WWII, why did America have such a small military in 1939?

[the game]

There were less people back then.

[Mihalik]

America up until 1916 really, had a very small inexperienced army. They had a policy of not intervening, not going abroad in search of beasts to slay was the quote (I'm paraphrasing) it was only with Woodrow Wilson that they changed their policy and mobilised into WW1 that they changed their interventionist ideas and even then they were grossly behind everyone else at that point of the war, by 1916/17 most of Europe was a proto-WW2 army.

The majority of people didn't think a WW2 would happen so America really had no reason to expand and went back to their non-interventionist ideals.

They were very happy bankrolling the world wars and both times only fought when they were dragged into it. (Zimmerman Telegram & Lusitania and, Pearl Harbour). Wilsonian politics changed their outlook.

That's the grossly basic version.

Bullshit. Our first foreign intervention was in 1801 in North Africa, during The First Barbary War, it's is literally the base of the Marine Corps and the Navy's mythos.

In 1812 we tried to annex Canada.

In 1815 we were back in North Africa in the Second Barbary War.

By the 1820's we were patrolling the Mediterranean in anti-piracy operations.

In 1830 we were sending an expedition to Sumatra.

1840 we were fighting tribes on the Ivory Coast in Africa.

1846 we invaded and annexed parts of Mexico.

In 1850s we got involved in a civil war in Fiji.

At the end of the 1850's we got involved in the Opium Wars in China along with other major European powers.

In 1853 the US navy sailed into Tokyo Bay and demanded Japan to end its isolation or we'd bombard the city. 10 years later we were attacking the remaining isolationists in the Japanese islands.

And the list goes on and on. We literally haven't spent more than 20 years at any point during our entire history when we weren't either involved in a foreign war, conducting a foreign war, conducting a military expedition of some sort or occupying a foreign nation or colonizing something or taking someone else's colonies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._United_States

Isolationism is what China and Japan did for centuries. We, were never ever isolationist.

Not to mention this of course ignores the fact that much of the continental North America outside Canada and Mexico already belonged so sovereign Native American polities, much of those lands were acquired through what at the time was technically foreign military campaigns.

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Up until WWI the US policy was pretty much isolationist. We only gotten into that war at the very end because we were provoked. After the war was over we tried to go back to our old ways. A country who doesn't get involved with other nations and doesn't have hostiles on their borders don't need much of a military. Take those countries you mentioned, for instance, Belgium and Portugal. They either had overseas colonies to protect and/or hostile groups they were fighting. US, by comparison didn't have any overseas territories or protectorates until the Spanish America war.

We were never isolationist.

[J012D4N]

Bullshit. Our first foreign intervention was in 1801 in North Africa, during The First Barbary War, it's is literally the base of the Marine Corps and the Navy's mythos.

In 1812 we tried to annex Canada.

In 1815 we were back in North Africa in the Second Barbary War.

By the 1820's we were patrolling the Mediterranean in anti-piracy operations.

In 1830 we were sending an expedition to Sumatra.

1840 we were fighting tribes on the Ivory Coast in Africa.

1846 we invaded and annexed parts of Mexico.

In 1850s we got involved in a civil war in Fiji.

At the end of the 1850's we got involved in the Opium Wars in China along with other major European powers.

In 1853 the US navy sailed into Tokyo Bay and demanded Japan to end its isolation or we'd bombard the city. 10 years later we were attacking the remaining isolationists in the Japanese islands.

And the list goes on and on. We literally haven't spent more than 20 years at any point during our entire history when we weren't either involved in a foreign war, conducting a foreign war, conducting a military expedition of some sort or occupying a foreign nation or colonizing something or taking someone else's colonies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._United_States

Isolationism is what China and Japan did for centuries. We, were never ever isolationist.

Not to mention this of course ignores the fact that much of the continental North America outside Canada and Mexico already belonged so sovereign Native American polities, much of those lands were acquired through what at the time was technically foreign military campaigns.

ALL OF THIS

You people have no clue what actual "isolationism" in play looks like.
Look up pre-meji Japan (Edo or pre-Bakumatsu periods). THAT's what isolationism looks like.

