Military Strategies Utilized by the United States and Allies to Secure Victory in the War
The US was officially engaged in the WW2 conflict after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. The strategies encapsulated the European and Pacific theaters of war, including technological, military, and economic ways of fighting the Axis powers (Corbett et al. 2017). This paper aims to evaluate the strategies the US and its allies employ to win the war.
Home Front and Mobilization of the Economy
One significant advantage of the US is that it is a fully industrialized nation capable of supplying itself and others with food, fuel, and weapons. So, when the war started, all military action aimed to mobilize these advantages for war. The US saw the mobilization of millions of young men, the transitioning of its production values from civilian to military purposes, and the increase in agricultural output to sustain the increased need for foodstuffs (Corbett et al. 2017). Despite certain excesses, such as the racist motions towards Americans of German and Japanese descent, this strategy was largely successful. It enabled other strategic elements that helped bring victory in the Pacific and European theaters of war.
Lend Lease
Once the US economy was mobilized, the second strategy the US implemented was supplying its allies with weapons, food, and materials to fight the war against Germany. The primary beneficiaries of Lend Lease were the British and the USSR (Corbett et al. 2017). The former relied on food and oil provisions from the US to keep resisting German assaults by air while maintaining an active theater of war in Africa.
On the other hand, the USSR needed everything it could get, from tanks to radios to rubber and kerosene, to turn the tide (Corbett et al. 2017). The strategy was simple yet effective – to bolster US allies’ fighting capability and increase the losses Axis powers suffered without even directly engaging in the conflict. By doing so, the US weakened its enemies before fighting them.
Air, Sea, Artillery, and Manpower Superiority
The US strategy in both theaters of war indicated the propensity for being able to outnumber and outgun the enemy. The losses suffered by the US Pacific fleet in Pearl Harbor were replenished in less than a year. Since then, the Imperial Japanese Fleet has been fighting at a constant numerical and qualitative disadvantage (Corbett et al. 2017).
The same could be said for the Germans in the Western European theater of war. Furthermore, whenever encountering stiff resistance, the US resorted to carpet bombing the areas until there was nothing left of them (Corbett et al. 2017). Civilian casualties were largely disregarded or even sought after, as was in the case of nuclear strikes against Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Justification of the United States’ Decision to Drop Atomic Bombs on Japan
The atomic strikes against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which happened on the 6th and 9th of August 1945, are claimed to have brought a swift end to the war. It is argued that the targets were legitimate from a military standpoint – Hiroshima housed the HQ of the 2nd Japanese Army, whereas Nagasaki was a significant production and transportation hub (Corbett et al. 2017). However, there was no military necessity in these strikes – they did not destroy the Hiroshima industry located on the city’s outskirts (Furuzawa 2020, 3). Nor did it cripple the Japanese combat strength beyond what the fire-bombing campaign already did (Furuzawa 2020, 1). What it did accomplish was to test and demonstrate the power of a nuclear weapon to the world (Furuzawa 2020, 2). The attacks were indiscriminate, ineffective, and, for all legal and moral purposes, a war crime.
References
Corbett, P. Scott, Volker Janssen, John M. Lund, Todd J. Pfannestiel, Paul S. Vickery, and Oral Roberts. 2017. US history. New York, NY: OpenStax.
Furuzawa, Yoshiaki. 2020. “Peacebuilding, Human Security, and Hiroshima.” Journal of Human Security Studies 9 (2): 1-4.