Colossus

by Niall Ferguson

  100. Horlacher, “Language”, p. 42.

  101. Pratt, Americas Colonial Experiment, p. 115f.

  102. Boot, Savage Wars, pp. 60–62.

  103. Ibid., p. 133. The new Republic’s first constitution was drafted in a Washington hotel room; its first flag was sewn together in Highland Falls, New York: Black, Good Neighbor, p. 17.

  104. Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex, p. 290. See also Robert Freeman Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 100f.

  105. Black, Good Neighbor, p. 19f.

  106. Pratt, America’s Colonial Experiment, p. 132. Cf. Maddison, World Economy, p. 63.

  107. Cole, America’s Foreign Relations, p. 325.

  108. Pratt, America’s Colonial Experiment, p. 137.

  109. Robert Freeman Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 108.

  110. Pratt, America’s Colonial Experiment, p. 119.

  111. Ibid., p. 121.

  112. Cole, America’s Foreign Relations, p. 313.

  113. Robert Freeman Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 102.

  114. Boot, Savage Wars, p. 137f.

  115. Cole, America’s Foreign Relations, p. 316.

  116. May, American Imperialism, p. 214.

  117. Pratt, America’s Colonial Experiment, pp. 127–30.

  118. Ibid., p. 150f.

  119. Ibid., p. 151.

  120. According to one account, over three thousand Haitians were killed by the Americans: Robert Freeman Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 108.

  121. Pratt, Americas Colonial Experiment, pp. 143–47.

  122. Cole, America’s Foreign Relations, p. 323f.

  123. Black, Good Neighbor, p. 35.

  124. Ibid., p. 56.

  125. Boot, Savage Wars, pp. 231–35.

  126. Ibid., p. 249.

  127. Black, Good Neighbor, p. 46.

  128. Robert Freeman Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” pp. 112–15.

  129. Black, Good Neighbor, p. 71.

  130. Schmidt, Maverick Marine, p. 231.

  131. Cole, America’s Foreign Relations, pp. 326–28.

  132. Boot, Savage Wars, pp. 182–85, 188f.

  133. Ibid., pp. 193–200.

  134. Ibid., p. 204.

  135. Cole, Americas Foreign Relations, p. 328.

  136. Boot, Savage Wars, p. 203. In 1920 General Alvaro Obregon seized power; both Carranza and Villa were gunned down within a few years.

  137. The Calvo Doctrine explicitly rejected the idea that foreign subjects or companies had claims to “extraterritorial” le-gal status. In truth, Central America was more Balkan than Bolshevik, as the journalist Frank L. Kluckhohn noted in 1937: Black, Good Neighbor, p. 73.

  138. Robert Freeman Smith, “Latin America, the United States and the European Powers,” p. 109f.

  139. Julien, America’s Empire, p. 14.

  CHAPTER 2: THE IMPERIALISM OF ANTI-IMPERIALISM

  1. Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse 5, p. 53f.

  2. Gaddis, We Now Know, p. 109.

  3. Ambrose, Rise to Globalism.

  4. For a good recent account, see Ramsay, Lusitania.

  5. Roskin, “Generational Paradigms,” p.566.

  6. Incredibly, the German foreign minister Arthur Zimmermann sent the fateful telegram to his ambassador in Mexico via the State Departments own cable system (as well as two other routes). The British intercepted the telegram, decoded it and passed it on to the United States, finally forcing Wilson to abandon his policy of neutrality.

  7. Black, Good Neighbor, p. 42.

  8. Louis, Imperialism at Bay, p. 566.

  9. Though it is important not to exaggerate the magnitude of the American contribution to victory in 1918, as does Mosier, Myth of the Great War. See my Pity of War, p. 312f.; also Zieger, Americas Great War, pp. 97–114.

  10. A view substantially endorsed after Wilson’s death by the Nye Committee.

  11. Knock, To End All Wars, p. 35.

  12. Ibid., p. 77.

  13. Ibid., p. 113.

  14. Ibid., p. 143ff.

  15. Ibid., p. 152.

  16. Bacevich, Empire, p. 225.

  17. Zimmermann, First Great Triumph, p. 476.

  18. Dallas, 1918, pp. 371–77, 393–417.

  19. Quoted in Karnow, Vietnam, p. 14.

  20. Melosi, Pearl Harbor, passim. For detail on the attacks, see Clarke, Pearl Harbor, pp. 276–83.

  21. Melosi, Pearl Harbor, p. ix.

  22. Louis, Imperialism at Bay, pp. 226f., 356.

  23. Kagan, Paradise and Power, p. 71.

  24. Louis, Imperialism at Bay, p. 26.

  25. Ibid., p. 150.

  26. Anderson, United States, Great Britain and the Cold War, p. 4.

  27. Louis, Imperialism at Bay, p. 198.

  28. Ibid., pp. 271–73.

  29. Ibid., pp. 353–56.

  30. Ibid., p. 351.

  31. Ibid.

  32. Quoted in Hanson, American Empire, p. 64.

  33. Lundestad, American “Empire,” p. 39.

  34. Ibid.

  35. “President Bush’s Address to the Nation,” New York Times, September 7, 2003.

