The declaration of war on the US found a Luftwaffe which was already stretched to the limit. 80 % of its units were supporting the war in Russia, with the remainder engaged in western Europe and N. Africa. In Germany the Flak arm (anti-aircraft units were part of the Luftwaffe) was engaged in checking the initial phase of Bomber Command’s war against German cities. Against such a backdrop, a further escalation of the war would appear to be a suicidal undertaking. This chapter will focus on how Hitler and Luftwaffe C-in-C Göring would have perceived the situation in November/December 1941. All available sources support the idea that Hitler had every reason to take an optimistic view of the future development of the air war. Three new promising aircraft designs were nearing readiness, recent victories in Russia led to the shift of a substantial number of units to the Mediterranean and Bomber Command’s campaign against German urban areas had been checked by the introduction of a gun-laying radar for the Flak arm. A series of unexpected events which occurred from late December 1941 would reveal these expectations to be false hopes, but this fact would have remained hidden from the German leadership in early December.

The output of large parts of the German war economy was, if not quite in crisis, then certainly lagging by the autumn of 1941. It had reached a point where it was struggling to meet the current demands of the field army in Russia fighting in Russia, let alone those raised by the planned large-scale expansion of the Luftwaffe. Against such a backdrop, the idea of escalating the war by dragging another great power into it gives legitimacy to the view put forward by some historians that Hitler was seeking his self-immolation.

A close examination of the sources, however, indicates that Hitler had reached the conclusion that far from having hit a glass ceiling the German economy still possessed considerable slack which could be mobilised by rationalising designs and optimising the allocation of labour and raw materials. As a precedent, he could point to the months of January-April 1940 where a last-minute spurt in productivity had provided much of the ammunition and tanks needed for the campaign in the West. It goes without saying that this forecast mistakenly assumed a marked decrease in the intensity of the fighting in Russia on account of the fall of the Donbass industrial area.

The introduction will attempt to give an overview of the existing scholarship on the topic of what can safely be regarded as Hitler’s most idiosyncratic and poorly understood decision: his declaration of war on the USA in December 1941. No monograph exists on the subject: those historians who have engaged with it have done so in the context of articles, general histories of WW 2 and biographies of either Hitler or Roosevelt. It is often described as an impossible-to-fathom irrational decision and this may well be the reason why quite a few authors have decided to omit any mention of it in their books.

Two main schools of thought can be said to exist: the one initiated by Andreas Hillgruber (1925-1989) maintains that the dictator, when faced with the prospect of military defeat in November 1941 chose to declare war on the US as a gesture to mask the fact that he had lost the initiative or indeed was seeking self-immolation. Eberhard Jäckel (1929-2017) and his followers insist that he was hoping to force the US to split its resources between two oceanic theatres. It is my considered opinion that both theories raise more questions than they answer and will propose a new one.

Ever since Ellen Gibbels’ research proved that Hitler was suffering from Parkinson’s Disease, historians have been asking themselves the question whether the progress of the illness is likely to have affected his judgement by 1944/45. Far more relevant is the as yet unaddressed question whether he could have known of his condition in time to influence his decision to throw down the gauntlet to the USA. This should not be seen as a far-fetched notion, since the dictator is on record as repeatedly tying the rise and fall of Germany as a great power to his life span; hence, the realisation that he was afflicted with a mortal and debilitating disease might indeed have driven him into a strategy best described as suicidal (as many historians have indeed chosen to label this decision, without one of them, however tying it to a possible diagnosis of Parkinson’s). The surviving notes taken by his personal physician Theodor Morell, together with other sources, prove conclusively that while the first symptoms of Parkinson’s may have manifested themselves before December 11th, 1941 he did not receive a diagnosis to this end before April 1945. His decisionmaking in December 1941 was as yet unaffected by his medical condition.

While virtually all the historians who have discussed the reasons behind Hitler’s decision to declare war on the US agree that he was resigned to an imminent entry of the US into WW 2, so far no one has made a plausible case for one particular political or military move by Washington tipping him over the edge. From the “Destroyers-for-Bases” deal of September 1940 to the de-facto abolition of the 1939 Neutrality Law an already pro-Allied Roosevelt administration got progressively more and more involved in the war against Nazi Germany while still claiming the status of a neutral. Assessing which of these steps was decisive in predisposing the German leader towards a declaration of war is a major challenge, since no document for internal consumption summarising his thoughts on the matter has ever emerged.

A detailed examination of military and diplomatic records, together with his acolytes’ personal diaries indicates that it was the passing of the legislation which gutted the US Neutrality Law (November 13th) which is most likely to have put him in a frame of mind where war with the US was seen as something inevitable, since this guaranteed the imminent arrival of US civilian shipping in the NW approaches of the UK.

