I came across this temperately argued but brutal demolition of one of those books purporting to claim that we’d all be a jolly sight better off by letting that misunderstood Adolf H. chap do what he wanted in Europe and Russia and that Britain and those other warmongering Anglos should have minded their own business. The book in question is called Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization, and written by Nicholson Baker. The reviewer is Andy Ross.
Excerpt from the review:
“Mr. Baker seeks to rehabilitate the interpretation of World War II advanced by isolationists and appeasers in the 1930s. That interpretation was refuted by history itself. If it was necessary for the survival of civilization to stop Nazi Germany from dominating Europe – from replacing freedom with tyranny, suffocating culture and thought, inculcating racism and cruelty in future generations, depopulating Eastern Europe and turning it into German lebensraum, enslaving tens of millions of Poles and Russians, and exterminating European Jewry – then it was necessary to fight the war.”
And:
“A book that can adduce Goebbels as an authority in order to vilify Churchill has clearly lost touch with all moral and intellectual bearings. No one who knows about World War II will take Human Smoke at all seriously”.
Now, there are good books worth reading that debunk some of the myths of the war, such as that Churchill was a great strategist (he was not and made loads of mistakes), or that Roosevelt was the same (he was not, and unbelievably naive about Stalin), or that things should and could have been handled far better. There might even be a case for selling the “appeasement” line that we should have kept out of the war, at least early on, or bided our time. The trouble is, that most books I have come across selling the isolationist case, such as by John Charmley, for instance, fall down because they fail really to address how America and Britain could have realistically coped with a massive Russo-German fascist empire stretching from Vladivostok to Brest, murdering millions of non-Aryans, dominating international supply routes, and so on. Now of course, we have the benefit of hindsight. Churchill may not have known that Hitler was embarking on mass murder of European Jewry, although he was more alive to this threat than most politicians at the time. But Churchill had a pretty good idea that very ugly developments would accompany a Nazi empire, and of course had no illusions whatever about what would happen to Europe if Stalin’s Russia conquered all of it.
It is just about possible, I suppose, that Britain could have struggled on a bit as an independent nation next to such a monstrous empire – assuming we could have lived with an ounce of self-respect by leaving France and the rest in the lurch. As for America, it could, I suppose, have traded on with its southern neighbours, bits of Africa, Australasia and those scattered nations not under communist/fascist rule, but huge parts of the globe would be hostile, poor, nightmarish places. And I very much doubt that we would now be enjoying those fruits of a globalised trading environment that we unashamedly champion today on this blog.
Minding one’s own business and living with the guilt (if such a thing would have manifested) is all well and good but surely the Chipper bombing Gerrys would have eventually made their way across the channel and not just for the challenge of it all but to deny a possible landing zone for the Americans, should they decide to get involved (Unternehmen Grün). And even if the Americans had decided to content themselves with trading exclusively elsewhere I’m sure Adolph’s mentality would have been along the lines of “in for 1 nickel Reichsmark in for a 100 Reichsmarks”.
I don’t know that WE ALL would be better off.
The survivors, and their bloodlines would be.
Arguably, the planet, would be better off with much less damage from human population growth, but the chances that I would be around, and commenting freely, are certainly debatable.
Oooo, selfish me….
I once lost the enjoyable company of a friend because I said WWI was a bad war and WWII was a good war. He never asked why I thought that, he just walked away and never talked to me again. Sad.
My reasoning was (and is) that WWI was an utterly pointless war about egos and gimme gimme. But WWII was a battle of moralities. WWII was addressing differences that could never be resolved peaceably. Either one moral code would win, or the other. Peaceful coexistence was not an option.
I believe a similar but much less threatening situation exists with Islam now. Peaceful coexistence will never be an option. At least not unless Islam fundamentally changes its belief about Allah and the world. Not likely.
The National Socialism in Germany was expansionist and in fact imperial. I fear the world is still a nurturing environment for something similar to rear its head somewhere again but oil is not enough to sustain it. It will require a share of the industrial base like Germany had to be a threat on a par with Nazi Germany. But the current world political/economic environment is uncannily similar to WWII.
“…depopulating Eastern Europe and turning it into German lebensraum, enslaving tens of millions of Poles and Russians, and exterminating European Jewry – then it was necessary to fight the war.”
Man, it’s a good thing that all that worked out for Eastern Europe and millions of Poles and Russians.
(laff, laff, laff)
Ps. — “…fail really to address how America and Britain could have realistically coped with a massive Russo-German fascist empire stretching from Vladivostok to Brest,…”
There is failure enough to go around: I’m trying to resolve that dire prospect with the facts surrounding June 22, 1941.