American "Isolationism" is a myth.
100% we've had people in power that could be considered "isolationists", but collectively as a people, we never have been.
Fuck guys, just look at our policy in the pacific during the 1800's. Our entire pre-WWII relationship with Japan was based on the notion that America wanted to EXPAND it's influence trough trade & diplomacy in East Asia. Isolationist don't do that.

[willtron]

Bullshit. Our first foreign intervention was in 1801 in North Africa, during The First Barbary War, it's is literally the base of the Marine Corps and the Navy's mythos.

In 1812 we tried to annex Canada.

In 1815 we were back in North Africa in the Second Barbary War.

By the 1820's we were patrolling the Mediterranean in anti-piracy operations.

In 1830 we were sending an expedition to Sumatra.

1840 we were fighting tribes on the Ivory Coast in Africa.

1846 we invaded and annexed parts of Mexico.

In 1850s we got involved in a civil war in Fiji.

At the end of the 1850's we got involved in the Opium Wars in China along with other major European powers.

In 1853 the US navy sailed into Tokyo Bay and demanded Japan to end its isolation or we'd bombard the city. 10 years later we were attacking the remaining isolationists in the Japanese islands.

And the list goes on and on. We literally haven't spent more than 20 years at any point during our entire history when we weren't either involved in a foreign war, conducting a foreign war, conducting a military expedition of some sort or occupying a foreign nation or colonizing something or taking someone else's colonies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._United_States

Isolationism is what China and Japan did for centuries. We, were never ever isolationist.

Not to mention this of course ignores the fact that much of the continental North America outside Canada and Mexico already belonged so sovereign Native American polities, much of those lands were acquired through what at the time was technically foreign military campaigns.

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We were never isolationist.

Cool, you found some exceptions that have nothing to do with the question.

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Our entire pre-WWII relationship with Japan was based on the notion that America wanted to EXPAND it's influence trough trade & diplomacy in East Asia. Isolationist don't do that.

America was trying to expand to hang with the Empires at the time, so was Japan, that was why they invaded China.

[J012D4N]

America was trying to expand to hang with the Empires at the time, so was Japan, that was why they invaded China.

Yes, but we've been doing this more/less since our inception.

Japan's external expansion was during/post Meji restoration. Really didn't do much during the bulk of the Tokugawa Shogunate (250+ years)
Would say the Kyushu & Ainu were the only ones they actively tried to "expand" upon prior to Meji. Traded with the Dutch, Chinese ... bout it.
THEN, as stated above, we happened to them, lol.

Guess we've gotten away from the OPs topic a tad ....

[Jastall]

Cool, you found some exceptions that have nothing to do with the question.

I really wouldn't call these exceptions. Isolationism would mean foreign wars would be unthinkable, not undertaken every 5 years at most.

America may have been isolationist in comparison to huge colonial empires like the British or French who got involved in everything they humanly could, but that doesn't mean it dedicated itself to the idea like post-Sengoku Jidai Japan which strove to close itself to any and all foreign influences. And America had glorified colonies of its own in any case.

The US also very much took sides in both World Wars- the idea that they were "dragged" into them as popularly claimed is nonsense. They gave substantial material and monetary aid to the Allies both times, and when it came to WW2 FDR was just dying for an excuse to join in on the fun. America's army was small because it had little to no fear of a foreign invasion from either of its borders, and had no need for extravagant military spendings when its foreign interests mostly consisted of influencing/bullying around far smaller nations for resources. When their interests became global and they had to account for Europe, Japan, China and the USSR, so did the army size require expansion.

[Auxora]

Was a 20th century US History major, focusing on WW2 so this is 1 I know. The reason was very obvious but is one of those things that is easily forgotten to time when people try to apply 2019 situations to a time that was very different in the 1930's.

Keep in mind the US was very very Democratic leaning at the time with FDR, and was also just coming out of the Great Depression. We've had bad recessions since then, but definitely not the bread lines and soup kitchens, and creating infrastructure projects just to give unemployed people jobs. So that was fresh in people's minds then. Additionally, The Great War (WW1) was also not even 20 years passed at the time. For those reasons, financial reasons and for the cost of lives of US troops, the majority popular opinion in the 1930's in the US was that they wanted nothing to do with what was going on in Europe. People in the US saw the rising nationalism in Europe, but still reeling from WW1 and the Depression the majority opinion and Congress at the time was isolationist, did not want to get involved at all, and was doing everything to avoid getting involved in the war.

