Conclusions

Abstract

During the inter-war period, Britain and the US suffered from an unwillingness or an inability to provide for timely protection against potential enemies - even when threatened with increased levels of military aggression by Japan, Russia, and Germany. How to be safe and solvent remained an immutable question. While an unknowing, distracted or apathetic public relied on its government for protection, the government expected the public to take up arms if and when war came. A composite and mutual failure between the government and the governed resulted in neither Britain nor the US being prepared for Hitler’s onslaught in late 1939. If the main purpose of the State is self-perpetuation, both countries defaulted: the House of Representatives, in August 1941, extended the Selective Service Act by just one vote, 203 to 202, denying the events in Europe. The introduction of British manpower conscription was an outcome of Lend-Lease negotiations. The aftermath of the First World War and economic mismanagement leading to the Great Depression were contributing factors that slowed attempts at establishing a suitable national defence. Concurrently, belief-systems that included appeasement and isolationism inhibited the rearmament needed to fight an unlimited war. At odds with a commitment in theory to universal military obligation was an aversion in practice to compulsory national service. In part, the deprivation of the Great Depression added to US military inductees being in generally poor health, and one in five was functionally illiterate.¹ The same could be said in Britain.