It’s not working.
All one needs to know is the author of the book is a pacifist and believes that there is no place for violence, even in self defense to judge that there is no place more deserving for this treacle but the dustbin. Even the NYT gave this book a trashing.
I am not sure I really like the sentiment, that a vicious tyranny is a good thing because it means the “planet would be better off with much less population growth”. Ugh.
I know we’re not yet beyond the 10th comment going slightly OT marker but indulge me please : Everybody Kills Hitler.
Wasn’t it also necessary “for the survival of civilization” to stop the mad, murderous communist regimes in Russia and China, regimes that caused over 100 million deaths? (Much more than the Nazis). To stop them from dominating half the world ?
The West didn’t stop them because it was too weak.
Luckily, they seem to have morphed into more normal regimes (less dangerous) without percipitating the nuclear holocaust we all feared during the cold war. But we couldn’t know at the time how things will turn out.
I’m not saying that staying out of WW2 was an option for Britain or the US, so the book is silly.
But, indulging in idle hystoric speculation, it’s quite possible that the nazis and the commies would have mutually annihilated each other, and both regimes would have disappeared after a few years, when Hitler and Stalin died.
I’ve been to the battle sites in France, seen the mass graves from both The Great War and World War II. I wonder if the occupants of those graves, their families, their wives and children would rather have them at home on the farm in Ohio, Utah, Illinois, Victoria, Tasmania, working in the shop in New York, Sydney, studying in Massachusetts, Melbourne. WWII was a massive foriegn aid programme to the people of Europe & Asia, paid in individual lives as well as teasure. Why does state intervention ring true in the face of fascism and socialism threats in Europe, but ring untrue in the face of Islamic fundamentalism today.
Interventionists always have to justify each and every intervention AND non-intervention. non-interventinists need not bother with such arguments.
I’ve often believed that it would have served the USA and Australia to allow the European socialists to duke it out, for the Japanese Imperialists to destroy themselves trying to enslave South East Asia, and simply trade with whatever resulted. If the people of Britain and France feared the uprising of totalitarianism on their doorstop when they had the motivation and the means to snuff it out, why should the free PEOPLE outside of Europe be encouraged to defend the liberty of others themselves.
Non-intervention in the affairs of others, non-subsidy of the mistakes of others, remains a preferable ideal and course of action for any conflict, unless it is completely voluntary.
“Wasn’t it also necessary ‘for the survival of civilization’ to stop the mad, murderous communist regimes in Russia and China, regimes that caused over 100 million deaths?”
Thank you, Jacob. I’m pretty sure that my acidic take on the matter had not made the point.
The West’s self-serving hypocrisy over World War II is one of the most grotesque features of the twentieth century.
Wishful thinking. Tyrannies can last a long time, even once the initial leaders die/get killed/retire. There is nothing inevitable about the collapse of dreadful regimes.
Wrong. Deciding not to act about a snarling beast that is coming close is a decision that has to be explained, justified. Not acting in the face of evil is just as much an act as intervening. Sorry, I am not buying into the asymmetic way you pose the question. No deal.
The classic isolationist line. “Let them kill each other, wait for a few decades and normality will return”. This comes with the benefit of hindsight and also pre-supposes that the regimes would melt after a while. How do you know that the Japanese would have destroyed themselves? Suppose their audacious acts of conquest paid off. What then? Fat lot of comfort that is to the folk who had to endure it to be told that their misery would end, sometime in the future.
France was rapidly conquered (crappy military thinking) and Britain did try to defend itself, rather well if I recall. The people outside of Europe were encouraged, rightly, to come to the cause precisely for the reasons I gave in my original posting: because in the long run, having a massive fascist/and/or/communist tyranny would pose a grave danger to nations like the United States.
So what is your point, Jacob? In 1939, the calculation – rightly – was that Hitler’s Germany, which is nearer to the UK in geographical terms, posed the more immediate threat to Britain and its possessions than did the Soviet Union. Germany had a relatively large navy and airforce. The Russians did not.
It is unquestionably true that the horrors of soviet communism and Mao’s China, in numerical terms, equal or surpass those of Hitler’s Germany. But I never liked the argument that we should do nothing if we cannot do everything. Taking Hitler out of the equation and destroying his regime utterly did not save part of Europe, which fell under the Soviet boot, but the alternative – doing nothing and just waiting – could and probably would have led to even a worse outcome.
“But I never liked the argument that we should do nothing if we cannot do everything.”