On top of all that, in the US at the time there were many immigrants from Germany not far removed from their homeland, and there was a loud and vocal pro-German group in the US that also wanted the US to not go to war with Germany for their own reasons. It was a big enough group for politicians to take their votes into account.

So all of that lead to both the US not having a lot of money for a huge Army in the 1930s, money was focused on social projects and needs, and wanting to keep a small Army to reduce the chance of being seen as a threat to hopefully stay out of WW2. Like I said, it wasn't that people were dumb and didn't see WW2 coming by the mid-late 30's, it's that they wanted no part of getting dragged into it. All of the diplomatic speeches and discussions from the US->Europe at the time were in a nutshell isolationist, we have our own problems, and don't want to be in another world war, so don't fight but best of luck to you guys.

That's why Pearl Harbor was so important, in addition to the shock of the sneak attack and the lives lost, it overnight flipped the switch on public opinion. The next day the public went from we can't afford a war (and the big Army to go with it), we have to support US German immigrant voices, don't want to spend US lives on a European problem...to lines of people lined up at Army recruiting stations and many industrial factories in the US switching to military production. It had a much bigger effect on public opinion changing even than 9/11 had. It's hard to even come up with an analogy, I guess maybe if in the 1969 Summer of Love there was an attack as big as 9/11, and the anti-war protesters were so shocked that they went and lined up at Army recruiting stations. Patriotism wiped out any noticeable anti-war sentiment immediately after Pearl Harbor. That was also the reason for FDR's famous speech being in Congress, to show to the Axis powers that the Congress and President were both unanimous in their strong support then for going to war and eliminate any thought politically that there might still be a block of anti-war votes in Congress.

A long write-up I know. One thing I would say that is helpful in understanding the state of mind in the years leading up to WW2 is listening to news radio broadcasts from that period. Just like you would from looking at at big news outlet headline today, it gives you a quick temperature reading on the political situation at the time. You get a feeling for who was really in control of Congress, which way majority votes were leaning, the concerns people had and that politicians were taking into account, which blocks were "lobbying" for their own causes, the reasons for people feeling isolationist at the time, etc. Those are all constantly changing dynamic things, and it can be easy to apply an incorrect understanding to the situation at a period in history without looking at the full context. And especially it can be easy to get off-track if someone thinks of the reasons decisions were made at the time in a 2019 context instead of a mid-1930's context which was so different.

[Tic Tacs]

because we became the empire after WWII.

Also, I've read some people are under the impression that we were defending Europe from Soviets after the WWII which is false. We were robbing Europe under the pretext of "Cold War" until Soviet Union collapsed in 90s due to poor management which led to formation of European Union as more or less independent entity which is about to collapse as well.

[Mihalik]

Cool, you found some exceptions that have nothing to do with the question.

Dude. How is being pursuing an active aggressive military foreign policy for 70% of our existence the "exception". Do you need a dictionary definition of what an exception is?

The US not being involved in a foreign war is the exception, not the rule. It has never been the rule.

And even in the very narrow definition of the US not wanting to be involved in a European continental war, the US never adopted an actual formal stance of isolationism and always very actively involved itself economically and politically even when not being militarily engaged yet.

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I really wouldn't call these exceptions. Isolationism would mean foreign wars would be unthinkable, not undertaken every 5 years at most.

America may have been isolationist in comparison to huge colonial empires like the British or French who got involved in everything they humanly could, but that doesn't mean it dedicated itself to the idea like post-Sengoku Jidai Japan which strove to close itself to any and all foreign influences. And America had glorified colonies of its own in any case.

