The Rise of USA in Modern Times

美国在近代因为罗门主义外交政策，使自己在很多时候都处于中立的位置，没有卷入战乱当中，并大力发展自己的国家，到第二次工业革命的时候，美国已然成为世界上经济排名第一的国家，实力大幅上升。因为日本侵犯美国的珍珠港，使美国卷入国际事务当中。就这样，美国开始侵略日本，越南等国家，扩充自己的势力。

In 1940s, the most defining incident of the decade would be the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The United States had never experienced such attacks on homeland after the 19th century Mexican-American War; even when U.S. participated in World War I, the military operations were confined on Europe. U.S. has always been staying out of European issues ever since the establishment of Monroe Doctrine, which stated clearly that U.S. will remain neutral on European international conflicts, as long as they do not seek to colonize the American Continent anymore. Such were the leading diplomatic policy of United States by then, and U.S. has never been interfered by European powers ever since. Also, the natural geographic distance between U.S. and Europe had given the former one great opportunity to enhance its own economic and political power. By the end of second Industrial Revolution, U.S. had surpassed Britain to become the world’s greatest economy, which ensures its advantages in international affairs. Since then U.S. had been trying to profit from both sides of European power in terms of their conflict, during the beginning years of World War I, U.S. has been selling weapons to both Central Powers and Alliances was the best evidence of its policy. However, with the development of modern technology and the gradual globalization of world economy, U.S. could not stay behind Pacific and Atlantic forever. If we say that the 1929 global economic crisis was the start of U.S. getting out of isolation, then the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor can be seen as the start of U.S. interfering global affairs actively.

The Japanese-U.S. conflict was a result of conflicts of interest on Pacific lane. The Japanese has always been afraid of U.S. cutting off its oil and war resources transportation lane which starts in Southeast Asia and China, and ends in Japanese homeland. In addition, U.S. has been assisting British and Chinese since the outbreak of European warfare, especially when the Lend-Lease Act has been passed in March 1941. U.S. has possessed great threat to Axis Power by then, which is another reason why the Japanese attacked the United States. The attack on Pearl Harbor cost Americans greatly: 8 main battleships of Pacific Fleet were destroyed by Japanese Navy, the Pearl Harbor was destroyed and thousands of casualties were created within U.S. forces and civilians. The attack became a shameful day for U.S. people, President Roosevelt declared war on Japan and Germany right after the attack, and began to assist Soviet Union in its resistance against the Nazi German troops. The Pearl Harbor Attack was a milestone incident on U.S. involvement of global affairs, U.S. began to shoulder its major responsibilities in fighting against Fascists and rebuild global order. Since then, U.S. has been aiding the Allies with huge amount of war assets and funds, Britain, China and Soviet Union have all benefited from such assistance; the U.S. navy and air force had been fighting the Japanese forces on Pacific from 1941 right to the end. In 1942, the U.S. sent armies to Africa to help the British push Germans back. In 1944, U.S., British, French, Canadian and Australian forces opened the second battlefield in Western Europe, attacking Nazi Germany on both sides by collaborating with Soviet Union. In 1945, Germany and Japan surrendered under the great pressure of allies, and U.S. had eventually become the world’s top superpower by the end of the war. All of these started from Pearl Harbor Attack, it changed the U.S.’s role in international affairs and put an end to the isolation policy, bringing U.S. influence to all over the world and ensured U.S. leadership in the western camp.

When time brought us to 1970s, the most defining moment of the decade was not marked by a victory but a defeat—U.S. lost Vietnam War in 1975 and all of Vietnam was captured by the Soviet backed Communist Party of Vietnam, the “Vietcong”. It signals the failure of U.S.’s attempt to interfere regional affairs with direct and massive scale of armed intervention against Communism expansion. When U.S. won World War II, it quickly found itself the next rival—Soviet Union, which was the archenemy of U.S. both in terms of geopolitics and ideology. In order to prevent communism from expanding to Europe and Asia, U.S. began to interfere internal affairs of European and Asian countries by either economic aid or military intervention. In 1940s, U.S. aided both Western Europe and China to suppress Communism in both regions, which eventually succeeded in the former but lost in the latter. The U.S. interfered Korea in 1950s in attempt to destroy communist North Korea and China by directly attacking both countries, which failed again after 3 years of meaningless fight. The U.S. next attempt was Vietnam, another Asian country in seek of establishing communism ever since its independence in 1950s. Unlike China, Vietnam was a country in split, and U.S. possessed absolute military advantage against Vietcong and has been training the southern Vietnamese Army even since its interference in 1960s. Considering the situation in Korea before the Chinese army was involved, it was highly likely that U.S. would have defeated Vietcong just as they have defeated Kim Il-Sung. However, the war turned into a bitter twist of American soldiers in the Vietnamese forest, and the casualties were beyond description, which finally made U.S. decide to withdraw from Vietnam.

The loss of Vietnam War was a complex result caused by both domestic and international influence: domestically, with the development of Civil Rights Movement and Hippies, U.S. teenagers have become war hatred and resisted going to the battlefield to fight the communist in the forests; anti-war protests were seen everywhere and the press reported negatively about the American involvement in the war. Though the Nixon administration suppressed several anti-war demonstration, the call for stopping the war was still strong enough to make White House reconsider the necessity of carrying on with it; internationally, the Warsaw Pact countries and China contributed large sums of war assets to Vietcong, and international press have also been condemning U.S. as the invader of Vietnam. The southern Vietnamese Army was also too fragile to resist the communists on the battlefield, which resulted in U.S. failure to hold the line. Under all these pressures, the U.S. could stand no more its huge losses and was forced to retreat in 1973, directly causing the taking over of whole Vietnam by the communists in 1975.

The defeat in Vietnam was definitive for it signaled the total failure of U.S. large scale military intervention of global affairs, indicating the U.S. must switch to less intensive policies towards the world other than intervening without any consideration in advance. The contact with Chinese in later years proved the lesson to be a valuable one; also, the loss of Vietnamese War contributed greatly to the domestic anti-war campaign and equality appeals in U.S., which resulted in the Pacifistic trend in U.S. public opinions. In general, the Vietnam War changed U.S. consideration of its own status in the world and domestic opinions of U.S. actions in the world, creating a path for a less aggressive foreign policy and more subtle ways to fight against Soviet expansion.