Japan began to play a major part in Hitler’s calculations after Italy’s spate of military disasters from November/December had made it clear that Mussolini’s military were turning from asset to liability. From that point onwards, considerable diplomatic leverage was invested into goading the Japanese into joining the war against the UK (January-June 1941) and then, the USSR (July-October 1941). At the same time, German representatives consistently urged the Japanese not to bring the Americans into the war. Bilateral relations between the two would-be allies were far from harmonious, however. Some Japanese spokesmen would make quite specific promises about the imminent participation of Tokyo in the war, while others kept insisting on further German military successes before they would consider making the jump. The pro-German foreign secretary Matsuoka was sacked in July and between May and September 1941, US-Japanese negotiations appeared to presage a détente between both countries and Tokyo’s withdrawal from the Tripartite Pact.

It is against this background that in mid-November a renewed Japanese commitment to enter the war produced a breakthrough. Japanese insistence to extend hostilities to the US might could have turned into a hindrance, but the coincidental abolition of the US Neutrality Law had prepared the ground for US-German hostilities.

Many historians have alleged – or strongly implied - that the days of late November/December 1941 witnessed an escalation of the Shoa from localised ethnic cleansing to genocide on a continental scale on account of the outbreak of US-German hostilities. According to this theory, Hitler managed to convince himself that the war was militarily lost by virtue of the Red Army’s winter offensive and/or the US entry into the war and hence, decided to prioritise the mass murder of his (perceived) domestic enemies. Antisemitism pure and simple is seen as the key driver. This theory is problematic to say the least, since the situation outside Moscow would not come to be regarded as critical before mid-December.

I have concluded that the decision for the Shoah had almost certainly been made by late November and that there is indeed evidence which points to this being influenced by the assessment of imminent US-German hostilities. Crucially, however, it was put on hold for about a fortnight when the Germans arrived at the mistaken impression that Japan would not join them in hostilities. Antisemitism may have been important but was still trumped by strategic calculation.

This chapter intends to address how Hitler’s views on the US and Japan had evolved in the years prior to 1941. Despite the fact that his assessment of the USA in particular can be examined through a multitude of sources, many historians have chosen to limit themselves to a number of well-known value judgements from public wartime speeches. Unsurprisingly, these dwell extensively on the supposed “racial inferiority” of contemporary Americans and on the “Jewish influence” in the American centres of power. In similar fashion, his value judgement of the Japanese are usually reduced to his supposed “infatuation” with the Japanese warrior culture. A more extensive analysis of the available sources (speeches of the 20’s, records of private conversations, manuscripts from his own hand) quickly reveals a more complex picture. The Americans are regarded as the future rival of the new Germany, but also admired for their technological prowess, economic muscle and racist legislation. The Japanese, on the other hand are not accorded the same unstinted praise; his interest in them develops only in close synchronicity with every step Japanese governments of the 1930’s take which appears to indicate a lasting antagonism with the Anglo-American powers.

Between 1954 and 1984 the Royal Netherlands Navy operated six small frigates that were built as Patrol Vessel, Escort (PCE) in the United States. The ships did serve mainly in the North Sea in an unique branch of the military responsible for an array of maritime duties, from ensuring safe and lawful commerce to performing rescue missions in severe conditions.

The six escort ships were of the PCE 1604 series. A forthcoming design of the PCE 842 class (Admirable class) of World War Two.

Ancestors of the Pce

Auk class

When the U.S.A. was drawn into the Second World War, a crash program of naval construction followed. Including minesweepers with diesel-electric propulsion as alternative to a geared diesel drive. When not engaged in sweeping, the generators could be utilized to provide additional power for the propulsion electric motors and therefore boosted its speed. This significant innovation was incorporated into the Auk class and permitted considerable operational flexibility at little extra cost except for a slight increase in displacement. The United States Navy was particularly fortunate in that it was backed by the industrial capacity to install diesel- electric propulsion on a large scale, and therefore was not inhibited in its approach to an optimum design.

Admirable class

The ships of Auk class were relatively complex and difficult to build. Therefore an alternative was designed by the Bureau of Ships. Resulting in the Admirable class with better seakeeping qualities, capable to ‘keep station’ in all kinds of weather. With a simplicity of design to permit production in large numbers with minimum costs in time and money. It became one of the largest and most successful classes of minesweepers ordered by the US Navy during World War II.

Ideology and sense of mission are, as reflections of the military mindset, fundamental to the shaping of military organization and behaviour—as that behaviour is directed either to guarding existing power structures or to changing them. The military mindset is a crucial element in gauging armed forces’ collective perception of their preferences and goals, especially vis-à-vis notions of democracy and civilian control. Military mindset informs and is informed by ideology, which itself then shapes the sense of mission.

