Student Blog: Japan's Turn to Pacifism

For most of today’s young Americans, modern Japan brings to mind anime, sushi, and all things strange. Probe people for something about Japan with a bit more historical significance and two locations will immediately come forward: Pearl Harbor and Hiroshima. Studies of US-Japan relations for most Americans begin with the former and end with the latter. Studies of US-Japan relations for most Japanese begin with the latter. It thus surprises many Americans when they learn that Japan is constitutionally prohibited from going to war.

Imperial Japan surrendered on August 15, 1945, accepting the terms laid out in accordance with the Potsdam Declaration. To reach this point, Japan had not only endured the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but also the wholesale firebombing of most of its major cities, which killed hundreds of thousands of civilians. Even then, the higher ups in the military wanted to continue the fight. It was only the intervention of Emperor Hirohito himself that finally compelled the military to surrender…Why did they go so far?

The Potsdam Declaration called for, in addition to relinquishing conquered territories, Japan’s “unconditional surrender.” To the higher ups, this meant the dismantling of the Japanese imperial nation-state as it had existed since 1868, and further, the potential dissolution of the imperial system in its entirety. For the last 1,000 of the roughly 2,600 years (a good portion likely mythical) of the imperial line, the emperor had not been much more than a symbol, often to legitimize the rule of powerful samurai families. The Meiji Restoration of 1868 put an end to feudal Japan and samurai rule, creating a modern, constitutional state with the emperor at its center. Vestiges of samurai culture would persist, but lay dormant as Japan modernized over half a century, only coming back to the fore as the military took control of the country in the 1930s.

MacArthur with Hirohito

Though the allied forces did end up abolishing the “Empire of Japan” during the occupation from 1945 to 1952, in a turn of events that surprised even Emperor Hirohito himself, the U.S. decided not to force his abdication and abolish the imperial system. This was not, of course, out of some respect for the ancient tradition, but for—much like the samurai of old—utilizing the imperial institution to more easily maintain control over and carry out reforms of occupied Japan.

Indeed, Emperor Hirohito had one of the most unique experiences in human history: from being worshiped as a living god and the bedrock of the militarist state that compelled its citizens to fight and die in his name, to being “the symbol of the State and of the unity of the People, deriving his position from the will of the people with whom resides sovereign power” (Constitution of Japan). Moreover, this new Japanese “State” would make pacifism one of its most important values, expressed through Article 9 of the Japanese Constitution established in 1947, which fundamentally renounces war as a political tool of the state.

Article 9. Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes. In order to accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.

However, with the victory of the Communist Party of China in the Chinese Civil War in 1949 and the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950, the U.S. backtracked its position on the matter and Japan would create a “Self Defense Force” in the 1950s consisting of land, sea, and air forces with a legal status that views it as an extension of the national police force prohibited from engaging in conflict unless Japan is directly attacked. Extensions of the size and role of the Self Defense Force remains a contentious issue within Japan and the call to revise Article 9 by the current ruling party are as of now widely unpopular among Japanese. Time will tell if the push of certain domestic politicians coupled with changing geopolitical conditions, a rising China and a potential retreat of the US military from the Asia-Pacific region will lead Japan to once again have an unrestricted military. 

By Matt D'Elia

The Nifty Fifties

         Baby Boomers, Dwight Eisenhower, full employment, poodle skirts and Leave it To Beaver. These are some of the hallmarks of the 1950s, a decade which saw the rapid growth of the US economy that has since left it as, how many a politician will articulate it, "the greatest country on Earth". Following the Second World War, the United States was the only nation which had emerged with its economy, borders, and population intact. The decades of depression and war, which had seen the unemployment rate jump to a high of 24%, were over. A growing middle class was moving from the cities into the suburbs, having lots of children, and achieving their aspirational dreams of home ownership.

This was the decade of American prosperity, and this was reflected in the culture. TV shows such as Leave it To Beaver helped to emphasize “education, occupation, marriage and family … as requisites for a happy and productive life.” A young truck driver from Tennessee named Elvis Presley was discovered recording a song for his mother at a studio and became on overnight sensation. A movie star named Marilyn Monroe became one of America’s first, and easily most recognizable, sex symbol. Authors such as Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs experimented with literature to create new forms, now known as beat poetry.

In terms of foreign affairs, America had pivoted from worries about her former enemies in Japan and Germany to the Soviet Union. Inside of the United States, a senator from Wisconsin named Joe McCarthy fueled tensions by claiming that members of the State Department, the Truman administration, and the film industry were communists, causing what became known as the “Red Scare”. Many people unfairly lost their jobs after having to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee. McCarthy was ultimately censured by the Senate in 1954 and died of alcoholism in 1957, but his name has since been synonymous with witch hunting in American politics. The Russians, for their part, scared the American populace more than McCarthy ever could by launching Sputnik, the first satellite that made it into space, in 1957.

