================================================= CONTEXT OF "PAX AMERICANA" I have written "Pax Americana" chapters as posts to a particular discussion thread of a Yahoo list. I have initiated the thread and chosen the title which points to the longest period of peace in European history resulting from USA having saved Europe from Nazis and imposed post war measures which made this peace possible. The thread has been started with my following assertions: 1.The world tends necessarily towards mondialisation which implies some form of domination by a single power. 2.Eliminating sad comedies such as the UN and powerless committees such as Europe, the real mondial power options seem to be: Russia, China, Islam and USA. 3.Of these options I have postulated USA, or "Pax Americana" as preferable by orders of magnitude. 5.Best not necessarily meaning "ideal", nor even "good", I endeavored to indicate drawbacks of the USA option which may prevent it from reaching the domination, as well as some of its disadvantages for the eventually dominated world. The worst of them is IMO the "American View", the complex of beliefs, cliches and prejudices governing American social and political reason and behavior. Particular chapters of "Pax Americana" try to illustrate on some important examples how the originally laudable American enterprises may get muddled in detail by the American View, sometimes to the extent of turning into catastrophes and crimes against humanity. The objective of the thread is to foster discussion and investigation which could indicate how the American View could be modified so that Pax Americana may become efficient as well as beneficial to the mankind. ================================================= Pax Americana WWII =============================================== GENERAL EVALUATION ------------------ The USA did the essentially right thing saving Europe from the Nazis. COMMENTS -------- I have none: The evaluation appears to me as obvious. Other comments are, of course, welcome. =============================================== ERRORS ----------------------------------------------- YALTA Morally seen FDR's decisions at Yalta are crimes against humanity. He gave Stalin a present of over 100 million Eastern Europeans sentencing them to slavery and to large scale extermination under the Gulag rule. By setting Poland's east fronteer at the Curzon line and the German at Oder-Neisse he caused expatriation of 6 million Poles and 10 million Germans in which several millions were dead. By agreeing to "repatriation" of Soviet POW's he sentenced them to 5 years of Gulag KZ's and 80% to death (see SOVIET POW's). I don't have the exact figure of Soviet POW's "liberated" by Western Allies, but I believe that it amounts to 7 digits. Politically he initiated the Cold War: 1.by extending Soviet empire over important strategic and economic areas (Eastern Europe, Outer Mongolia, south Sakhalin Island, the Kuriles). 2.by consolidating Soviet power through $20 billion reparations and acceptance of robbing out East German industry. FDR believed that Soviets were a fair partner, that they would be bound by Yalta treaty or other pieces of paper. Under this impression he designed a lovely detailed plan for free elections and a democratic govenance in Poland. Which the Soviets simply threw in trash, recognizing as unique reality the occupation by Red Army and as unique argument the military resistance or threat. The unilateraly bound party were the USA and their Western ALlies whom he drew into the Cold War trying to make them play cricket against an enemy knowing only the language of demagogy and guns. COMMENT ------- What were the reasons of this disastrous attitude? Did FDR's health condition influence his judgement? His physician, Dr. Howard Bruenn, has written that there was no evidence that his health impaired his judgement at Yalta. Which does not mean that it did not. And the necessity of writing this report speaks for itself. Was he influenced by KGB propaganda agents? Most probably. Still I don't see him gaga enough not to understand things obvious to 10 years old children living under Gulag occupation. And manipulation can only work on fertile soil. FDR died two months after Yalta and many people regret that he did not die before. But would his death save Eastern Europe and prevent the Cold War with all its sequels (Vietnam, etc)? I doubt it. I believe that Yalta treaty was a culmination of "Yalta Spirit", which manifested itself before (see "Second Front") and after (see "Patton"). Eventual FDR's successor would most probably behave in a similar way. The roots go deeper than one person's mental deficiency, into what I propose to call "American View" (AV, see below). The objective of this thread is to investigate conditions favorable for Pax Americana and obstacles making it impossible. To my mind AV is the most serious of these obstacles. What can be done about it? Education jumps to the mind, but how could it be modified? And who would educate the educators? Political system favoring AV minded politicians and simple crooks seems to be another area needing investigation. These and several other problems will have to be solved as prerequisites to promoting the Pax Americana. We shall initiate their discussion in CONCLUSIONS of the thread. ----------------------------------------------- SECOND FRONT One could object that Yalta was just paper and that Soviets would anyway annex Eastern Europe as the "fait accompli" of its occupation by the Red Army. It appears true enough on the first glance. But on second thought we discover that there was a possibility to replace this unilateral occupation by the joint liberation by Allies, a possibility to save Eastern Europe and to save many thousands of Allies' soldiers. This possibility consisted in opening the second