are under threat?

 

[hkrommel]

1. Actually, historically, until Pearl Harbor, Americans (with a few exceptions) did accept a 'peace' where Nazis ran rampant in Europe much as pretty much nobody lifted a finger after the massacre of Nanjing.

There's actually some evidence against this, mostly in old Gallup polls. Roosevelt had been maneuvering the US towards war and the populace was significantly warmed to it by the time Pearl Harbor happened. While certainly Pearl Harbor was the focusing event that led to war, it's likely that the US would have entered eventually regardless, just like in World War I.

2. I'd say nobody, no country, no civilization will accept peace where its own population is threatened continuously. The question is whether you accept 'peace' where populations other than your own are under threat?

I agree, I was responding to the "pacifism" claim. As for the second part, for Americans the answer pretty often is "no," depending on the capabilities the United States possesses. Vietnam and Korea are good examples of intervention where the threat was to other people, and the Spanish-American war was justified that way. That isn't to say Americans always want to intervene when others are under threat, but I would say we generally have more appetite for it.

 

[Tacticus101]

Quote where I said that. Haven't you learned not to infer on the internet?

Uh, how about:

Americans are also inherently morally motivated. Whereas Europe has a history of power struggles for the sake of power, corruption, etc.

I mean, you are arguing that the Americans have some sort of some sort of "moral motivation" in their wars and actions that the rest of the world doesn't have are you not?

 

[kettyo]

More accurately there's always *every history ever recounted by anyone*, and then the real one which nobody knows.

So true.

 

[Pro_Consul]

I agree, I was responding to the "pacifism" claim. As for the second part, for Americans the answer pretty often is "no," depending on the capabilities the United States possesses. Vietnam and Korea are good examples of intervention where the threat was to other people, and the Spanish-American war was justified that way. That isn't to say Americans always want to intervene when others are under threat, but I would say we generally have more appetite for it.

Umm....no. We didn't fight in Vietnam or Korea to selflessly, morally protect the innocent people under threat from their neighbors' aggression. We fought them because they served our own strategic interests (as we saw them at the time) in containing the spread of our adversaries' regional influence. Falling dominoes and all that. Generally speaking the USA never goes to war merely to protect other threatened peoples. That line may occasionally be pitched to the more gullible elements of the populace, but it is almost never actually a factor at all.

Spanish American War - we had no interest in protecting Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Filipinos from Spanish aggression. We just wanted Spain's nose OUT of our hemisphere and saw the opportunity to spread our own influence in the Pacific in the process.

Both World Wars we tried to stay completely out of, until it became a practical impossibility to remain neutral any longer.

Vietnam and Korea: fought merely to slow the spread of "communism" (read: Soviet and Chinese influence) across Asia.

Iraq 1: we weren't about to let a single greedy dictator gobble up the main source of almost all our oil imports and then be able to hold us hostage as a result

Afghanistan: we were massively pissed off over 9/11

Iraq 2: Bush and Cheney had a burr up their butts about Saddam Hussein since before they ever go into office

And so on and so on. The US generally only goes to war for one of two reasons: to protect our own national interests, or because someone really, REALLY pissed us off. I am not aware of a single time in our entire history as a nation that we have gone to war where one of those two motives wasn't the primary reason.

 

[browd]

No dispute about the "real" motivations for Americans to go to war, but remember that Americans have a long history of pursuing wars with two, often conflicting, aims or motivations. One is a "moral" (for lack of a better word) aim that is intended to appeal to the public's (perhaps peculiarly American) conceit about "American exceptionalism" -- that the U.S. is a shining "City on a Hill" -- to justify the war to the public. Of course, the "earthier," more "pragmatic" or "selfish" (struggling to find the right word) aim arguably provides the "real" impulse to war. The "moral" aim is used to galvanize public support for the war, inspiring the sort of patriotic self-sacrifice that is vital to any war effort, while the other is always downplayed in public.

You see this pattern in war after war, whether we are "Making the World Safe for Democracy" (WWI) or urging our citizens to "Triumph over Tyranny", "Save Freedom of Worship" and "Defend the Right to be Free" (all from WWII), or to remember that "Freedom is not Free' (Korea). Yes, this is all propaganda, but designed to tap into Americans' sense (however undeserved) of moral virtue. When all this is repeated in classrooms and in political rhetoric, it's no wonder that Americans end up believing that their wars are somehow more "morally justifiable" than other countries' wars.

