American Military Success

American Military Success
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Institution Affiliation
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Date of Submission
The US Military Strategy Failure After 1950
The US military had played a key role during the World War I and World War II which made it to develop into a super power. The US military had insisted to remain neutral during these wars but was provoked by attacks of its submarines by the German troops. This made the US to engage in the World War I by a continued supply of resources to Britain and France. The US increased its offensive exhausting the German reserves prompting them to sign a conditional surrender and thus ending the war. During World War II the US was able to mobilize its military with high priority to air power. The involvement of the US in this war was limited to providing resources to Britain, Soviet Union and republic of china, but the attack of Pearl Harbor by Japan opened an avenue for the US to be officially involved. The US deployed its troops and planes in the beginning with strategic bombing of Nazis who had occupied Europe and consequently the invasion of German in 1945 with Soviet Union invasion in the east. This led to surrender of the Germans leaving the US to campaign the pacific war with Japan, where the US employed atomic bomb to shock the leadership of Japan causing the Japanese troops to surrender.
The quick mobilization of the US led to eventual dominance to military power in the theatre of war, and the industrial might of its economy was a major factor in the mobilization of its resources. The US learned the strategic and tactic lessons of the significance of air superiority and plane carrier in the naval actions which guided its military doctrine (Coffman, 1998). A special place is held by World War II in the US psyche as the countries greatest triumph as it made the US to emerge as undisputed superpower together with the Soviet Union. The development of these two nations as superpowers resulted in the US providing foreign military aid and direct involvement in proxy wars against the Soviet Union (Coffman, 1998). The US was a principle actor in Korean and Vietnam wars during this era holding nuclear weapons ready under the concept of mutually assured destruction. “1950 clearly marks a watershed in the history of the American military. Until that point the nation’s presidents provided wise wartime leadership, but after mid-century they made increasingly poor choices in the realm of strategy. Indeed, America’s lack of success in its last two wars can be almost solely laid at the feet of the occupants of the White House”. The Korean War and Vietnam War were conflict between the US and the united nation with support from the Soviet Union. There was major US military involvement by which the president during the time used force to fight communism from taking place in Asia (Millett, 1997). The Korean War ended after signing a peace accord but the Korean state was divided into North Korea which remained a communist state and South Korea which is allied to the US capitalist economy.
The US had framed the war to contain communism in south Asia as part of its foreign policy. The military history of the US involved different strategies where the bombing campaigns were controlled in the whit house for political reasons that resulted to heavy American casualties which alienated public opinion at home (Schulzinger, 1997). The US government had took fateful steps toward involvement as officials in the governments considered other measures of actions to be perilous making the US top be sucked in a war that it did not intend and t here was no acceptable way to avoid it. The involvement of the US in the war was to defeat northerners who were dominated by communism, and the strength of northerners made the US to increase its forces which decisively turned the public opinion against the war. A peace agreement was reached in 1973 in Vietnam but it was a sham which was aimed to delay the triumph of North Vietnam. The fall of South Vietnam government saw the American troops withdraw in a humiliating climax after twenty years of struggle (Schulzinger, 1997). The war cause a social upheaval as the antiwar movements gained momentum which culminated in demonstrations and riots.
There was an increase in economic consequences as a result of the war as the US government used much of its resources to the Vietnam War (Schulzinger, 1997). The war created a divisive and fragmented America as people felt to have been misled opening the credibility gap which was said by US government with respect to the war. The US was defeated both in Korean war and Vietnam war as t he strategies which were employed by the government were deceptive and of devious motives making the officials to use wrong assumptions though they were honest basically and well intentioned in their prosecution of the war (Schulzinger, 1997). The escalation of the war and increase d involvement of the US in the war brought forth a belief that the prospects of communist victory were intolerable.
Success Factors of the US Military
The success of the US military during its conflicts in the 20th century was attribut...