That so little attention has been paid to regional influences on U.S. foreign policy is surprising. After all, the polarization of American domestic politics along regional lines is one of the most obvious and striking phenomena of our time. The disproportionately southern congressional leadership reflects the new southern base of the Republican Party. Both liberal Democrats and moderate Republicans find their strongest support in the states of New England and the northern tier. The superimposition of regional cultural loyalties atop partisan ideologies accounts for much of the increase in partisan rancor in the United States.
While the sectional division in domestic politics has become familiar, the impact of the divisions between America's regions on its diplomacy is a neglected subject. When the influence of sectionalism on U.S. foreign policy is discussed at all, it is usually in the context of trade disputes, which pit the northeastern-midwestern manufacturing belt against the high-tech industries and commodity exporters of the South and West. But regional influences on U.S. foreign policy go far beyond conflicts of economic interest. Regional differences in the United States based in culture and values -- particularly the enduring differences between anti-interventionists in the North and pro-interventionists in the South -- have shaped debates over American foreign policy in every generation and will continue to do so.
The pattern of Greater New England's opposition to wars and the opposite tendency of the South, especially the Tidewater South, to be strongly interventionist first manifested itself in the earliest years of the Union. During the War of 1812, the hawks tended to be southerners like Henry Clay of Kentucky and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. Congress' vote on the war followed sectional lines, not partisan lines. In the House of Representatives, the northern-and-mid-Atlantic-dominated Federalist Party voted unanimously against the war; the southerners who controlled the Democratic-Republican Party solidly backed it.
Another example of the extreme antimilitarism of New Englanders is provided by Charles Sumner, the powerful Massachusetts senator who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee between 1861 and 1871. Sumner's first major public speech was an 1845 Fourth of July oration in Boston in which he horrified the veterans in the audience by blaming war on arms manufacturers, calling West Point "a seminary of idleness and vice," and describing soldiers as "wild beasts" who rejoice "in blood." His speech culminated in the declaration, "In our age there can be no peace that is not honorable; there can be no war that is not dishonorable." True to his pacifist principles, Sumner refused to fight back when he was caned on the floor of the House in 1856 by South Carolina Representative Preston S. Brooks, in retaliation for Sumner's verbal assault on Brooks' cousin, South Carolina Senator Andrew P. Butler ...
The historical record, then, could not be clearer. There is a centuries-old anti-interventionist, antimilitary culture in the United States, centered in New England and the regions of the Great Lakes, the Midwest, the Upper Plains, and the Pacific Northwest settled by New Englanders. Today's pro-military, interventionist Republicans, for their part, are the political heirs of the pro-military, interventionist Roosevelt and Wilson Democrats, as well as of the expansionist Democrats of the early nineteenth century and their predecessors, the Jeffersonian Republicans who favored the War of 1812.
What accounts for this remarkably persistent pattern of North-South disagreement about the necessity and legitimacy of U.S. military intervention abroad? Traditional accounts of U.S. interventionism and isolationism have explained them in terms of the ties between immigrant groups and Old World countries. This explanation does help account for the opposition of German Americans and anti-British Irish Americans to U.S. intervention in both world wars. But political scientists like Samuel Lubell who attribute interwar American isolationism chiefly to the influence of German and Irish American voters are mistaken. Isolationist sentiment from 1914 to 1941 was strong in many northern states with negligible German and Irish populations . ..
The real reason for the persistence of sectionalism in U.S. foreign policy can be found in the "ethnoregional" theory of American politics, which has been developed by David Hackett Fischer, Daniel J. Elazar, D. W. Meinig, Kevin Phillips, and others. This theory holds that, in the United States, powerful ethnic and regional subcultures are more important and enduring than political parties or ideologies. The meaning of "Democrat" and "Republican" differs from generation to generation; regional subcultures like those of New England and the Tidewater South change far more slowly ...