 

[spartansociety]

No dispute about the "real"
When all this is repeated in classrooms and in political rhetoric, it's no wonder that Americans end up believing that their wars are somehow more "morally justifiable" than other countries' wars.

Which is an interesting point. In Australia the history curriculum basically avoids this. Kids tend to be surprised that we fought ww1 out of a concern for maintaining the British Empire and expected Britain to protect us in WW2.

If there is a nationalist narrative in Australian education, it is about the ANZAC soldier being superior to everyone else.

 

[kettyo]

Rommel, Fury and Pearl Harbour are the two Hollywood films that spring to mind. Pearl Habour's ending is especially cringe worthy. But it is also just the quantity of big budget films that deal with the American experience that give a distorted view. Flags of our Fathers, Letters from Iwo Jima, Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers are all great, but off the top of my head the only big films I can think of that are not based on the American experience are Inglorious Bastards, Stalingrad and Black Book.

I guess Stalingrad had a much smaller budget than the Hollywood blockbusters mentioned yet it is a much better movie than those.

I'll never forget that ending. The best of the kind.

 

[kettyo]

The US generally only goes to war for one of two reasons: to protect our own national interests, or because someone really, REALLY pissed us off. I am not aware of a single time in our entire history as a nation that we have gone to war where one of those two motives wasn't the primary reason.

Only very naive people think it's otherwise.

I'd also add national interests mostly mean interests of power circles and elite groups.

 

[Lawsford_Soren]

Umm....no. We didn't fight in Vietnam or Korea to selflessly, morally protect the innocent people under threat from their neighbors' aggression. We fought them because they served our own strategic interests (as we saw them at the time) in containing the spread of our adversaries' regional influence. Falling dominoes and all that. Generally speaking the USA never goes to war merely to protect other threatened peoples. That line may occasionally be pitched to the more gullible elements of the populace, but it is almost never actually a factor at all.

Spanish American War - we had no interest in protecting Cubans, Puerto Ricans and Filipinos from Spanish aggression. We just wanted Spain's nose OUT of our hemisphere and saw the opportunity to spread our own influence in the Pacific in the process.

Both World Wars we tried to stay completely out of, until it became a practical impossibility to remain neutral any longer.

Vietnam and Korea: fought merely to slow the spread of "communism" (read: Soviet and Chinese influence) across Asia.

Iraq 1: we weren't about to let a single greedy dictator gobble up the main source of almost all our oil imports and then be able to hold us hostage as a result

Afghanistan: we were massively pissed off over 9/11

Iraq 2: Bush and Cheney had a burr up their butts about Saddam Hussein since before they ever go into office

And so on and so on. The US generally only goes to war for one of two reasons: to protect our own national interests, or because someone really, REALLY pissed us off. I am not aware of a single time in our entire history as a nation that we have gone to war where one of those two motives wasn't the primary reason.

There was one conflict in which the United States had nothing to gain and wasn't "pissed off" over, the Somali Civil War.

 

[RedPaladin50]

Well, you just implied that the USA is some great moral crusader whilst the rest of the world fights selfish and corrupt wars. You will find that the rest of the world finds that insulting, arrogant and wrong; exactly the reputation Americans tend to have.

It's very naive and stupid to generalize the population of America of being arrogant. We take a lot of pride of our country's accomplishments but that does not mean all of us are stuck up and talk down on other nations. That is only a stereotype and many of the people enjoy exploring different cultures and traveling overseas.

In the case of wars you must remember that WW1 was a very selfish and corrupt war with Monarchs vying for power, bickering over silly land disputes and spheres of influences at the expense of millions of people, while America had been thriving in the recent years. While the U.S did eventually enter the conflict it's citizens found a new sense moral responsibility of trying to help the Allies win the war to end the suffering even though isolationism still set in soon afterwards.

Just because America uses their morality to fight wars does not mean they see themselves morally superior to others (unless they are the enemy). If Americans were so selfish, arrogant, and self centered they wouldn't bother trying to fight for others.

