US Foreign Policy 1913 - 1945

World War I

In 1913, when the US passed the Federal Reserve Act it gave “government” the right to print money to spend with no limits. We had prospered from the industrial revolution and had new inventions that would greatly benefit everyone.

Our official foreign policy was to ignore all European wars. We were generally non-interventionist trading partners. We had no colonial aspirations beyond our own hemisphere. We had already won 3.5 million square miles of resource-rich living area through a series of wars of expansion and we were busy.

In 1914, Europe stumbled into World War I because the heir to the throne of Austro-Hungary had been murdered by a Serbian terrorist and rather than just arrest, prosecute and execute the murdered they invaded Serbia. That triggered a series of treaties and rather than resolve the problem with total financial retaliation against Austro-Hungary and Germany Europe went to war. Europe already knew that Germany and Austro-Hungary were ruled by loose cannons, but did nothing to dissuade future aggression. Today we need to get hold of Iran and North Korea and bring these governments to their knees.

We sat this one out until 1917, but we could have just let it play out.  It was a dumb war and it was their war. The US was making money from selling military equipment to the allies.

But in 1915, Germany sank the RMS Lusitania and 120 of the 1200 passengers were US citizens, so using this as our excuse we entered the dumb war in 1917 and won it. 

We sent 4.7 million troops and lost 116,516 and spent $32 billion.  The total cost of World War I was over $200 billion and caused Russia to fall to Communism and caused economic devastation to the rest of Europe. The UK finally paid off its WW1 debt in 2015.

It should be noted, in 1968 when Palestinian terrorist Sirhan Sirhan murdered Bobby Kennedy, the US didn’t declare war on Palestine, even though it wouldn’t have been a bad idea.

In 1920 Woodrow Wilson created the League of Nations to prevent war.  It failed.

World War II

In 1933, Germany elected the Nazi Party to control their legislature and the previous leaders appointed Nazi leader Adolph Hitler as Chancellor. Hitler resented losing World War I and built up the German military to get revenge.

Our international investment banks lent the money Hitler needed to fund his military build-up and these banks were not held accountable for the damage.

In 1939, Germany invaded Poland and World War II began. The US sold military equipment to the allies, but stayed out of the war until 1941, when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, our naval base in Hawaii.

The total cost of World War II for the US was $341 billion and the total cost for all sides was $1.075 trillion. US casualties totaled 418,500. US military forces totaled 16.1 million of the 1.9 billion total. We developed radar and won the war in Europe in 1944. We developed the atomic bomb and dropped it on Japan to end the war in 1945.

Europe had been destroyed and the US was able to continue manufacturing and commerce. The US economy did benefit from the full employment that resulted from military production and the transfer back to domestic production went well.

The Soviet Union illegally took over Eastern Europe in 1944, but the US just let it happen. General Patton recommended that the US should have dealt with the Soviet Union in 1944 by attacking it for its invasion of Eastern Europe, but our politicians lacked the guts to do it. 

In 1945, the League of Nations was replaced by the United Nations to prevent war.  It failed. But it pushed for global governance with the global warming hoax and the 1992 publication of UN Agenda 21.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader