World War II

World War II was the largest and most violent armed conflict in human history. The Second World War, a protracted, total war fought for unlimited aims, was a global struggle between two powerful coalitions. For six years, the war unleashed atrocities on a scale never before seen, including the annihilation of six million Jews in Nazi death camps. Before it was over, more than 60,000,000 people lost their lives. And the world entered the nuclear age when the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945.

Three events helped usher in World War Two: Japan overran Manchuria; Italy, under fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, invaded Ethiopia; and - most important -- Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany. He rearmed the country, in violation of a treaty signed after World War One, and soon began to threaten other European nations. Arrayed against these powers were, principally, Britain, France, the Soviet Union and, later, the United States.

The Great War, the war that "made the world safe for democracy," had created tremendous dislocations which laid the groundwork for the collapse of democratic institutions in Europe, and set the stage for a second German attempt at conquest. The experience of the Great War compelled the Western democracies to develop alternative strategies and policies to support their national-security interests. The United States sought security through arms-limitation treaties, strict isolationism and neutrality laws. France, morbidly obsessed by the prospect of German resurgence, negotiated a web of alliances and tried to maintain its military preeminence (at least on paper.) Great Britain pinned its hopes for post-war security on participation in an activist League of Nations and a new European concert system. When these failed, both Britain and France turned to appeasement.

For their part, the Germans and Italians embarked on a different course founded on extreme nationalism, autarchy, rearmament and revision of the hated Versailles settlement. The Japanese defined national security in terms of an East Asian hegemony defended by powerful armed forces.

In October 1929, the Great Depression wreaked havoc throughout the world. Hitler's Nationalist Socialist Democratic Workers Party (Nazis) emerged as the majority party in Germany in the 1930 election, and President Hindenberg appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany in 1933. Germany withdrew from the League of Nations in October 1933, and on 07 March 1936 German reoccupied the Rhineland in violation of the Versailles Treaty which had ended the Great War. On 30 September 1938 Hitler announced plans to annex the German Sudentenland, which had been transfered from Germany to Czechoslovakia by the Versailles Treaty, and on 14 March 1939 Hitler invaded the rest of Czechoslovakia. Adolf Hitler started the war in a bid to conquer the continent of Europe. After the conquest of Europe and its consolidation under Nazi rule, Hitler envisioned fighting further wars that would make Germany into a global superpower. Hitler aimed at nothing less than to enslave and exterminate whole peoples whom he deemed "inferior."

While Hitler's Germany advanced in Europe, Japan brought on the Greater East Asian War in the Pacific by its expansion in East Asia. A clique of aggressively militaristic officers and politicians gained control of the government during the 1930s. The goal of Japan's leaders was to create an empire that dominated the countries of East Asia and the sea lanes of the Western Pacific. The road to war between Japan and the United States began in the 1930s when differences over China drove the two nations apart. In 1931 Japan conquered Manchuria, which until then had been part of China. Japanese forces invaded China in July 1937, leading to a full-scale war which the Japanese military had neither expected nor desired. The Japanese war with China continued longer than the Japanese had expected, as Japan became mired in the vastness of China.

American strategic planning after WWI was largely conditioned by a popular reaction against war. Most military pla