The Battle of Midway Ruined the War Against ISIS

The Fiscal Times via Yahoo! Finance ^ | June 9, 2015 5:30 AM | Andrew L. Peek

[Pan_Yan]

...

First, the history. Although by 1944 the war’s outcome was never in doubt, if all efforts failed the Soviet Army would eventually have crushed the Reich by itself. Victory at that point was a national and industrial effort, and would belong to the countries with the most steel plants and masses of citizens under arms.

Midway was different. It was not a national effort but instead a battle of individuals, a rickety shootout by a few highly trained people under extremely confused conditions, and — incredibly — the underdog won. There’s no reason the United States, with a second-string commander, green troops and two-and-a-half aircraft carriers, should have been able to defeat the Japanese with their four carriers and the most experienced planes, pilots and admirals in the world.

Had Japan annihilated the rest of the Pacific Fleet carriers, it would have taken Midway. With land-based planes on Midway, it would have taken Hawaii. With Hawaii…well, who knows? Maybe San Francisco, maybe Alaska. Maybe pause in the Pacific and knock out the British in India. And then maybe peace, under a new Pax Japania.

...

In the long run, the Battle of Midway and other boldface WWII names like D-Day and the Bulge have perhaps warped America’s national memory of conflict. War in the public consciousness — the right wars, anyway — became a mostly clean duel of professionals, what we are pleased to call the “American way of war,” rather than the extended contests of national will and resources they more accurately resemble.

World War II erased every memory of the groaning exertion of the Civil War, which was something similar to what the Soviets were fighting against the Nazis.

[Resolute Conservative]

I think the Germans would have beat Russia by 1943. They could have survived the Red counter had they not had 1/2 their army in Africa, Italy and western Europe.

[Vigilanteman]

What killed the Reich was two fronts and a poorly executed winter offensive in Russia.

Most of Russia doesn't realize that. In a previous life, I knew an old pilot who told me the grounds crew would have to paint American made planes into Russian markings and specifications.

Once the planes were produced, they would make a night flight out of the factory (California or Kansas) into some remote base in North Dakota where the markings were painted on under top secret conditions. Then there would be another night flight to Gander, Newfoundland, where CAF and RAF pilots would take over and ferry the planes to Murmansk after a refueling stop in Iceland. Again, these were night flights.

The Russians on the ground were sure these planes were coming from Russian factories.

[VTenigma]

We were supporting the Soviet military with transport and equipment, we were supporting the Allies with men, machines, and arms. We were also fighting a war in the Pacific. The author is smoking something if he thinks Japan was going to prevail in the Pacific if we lost Midway, it would have been a devastating setback but with no natural resources, and being surrounded by Chinese, British, Aussie and American forces the outcome would have been the same. Besides, we built the bomb.

[Snickering Hound]

http://www.amazon.com/Shattered-Sword-Untold-Battle-Midway/dp/1574889249/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1433951572&sr=1-1&keywords=shattered+sword&pebp=1433951582499&perid=F7C05CD24A0D40609566

The author really needs to read a few books instead of trying to recollect the Battle of Midway off the top of his head or worse from that awful 76’ Heston movie.

[Timocrat]

Although by 1944 the war’s outcome was never in doubt, if all efforts failed the Soviet Army would eventually have crushed the Reich by itself.

Oh sure. Imagine no "Lend Lease" and no allied bombing of German infrastructure and armament factories. The Germans would still be in Moscow.

[Westbrook]

After the Germans capitulated, the Russians were mobilizing to attack Japan. They had a score to settle with the Japanese, anyway.

The atomic detonations over Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended the war too soon for the Soviets to get involved. Ironically, the Japanese were spared any Soviet intervention in the years that followed.

[Pan_Yan]

...that awful 76’ Heston movie.

I'm with you on that one. I'd read every book about WWII in my school library and most of the ones in the city library by the time I left 6th grade. That's why articles like this catch my eye. I love the discussions.

[C. Edmund Wright]

Well that was stupid on his part then....Japan never wanted to invade...they wanted to cripple us, sue for peace, and be allowed to keep China and some other territories.

[C. Edmund Wright]

I believe the Soviets kept charging across China for two weeks after the war in the Pacific ended.....

[Billthedrill]

There are several topics here requiring comment. Yes, the disparity of industrial power described the eventual winner in both theaters but taken worldwide that would have implied the the United States would eventually have won both of them. This renders decisive strategic considerations such as manpower and logistics nugatory, and I doubt if even the most radical theorist would go that far.

The style of warfare that leads Western cultures to prefer decisive battles is a topic explored in detail by Victor Davis Hanson. To be very brief, it results from the manpower necessary to fight being drawn from the same agricultural and industrial workforce necessary to keep the war going. There never would have been a Rosie The Riveter were this not the case even in the United States, unaffected by direct combat as none of the other participants really were.

The asymmetrical warfare typical of various "liberation" movements is as old as history and not really specific to any one culture - we have Arab romantics insisting that the slashing raiders of the sand are their ticket to conquest but in fact that has never really been the case. What is different about ISIS is twofold: first, that is is not a grass-roots liberation movement but the product of sponsorship and intelligence belonging to national level resources, and second, that its stated intention is to take and hold territory, which brings it back into the Western arena by necessity. In short, they can be reached, but unless the West is determined to establish a firm permanent control of the territory fought over, they'll fade and return, as GWB and 0bama have learned the hard way.

