Description

This work focuses on the military and diplomatic role played by Major General William S. Graves and the United States Army expeditionary force sent to Siberia as part of a joint American-Japanese intervention following the Bolshevik Revolution. The United States faced a very difficult mission due to the motivations of the other occupying forces, particularly the Japanese. As the United States sought to allow some form of self-determination in Civil War Russia, the American experience would reflect many of the same issues and troubles that have beset more recent attempts at nation-building. Japanese expansionism that would in part lead to war in the Pacific in 1941 was on full display in Siberia in 1918. General Graves was also in the now familiar position of having to oversee competing national and international interests in a war-torn country. The story of the AEF Siberia and its commander has great relevance in the 21st Century as it too occurred in a time of political upheaval that seemed to threaten the fabric of Western society.