 

[Pro_Consul]

There was one conflict in which the United States had nothing to gain and wasn't "pissed off" over, the Somali Civil War.

That wasn't "war". That was a few companies of troops, not entire divisions, let alone armies. The media attention magnified that brief and small conflict far beyond its reality. And it was the disproportionate media attention, not the military reality, that resulted in the US withdrawal from attempts to intervene militarily.

 

[browd]

And in the Somali civil war, the peacekeeping forces (which included U.S. forces) were dispatched under the auspices of a UN resolution (to facilitate the resumption of humanitarian aid) -- not solely U.S. intervention. Just as it was technically NATO that dispatched forces (including U.S. forces) to the Balkans later in the 1990s.

 

[hkrommel]

I mean, you are arguing that the Americans have some sort of some sort of "moral motivation" in their wars and actions that the rest of the world doesn't have are you not?

Nope. Allow me to clarify. My point was twofold. Firstly, that Americans have a history of fighting for causes out of moral justification. Whether these wars are actually fought for moral reasons is beside the point, since the point is that the motivation among common Americans is of the "just cause" variety. Therefore Americans are more likely to view warfare as being justified by some greater cause than material gain or some similar motivation. Secondly, that Europe has much more of a history of wars that are fought over material, amoral justifications. This ranges from medieval inheritance rights to convoluted alliances starting World War I. In such an environment it is far easier to be cynical about war since wars in the European experience are less likely to be fought for moral reasons, or at least couched in moral terms, simply by sheer percentage. Is that a sufficient clarification? Again I'm not saying American wars are moral, or that Europeans somehow don't care about morality, I'm simply pointing out differences in the two experiences and how one lends itself to one attitude and the other leads to another attitude entirely.

We didn't fight in Vietnam or Korea to selflessly, morally protect the innocent people under threat from their neighbors' aggression. We fought them because they served our own strategic interests (as we saw them at the time) in containing the spread of our adversaries' regional influence. Falling dominoes and all that. Generally speaking the USA never goes to war merely to protect other threatened peoples. That line may occasionally be pitched to the more gullible elements of the populace, but it is almost never actually a factor at all.

You're actually agreeing with me, believe it or not, but you won't see that if you only respond to portions of what I'm saying rather than the complete whole. See above. In addition, it's possible to have more than one reason to go to war. For example, Iraq 1 was fought for both economic and moral (liberation of Kuwait) reasons. One doesn't exclude the other, and only a fool assumes the most cynical option is automatically the only one that can be true when neither can be proven or disproven as the primary motivation in the vast majority of instances.

No dispute about the "real" motivations for Americans to go to war, but remember that Americans have a long history of pursuing wars with two, often conflicting, aims or motivations. One is a "moral" (for lack of a better word) aim that is intended to appeal to the public's (perhaps peculiarly American) conceit about "American exceptionalism" -- that the U.S. is a shining "City on a Hill" -- to justify the war to the public. Of course, the "earthier," more "pragmatic" or "selfish" (struggling to find the right word) aim arguably provides the "real" impulse to war. The "moral" aim is used to galvanize public support for the war, inspiring the sort of patriotic self-sacrifice that is vital to any war effort, while the other is always downplayed in public.

You see this pattern in war after war, whether we are "Making the World Safe for Democracy" (WWI) or urging our citizens to "Triumph over Tyranny", "Save Freedom of Worship" and "Defend the Right to be Free" (all from WWII), or to remember that "Freedom is not Free' (Korea). Yes, this is all propaganda, but designed to tap into Americans' sense (however undeserved) of moral virtue. When all this is repeated in classrooms and in political rhetoric, it's no wonder that Americans end up believing that their wars are somehow more "morally justifiable" than other countries' wars.

Again, I don't see how both couldn't be reasons for war. It's entirely possible to be motivated by more than one concern, and since none of us on this forum were privy to the inner thoughts of Woodrow Wilson or Harry Truman it seems to be a bit arrogant to assume they solely had one motivation, does it not? To be clear I'm not making a statement towards either method of reasoning for warfare, but simply calling into question this tendency to always assume the more cynical to be true simply due to its cynicism. People often assume that people in power are Frank Underwood types when that's simply inaccurate, a great many powerful people do have moral motivations for their actions, at least in part.