You can have that point. However: it should at least be squarely acknowledged that, for all the crowing about how grand it all was in terms of principles, etc., we let the commies run riot after Germany and Japan were dispatched. Now, I can see serious reasons for why that happened (although, certainly to my mind, they do quite little to rationalize the facts, mainly because it was principally about ideological sloth far in advance of the facts, which were largely only consequences), but there should be no bloody illusions about what happened.
So you believe that not acting in Darfur needs to be explained, justified? How about the doctor who doesn’t intervene to save the life of a road accident victim? Do they need to explain their actions.
We say this to statists at every turn. You are proposing the action, it is your responsibility to justify the intervention. Freedom needs no explanation except from the first principles of self-ownership. If I own myself and don’t seek to force others to my will, I need justify none of my actions. How is this principle different for reacting in the face of threat, than in the face of benign disinterest?
France could easily have justified using force against Germany in 1936. They lived next to a society of increasingly socialist tendencies with historical reasons for striking out at their neighbours. Even Britain could probably have justified intervention in Germany for these reasons.
We even talk about the utilitarian value of intervention when it comes to climate change. Even if climate change is real, whatever Australia does in the face of the threat will be swamped by the actions of larger and less free nations. Why should we sacrifice ourselves?
You talk of thebenefit of hindsight. What if Australia had intervened in Europe and we ended up on the losing side? How would standing up for the freedom of Europeans looked then to Australians forced to acquiese to unfavourable treaty terms? Would we be justified in accepting in fighting the good fight? Or would we be better off remaining independent and strong, holding back our resources and defending our shores, opening our borders to the displaced?
Ireland didn’t fight in WWII, do you think that was the right thing for them to do? A nation with links to both Britain and America, yet non-interventionist. Switzerland didn’t interfere either, should they have?
Should Hong Kong violently try to overthrow the Chinese government? After all they are literally surrounded by a communist totalitarian state? Should Britain try to free Hong Kong from the yoke of China? Free people taken over by communists. Surely Britain owes more to the Hong Kong Chinese than they do to the Iraqis?
they had virtually no armed forces. Anyway, the wanker who led Ireland at the time was the first official head of a nation to sign the book of condolence when Hitler was declared dead. How nice.
If a country fails to act when it is at threat because it naively thinks non-intervention will appease the threat, that policy needs to be justified. If a doctor walks by a person in dire pain and that person dies, I would like to think and hope that the fucker is shunned for the rest of his miserable life. That’s my answer.
A shame it didn’t.
No. That would be suicidal. Silly question.
Nice idea but unlikely, given our limited military resources and the enormous ones of China. Silly question.
I guess that would put an end to the cricket. Seriously, that is also a silly question not worth entertaining.
You are trying hard to argue that certain nations had no business fighting in the war, such as the United States, and it would have been far better to stay home, put the feet up, watch a good bloody war and then wait for a few decades to see how things panned out. The mistake is to assume that this would be something that the US/others could do with comfort.
Ok, I’ll explain further:
Saying that “the Nazis were a threat to civilization, therefore we had to fight them” isn’t, by itself, enough of an argument, as you concede.
You also have to consider: how big a threat, how big a threat to us (as oposed to “to civilization”), how immediate a threat, can we bring them down (are we strong enough)? at what cost to us ? Not trivial questions, as you make them seem. It’s not ridiculous to ask them, as the book asks, though I agree with your conclusion (that the war had to be fought) and not their’s.
Well, that’s debatable. Alternate historic scenarios are fun, but not science. If the book argues that the Reich wouldn’t have lasted for a thousand years, but rather for 50, his scenario is not less plausible than your’s.
Finally, as Billy Beck says, we brought down one beast, but got weakened in the process to the point where two other beasts roamed and we could’t stop them, or lost the will to do it.
Could WW2 have been avoided ?
Maybe if Britain and France had abandoned Poland, and the US abandoned China to the Japs.
In the end Britain and France didn’t help Poland at all, neither did the US help China.
It is possible that Hitler and the Japs would have attacked the Western powers anyway, but maybe they woulnd’t have, and Hitler would probably have attacked Russia first, leaving the Western Powers alone, and getting himself clobbered by the Russkies (or the other way round).
These scenarios are fun to contemplate, but to make a strong argument that WW2 was a mistake is absurd.
Even if the intervention of the US/Autralia/NZ/etc. in WW2 yielded the best result overall compared to ignoring Nazi Germany, I just can’t describe it as a ‘good’ war when you send conscripted soldiers to die.
I can understand intervening in Iraq, where soldiers are fighting of their own free will (even if still everyone has to fund it, regardless of their support), but forcing people who don’t want to, to go there and fight and die? I just can’t condone it.