The US also very much took sides in both World Wars- the idea that they were "dragged" into them as popularly claimed is nonsense. They gave substantial material and monetary aid to the Allies both times, and when it came to WW2 FDR was just dying for an excuse to join in on the fun. America's army was small because it had little to no fear of a foreign invasion from either of its borders, and had no need for extravagant military spendings when its foreign interests mostly consisted of influencing/bullying around far smaller nations for resources. When their interests became global and they had to account for Europe, Japan, China and the USSR, so did the army size require expansion.

And as was mentioned before, the military branch that was needed to exert an active military foreign policy, aka the Navy, was only paralleled in tonnage by the British Empire, although even there US ships were more modern, had access to much newer technologies, more advanced submarines, early radar technology and bigger and better carriers with bigger and better planes for them.

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America was trying to expand to hang with the Empires at the time, so was Japan, that was why they invaded China.

As I already mentioned the Japanese were completely isolationist with absolutely no intention to engage in any imperial ventures until the US Navy under Commodore Perry sailed into Tokyo Harbor and told kindly told the Shogunate to "End isolationism or we will level the city".

After that little incident the Japanese took a long hard look at the world, at Russia to their West and the US all over the Pacific, the crumbling state of China and came to the conclusion it better join the imperial game too, like the US, or end up being someone's plantation. The US was involved in China from the 1850's, Japan was late to the game in the late 1890's.

[Thekri]

I really wouldn't call these exceptions. Isolationism would mean foreign wars would be unthinkable, not undertaken every 5 years at most.

America may have been isolationist in comparison to huge colonial empires like the British or French who got involved in everything they humanly could, but that doesn't mean it dedicated itself to the idea like post-Sengoku Jidai Japan which strove to close itself to any and all foreign influences. And America had glorified colonies of its own in any case.

The US also very much took sides in both World Wars- the idea that they were "dragged" into them as popularly claimed is nonsense. They gave substantial material and monetary aid to the Allies both times, and when it came to WW2 FDR was just dying for an excuse to join in on the fun. America's army was small because it had little to no fear of a foreign invasion from either of its borders, and had no need for extravagant military spendings when its foreign interests mostly consisted of influencing/bullying around far smaller nations for resources. When their interests became global and they had to account for Europe, Japan, China and the USSR, so did the army size require expansion.

I am pleasantly surprised to see actual historical competency in this thread, usually the myth of pre-WWII isolationism is accepted without question, despite its lacking any historical basis. America has been at more or less constant war since its birth, we have been involved in combat nearly everywhere, with no real significant breaks.
Your point as to why the Army was small is pretty much perfectly on point, America is geographically the most secure major power on the planet, and has been since it established dominance over North America. Mexico and Canada are far too weak to seriously threaten (At least since the Mexican-American War), and the logistics for any other nation to attempt it is basically impossible. So America has no need to maintain massive ground forces, we merely create them whenever the need arises. Ever since the end of the civil war we have always focused on having an Army we could expand in a matter of months, and we still have that to this day.

We have huge numbers of basic training barracks sitting unoccupied, ready to accommodate turning millions of Americans into soldiers if the need arises. We have the rifles, tanks, helicopters, radios and other equipment all maintained and packed up in massive warehouses and motorpools. We keep massive factories like the Tank Plants in Lima, OH tooled up to produce the latest tech, even though we aren't actually buying the tanks right now, we are paying them to have the factories ready to go. Based on our wealth and population, the US at full mobilization right now probably looks like about 45-50 million uniformed personnel. We got to 14.9 million in 1945 with half the population, and we were still quite a ways from full mobilization. Add in the ability to automate a lot of the agricultural and industrial production that we had to hold back manpower then, we could probably go quite a bit higher if we wanted.

[Jastall]

I am pleasantly surprised to see actual historical competency in this thread, usually the myth of pre-WWII isolationism is accepted without question, despite its lacking any historical basis. America has been at more or less constant war since its birth, we have been involved in combat nearly everywhere, with no real significant breaks.
Your point as to why the Army was small is pretty much perfectly on point, America is geographically the most secure major power on the planet, and has been since it established dominance over North America. Mexico and Canada are far too weak to seriously threaten (At least since the Mexican-American War), and the logistics for any other nation to attempt it is basically impossible. So America has no need to maintain massive ground forces, we merely create them whenever the need arises. Ever since the end of the civil war we have always focused on having an Army we could expand in a matter of months, and we still have that to this day.

