THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF AMERICAN WARFARE, PART THREE

Paul A. C. Koistinen, Planning War, Pursuing Peace: The Political Economy of American Warfare, 1920-1939 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1998) ("Interwar planning, like World War I mobilization, involved great complexity and grave risk for the nation. Modern warfare was breaking down barriers among public and private, civilian and military institutions, thus opening the door to endless abuses. More significant, it threatened to create forces that encouraged war." Id. at 3. "Industrialists working with the military ... often became frustrated by what they considered hidebound military regulations and meaningless or counterproductive procedures...." "Keeping businessmen, manufacturers, engineers, and other professionals committed to preparedness was no easy task. Most were willing to participate on an intermittent, ad hoc basis. When it came to regular, continuous, and long-run service in the Ordnance Districts and as reserve officers, troubles mounted. [] Part of the problem grew from the inevitably tight schedules of exceptionally busy executive. But the slow-moving, apparently inefficient, and bureaucratic military put off or dampened the interest of many professionals dedicated to preparedness." "These immediate matters were compounded by the inclination of many businessmen to dismiss the possibility of a future war." Id. at 81-82. "Civilian groups were as interested in mobilizing the World War I economy and economic planning for future conflicts as were the armed services. Their motivation, however, was quite different. They perceived in modern warfare a comprehensive threat to American civilization. By analyzing how the economy was harnessed for World War I and how mobilization would be handled during another major war, civilian groups hoped to devise the means for avoiding or tempering the adverse consequences of wartime economics." "These civilians came principally from two overlapping constituencies: a revived and strengthened peace movement, and neo-Jeffersonians from agrarian sectors of the Midwest, West, and South. Before the Great War, neo-Jeffersonians had opposed big business and big government. During hostilities they chafed at economic mobilization policies that accelerated the growth of a government-business regulatory partnership as the dominant mode of twentieth-century political economy. After the war, they set about exposing the abuses of mobilization and attempting to devise methods for harnessing the economy that were less threatening to the Republic. Advocates of peace and antimilitary and isolationist elements, opposed to war and mobilization for it, joined the neo-Jeffersonians. By the 1930s these forces constituted a formidable opposition to modern warfare and its political economy. Their ranks were strengthened further by veterans' groups agitating for more equitable wartime economic policies." Id. at 209. "The Nye Committee offered the nation, perhaps the international community, the most thorough and sophisticated analysis of the political economy of modern warfare it had yet had. [] Drawing upon World War I and its legacy, the committee established that the term 'munitions,' as a narrow category, was coming to lose its significance. Entire industrial economies were becoming machines of warfare that could shape the domestic and foreign policy of nations. Statesmen, businessmen, farmers, workers, critics, reformers, and radicals could still influence events. At some point, however, once the machine of modern warfare, or even preparations for it, got under way, an invisible line was crossed when choices became uncertain. The war/defense machine had a propensity to go beyond the control of its creators." Id. at 299-300. "Nye and his colleagues discovered another major truth. Modern warfare profoundly influenced, and was profoundly influenced by, the political economy of industrial societies. As long as such societies existed, the horrors and insanities of modern warfare were possible. [] The government has as much of a role in the new war juggernaut as did industry and finance. Since modern warfare and preparations for it required a vast expansion of the state, Nye came to see Washington as the main culprit and hence joined the extreme conservatives and isolationists by the end of the 1930s. Yet as Stephen Raushenbush explained, not just Nye but all the committee members came to the conclusion that the fires of modern warfare could not be tamed and that its burdens could not be equalized or made just. The only way to avoid the consequences of modern warfare was to avoid war itself and offensive preparation for it. Whether the nation's political economy would allow that the committee seemed to doubt." Id. at 300.).