The ethnoregional theory answers the mystery of American sectional differences over war. Regional disagreements about intervention overseas are part of a larger pattern of regional disagreement about the legitimacy of all forms of violence. "Historians of Southern mores are agreed that violence as an aspect of Southern life clearly distinguished the region from the rest of the country," the historian Bertram Wyatt-Brown has written. Of the southerner, Alexis de Tocqueville observed that "the energy which his [northern] neighbor devotes to gain turns with him to a passionate love of field sports and military exercises; he delights in violent bodily exertion, he is familiar with the use of arms, and is accustomed from a very early age to expose his life in single combat." Southern states lead the nation not only in military academies but in homicide rates, death penalty laws, and low penalties for domestic violence. Northern states have the lowest homicide rates and the greatest number of statutes requiring a citizen to retreat before attacking an assailant or burglar ...
If it weren’t for Major John Barry, you might be whistling Dixie instead of saluting the star-spangled banner. On May 2, 1863, Barry was in command of a detachment
of Confederate troops in Chancellorsville, Virginia. Sighting what he thought were mounted Union officers, he ordered his men to open fire. But Barry had given the order to fire on his own boss-General Stonewall Jackson, a man regarded as the South’s finest military leader. Jackson was hit three times and lost his left arm as a result. Weakened by trauma and loss of blood, he died on May 10. Had he lived, the South might have won the Civil War and we’d all have funny beards and be eating squirrel.
Fido goes boom
During World War II, the Russians came up with a novel way to combat the fearsome German panzer tank divisions: dog mines. The plan: Train canines to link the idea of food with a panzer tank—then strap explosives on the mutts. The problem was that Russian tanks were used in the training. In the first battle, as soon as the salivating hounds were released, they went right for the undersides of the commie tanks. The upside: an abundance of already-cooked dog meat.
You snooze, you lose
Because his troops were pooped from fighting the Texans, Mexican general Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna ordered his army to take a siesta on the sweltering afternoon of April 20, 1836. The dozing soldiers were spotted by the Texans and were routed in just 18 minutes. You’d think someone would have brought coffee.
The Vikings: Bloodthirsty, merciless and tanned
In England, sunbathing opportunities are as rare as good-looking women with straight teeth. So when a 1066 Viking invasion of northern England coincided with a sunny day, the invaders took time out from pillaging and plundering to slip off their armor and catch some rays. After all, the English army was tied up on the south coast…wasn’t it? When the Vikings saw forces approaching, they didn’t bother putting their armor back on, assuming that the group was their reinforcements. The Vikings were slaughtered-but their corpses had a lovely tan.
It Really Happened Merry Christmas—now eat lead
Christmas 1914: British and German troops took a day off from killing each other. Emerging from their trenches, they swapped cigarettes and food, shook hands and played soccer. When news of this leaked out, officials downplayed it, saying the informal truce lasted just one day. But in some places it lingered well into the New Year and involved two thirds of British troops on the western front. The next year’s truce was the last. Officers threatened to court-martial anyone who did it again.
The coward is coming, the coward is coming!
The poet Longfellow immortalized Paul Revere for his 1775 ride to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams that the British were coming to arrest them. But just four years later, Revere was accused of insubordination and cowardice when a battle he commanded went sour and cost Massachusetts its entire trading fleet. In 1782, a court-martial cleared him, but not before he’d left the armed forces under a cloud of suspicion. The prime mover behind the accusations? Longfellow’s grandfather.
Swedish amazons win in Vietnam
A tribe of Amazonian warrior women were among the most feared fighters during the Vietnam War. Three generations before the war, a Swedish mining company set up operations in Min Top, in southern Vietnam. The locals and the Swedes intermarried and had large, fair-haired kids. During the war, many Min Top women became soldiers. During one battle, they killed 22 Vietcong. Known for their savagery, they seldom—if ever—took prisoners. But they gave one helluva Swedish massage.
The Japanese surrender, 1974
Toward the end of World War II, as the tide turned against the Japanese, one soldier-determined to avoid shameful capture-fled to the remote Philippine island of Lubang. For nearly 30 years, Hiroo Onoda refused to surrender. He fired on search parties and believed that claims of the war being over were a sneaky American trick. He finally called off his personal war in 1974, after his old commanding officer flew to Lubang and ordered him to lay down his arms. He now does karaoke in Ohio.