We have huge numbers of basic training barracks sitting unoccupied, ready to accommodate turning millions of Americans into soldiers if the need arises. We have the rifles, tanks, helicopters, radios and other equipment all maintained and packed up in massive warehouses and motorpools. We keep massive factories like the Tank Plants in Lima, OH tooled up to produce the latest tech, even though we aren't actually buying the tanks right now, we are paying them to have the factories ready to go. Based on our wealth and population, the US at full mobilization right now probably looks like about 45-50 million uniformed personnel. We got to 14.9 million in 1945 with half the population, and we were still quite a ways from full mobilization. Add in the ability to automate a lot of the agricultural and industrial production that we had to hold back manpower then, we could probably go quite a bit higher if we wanted.

Yeah, the idea that America was isolationist up until WW2 is a persistent one. I think part of it is some weird pride in the US being "better" than the colonialist European powers (which ignores, first that America has glorified colonies of its own to this day, and second that the North American continent didn't exactly conquer itself now did it) and another part is just historical ignorance. I saw an American High School textbook once and it didn't talk about much of what happened between the Revolution and the Civil War, and then between the Civil War and WW1. During this time America was largely disinterested in European affairs at the political level, but that's not the same thing as actual isolationism.

[Independent voter]

I'm "us" for fuck sake. I don't understand you and your fucking delusions.

The only big war America had between WWI and the Civil War was the Spanish American War. The USS Maine was sunk, probably by a mine.

We didn't want that war. We got pulled into it. After winning we got two big colonies, Cuba and the Philippines. We didn't want these colonies. We immediately gave Cuba its independence. We told the Philippines that once they got their shit together they could have independence too.

All those other wars you listed were police actions. In the case of Haiti it was to restore order from chaos. We were in and out. We also had a policy of where we didn't want Europe involved in our hemisphere. Something Latin America didn't want either. These little police actions were hardly a sign that we wanted to be big players on the world stage.

We didn't conquer and colonize others.

We didn't want WWI either. We got pulled into that conflict as well. Germans sank the Lusitania.

Same with WWII. Japanese launched a surprise attack on Peal Harbor.

We're isolationists. Anyone who knows us intimately knows this. You foreigners don't get us.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

The only big war America had between WWI and the Civil War was the Spanish American War. The USS Maine was sunk, probably by a mine.

We didn't want that war. We got pulled into it. After winning we got two big colonies, Cuba and the Philippines. We didn't want these colonies. We immediately gave Cuba its independence. We told the Philippines that once they got their shit together they could have independence too.

All those other wars you listed were police actions. In the case of Haiti it was to restore order from chaos. We were in and out. We also had a policy of where we didn't want Europe involved in our hemisphere. Something Latin America didn't want either. These little police actions were hardly a sign that we wanted to be big players on the world stage.

We didn't conquer and colonize others.

We didn't want WWI either. We got pulled into that conflict as well. Germans sank the Lusitania.

Same with WWII. Japanese launched a surprise attack on Peal Harbor.

We're isolationists. Anyone who knows us intimately knows this. You foreigners don't get us.

Your right. But it doesn't fit a lot of peoples stories here that the evil America wasn't always the evil America. After all we wiped out natives (like the Europeans did), we used slaves (they just brought them here originally, set up the market, and continued to sell them to us), and we didn't want the people ultimately responsible for both world wars (Europeans) to have us surrounded on all fronts. Therefore we were aggressive, unethical, and evil all along.. because hey.. they got to have some sort of story to tell there kids (if they even bother to have them) because the tail of world spanning empires collapsing back in on themselves though self inflicted wars of aggression and slowly being replaced by Muslims in the modern days doesn't get the kids eye lids heavy at night, ya hear me homie.

[Thekri]

The only big war America had between WWI and the Civil War was the Spanish American War. The USS Maine was sunk, probably by a mine.

We didn't want that war. We got pulled into it. After winning we got two big colonies, Cuba and the Philippines. We didn't want these colonies. We immediately gave Cuba its independence. We told the Philippines that once they got their shit together they could have independence too.