  36. Dower, Embracing Defeat, p. 79.

  37. Ibid., p. 80f.

  38. Ibid., p. 27.

  39. Bailey, Postwar Japan, p. 29.

  40. Dower, Embracing Defeat, p. 38f.; Bailey, Postwar Japan, p. 27f.

  41. Bailey, Postwar Japan, pp. 24–27.

  42. Ibid., p. 41f.

  43. Ibid., pp. 32–34; Dower, Embracing Defeat, p. 223. To be precise, the Japanese Foreign Ministry established a Central Liaison Office, which mediated between MacArthur and the Japanese bureaucracy.

  44. Dower, Embracing Defeat, p. 223.

  45. Bailey, Postwar Japan, p. 29.

  46. Dower, Embracing Defeat, p.204.

  47. Ibid., p. 209.

  48. Bailey, Postwar Japan, p. 25.

  49. Ibid., p. 36f.

  50. It was estimated that before the war ten zaibatsu had controlled—via sixty-seven holding companies and over four thousand subsidiaries—three-quarters of Japans nonagricultural economy.

  51. Bailey, Postwar Japan, p. 30.

  52. Ibid., p. 23f.

  53. Dower, Embracing Defeat, p. 115.

  54. Wolfe (ed.), Americans as Proconsuls, p.104.

  55. Oppen (ed.), Documents, p. 14.

  56. Gimbel, “Governing the American Zone,” p. 93f.

  57. Ibid., p. 95. Cf. Clay to War Department, September 18, 1945, in Smith (ed.), Clay Papers, p. 82f.

  58. Gimbel, “Governing the American Zone,” pp. 92–97.

  59. See, e.g., Jean Edward Smith (ed.), Clay Papers, p. 174.

  60. Wolfe (ed.), Americans as Proconsuls, p. 112f.

  61. Peterson, “Occupation.”

  62. See, e.g., Gimbel, American Occupation; Backer, Priming the German Economy.

  63. Fullbrook, Divided Nation, pp. 138–50.

  64. Smith (ed.), Clay Papers, p. 172.

  65. Porch, “Occupational Hazards,” p. 37.

  66. Oppen (ed.), Documents, p. 20.

  67. Ibid., pp. 16, 19.

  68. Gimbel, “Governing the American Zone,” p. 93.

  69. Pulzer, German Politics, pp. 29–32.

  70. James F. Byrnes, “Restatement of Policy on Germany,” http:www.usembassy.de/usa/usrelations4555.htm.

  71. Robert Wolfe (ed.), Americans as Proconsuls, p. 105f.

  72. Ibid., p. 109.

  73. Gimbel, “Governing the American Zone,” p. 102.

  74. Oppen (ed.), Documents, p. 375f.

  75. Schlauch, “American Policy,” p. 115.

  76. Oppen (ed.), Documents, p. 21.

  77. Backer, Priming the German Economy, p.37. Cf. Schlauch, “American Policy,” p.115f.

  78. Gimbel, American Occupation, p. 1.

  79. Schlauch, “American Policy,” p. 121. />
  80. Ibid., p. 123.

  81. Oppen (ed.), Documents, p. 93.

  82. Ibid., pp. 152–60

  83. Ibid., pp. 195–99.

  84. Jean Edward Smith (ed.), Clay Papers, p. 143.

  85. Backer, Priming the German Economy, p. 188, table 6.

  86. Davidson, Death and Life of Germany, p. 260f.

  87. See Gimbel, “Governing the American Zone,” pp. 92–96; Schlauch, “American Policy,” p. 125.

  88. The phrase was the British economist Lionel Robbins’s.

  89. Gaddis, We Now Know, p. 20.

  90. President Harry S. Truman’s Address Before a Joint Session of Congress, March 12, 1947, www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/trudoc.htm.

  91. Hoge and Zakaria, American Encounter, pp. 155–70.

  92. Text from http:www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/05/documents/nsc.report.68/.

  93. Lundestad, American “Empire,” p. 44.

  94. Bell, Americanization, p. 3.

  95. Reinstein, “Reparations,” p. 146.

  96. Bailey, Postwar Japan, p. 38.

  97. Ibid., p. 60f.

  98. Ibid., pp. 52–61.

  99. Dower, “Occupied Japan,” p. 487.

  100. The average annual growth rate of West German per capita GDP averaged over 5 percent a year between 1950 and 1973, as against 8 percent in Japan. Greece, Spain and Portugal enjoyed even more rapid growth than Germany in the same period, according to Maddison, World Economy, table A1-d.