Best one-man war machine
During the Korean War, Lt. Lloyd Burke and 35 soldiers attacked Hill 200 near Seoul, held by 300 Chinese. Burke dashed into open ground, lobbed grenades into a bunker, shot the survivors, then charged two more bunkers, catching three grenades in midair and hurling them back. He was wounded by a grenade, but still pursued fleeing commies. He personally killed 100 enemies and was awarded the Medal of Honor. What did you do today?
Ask The Hawks
Stuff’s panel of experts tackles the burning questions you want to know about combat, such as “Which uniform gets the most girls?”
Are we going to war soon?
I hope not. Because I’m the one who will get shot at.
Other than dying, what sucks about war?
Being cold, wet and hungry.
France vs. England: Who’d win?
England, hands down. All they’d have to do is show up and France would surrender.
Are there any sleeper countries that are more of a threat than we realize?
Pakistan and India surprised everyone—even the CIA. Probably the smallest country that is a real threat right now is North Korea.
From a practical standpoint, should you take a prisoner or kill him?
From a practical standpoint, we don’t joke about that. You don’t kill prisoners—it’s a war crime. If one did, one would have to worry about our own government more than the enemy.
Does throwing yourself on a grenade really help anyone?
Aside from the enemy? Yeah, the guys who didn’t fall on the grenade. It does work.
Can I keep what I find on the battlefield?
Depends on what it is. There are actually rules for that. If you go after certain things, like civilians’ jewelry, it’s looting. If you take a prisoner’s backpack as a souvenir, so long as it’s not necessary for his survival, it’s OK.
Can you score free drinks during wartime?
Depends on who and where you’re fighting. Go to war with a country that produces high quantities of quality wine, like France, and you won’t even have to fight over it.
How long does the mail take to reach the front?
It reaches the front? Actually, in places like Kosovo and Bosnia, most everyone has access to e-mail.
I have trouble peeing in public—can this get me out of the service?
Technically, you’re not out in public. So get over it, silky boy!
How do you get in the groove of not killing people when you return home?
You don’t. You just go back to your video games.
What happens if they find out I shot myself in the foot to get discharged?
They give you what you want: A discharge (dishonorable) and a free trip home (to Fort Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary).
Ever seen or heard of a survey about which uniform gets the most girls?
No, but the opinion seems to favor the Marines, though few people on the outside seem to have ever noticed the U.S. Army blues-sharp!
Why does everyone say that the Air Force is full of pussies?
Because military personnel are trained to be honest.
War spelled backward is raw. Coincidence?
No. We planned it that way.
John is an active-duty U.S. Army artilleryman who thinks the less you know about him, the better.
Any cool new weapons on the horizon?
The National Missile Defense system (NMD) is currently under development by the Army and Navy. The Air Force is developing an airborne laser capable of shooting down in-flight cruise missiles anywhere in the world. Initial testing is scheduled for 2003. The Army has recently tested a computerized battlefield helmet. This helmet gives the soldier a heads-up display, allowing him or her to see the location of everyone on the battlefield, communicate with any of them instantly, see the enemy at night and at long distances and even shoot around corners. The initial tests went very well.
Are there any sleeper countries that are more of a threat than the average citizen realizes?
It is still possible that North Korea will attempt to solve its serious economic problems by invading South Korea. The next most serious hot spot is probably China-Taiwan. I strongly expect China to invade Taiwan within the next six years. For the average citizen, the biggest threat is terrorism from any number of countries using biological or nuclear weapons.
Who would win: France or England?
Neither. Both have enough nuclear weapons to blow each other off the map.
Why do soldiers get up so early?
In boot camp, soldiers get up early because it’s a 12- to 14-hour training day. Also, such a routine helps to instill discipline. After boot camp, a soldier may or may not get up early. Just like a civilian job, it depends on what shift he or she is assigned to work.
Is it really possible to avoid combat by dressing as a woman?
Such a person would be referred for psychiatric evaluation. If the psychiatrists diagnosed him with a personality disorder or adjustment disorder, the individual would most likely be discharged. If no such disorder were diagnosed, the individual would be punished in accordance with how a court-martial ruled under Article 92 of the Uniform Code
of Military Justice.
Rod Powers served for 23 years in the U.S. Air Force, 11 as a first sergeant. Now a military researcher and journalist.
Why is it so important to get up early and make your bed?
You’ve got to have discipline so that you can get in there and face a machine gun. You’ve got to rise above that and look at the aim of the military. Is the cause worth the horseshit that goes with it? The big picture is, “Is this war worth dying for?” That’s what really keeps you going. Oh, Lord, I had five years of it. The crud that goes on, I don’t think you can ever change it. You can’t let the little things affect you. You can’t let the tail wag the dog.
From a practical standpoint, should you hold a POW hostage or kill him?
We took great pride in that we treated prisoners really well. But the Germans didn’t. The Germans killed a hell of a lot of our guys that they shouldn’t have. We’ve done the same damn thing in the past, and our people were never punished. It’s interesting—the Germans and the Americans got along remarkably well. They did an excellent job of killing one another, but they didn’t have the God-awful hatred for each other that our Marines had for the Japanese and the Japanese had for our Marines. The Japanese took hardly any prisoners, and the Marines just didn’t want the Japanese to surrender: “Just go out there and fight, you bastards.” So many of the Americans were second-generation Germans, and there wasn’t a German that I ran into during the war who didn’t have a relative in Milwaukee or someplace here. But that didn’t diminish the fact that they did a pretty good job of mowing one another down.
Do you still have any animosity toward the Germans and Japanese?
I do, I do. And I think the world’s going to be a better place when a lot of us old bastards get out of here. I finally gave up and bought a Japanese car about two years ago. I figured if you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. But I don’t think I’ve ever forgiven them. Ninety percent of the Japanese alive now weren’t born at that time, and you can hardly blame them for the sins of their parents. But I guess I still do.
Did anything ever happen to the hippies who ran off to Canada during the Vietnam War?
I can’t have much respect for them. I couldn’t live with that. There were too many honest kids who went over and died for that thing while others went back to college or fled to Canada or did something else. I wasn’t in favor of the war, but I hate to see anyone bucking the system. We defeated ourselves in that war because the government and the military didn’t have the people behind them. The officers who really won the Gulf War were junior officers in Vietnam, and they saw the mistakes that were made and vowed that they weren’t going to make them again.
Are there any sleeper countries that are more of a threat than we realize?
I think we’ve passed the point where we’re going to have war as we’ve known it. It’s going to be terrorism from here on out, and the military is gearing up to fight those types of skirmishes. But it scares the life out of you when you think how many nuclear bombs are unaccounted for. Terrorism lends itself to the weak countries, and we’ve got a lot of people mad at us. Nobody ever loves a rich man.
Is it true that Air Force guys are a bunch of wimps?
I think so. They may want to avoid getting down in the mud. It’s nice to go back to clean sheets. In most of the Air Force, the officers go out and do the fighting. It’s a romantic kind of thing. They want to avoid the hand-to-hand stuff on the ground. You can’t blame them. I was infantry, but I just wasn’t very smart. We kidded them a lot, but I don’t think there’s any resentment. From 1942 till ’44, the Air Force was really the only U.S. branch that was fighting in Europe. They took tremendous losses. And the ground force wasn’t doing anything. It was a nasty war for the Air Force. ,The poor Marines, they suck high tit. They’ve got this spirit that’s wonderful, but they’re the ones that go in first, and they take the heaviest casualties. They get the Navy’s secondary equipment, the secondary officers, the secondary airplanes. Times are such that it’s a real worry: The economy is so good that the Army is consistently under its quota for what it needs.
Hugh Tinley is a Retired army captain. During WWII, saw action as an infantry officer and worked in Eisenhower’s HQ.
John Parrish. War! What Is It Good For? Stuff. 2/25/2003.
