Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

The agreement of September 30, 1941, provided that, in the next nine months, the Anglo-Americans would send to the Soviet Union 1,050,000 tons of supplies, including 300 fighting planes, 100 bombers, and 500 tanks a month. Up to that moment Russia had purchased about $100,000,000 of supplies in the United States with its own money, had obtained $29,000,000 in supplies from United States loans to be repaid in future deliveries of gold bullion, and had obtained from Britain considerable supplies, including 450 planes, 3,000,000 pairs of boots, and 22,000 tons

of rubber. But financing the new Moscow agreement was quite a different task, and could be done only under Lend-Lease. By the end of November, Roosevelt was able to get American public opinion, and especially American Catholic opinion, to reduce its objections to such a step sufficiently to allow him to establish it.

As with Lend-Lease aid to Britain, such aid to Soviet Russia raised the problem of how supplies could be delivered. In the first two years of Lend-Lease, 46 percent of the total shipped went across the Pacific to Siberia in Soviet ships; 23 percent took the 76-day route to the Persian Gulf to go north over the completely inadequate trans-Iranian route; 41 percent took the 12-day sea route to Murmansk or Archangel. The dangers of this last route can be seen from the fact that 21 percent of the cargoes on it were lost by German attack, partly by submarines and surface raiders, but chiefly by air attacks from Finnish and Norwegian bases. The horrors of this northern route to Russia are almost beyond description. In the summer, twenty-four hours of light each day allowed attacks to be continuous; in the winter water temperature was so low that torpedoed seamen could survive no more than a few minutes in it. And in both seasons there was no relief at the end of the voyage, for the Russian ports were within easy bombing range of German air bases under conditions of visibility (notably surrounding hills and poor Soviet cooperation) which allowed only a few seconds’ warning before any attack.

XV. WORLD WAR II: THE EBB OF AGGRESSION, 1941-1945

The Rising Sun in the Pacific, to 1942

The Turning Tide, 1942-1943: Midway, El Alamein,

French Africa, and Stalingrad

Closing in on Germany, 1943-1945

Closing in on Japan, 1943-1945

The Rising Sun in the Pacific, to 1942

Traditionally American policy in the Far East had sought to preserve the territorial integrity and political independence of China and to maintain an “Open Door” for China’s foreign trade. These goals became increasingly difficult to achieve in the course of the twentieth century because of the growing weakness of China itself, the steady growth of aggression in Japan, and the deepening involvement of other Powers with Far Eastern interests in a life-or-death struggle with Germany. After the fall of France and the Low Countries in the summer of 1940, Britain could offer the United States little more than sympathy and some degree of diplomatic support in the Far East, while the Netherlands and France, with rich colonial possessions within reach of Japan’s avid grasp, could provide no real opposition to Japan’s demands. After Hitler’s attack on Russia in June 1941, the Soviet Union, which had actually fought Japanese forces in the Far East in 1938 and again in 1939, could exert no pressure on Japan to deter further Nipponese aggression. Thus, by the summer of 1941, Japan was ready for new advances in the Far East, and only the United States was in a position to resist.

This situation was complicated by the domestic political divisions within the United States and Japan. In general, these divisions tended to postpone any showdown between the two Powers. On the one hand, the American government had developed a fissure between its military strategic plans and its diplomatic activities, just at the time when isolationist opinion within the country was making its most vociferous objections to the Administration’s policies in both these fields. On the other hand, the Japanese government was by no means united, either on the direction or on the timing of its next moves. The divisions in public opinion within the United States and even within the Roosevelt Administration are obvious enough to Americans, but the equally great divisions in Japan are largely ignored. It should be recognized by Americans today, as it was recognized by the Japanese leaders at the time, that the Japanese aggressions of 1941 which culminated in the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th were based on fear and weakness and not on arrogance and strength. To be sure, the earlier aggressions which began in Manchuria in 1931 and in North China in 1937 had been arrogant enough. The Japanese had been supremely confident of their ability to conquer all China, if necessary, even as late as 1939. As a consequence, their advance had been accompanied by brutality against the Chinese, by various actions to drive all Europeans and all European economic enterprises out of China, and by insults and humiliations to Europeans found in China, especially in Shanghai.

By 1939 all of this was beginning to change. The attack on China had bogged down completely. The Japanese economy was beginning to totter under a combination of circumstances, including the exhausting effort to strangle China and to administer a fatal blow to the retreating Chinese government by octopus tactics, the reorganization of Japan’s home industry from a light basis to a heavy industrial plant (for which Japan lacked the necessary resources), the gigantic capital investment in Manchuria and North China, the growing restrictions on Japanese trade imposed by Western countries, and, finally, the combination of a rapidly growing population with acute material shortages. Problems such as these might have driven many nations, even in the West, to desperate action. In Japan the situation was made more critical by the large-scale diversion of manpower and resources from consumption to capital-formation at a very high rate. And, finally, all this was taking place in a country which placed a high esteem on military arrogance.

In theory, of course, Japan might have sought to remedy its material shortages in a peaceful way, by seeking to increase Japan’s foreign trade, exporting increasing amounts of Japanese goods to pay for rising Japanese imports. In fact, such a policy had obvious weaknesses. The world depression after 1929 and the growth of economic autarchy in all countries, including the United States, made it very difficult to increase Japanese exports. The excessively high American Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1930, although not so intended, seemed to the Japanese to be an aggressive restriction on their ability to live. The “imperial preference” regulations of the British Commonwealth had a similar consequence. Since Japan could not defend itself against such economic measures, it resorted to political measures. To do otherwise would have been contrary to Japanese traditions. But, by embarking on this course, Japan was heading in a direction which could hardly have a favorable outcome. If Japan adopted political measures to defend itself against economic restrictions, the Western Powers would inevitably defend themselves with even greater economic restrictions on Japan, driving Japan, by a series of such stages, to open war. And, in such a war, in view of its economic weakness, Japan could hardly hope to win. These stages were confused and delayed over a full decade of years (1931-1941), by indecision and divided counsels in both Japan and the Western Powers. In the process Japan found a considerable advantage in the parallel aggressions of Italy and Germany. It also found a considerable disadvantage in the fact that Japan’s imports were vital necessities to her, while her exports were vital necessities to no one. This meant that Japan’s trade could be cut off or reduced by anyone, to Japan’s great injury, but at much smaller cost to the other nation.