  101. Backer, Priming the German Economy, p. 186f.

  102. United States Agency for International Development, Statistics and Reports Division, November 17, 1975.

  103. Backer, Priming the German Economy, pp. 174–78.

  104. In 2001 69,200 U.S. troops were deployed in Germany and 40,200 in Japan, mostly on the island of Okinawa.

  105. Oppen (ed.) Documents, pp. 156–60.

  106. Layne, “America as European Hegemon,” p. 20.

  107. Maddison, World Economy, p. 261, table B-18.

  108. Lundestad, American “Empire,” p. 40.

  109. Schiller, Mass Communications, p. 50.

  110. See esp. Gilpin, Political Economy.

  111. Office of the Undersecretary of Defense (Comptroller), “National Defense Budget Estimates for FY 2004,” (Green Paper), March 2003. Cf. Malkasian, Korean War, p. 13f, 73.

  112. Gaddis, We Now Know, pp. 89, 102f.

  113. University of Michigan, Correlates of War database.

  114. Magdoff, Age of Imperialism, p. 42. For different figures, see Peter H. Smith, Talons of the Eagle, p. 119.

  115. Lundestad, American “Empire,” p. 54.

  116. Ibid., p. 65.

  117. Pei, “Lessons,” p. 52. Oddly, Pei ignores the case of South Korea; admittedly, its transition to democracy came a long time after the intervention.

  118. Witness the vain attempts by Dean Rusk to discourage the emergence of a “Bonn-Paris axis” in 1963: Layne, “America as European Hegemon,” p. 24f.

  119. Stueck, Korean War, p. 26.

  120. Gaddis, We Now Know, p. 71f.

  121. Malkasian, Korean War, p. 15. Cf. Spanier, Truman-MacArthur, p. 257ff.

  122. Malkasian, Korean War, pp. 11–17.

  123. Mueller, War, Presidents and Public Opin-ion, table 3.2, p. 48.

  124. Foot, Wrong War, pp. 189–94.

  125. Malkasian, Korean War, p. 9.

  126 Stueck, Korean War, p. 132f.

  127. This consciousness of European vulnerability had already been clearly expressed in NSC 68, which warned of the danger of “surprise attack” in Europe. Text at http:www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/05/documents/nsc.report.68/.

  128. Gaddis, We Now Know, p. 103.

  129. McCullough, Truman, p. 837.

  130. Ferrell, Truman, p. 330.

  131. Truman, Years of Trial and Hope, p. 467ff. MacArthur invited the Chinese commander in chief to “confer in the field” or face the risk of “an expansion of our military operations to [China’s] coastal areas and interior bases.”

  132. Ibid., 472f. Ferrell, Truman, p. 332.

  133. Ferrell, Truman, p. 334. The mood of panic in Washington was palpable. The rushed press conference happened because Truman and his advisers feared that MacArthur “was going on a world-wide broadcast network” to resign before he could be fired: McCullough, Truman, p. 842.

  134. See Wittner (ed.), MacArthur, pp. 103–08.

  135. McCullough, Truman, pp. 837–50.

  136. Ibid., p. 852.

  137. Truman, Years of Trial and Hope, p. 459.

  138. Ibid., p. 464.

  139. McCullough, Truman, p. 833f.

  140. Foot, Wrong War, p. 23.

  141. McCullough, Truman, p. 853ff.; Ferrell, Truman, p. 335.

  142. McCullough, Truman, p. 854.

  143. Spanier, Truman-MacArthur, p. 273.

  144. For an overly sympathetic account, see Willoughby and Chamberlain, MacArthur, pp. 418–25.

  145. Foot, Wrong War, p. 176. The Chinese were fearful that a large proportion of the POWs would refuse to return home voluntarily.

  146. Ibid., p. 176f.

  147. Ibid., p. 184.

  148. Ibid., p. 25.

  149. Mueller, War, Presidents and Public Opinion, p. 105.

  150. The percentage of U.S. Army personnel killed in action fell from 13.6 percent in the second half of 1950 to just 3.6 percent in 1951 and little more than 1 percent in 1952 and 1953. See the figures in http:/history.amedd.army.mil/booksdocs/korea/reister/ch1.htm.

  151. For Korean War casualty statistics, there are now excellent electronic sources. See http://www.koreanwar-educator.org/old%20site/public_html/toc/detail_casualty/PAGE%20FIVE.htm; http://www.centurychina.com/history/krwarcost.html; and the invaluable http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/war-stat2.htm.

