The strategic doctrine of the United States during World War II played an important role in determining how the country ultimately progressed through the rest of the century as a major world power, a professor said Wednesday.
Stanford University professor David Kennedy spoke to about 70 people at ‘The Short American Century,’ the fourth in a series of eight lectures held at the Boston University Castle.
Kennedy earned his Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale University in 1968 and won the Pulitzer Prize for History in 2000 for his book ‘Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945.’
He discussed how WWII revolutionized international affairs and distinguished the latter half of the 20th century as a recognizable period.’
‘To understand the full implications of the transformative effects of the war, recollect what the position of the United States was in 1940,’ he said. ‘In the international arena, [its] role was [contrasted] by what we know was coming at the end of the war period.”
International trade relations were secondary to the country’s sound economic development, he said, because the country refused to participate in the League of Nations and passed the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, which raised import and export taxes to their highest level in U.S. history.
‘We were a decidedly isolationist country as of 1940,’ he said.
But when the United States officially began fighting the war after Pearl Harbor in 1941, Kennedy said, situations began to change.
‘The historically improbable result in 1945 is a result of a deliberate war-fighting strategy,’ Kennedy said, ‘The principal asset of the United States was its industrial and economic capacity.”
The end of WWII transformed the country, both nationalistically and economically, Kennedy said.’
‘The U.S. paid the smallest price [for the war], economically and in terms of human life,’ he said. ‘Very few countries in the history of warfare managed to do what the United States did, which is grow the civilian economy.’
The consequence of the war-fighting doctrine was America’s power at the end of the war was exponentially greater than what wielded at the beginning of the war, Kennedy said.’
‘The war had incubated a new national self-confidence in America,’ he said.
Audience members said the lecture gave them perspective on the American identity of today.
College of Arts and Sciences junior Caitlin Cohen said she enjoyed the lecture because it took a different stance than what she was used to.’
‘He touched on how important WWII was in shaping the second half of the American century,’ she said. ‘I’ve never heard President Wilson called pragmatic before.’
BU history and international relations professor Andrew Bacevich praised the lecture series.
‘The purpose of these lectures is to enable us to reflect on how we got here and where we’re going,’ he said. ‘They are inspired by the belief that the global war on terror and the change in international economic order symbolized by the economic collapse of 2008 suggest that the American century may be ending.’
Bacevich said if the beliefs surrounding these outcomes are true, then ‘it’s a fact of monumental importance.’