The United States Navy and the New Silk Road

The Castle Report

Darrell Castle talks about the United States Navy and its role in protecting peaceful world trade since World War II. Transcription / Notes THE UNITED STATES NAVY AND THE NEW SILK ROAD Hello, this is Darrell Castle with today’s Castle Report. Today is Friday, November 16, 2018, and on today’s Report I will be talking about the role of the U.S. Navy in the world since World War Two and some things being done by other nations to counter that role today. First, let me remind you that next week is Thanksgiving Day and I plan to spend that Day with my family so no Castle Report next week. All nations need goods and services that can only be obtained from other countries. Sometimes they need raw materials for manufacturing industries, sometimes they need the already manufactured products, and sometimes their merchants just want to profit from the purchase and resale of foreign goods. There are only two ways for nations to obtain what they need from foreign countries: 1. they can take what they need by force through war; or 2. they can obtain what they need peacefully through trade. The best example of a nation choosing the war option is probably Japan in the 1920’s, 1930’s, and 1940’s. Japan had virtually no natural resources at all and had to import everything necessary to fuel its rapidly expanding Pacific Empire. It obtained the material it needed by invading and conquering one nation after another, and taking the resources of the conquered nations by force. Japan’s militaristic quest to expand its empire led directly to the start of World War Two because the only thing standing between Japan’s total conquest and subjugation of the Pacific Region was the United States Navy so that Navy had to be eliminated as a threat. Most people would argue then that the United States entry into World War Two was after the Japanese attack against the United States Navy at Pearl Harbor in December of 1941. A good argument could be made for the premise that the United States entered the conflict with Japan when President Roosevelt decided to curb Japan’s expansion and its conquest of China and brutal treatment of Chinese and other subjugated people by imposing economic sanctions on Japan. In December 1937, the Japanese army entered Nanking China which was then a capital city. The treatment of the Chinese people in Nanking was so brutal that the civilized nations of the world were shocked by it. The League of Nations held an emergency meeting to discuss the crises and it ordered Japan to leave China immediately. The Japanese ambassador to the League rejected the League’s decision and walked out of the meeting and the League. The United States was not a member of the League but President Roosevelt was offended by Japan’s action as well, and he tried to get the European Powers, such as Great Britain and France, to join him in imposing economic sanctions on Japan but they were preoccupied with Germany and would not stand united with him. President Roosevelt decided to act unilaterally and imposed a ban on crude oil exports to Japan. Later he expanded the ban to include iron ore and steel and these put Japan in a real bind. This was an example of a nation attempting to force a change in behavior of another nation through means that fall short of war. Some argue that economic sanctions are an act of war and I tend to fall into that category, but in this case something had to be done about the suffering of the Chinese people under Japanese occupation, and President Roosevelt did what he felt had to be done. Many argue that Roosevelt was just trying to force a Japanese attack to justify entering the War on behalf of European interests. I have read the books that make that argument and it is a tempting one, but I do not believe it to be true. One thing is for sure though; those sanctions put a bull’s eye on the United States Navy. The U.S. Navy was the only thing standing between Japan and its complete conquest of the Pacific region of...