Schneier on Security

Clive Robinson • July 10, 2013 2:40 AM

@ Dirk Praet,

3) Ever since the US delivered us from the nazis and protected us from the Soviet Union, America is considered the leader of the free world, our friend and equal. It is unthinkable that they would do anything to hurt us or that our governments and institutions would have been reduced to puppets doing their master’s bidding . (The Iraqis and the Palestinians for obvious reasons beg to differ.)

That’s quite a bit of ground to cover.

First off you need to consider America as a nation seperate from the people of America historicaly they are quite different in out look. As a nation America has never been another nations friend and has spent much of it’s existance following a parasitic issolationist policy (most history books on 18th through 20th century world politics will show you this). As a nation it was abundently rich in natural resources and what was (as far as the settlers were concerned) “virgin territory” with a population almost to sparse to be considered populated. Thus America became in many European eyes a place of “opportunity” to be exploited as well as a safe haven away from the machianations of European nations rulers.

As a result the US could do very much what it wished untill the 19th Century, it had not gone through a “middle ages” and subsiquent nation to nation conflicts which generaly define a nation and it’s people. In effect it had not “grown up” politicaly nor had it had to as it did not have the economic stresses of European Nations and early “war by proxie” by various European Nations gave rise to an issolationist policy that was relativly easy to maintain. This was due to major European wars (leading upto and including Napolionic) prior to the disastarous conflict of 1812 where the US invaded what is now Canada, which defined Canada as a nation and saw the US Capitol invaded by the British (The reason it’s now known as the “white house” and not the “Presidential Palace” was due to the painting required to cover up the significant burn marks caused by British troops setting fire to it).

This issolationist policy remained in effect as long as America was effectivly issolated from Europe and the Far East by the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Whilst the first world war and early German U-Boats gave a taste of what was to come [1] the US reverted back to it’s issolationist policy almost immediatly on the cesation of hostilities. And it was this that was seen by many as one of the primary reasons the League of Nations failed, which combined with impossible to meet reperations caused significant economic depression not just in Europe but in many parts of the world [2]. Which in turn many have seen as the reason politics polarised to the extreams and alowed the rise of Nazi German and in turn the Second World War.

As with WWI initialy US involvment was to profitably supply both sides of the conflict and maintain the issolationist policy [3]. Most politicians and much of the US populace were more than happy to stay well out of it. However a few politicians and citizens saw the writting on the wall and as a result America was starting to gear up to entering the war prior to Pearl Harbour.

WWII showed with the improved German U-boats once again that war could be brought to the US shores and that the US could not reley on the oceans to keep conflict at bay. And whilst WWI had seen the first aspects of science on the battle field, WWII was very much driven by science and technology part of which was the development of two offensive weapons, the V rockets and the nuclear bomb. Seperatly they were significant weapons together they would be considerably greater than the sum of their parts.

It was realised initialy by the scientists and later the politicians that it was only a matter of time befor all parts of the US would be compleatly vulnerable to such weapons and that the oceans either side of the US were now nolonger a barrier to the US being attacked.

Part of the US response was to realise that having Europe at war every twenty years or so would inevitably effect the US and rest of the world which was actually long term bad for the prosperity of the world and especialy the US. Initialy it was envisaged that occupied germany would be de-industrialised and turned into a “pastorial state” under the Morgenthau plan. However it was fairly soon realised that it was not possible in 1947 as Herbert Hoover observed of the plan for Germany,

It cannot be done unless we exterminate or remove 25,000,000 people out of it.

He further went on to indicate that in most respects Germany was the trading hub of Europe and without it Europe would remaine in an significantly economicaly declined state.

Further it was realised that the blight of Communism was spreading and had used the depressed economic state to spread into France and Italy as well as Greece. It was realised that the policy of “rollback” was not going to work nor that of “containment” unless Western Europe recieved econnomic aid. A recovery plan was formulated and put in place and became known as the Marshall Plan. Over the four years it ran it helped raise economic prosperity in Europe to above pre-war levels. However it became clear that it was at best only possible to contain Russian influanced communism in Europe not roll it back. The Cold War had started in ernest and then at the end of Aug 1949 came the news the US had been fearfull of Russia detonated it’s first atomic device, much in advance of the times predicted by US intel analysts [4].

It was realised that to fight communisom required significantly more than just economic aid and it was this that significantly built up the US industrial-military complex that has developed an independent life of it’s own, and now in effect dictates US foreign policy.

[1] Contrary to what many people belive the U-Boat was a significant factor in WWI. Although the practical militarisation of the submarine had been British the heads of the British Navy regarded it as a dispicable way to fight a war and chose to stick with “big gun” boats. Germany however being virtually land locked and easily subject to surface ship blockade regarded it differently. And unlike the british pushed development into range and underwater endurance. As a result Germany had prepared for blockade whilst Britain had not and much vital shipping to Britain was sunk. WWI was very nearly lost to Germany over the U-Boat and at the time the only workable defence against it was found to be the convoy.

[2] Others quite rightly point to the flu pandemic of 1918 which gripped the world for over three years, unfortunatly as it attacked the respiritory system of mainly economicaly productive adults it had a significantly disproportionate effect on the world economy when compared to just the mortality statistics (and is the major reason today national health agencies such as the US CDC are significantly concerned with the likes of SARS and bird flu crossing into humans).

[3] Part of this issolationist policy had been the closing down of the US “Black Chamber” responsible for breaking foreign codes and ciphers, which put the US at a distinct disadvantage at the start of WWII. Because of this the US ended up getting nearly all U-Boat intel from Britain untill quite late in the war and it was this that in part gave rise to the BRUSA (now UKUSA) agreement that was the found stone of the “Speacial Relationship” and the founding of the NSA. Both of which have been in the general news recently due to Edward Snowdens revelations.

[4] The US did not expect Russia to get nuclear weapons untill some considerable time later. At the time it was not known that the GRU had been successfully spying on the US, UK and Canadian design and fabrication of nuclear enrichment and bomb design.

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