The 1950s were also the decade that America had to come to stark terms with the problems of segregation and racial violence. A young Baptist preacher named Martin Luther King began to organize bus boycotts and marches in 1955.  Later that year, a young secretary named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus, leading to a publicized arrest which drew American attention to civil rights issues. Most important was the unanimous Supreme Court decision for Brown Vs Board of Education of Topeka Kansas of the year before that stated that Separate but Equal was unconstitutional, and that schools would have to integrate. President Eisenhower was forced to call in the National Guard to Arkansas when the governor refused to end segregation in this state.

The 1950s were a turning point for America; as British power was waning, the title of World Super Power was transferred to the United States, with only the Soviet Union able to contest this. Inside the borders, Americans were working more, having more children, and building long term wealth. The issues of civil rights, long ignored, were finally coming to the forefront. This changing of the guard was reflected in the music, film, and literature of the time, giving rise to the dominance of American culture more globally. 

           
Assignment: Watch this episode of Leave it To Beaver, and write two paragraphs describing what 1950s values the episode is reflecting. Due in class Monday.

Student Blog: Blood, Money, and Oil: Iran in 1953

The year of 1953 proved one of the more fateful in the history of American foreign policy. The headline grabbing concerns of the age – nuclear war, communist expansion – certainly overshadowed the goings on of a then little thought of nation in the Middle East – Iran.

Listening to the mass media and political posturing coming from the United States today may leave you with the view that Iran is perhaps one of the most virulent enemies of the West. The use of synecdoche here and ubiquitously throughout the short hand of geopolitics is dangerous to say the least. One must take into account most Iranians are not fond of their government – much in the same way that most Americans are not fond of their government. And that the use of the name of a nation to describe the actions of its government paints the entire population of that nation with the same brush. Thus when a US President calls Iran evil, he

ends up calling millions of innocent and potentially sympathetic Iranian citizens evil. The racism here should be obvious. But as an experiment, this article will use this same manner of discourse to refer to the actions of a handful of actors within the US government in the discussion of a successful coup in Iran that took place in 1953.

The roots of the coup are complex but America’s involvement (and by America I mean any and all US citizens living or dead) is really quite simple. The twentieth century will be remembered in Middle East as the century in which everything about everything changed irreversibly. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the discovery of oil would welcome years of Western meddling, leading towards generation after generation of armed conflict. For Iran, this destructive course was initiated by the efforts of a man named William Knox D’Arcy who in 1908 successfully negotiated a concession with Qajar dynasty for near total control of oil output from Persia. Thus the Anglo-Persian Oil company was formed, later the Anglo-Iranian Oil company, later British Petroleum aka BP (Yeah, these guys are batting a thousand). This cushy position would continue through the First and Second World Wars, several regime changes, and right to the birth of the modern state of Iran.

Mohammed Mosaddegh

This is where things get tricky for our good friends at the AIOC (Anglo-Iranian Oil Company). In the early 1950’s a man by name of Mohammad Mosaddegh was voted into the office of Prime Minister of Iran, and he, being a man of the modern era, a republican, not exactly tied to any sense of loyalty to past monarchies and their deals with shady no longer living British aristocratic oil speculators, begins agitating for nationalization of the oil industry. Now naturally this kind of commie nonsense was not going to be tolerated by the powers that be, that being the powers that be in the White House. With some shrewd maneuvering, the AIOC was able to get the ear of the Dulles Brothers, ardent cold warriors with an inside track to the President – at the time – Dwight Eisenhower. What happens next is sort of amazing. A man named Kermit Roosevelt acting on behalf of the CIA flies into Tehran with a suitcase full of cash. He begins paying off anyone that will listen to him, building up a coalition to overthrow the prime minister’s government and replace it with a US backed dictatorship.

I think I just sank the Search Engine Optimization of this blog post. Mosaddegh was replaced with a western puppet known as the Shah who was in turn overthrown in 1979. When the dust settled a harshly anti-western government stood in his place. So if you never understood, America, why Iran hates you so much… that’s why.

By John Kluxen

Eisenhower's Farewell Address

        On January 17 1961, a few days before leaving office, President Dwight Eisenhower delivered his farewell address, where he raised the issue of the Military Industrial Complex. Please watch the video and answer the following questions in the comments.

1) How did the Presidency of Eisenhower influence his views on the military?  

2) What does Eisenhower mean when he refers to the Military Industrial Complex? What is he saying about it?

3) How can we view the speech differently today than it was viewed in Eisenhower's own time?

Origins of the Vietnam War

            On September 2, 1945, shortly following the surrender of the Empire of Japan in World War II, Ho Chi Minh issued the Proclamation of Independence for the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Ho was a leader in the Viet Minh independence movement since the war and had previously lived in the US, the UK, France, the Soviet Union and China. His proclamation begins by directly quoting from the US Declaration of Independence and France’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen:

            All men are created equal; they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights; among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

This immortal statement was made in the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America in 1776. In a broader sense, this means: All the peoples on the earth are equal from birth, all the peoples have a right to live, to be happy and free.

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of the French Revolution made in 1791 also states: All men are born free and with equal rights, and must always remain free and have equal rights.