This study examines Thailand's military through reference to its ideology, the historical context in which it has evolved, and its contemporary sense of mission. The study stresses the degree to which ideological legacies have shaped and socialized the Thai armed forces and thus informed officers’ understandings of their duties and roles in national life. These legacies have also served to clarify to military officers and to Thais more generally the fact that the country's military has a unique and serious political vision. The study argues that Thai military ideology has over time been constructed to rationalize the legitimacy of interventionism to rescue, defend and develop the nation, though variations in dogma relating to the prevailing cultural hegemony at different times in Thai history have also influenced this mindset (Gramsci 1971, p. 526). With an eye to maintaining its control over Thailand's hegemonic bloc, the monarchy has succeeded in dominating the armed forces by manipulating the values, beliefs and perceptions of soldiers and officers so that a monarchized worldview has become the socially accepted military ideology.

Thai military ideology, especially since 1980, has been a function of two related but sometimes countervailing conceptualizations. First, the armed forces are a “monarchised military” which acts as a guardian of and mechanism serving palace interests. Second, the military sees itself as the nationalistic arbitrator of Thai politics. It is in that role responsible for ousting or installing governments as it deems such intervention necessary to protect Thai national security and development, correlating with an identity centred on Buddhism, monarchy and “Thai-ness”.

But how has Thai military ideology evolved across time and to what extent has it become more cohesive?

From a relatively small number of troops at the time of the country's independence in 1948, the Tatmadaw, or Myanmar Armed Forces, has grown into one of Southeast Asia's formidable militaries, even while details on the total number of troops and units are difficult to ascertain. Indeed, they remain a matter of secrecy. Undoubtedly, the Tatmadaw is today far better equipped than it was when it took over the state three decades ago, in September 1988, in the name of the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC)—to become the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) in 1997. The cash-strapped socialist regime of the Burma Socialist Programme Party (BSPP), which ran the country from 1974 to 1988, had, despite its best effort to look after the military, done little to modernize the Tatmadaw. The latter thus remained a poorly equipped force, relative to its peers in the region. It was essentially a counter-insurgency force with almost no capability to engage in conventional warfare.

Since the early 1990s, the Tatmadaw has pursued a force modernization programme, procured military hardware from various foreign sources, and expanded Myanmar's defence-industrial bases. In the last five years, Commander-in-Chief Senior General Min Aung Hlaing has repeatedly confirmed his commitment to build the Tatmadaw into a “Standard Army”, although the concept has never been properly defined. In recent years, the Tatmadaw has received some of the advanced weapon systems, fighter aircraft and warships available on the international arms market. In addition, it has improved troops’ combat gear and equipment. All of this has required an injection of large amount of money into defence spending.

Throughout 1990s and 2000s, the Tatmadaw leadership repeatedly reminded its commanders that the force had to be built by four means: administration, training, welfare, and morale. Troops’ welfare is thus an essential part of building a “modern, strong and highly capable” Tatmadaw. In his address at the fifty-fourth Armed Forces Day Parade on 27 March 1999, Commander-in-Chief Senior General Than Shwe explained what he meant by building the Tatmadaw by means of welfare.

Since the replacement of Thailand's absolute monarchy with a constitutional regime in 1932, the country's armed forces have attempted coups d’état at the rate of one every four years. Two thirds of these attempts have been successful. The resultant military juntas have typically promulgated new regulations, laws and constitutions before holding elections or themselves falling victim to coups. These new rules and the changes that they have introduced suggest the role of the Thai military as a significant economic-policy maker. At the same time, the military is also a consumer and a producer of goods and services. In fact, the Thai military produces both services related to security and services with no relation to security.

The goal of this chapter is to document the role of the Thai military as producer of the latter, services with no relation to security. The chapter draws on publicly available information from the Bank of Thailand, the Department of Business Development of the Ministry of Commerce, the Royal Gazette (Ratchakitchanubeksa), the Stock Exchange of Thailand, and the country's Securities and Exchange Commission (Khanakammakan kamkap laksap lae talat laksap).

The chapter makes three arguments. First, the Thai military has produced a wide range of services unrelated to security for six decades. It directly provides services through, or holds shares in, companies in banking and asset management, facilities for banquets and recreation, real estate and hotels, and radio and television broadcasting. Second, banking, radio broadcasting and television broadcasting have been regulated by laws enacted during military regimes to maintain strict barriers to entry. The roles of the Thai military as both producer of services and policymaker are in this sense complementary. Finally, besides the military budget, the factors of production crucial to the military's involvement in services unrelated to security include bank deposits; capital raised on the Stock Exchange of Thailand, including that from foreign sources; substantial land holdings; and conscripts. The military has thus benefitted not only from financial globalization but also from access to effectively subsidized low-wage labour.

The chapter sheds light both on the production activities of the Thai military in service sectors unrelated to security and on its success in shaping regulations to favour its own businesses.