The real difficulty is finding that spot in policy that is somewhere between all-out warfare and complete disengagement, the former because we're not committed to a real empire and probably will never be, the latter because if we don't go to our declared enemies they will certainly come to us.

[MattinNJ]

That is precisely what happened. Stalin kept his troops in the East. A spy revealed that the Japanese would not attack Russia. Stalin sent his troops to Stalingrad on skis and turned the tide.

The spy's fate? Years later he wound up in a purge. When someone reminded Stalin of the key role the spy had played, Stalin said "Gratitude is a disease for the dogs" and had him killed on schedule.

If not for Midway, I think England would have been knocked out of the war because they would retreat from India and concentrate on the Western front. We would eventually stabilize the Pacific, but I think Germany and Russia would have divided up Europe after slugging it out for awhile. You would see Hitler, Stalin, Japan and the US in an awfully precarious position.I don't know what would happen because German technology was quickly outpacing ours. I don't think the ending was looking well.

To this day, the Naval War College cannot duplicate a victory at Midway

[dirtboy]

What killed the Reich was two fronts and a poorly executed winter offensive in Russia.

That and thousands of Ford trucks from the U.S. - it allowed Stalin to have motorized logistics while Hitler's was still largely horse-drawn.

[reg45]

If the Japanese had gained control of the Pacific. They still could not have out produced the United States. Furthermore, if they had attacked the Soviet Union they could have taken pressure off of their ally, Nazi Germany.

[Little Ray]

And what caused that ill-planned winter offensive was the Germans having to clean up behind an Italian debacle in the Balkans, esp. Serbia.
So, essentially, the Serbian won WWII for the allies - or the Italians lost it for the Germans!

[nathanbedford]

I am with you, I searched the article up and down trying to find the point and it's analogous nature. I suppose it has something to do with preparedness and its absence.

There is one analogy which the author might well have made but failed to do so probably because it runs counter to his thesis: the Americans had broken the Japanese code and were generally aware of their intention to invade Midway. That knowledge was decisive in our winning that battle. In effect it was a World War II application of cyber warfare.

Today, it appears the Chinese are waging cyber warfare against us. We are by the president's own admission unprepared and outclassed by the Chinese in this respect at least. Midway was won partly by intelligence derived from technology, more accurately from "hacking." The analogy I draw from this is that hardware is indispensable but it is vulnerable to hacking as demonstrated by the battle of Midway and which recent developments are demonstrating in our own backyard.

Preparedness is a very difficult and complex undertaking dependent upon foresight, competence, dedication, wherewithal and national will. It is quite possible to spend the national treasure on building a Maginot line only to make a nation more vulnerable not more safe. It is quite possible to neutralize locally superior arms with superior intelligence, as did the Allies on D-Day. Our nation lacks the national will and the dedication to use its competence and dedication to conjure up the foresight to prepare for the next war. All the elements of arms must be balanced and timed perfectly; that is not an easy task and it certainly requires commitment. Therein lies our present malaise.

[redangus]

I think the better analogy is that WWII was a war of set piece battles while the fight against ISIS, and Afghanistan for that matter, are more like the Indian wars of the late 19th century. The strategy should be totally different. And of course it would help if the Iraqis gave a sh*t and didn’t drop their weapons and run with regularity.

[DesertRhino]

“Had Japan annihilated the rest of the Pacific Fleet carriers, it would have taken Midway. With land-based planes on Midway, it would have taken Hawaii. With Hawaii…well, who knows? Maybe San Francisco, maybe Alaska. Maybe pause in the Pacific and knock out the British in India. And then maybe peace, under a new Pax Japania.”

Midway was a turning point for us in a sense because our headlong momentum began there, but a defeat there would have maybe prolonged the war by 6 months at best. Japan was 100% guaranteed defeat the moment the first plane released a bomb over Pearl Harbor. It’s beyond debate.

Read this if you have doubts, “why Japan really lost the war”. Its about the astounding production capacity of the USA then. Japan had no hope, period.

http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm

[Snickering Hound]

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/ref/LL-Ship/index.html

A detailing of all the American Lend Lease shipments. The sheer quantities are numbing.

[wideawake]

Some good commentary on this thread.

I would argue that it is not at all clear that the Nazis would have decisively beaten the Soviets without being preoccupied on the Western front.

90% of the war was being fought on the Eastern Front to begin with.

And Soviet victory really only meant not being conquered by Germany - for Germany victory meant conquering the Soviet Union and at least holding and controlling all of the Soviet territory west of the Urals.

For Japan, the goal would never have been invading the US west coast - people like to misquote Yamamoto on this point, but that was not even dreamt of.

Possibly controlling Hawaii and fighting a long term war of attrition against the US Fleet was the dream: that would have enabled Japan to increase its manufacturing base in Asia and improve its long term chances.

[Snickering Hound]

Even if the Japanese carriers had prevailed, there was no way Ichiki and his 3000 men with just small arms were going to take Midway by amphibious assault.

We were dug in with artillery, massive quantities of machine guns, and even a 1/2 dozen Stuart tanks.

Most of them would have become fish food during that long wade to the beach.