            Despite this shared rhetoric, the French had only just regained control of their Indochinese colony from the Japanese, and were not about to let Vietnam become an independent state. What’s worse was that Ho Chi Minh was not trying to establish a new capitalist republic, but rather a communist state, something that western countries found unacceptable. The French authority immediately took up the task of taking down this insurgency, backed with weapons from the United States. Ho’s forces began to mobilize stronger and receive supplies from the Soviet Union, and by the end of the forties a full scale war had broken out. The French sent troops from all over their massive empire to try to quell the rebellion, but after a decisive loss in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu they decided to cut their losses and agree to meet to discuss peace terms.

            The terms were settled in Geneva, Switzerland, and stated that Vietnam would be split in two; the Communists would gain control of the North, while the South would be a republic that would be given the chance to decide a separate future. An election was rigged up by the United States and the family of a man named Ngo Dinh Diem. Diem became the first president of the Republic of Vietnam, and future elections were canceled. The Eisenhower administration’s internal polling suggested that the communists could have won about percent of the vote in this election, and their main concern was keeping the communists out of power – not creating a democracy. Diem’s rise to power brought about resentment from the communists in the south, who began to launch guerilla attacks under the name of the National Liberation Front (NLF, or Viet Cong) on Republican targets. In response, Diem executed anyone he could who was guilty of committing political violence, but it was clear that he did not have the resources needed to fight the Viet Cong on his own.

President Eisenhower shakes President Diem's Hand in 1954.

            In response to the growing restlessness in the Republic of Vietnam the United States under President John F Kennedy began to send over military experts to advise the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN). Whereas Eisenhower had sent only nine hundred such advisors, Kennedy sent sixteen thousand. This was accompanied by increased military activity in the Southern Vietnamese countryside, and ARVN often came up short against the Viet Cong in battle. The Vietnamese military high command was growing increasingly impatient with what they perceived as the weakness for Ngo Dinh Diem, as was the administration of the United States. Diem became increasingly difficult to work with, and he called for campaigns that the US did not want to support. In early November of 1963, the CIA authorized ARVN Generals to overthrow and execute Diem. President Kennedy would fall to an assassin’s bullet himself less than three weeks later. 

The US Presidential Election of 1948

            The election of 1948 is often considered a landmark election in the history of the United States. Under Franklin Roosevelt, the Democrats had won landslide elections in 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944. But tragedy struck the United States when Roosevelt died in April of 1945. The war in Europe was weeks away from concluding, and Adolf Hitler himself would commit suicide before the month was out, but the war with Japan raged on. Roosevelt’s death caused his Vice President, a former Senator from Missouri named Harry Truman, to step into the Oval Office and become the 33^rd President.

            Truman represents a few unique points in American history. He is the only man to have been the third Vice President to a single President. He is the only President who fought in the First World War. He was the last President to have not gone to college. Cool and moderate, Truman had been chosen as a compromise when Roosevelt ran for re-election in 1944. Those closest to Roosevelt knew of his ill health, and two camps emerged in the Democratic party over whether or not to keep on the pro labor and pro civil rights Vice President Henry Wallace, or to replace him with Senator James Byrnes, a more conservative southerner. Truman was chosen to placate both the Wallace supporters and Byrnes supporters, and was placed on the ballot with much enthusiasm. Together, Truman and Roosevelt would go on to win thirty six states in the 1944 election, handily defeating Governor Thomas Dewey of New York.

            Once elected, however, Truman was never very close to Roosevelt, and seemed to lack any individual popularity. In fact Roosevelt never told Truman about the atomic bombs that Truman would late authorize to be used against Japan. Truman may have been president during the wars end, but he was never able to claim any credit for it. He was able to help institute the Marshall Plan, but another man's name was attached to the project so again, Truman wasn’t able to claim credit. When he introduced a health care bill to Congress after the war's end, it was shot down as well. Truman was seen as an accidental President, only there because of Roosevelt’s death. Things only got worse in 1946 when the Republicans gained majorities in both the Senate and House of Representatives. This Congress refused to work with Truman, and went so far as to start repealing legislation from Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Truman used his Presidential Veto to prevent any wholesale repealing, but it seemed like he was done.

            So in 1948 the Republicans believed that they would easily win the presidential election. Thomas Dewey, who had run against Roosevelt in 1944, was again their nominee. The Democrats failed to rally around Truman and split into three parties. Strom Thurmond, a southern segregationist, feared that the Democrats might force integration, so he formed a political party called the Dixiecrats. Former Vice President Henry Wallace, fearing that the democrats wouldn’t do enough for civil rights, formed a political party called the Progressive Party. The conventional wisdom was that these parties would siphon off votes from the Democrats, and the polling seemed to confirm this.

            Election day in 1948 fell on November 2. Truman had run a low money campaign, whereas Dewey’s campaign had raised substantial sums. Truman’s inner circle had already begun accepting other jobs, resigned to the fact that their man would lose. Truman slept through the night, whereas Dewey stayed up to watch the returns. The Chicago Daily Tribune was so sure that Dewey would win that they went ahead and printed their newspapers with the headline "Dewey Defeats Truman". As the results came in, Truman took the lead in votes, a lead that he would never lose. Surprise! Harry Truman won by a comfortable three point margin – his detractors had underestimated him, and he would remain President for another four years.