front along the Balkans-Poland line, cutting German east front from its base and putting it in crossfire. It has been investigated and proposed by the Intelligence Service, was hushed up by FDR unwilling to displease his admired Stalin. Let's have a short look at it. Greece had a strong partisan organization and could be liberated in October 1944 by a very small British force. Yougoslavian partisans controled large parts of their montains and were checking 14 out of 20 German divisions in the Balkans. Yugoslavia was separated by 400 km of Rumanian land from Carpathians, partially controlled by Slovak and Polish partisans. Being oficialy German ally, Rumania was not controlled by Germans but by its own troops which although hostile to Soviets, would gladly join Western Allies rather than resist them. Polish underground Home Army counted hundreds of thousands, whose fighting determination was proved by the uprising of a relatively small town of Warsaw, which abandoned by the Allies and left to itself held three months against German elite divisions. An invasion landing in partisan controlled part of Yougoslavia synchronized with a nationwide uprising in Poland and Slovakia would open a second front based mainly on local forces, practically without losses of invasion troops, as compared with hundreds of thousands lost in the Normandy option. And it would free Eastern Europe. COMMENT I don't have any, but invite all possible. ----------------------------------------------- SOVIET POW's Soviet POW's have been sent by Americans to Soviet Union by force, whether they wanted it or not. They were all good for minimum 5 years of Sibirian KZ's, i.e. for 80% death by cold, hunger and abuse. Officially, because surrender of even a wounded and inconscious soldier was considered as treason. Really, because fellows who have seen the democratic world had to pass a quarantaine before being restored to circulation. Morally, this action was nothing else than genocide and the methods used by MP strangely resembled those of the SS. I don't know if this issue can be legitimately listed under "errors". My feeling here is entirely emotional. And magic, if you want. I believe that crimes like that come back to you, maybe in Vietnam, maybe at the 911, maybe elsewhere. I would love to believe the USA incapable to repeat such crimes and the only way authorising this belief would imply a basic revision of the AMERICAN VIEW. I'm not sure if and how it may be achieved. Any suggestions? ----------------------------------------------- PATTON Let me start by stating clearly that I do not intend to involve in any way the personality of General Patton, nor to declare myself aggreeing with all his views and opinions. I intend to show on his example that, preponderant as it may be, the AMERICAN VIEW may be called in question. Called in question not negatively by high brow Marcuse type anarchist bullshitters, but positively by down to the ground, realistic, experienced and not particularily intellectual people, such as Patton. Patton begins an on-going argument for a combined campaign of Allied-German forces to push the Communist Russians back to their pre-war borders, correctly stating that the Allies have simply swapped the Nazis for the Communists in Eastern Europe guaranteeing its continued enslavement. A few quotations: Poland is under Russian domination, so is Hungary, so is Czechoslovakia, and so is Yugoslavia; and we sit happily by and think that everybody loves us. We promised the Europeans freedom. It would be worse than dishonorable not to see they have it. This might mean war with the Russians, but what of it? If we have to fight them, now is the time. From now on, we will get weaker and they will get stronger. ======================================= COMMENT ----------------------------------------------- =============================================== AMERICAN VIEW (AV). ------------------ By AMERICAN VIEW we understand preponderant American beliefs, principles and thinking habits. Preponderant, not unique. USA is probably the most heterogeneous country from the point of view of tastes, beliefs and habits and many Americans stay out of beaten tracks of AV. Nevertheless, their non-conformism can only appear against the background of AV as its negation. Salinger's Catcher In The Rye exists only as protest against the tiki-taki establishment. This AV based establishment is strong enough to dictate USA behavior. Seen from outside the USA appear as a block governed by the principles of AV. Which are those principles? Yalta Spirit shows us some of them. We shall collect more on our way through the next issues of the thread, especially Vietnam and Israel and in CONCLUSIONS we shall be ready to present the complete essential structure of AV. What have we learned from the Yalta Spirit? AV is dogmatically based in "WASP" principles. As any dogmatism it knows only flat logic and ignores dialectics. That leads to reasoning like: "We are good, thus our allies are good". "Sacrifice is good, Soviets lost more than any of the Allies, thus Soviets are the best of Allies". (Including USA, which explains FDR's inferiority complex with respect to Stalin.) "Things are what they are and never the contrary, thus Soviets being good in war are good after the war and can only be good with respect to countries they liberated". ("Liberated", not "occupied", which would be illogical and blasphemous). "Faithfulness being a virtue, we are bound to stay faithful to the Soviets". However, reality is dialectic. Things may be and actually are good and bad at the same time. Like the Soviets. Refusing the dialectic approach results in refusing to understand the reality, in taking it at the face value and in wishful thinking. ----------------------------------------------- ===============================================