Anyways this has gotten far enough off topic as-is so if any of you would like to continue this conversation feel free to PM me

 

[Pro_Consul]

You're actually agreeing with me, believe it or not, but you won't see that if you only respond to portions of what I'm saying rather than the complete whole. See above. In addition, it's possible to have more than one reason to go to war. For example, Iraq 1 was fought for both economic and moral (liberation of Kuwait) reasons. One doesn't exclude the other, and only a fool assumes the most cynical option is automatically the only one that can be true when neither can be proven or disproven as the primary motivation in the vast majority of instances.

Umm...more nonsense. When you have countless examples of peoples needing protection or liberation with the USA turning a blind eye, and every single instance of them NOT turning a blind eye just happened to also involve a strategic interest or major national firestorm of irkdom, you cannot pretend there is no rational conclusion to be drawn. The said rational conclusion is this: barring a strategic interest or national rage, the USA never goes to war, no matter how much anyone needs protection or liberation. Not. Once. Ever. You can talk all you like about proving or disproving nonsensical theories, but that one simple fact you cannot escape - what you claim has never happened. Ever. If you can point to a single war that the USA fought for purely liberation or protection purposes, where no national interests were at stake and nobody had royally pissed off the American people, then and only then will your position stop looking like pro-US propaganda.

 

[Tacticus101]

Nope. Allow me to clarify. My point was twofold. Firstly, that Americans have a history of fighting for causes out of moral justification. Whether these wars are actually fought for moral reasons is beside the point, since the point is that the motivation among common Americans is of the "just cause" variety. Therefore Americans are more likely to view warfare as being justified by some greater cause than material gain or some similar motivation. Secondly, that Europe has much more of a history of wars that are fought over material, amoral justifications. This ranges from medieval inheritance rights to convoluted alliances starting World War I. In such an environment it is far easier to be cynical about war since wars in the European experience are less likely to be fought for moral reasons, or at least couched in moral terms, simply by sheer percentage. Is that a sufficient clarification? Again I'm not saying American wars are moral, or that Europeans somehow don't care about morality, I'm simply pointing out differences in the two experiences and how one lends itself to one attitude and the other leads to another attitude entirely.

I see. That's still a little insulting.

I disagree profusely though, if you look at European propaganda and justifications for war in the last 300 years, it is exceptionally rare for anyone to claim a war was for "money" or because we are allied to the Russians. Most wars were justified as responding to aggression, protecting your Citizens and traders or stopping some evil empire. Hell, even the expansion of the British Empire in Africa was justified as "bringing civilisation and peace to the world". Persuading your people to support a war by making it "moral" or claiming god is on your side is hardly unique to the USA, if anything it is more common in Europe (and the rest of the world) as countries devastated by war are not very enthusiastic to start another.

That I think is the primary difference between Europeans and Americans. The US has never seen the sort of devastation or civilian casualties that Europe has, the last large scale war you fought on your own soil was your Civil War. It is much harder to portray war as glorious or heroic when there are so many memories and monuments still around. It is also hard to portray your enemies as the villains when they are your neighbours. It also is probably why a lot of Europeans (and everyone else who fought) resent it when people from the US talk about winning the war or give the impression (even accidently) of superiority, it is an issue a lot of people care about.

 

[Lawsford_Soren]

That wasn't "war". That was a few companies of troops, not entire divisions, let alone armies. The media attention magnified that brief and small conflict far beyond its reality. And it was the disproportionate media attention, not the military reality, that resulted in the US withdrawal from attempts to intervene militarily.

I actually don't watch media, I was merely told according to a friend from the U.S., I would unlikely see such a broadcast anyway as I lived in Germany at the time.

I'm still surprised not many people have discussed having the leader of a faction change if they capitulated, honestly if the United Kingdom did fall to Germany, the new leader of the Allied faction should be the United States (Or France, if Sea Lion was done first), picking and choosing who to include in your faction and any other faction affairs should be left to a nation that can still fight. I also think the leader of a faction should temporarily puppet any defeated nations in their faction and control a defeated nation's puppets as well.