All those other wars you listed were police actions. In the case of Haiti it was to restore order from chaos. We were in and out. We also had a policy of where we didn't want Europe involved in our hemisphere. Something Latin America didn't want either. These little police actions were hardly a sign that we wanted to be big players on the world stage.

We didn't conquer and colonize others.

We didn't want WWI either. We got pulled into that conflict as well. Germans sank the Lusitania.

Same with WWII. Japanese launched a surprise attack on Peal Harbor.

We're isolationists. Anyone who knows us intimately knows this. You foreigners don't get us.

Historical revisionism at it's finest right here. I am pretty sure most the people telling you are wrong are Americans by the way, I am. "Police Action" is a rather academic difference from war, it looks basically the same at first glance. The idea we didn't want Cuba and the Philippines is a bit naïve, sure some Americans didn't want them, but plenty of them did. And we killed a lot of Cubans and Philipinos to hold on to them. Japan decided to be isolationist, so we send a stupid powerful naval force to tell them who runs shit. We invaded China and took Beijing when they decided they didn't like out missionaries. We invaded Nicaragua and Honduras when they decided they didn't like how our fruit companies did business. We invaded Haiti and the Dominican republic because we didn't like how the Germans were running shit (and then we stayed for 20 years, which is why I still find it weird people have been calling Afghanistan our longest war). We invaded Mexico every other Tuesday.

We got involved in the Russian civil war so we could kill communists, and occupied both Arkansgk and a huge section of Siberia. We annexed Hawaii after repeatedly promising we wouldn't. We collaborated with Britain to seize Iceland after they decided to stay neutral in WWII, which was a really weird political arrangement where Britain invaded Iceland while it was still neutral, then gifted it to the United States, who occupied it in July of 1941, well before Pearl Harbor.

We also planned a couple big wars we didn't have to fight. We were convinced for a long time we were going to have to fight Brazil for dominance in the Americas, and that drove a lot of our naval strategy. However Brazil got absolutely wrecked by the Paraguay war, so that didn't wind up happening.

We built a massive army and sailed it around the world in the great white fleet, then after that fleet was obsolete we were building an even bigger Navy before we entered WWII, with battleships as big as the Yamatos (Montana Class, which we didn't build) and a metric fuckload of carriers (Essex Class, which we did).

So yeah, Isolationist my ass. We basically fought damn near everyone on the globe while claiming to still be at peace. We spent a crapload on our military, and always had a couple major wars on the back burner.

[Dellis0991]

Why was the American military so small in 1939?

Why is it so big now?

It was small simply because most Americans were focus on working and providing, they didn't really have understanding on the global political climate and war was not on anyone's mind. But I guess Pearl Harbor was a "hey look out the window!" moment for the American public but the politicians probably had formed ideas that shit was going to hit the fan in some form. That wake up call inspired many people to not get caught with their pants down again (it still happened...probably will happen again) and after WW2 the romance of war gave way to a idea of we needing a force that can touch anybody before they touch us.

[Mihalik]

The only big war America had between WWI and the Civil War was the Spanish American War. The USS Maine was sunk, probably by a mine.

We didn't want that war. We got pulled into it. After winning we got two big colonies, Cuba and the Philippines. We didn't want these colonies. We immediately gave Cuba its independence. We told the Philippines that once they got their shit together they could have independence too.

All those other wars you listed were police actions. In the case of Haiti it was to restore order from chaos. We were in and out. We also had a policy of where we didn't want Europe involved in our hemisphere. Something Latin America didn't want either. These little police actions were hardly a sign that we wanted to be big players on the world stage.

We didn't conquer and colonize others.

We didn't want WWI either. We got pulled into that conflict as well. Germans sank the Lusitania.

Same with WWII. Japanese launched a surprise attack on Peal Harbor.

We're isolationists. Anyone who knows us intimately knows this. You foreigners don't get us.

Wow. That's some epic crap you pulled out of your ass. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Liberty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americ...39;s_Burden%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine

I'm from New York you muppet.

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Your right. But it doesn't fit a lot of peoples stories here that the evil America wasn't always the evil America.