  152. Kissinger, “Reflections on American Diplomacy” p. 50f.

  153. Greene, Quiet American, p. 124.

  154. Ibid., p. 96.

  155. Caputo, Rumor, p. 16.

  156. Ibid., p. 88f.

  157. Baker, Nam, p. 133.

  158. Ferguson, “Prisoner Taking.”

  159. Herring, Longest War, p. 268.

  160. Ibid., p. 192f.

  161. Karnow, Vietnam, p. 19.

  162. Herring, Longest War, p. 268.

  163. Karnow, Vietnam, p. 19.

  164. Ravenal et al., “Was Failure Inevitable?,” p. 268f.

  165. Palmer, Twenty-five Year War, p. 204f

  166. Karnow, Vietnam, p. 20f.

  167. Coker, Conflicts, p. 22.

  168. Palmer, Twenty-five Year War, p. 195.

  169. Ibid., p. 192f.

  170. Though of course there had been mil-itary advisers in Vietnam for some years; the first American to be killed there died as early as 1961. But the direct and overt participation of American forces in the war really dates from 1965.

  171. Mueller, War, Presidents and Public Opinion.

  172. Ravenal, Never Again, p. 106. Cf. Palmer, Twenty-five Year War, p. 190.

  173. Ravenal et al., “Was Failure Inevitable?” p. 275f; Abshire, “Lessons,” p. 406; Karnow, Vietnam, p. 17.

  174. Mueller, War, Presidents and Public Opinion, table 3.2, p. 49.

  175. Edelman, Dear America, p. 205.

  176. Julien, Empire, p. 13.

  177. Edelman, Dear America, p. 207.

  178. Siracusa, “Lessons,” p. 228.

  179. Roskin, “Generational Paradigms,” p. 569.

  180. Siracusa, “Lessons,” p. 228; Gaddis, We Now Know, p. 58.

  181. Herring, Longest War, p. 270.

  182. Siracusa, “Lessons,” p. 233; Roskin, “Generational Paradigms,” p. 575.

  183. Kupchan, End, p. 200. Cf. Lundestad, “Empire,” p. 92.

  184. Herring, Longest War, p. 267.

  185. Gaddis, We Now Know, p. 177; Lowenthal, Partners in Conflict, pp. 31–33.

  186. Swomley, American Empire, p. 1.

  187. Gaddis, We Now Know, pp
. 179, 182. Cf. Lowenthal, Partners in Conflict, pp. 28–30.

  188. Not least because, unknown to the Americans, the Russians had sent tactical nuclear missiles to Cuba, which could have been used to annihilate any invading force.

  189. The best account of the crisis is Fursenko and Naftali, One Hell of a Gamble.

  CHAPTER 3: THE CIVILIZATION OF CLASHES

  1. Statement by Osama bin Laden, October 7, 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1585636.stm.

  2. Woodward, Bush at War, p. 131.

  3. Geoffrey Wheatcroft, “Two Years of Gibberish,” Prospect, September 2003, pp. 30–33.

  4. Knapp, “United States and the Middle East,” pp. 11–13.

  5. Reich, “United States Interests,” p. 56.

  6. Yergin, Prize, pp. 195–97, 204.

  7. Ibid., p.393.

  8. Gause, “U.S.-Saudi Relationship,” p. 344.

  9. Yergin, Prize, p. 401.

  10. Ibid., pp. 403f, 410–16, 427f.

  11. Gause, “U.S.-Saudi Relationship,” p.345.

  12. Reich, “United States Interests,” p. 81.

  13. Gaddis, We Now Know, p. 164.

  14. Reich, “United States Interests,” p. 72.

  15. Ibid., p. 240f.

  16. Rosecrance, “Objectives,” p. 31.

  17. Knapp, “United States and the Middle East,” p. 14f.

  18. Ibid., p. 15.

  19. Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men, p. 205.

  20. Knapp, “United States and the Middle East,” p. 25.

  21. Louis and Robinson, “Imperialism of Decolonization”

  22. Gaddis, We Now Know, p. 169.

  23. Knapp, “United States and the Middle East,” p. 25.

  24. Gaddis, We Now Know, p. 175.

  25. Yergin, Prize, p. 508f.

  26. Gause, “U.S.-Saudi Relationship,” p.346.

  27. Rosecrance, “Objectives,” p. 32.

  28. Reich, “United States Interests,” p. 81.

  29. Rosecrance, “Objectives,” p. 34.

  30. See, e.g., Reich, “United States and Is-rael,” pp. 227, 241.

  31. Ibid., p. 228.

  32. Reich, “United States and Israel,” p. 232.

  33. Ibid., p. 234.

  34. Ibid., p. 234f.

  35. Ibid., p. 229f.

  36. Lundestad, “Empire,” p. 90. Cf. Rosecrance, “Objectives,” p. 36.

  37. Reich, “United States Interests,” p. 66; Gause, “U.S.-Saudi Relationship,” p. 347.

  38. Gause, “U.S.-Saudi Relationship,” p. 346.

  39. Priest, Mission, p. 84f.

  40. Reich, “United States Interests,” p. 64f.

  41. Ibid., p. 62.