Wars & Rumors of Wars: A quick history of the United States at war
by Bill Worley

Where would we Americans be without our wars? Probably a lot less wealthy, that's what. While shrouded and enshrined in our collective consciousness as efforts to "make the world safe for Democracy," most of our wars have had the primary effect of improving our economic well-being. Take the French & Indian War, for example. Ostensibly fought to save the North American continent from the Catholic French and their erstwhile Indian allies, the British really wanted [and got] control of the very lucrative French fur trade. Ironically, except in isolated instances, it was French Americans who primarily carried on this trade into the 1820s and '30s. Then, there's the "mother of all American wars"--the Revolution. We are told that we fought to rid ourselves of oppressive English control and taxes. Of course, as usual, American Englishmen and women were being taxed at a far lower rate than their English-English counterparts. But, "no taxation without representation" is such a catchy slogan that we still like to use it--even when we DO [or CAN] elect our own representatives.

Actually, if one looks carefully at the early battles fought and the events leading up to the Declaration of Independence, such items as the English-Indian Proclamation Line and the Quebec Act made Atlantic coast Americans [south of New Brunswick anyway] believe that the English authorities were favoring the Indians and the French around Montreal more than they were the "loyal" English types around Boston, New York and Charleston. In fact, the English probably were favoring those other folks. After all, trade from the French and Indians between 1763 and 1776 with the English exceeded the revenues generated by the more troublesome [to the English] colonists to the south.

No war is more confusing than the War of 1812. The specific stated causes of it [British Orders in Council] were repealed by the British Parliament just as the U.S. Congress voted to declare war. Then, two years later, the war was settled [in Paris] with no changes in much of anything, including territorial control, more than two weeks before the war's biggest battle--the Battle of New Orleans. Some of this is explained by the fact that communications across the water were a bit tardy in the days of the sail-driven ocean-going vessels.

What all of this hides is that War of 1812 was really a U.S. war against the Indians, some of whom had allied themselves with the British. The U.S. victories against the Indians [Thames, Horseshoe Bend, etc.] were really the key victories in the war. It is not accidental that within 15 years of the end of the War of 1812, all Indian peoples living east of the Mississippi were on the verge of being hustled into "Indian Territory"--an intended dumping ground made up of present-day Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma.

Then, there's the ever-popular War with Mexico. We said we went to war to guarantee Texas its rightful boundaries. If that's the case, why did the pivotal battle take place outside Mexico City [a long way from Texas, thank God!]?

If you look carefully at the positioning before hostilities broke out, the U.S. went to war to save land that became the King Ranch for the U.S. That is, we wanted the land between the Nueces River [which was as far west as any gringo Texan had settled in 1846] and the Rio Grande ["a more natural boundary"]. What we really wanted was New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and California in addition to Texas, which the U.S. had already annexed.

Next, there's the Civil War. Brought on because the Republican Party, led by Lincoln, refused to compromise on the issue of expanding slavery. The Republicans, with their strong Whig component--many of them southern planters--did not advocate eliminating slavery in 1860-61. Southerners, probably accurately, argued that if slavery weren't allowed to expand into new areas like Kansas, it would shrivel and die over the next few generations. Fort Sumter was intended as a pre-emptive strike.

We really had two quite competitive and somewhat incompatible economic systems--one based on exploiting labor by ownership, the other exploited workers by paying them as little as possible.

Let us not forget the glorious Spanish-American War [1898-1903; the latter date is extended to include the "Philippine Insurrection" which we fought to make sure the Filipinos did not gain independence--from US!]

We fought to give Cuba her freedom, then we turned around and ran the country, particularly its economic and foreign policy, under the Platt Amendment, for decades into the 20th century. We grabbed Puerto Rico and the Philippines as the "spoils of war."

Woodrow Wilson beat former Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes for President in 1916 under the slogan "He [meaning Wilson] kept us out of war." Then within days of his inauguration, he chose to interpret events in such a way that it was absolutely necessary for the U.S. to declare war on Germany and its allies.

No sooner had that happened, than the U.S. Information Office embarked on a campaign to demonize the Germans as "the Hun." This worked so well in "The Great War," as it was called until a 2nd world war occurred after 1939 making this conflict the 1st World War.

Some U.S. Congress members, including Harry S. Truman, pursued allegations in the 1930s that war munitions manufacturers and others benefiting economically greatly influenced war decisions.

In his book, The Prize: the Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power [New York : Simon and Schuster, 1991] Daniel Yergin documents that indeed World War II was about money as much as other things. This is not to justify Hitler or Tojo or anything like that. It is simply important that the U.S. worked itself out of the Great Depression and into a position as world economy leader as a result of this war.

In some cases, as with the Korean War, it was the military-industrial complex who used the war as an excuse to render itself essential to the American economy. Viet Nam turned out to be something of an extension of that concept through the 1960s and into the '70s.

Then, there was Reagan's Star Wars defense, ultimately designed to bankrupt the USSR economy, the US economy, and any other economy that fully bought into it. Fortunately for us, they bought it--we didn't!

So--there you have it in a nutshell. War is bunk--to misquote Henry Ford. But it is deadly bunk that has tended to make us the most powerful [and potentially helpful--or destructive--you choose] economy in the world. Once we finally figured this out in about 1917, we've been cruising along in search of the perfect war. That would be one that kills no one but puts us permanently at the top of the money pile. Think about it!

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