It's not a question of "evil America". It's a question of whether were we isolationist or not.

As simple of matter of fact we weren't. Ever. We always had territorial, commercial, political ambitions beyond our borders, just pretty much every comparable historical power.

[Independent voter]

Historical revisionism at it's finest right here. I am pretty sure most the people telling you are wrong are Americans by the way, I am. "Police Action" is a rather academic difference from war, it looks basically the same at first glance. The idea we didn't want Cuba and the Philippines is a bit naïve, sure some Americans didn't want them, but plenty of them did. And we killed a lot of Cubans and Philipinos to hold on to them. Japan decided to be isolationist, so we send a stupid powerful naval force to tell them who runs shit. We invaded China and took Beijing when they decided they didn't like out missionaries. We invaded Nicaragua and Honduras when they decided they didn't like how our fruit companies did business. We invaded Haiti and the Dominican republic because we didn't like how the Germans were running shit (and then we stayed for 20 years, which is why I still find it weird people have been calling Afghanistan our longest war). We invaded Mexico every other Tuesday.

We got involved in the Russian civil war so we could kill communists, and occupied both Arkansgk and a huge section of Siberia. We annexed Hawaii after repeatedly promising we wouldn't. We collaborated with Britain to seize Iceland after they decided to stay neutral in WWII, which was a really weird political arrangement where Britain invaded Iceland while it was still neutral, then gifted it to the United States, who occupied it in July of 1941, well before Pearl Harbor.

We also planned a couple big wars we didn't have to fight. We were convinced for a long time we were going to have to fight Brazil for dominance in the Americas, and that drove a lot of our naval strategy. However Brazil got absolutely wrecked by the Paraguay war, so that didn't wind up happening.

We built a massive army and sailed it around the world in the great white fleet, then after that fleet was obsolete we were building an even bigger Navy before we entered WWII, with battleships as big as the Yamatos (Montana Class, which we didn't build) and a metric fuckload of carriers (Essex Class, which we did).

So yeah, Isolationist my ass. We basically fought damn near everyone on the globe while claiming to still be at peace. We spent a crapload on our military, and always had a couple major wars on the back burner.

U.S. army was smaller than the army for Portugal before World War II

[Thekri]

Wow. That's some epic crap you pulled out of your ass. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_Liberty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americ...39;s_Burden%22 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine

I'm from New York you muppet.

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It's not a question of "evil America". It's a question of whether were we isolationist or not.

As simple of matter of fact we weren't. Ever. We always had territorial, commercial, political ambitions beyond our borders, just pretty much every comparable historical power.

I think this is the point a lot of them are missing. They feel like pointing out that America had aggressive expansionist tendencies, and committed a significant amount of atrocities in doing so, is somehow insulting America. But it isn't, it is simply acknowledging history as it happened. America was really no worse then other developed nations at this time, and significantly better then many. Nothing America did matches the sheer scale and barbarity that was the Congo Free State. Our extermination of the native people of North America was mirrored in Canada, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Indonesia, Turkey (Armenian Genocide ring a bell?) and much of North Africa. Our colonial policy in the Philippines and Cuba was extremely brutal, but not really more so then similar sitations in Burma, Java, Madagascar, basically all of Africa, and most of Asia.

The point is that we like to forget history that makes us uncomfortable, but every nation has nasty stuff in their past. And the people that were victims of this behavior have certainly not forgotten it.

[Mihalik]

U.S. army was smaller than the army for Portugal before World War II

And It has been explained to you about 15 fucking times why.

[Thekri]

U.S. army was smaller than the army for Portugal before World War II

1) What does that have to do with anything? That has nothing to do with being isolationist.
2) That isn't true at all. That is only picking a time stamp in 1939, when Portugal was near full mobilization and a fascist dictatorship had just taken hold. Spain had just had a civil war, and Portugal was building a massive army to ensure its independence. Portugal also had huge colonial possessions, and a significant amount of that number were colonial forces that weren't Portuguese.
3) The US Army was doubling in size every year at that point. We were well over 700,000 by pearl harbor, and enlisted another 700,000 in the last three weeks of that year.