Trumpeting of Nations for another World War
A contest in which a significant large number of nations across the world participate under clear banner but with each seeking to be the winner of the utmost reward is known as a world event. Similarly, a world war is a conflict in which a significant number of the nations of the world line up under clear banners but with the purpose of seeking to conquer opposing nations into military surrender. Competition, rivalry and covetousness for resources had been the nature of man reflected in the history of mankind. We have had 1st world war between 1914 to 1918 and the 2nd World War 1939 -1945. There have been regional wars before the 1st world war as there had been other wars after last World War – the 2nd World War. Other wars had only few nations in direct combat, such wars could be called regional wars. Such wars include Japan’s invasion of China in 1894 overrunning Formosa and its invasion of Russia in 1904. When Russia started to take control of Korea, Japan removed her diplomat from Russia in February 1904 and without declaring a war attacked and took the Russians by surprise, captured Port Arthur and Mukden and destroyed the Czar’s fleet in the straits of Tsushima. Then Japan established herself firmly in Korea and South Manchuria. Eventually In 1910 Korea was annexed. Czarist Russia one of the chief checks on Japanese expansion on the mainland of Asia collapsed in 1917.
Other regional wars were the Korean war of 1950 to 1953, the Middle East war of 1948, 1967 and 1973 between Arabs and Israel, the Falklands war otherwise called South Atlantic Conflict of 2 April 1982 – 14 June 1982 between Argentina and United Kingdom and the Gulf war of 2nd August 1990 – 28 February 1991 to mention a few. Some of these regional wars could develop into World War such as the Korean region could develop into a World War.
Empires, Nations and Civilizations of man have and fallen over time. Many at times, the desire for power, authority and influence over land and its resources as well as the desire to overrule the ruling idea or system of governance over other nations did provoke some nations into war. Japan wanted to become a first class power. To do this, she realized she had to overcome her weakness in natural resources. She had to secure this from countries outside her homeland.
In 1931, Japan seized Manchuria and renamed it Manchukuo. In 1936-37, Japan made agreement with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy which gave her added confidence in her aggressive policies and in 1937 she invaded China.
The United States soon stopped the shipping of scrap iron into Japan. Then they froze Japanese assets. This means the Japanese could not draw on their financial account located in the United States in order to pay their bills for goods bought in the United States. Shipments of oil were cut off. This left Japan in a very bad situation.
In 1939, hopes for a peaceful world were shattered as warmongering Germany bent on conquest challenged Great Britain and France for the 2nd time in a quarter of the century.
For the U.S. the problem at first was how to keep out of the conflict. But, after several months of inactive “sitting war” one by one the Germans overrun Denmark, Norway, Holland, Luxembourg, Belgium and France. Britain stood alone. America was shocked by the swift German attack, responded by rushing aid to Britain.
By 1941, the U.S. had become the “arsenal of democracy.” The Chinese also received aid as they continued to oppose Japanese aggression in the Far East. By December 1941, Japanese air and naval forces bombed the Pearl Harbor naval base in Hawaii. U.S. was stunned by the sudden attack, on the following day congress passed a declaration of war against Japan. Similar resolutions were adopted on December 11 after Germany and Italy declared war against the U.S.
From July 1940 to August 1945 American factories and shipyards produced almost 300,000, planes, 86,000 tanks, 3 million machine guns and 71, 000 ships. The Japanese were beaten back in the Pacific. In the European sector of the war, the Allied forces landed in North Africa and inched up through Sicily and Italy. On June 6, 1944, Allied forces directed by General Eisenhower invaded France, so began the roll back that led to German surrender on May 8, 1945. In the victory of the World War II were sown the seeds of a conflict that has continued to color almost every other problem. The U.S. is leader on one side and the Soviet Union of the other. At the Yalta and Potsdam conferences of 1945, concessions were made to the Soviets in the hope that the wartime alliance might continue to build peace. The major powers agreed that free elections would be held in those nations that Germany enslaved. Instead, Russia whose armies occupied Eastern Europe quickly installed communist government in Poland, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania. Czechoslovakia succumbed. On March 12, 1947, President Truman recommended that Congress take immediate action to halt Russian aggression in Europe. He declared that any aggression anywhere direct or indirect, threatened the security of the United States. In the background of this strong declaration were mounting Soviet threats against Greece and Turkey. She had either to withdraw her troops from the mainland of Asia or to go to war with the U.S. Her decision was to attack America at Pearl Harbor, this she did without a warning on December 7, 1941. The Americans recaptured the Island across the Pacific, recaptured the Philippines and seized Okinawa. By the time the Americans dropped atomic bombs – weapon of mass destruction on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; Japan surrendered unconditionally to the allied powers on August 15, 1945. In September 1951 representative from Allied powers met in San Francisco with the delegates from Japan to sign the treaty. It was a new kind of treaty, written not in revenge but with the idea of reinstating Japan in the community of nations. They showed that the occupation allied forces in Japan as friends, not as conquerors. The victory of Allied forces in 1945 brought the division of Korea in to two under the trusteeship of the US and Soviet Union (USSR). After the war, the USSR began to pursue communism as instrument for fast-tracking the development of its State into a world power. For the U.S. communism is a threat to freedom and this is unacceptable for the Korean people under its trusteeship. They wanted elections for the Korean people so that they could be re-united. Thus, despite the technical end of Korean War in 1953 and its cease-fire each of the trustee world powers kept propping up the section of Korea under their trusteeship to their political ideology. North Korea leaned to the Communist nation of USSR (now diminished into Russia) plus sympathy from China, while South Korea tilted to the Democratic nation of the U.S. plus sympathy from United Kingdom, France and Canada the struggle to entrench the tentacles of opposing world powers’ in Korea remains very active 64 years after (1953 – 2017) suggesting a notion of unending cold war among world powers. To defend its tilting to communism, North Korea had long been developing weapons of war while the democratic nations decried the weapons development. By December 2017 the United Nations (including North Korea allies of China and Russia) unanimously agreed to cut off 90% supply of North Korea fuel energy need in order to deprive it of fuel for its missile production activities. This UN Security Council unanimous agreement against North Korea is a plus for western nations. But this plus is with a ’lus (loss). This because the agreement means that Countries can supply North Korea with only 10% of its energy need. But has the Security Council defined the amount of North Korea’s current energy needs? Thus, the UN Security Council unanimous Agreement looks misleading, half-hearted, flexible and side-tractable because if not, none of North Koreas allies would easily agree as none of them would cheaply want western influence imported close to their borders. Expectedly, by late December, US President Trump alleged China of supplying oil to North Korea contrary to UN Security Council unanimous agreement, China denied the allegation. Also, at about same period Europe has run into anger over Russia’s naval ship sighted very near United Kingdom territorial waters soon after US decided to supply lethal weapon to anti-Russia Ukraine government. Meanwhile, North Korea has lately accepted to halt its Nuclear weapon expansion activities with conditions for its acceptance. The unfolding of these precarious events suggests increasing distrusts and possibilities of preemptive strike by one block over the other. With this state of affairs, any silly surprise attack could reverse the world into the era of unregulated warring as it was among power mongering nations of 1904 to 1930’s. But this time, it may engulf humanity with holocaust effect and no winner nation because of widespread possessions of modernized weaponry for mass destruction. Trumpeting is from all sides, a point the world of you and I are now in. 2018 is near, peace is far, welcome 2018, not the year of ides of March but laden for ides of years.