Johnathan Pearce – “they had virtually no armed forces. Anyway, the wanker who led Ireland at the time was the first official head of a nation to sign the book of condolence when Hitler was declared dead. How nice.”
Indeed, a total wanker.
However, lets not forget the 50,000 to 70,000 Irish men from the neutral south who joined up to fight alongside the allies. Nor the free passage across the border to the North given to crash landed RAF & RCAF pilots while their Luftwaffe counterparts remained interned – all bills sent to the German embassy btw.
Lets also not forget the Donegal corridor used by USAAF aircraft and the refuelling done at Shannon Airport for USAAF aircraft en-route to North Africa, or the flying boats allowed to land at nearby Foynes airpost. Small contributions relatively speaking but shouldn’t be forgotten.
Germany broke the Versailles peace treaty, so military enforcement was called for, not only justified.
Here is a classic case where intervention would have saved the day, not non-intervention. A case that refutes the ibertarian-non-intervention notion.
WWI and WWII were both about empire building. One of WWI’s main underlying issues was Germany’s desire for imperial possessions (Africa) while France and Britain, having squared most of the world away between them decided the time for such building was over (conveniently enough). Of, course Germany lost.
WWII surely was about empire building, but it went one evil too many, that attempts were made to build empire on the continent itself, doubly verboten in Britain and France’s eyes. Such was soooooo 1800’s.
Also, as Japan’s and America’s ideas of involvement in Asia and “spheres of influence” became stumbling blocks, Japan moved from being an ally of the Anglosphere to an ally of Germany’s even under the Weimer Republic, and helped the Republic skirt military limitations imposed from WWI.
It stands that BOTH WWI and WWII were about Statist expansion, and are interconnected by such.
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One wonders what would have happened to the European Jewry if America had not formulated lend- lease, Britain fell, and British shipping was used to transport Jews to, perhaps, Madagascar along the lines of the Polish plan. One can conjecture that the Final Solution as it became was mostly due to economic pressures of a failed war. Just as Andersonville in the Civil War came into being after paroles and exchanges were done away with. Most of Europe hated Jews, seeing them as a walking, talking pestilence. But it took lumbering Statism and economic scarcity to turn the hatred into a death machine.
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All this talk of morality of fighting loses quite a bit of bite considering that the US supplied the other 20th century death machine under lend-lease too. And when the Right version was done away with, the Left was left to its devices. Sure we had a cold war, with some warmth every now and again, but very few said we needed to give Russia the same treatment as Germany. And the moral cause of saving the Jews was not on the table while the ramping up to fighting was taking place.
It seems that just as SOME of the isolationist/libertarian right gave Germany too much of a free pass, much of the middle of the road left gave Russia/Soviet Union too much of a free pass.
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Anyway, one REALLY has to wonder how the course of the West would have changed had the US stayed out of WWI, in which both Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany could have been avoided. But of course the course of history could have changed and the Earth become a cinder under a Nuclear Poland or something.
How would the U.S. have stayed out of WWII? The U.S. was attacked by Japan followed closely by Japan’s ally Germany declaring war on the U.S.
The U.S. was invited to that war and it would have been rude to refuse the invitation.
maybe, just maybe, if the US hadn’t insisted that Japan stay out of China, Japan wouldn’t hvae attacked. Maybe.
Once the attack came it was too late to change policy, but maybe an earlier change might have averted the atack.
Australia declared war on Germany when we had minimal armed forces, especially in Europe. Make a case for Australia. joining the war effort.
Ireland’s leaders during WWII may have been unpalatable, but it does not make their decision to not participate more or less nonsensical. The Irish also received reparations from Germany while the war was still raging when Dublin was bombed accidently (pilots believing it was Belfast).
World War II was a massive foreign aid programme directed at Europeans by Americans. The Marshall Plan was merely a civil extension of the military intervention. Forgetting about what ifs, did the US gain additional security after the war? Not really, it still faced the USSR across the Atlantic, which it then spent even more treasure and 50 years containing. Essentially the US spent millions of US taxpayers funds to liberate Western Europe and then prop up socialist governments, and still had to face a nasty socialist state in the form of the USSR. You can’t even justify US intervention on the basis of trade, since the US has been running a trade deficit
How would the U.S. have stayed out of WWII?
The US effectively entered the War with the lend-lease program. There was de facto war going on in the Atlantic before the attack on Pearl Harbor. If the US had not involved itself in the European War, then perhaps a settlement could have been reached without involvement in the war in the Pacific.
It also bears thinking, if the US had such a moral obligation in Europe, why didn’t it have one in the Pacific? Granted the US allowed their relations with Japan sour, but didn’t feel the need to go to war over it.
But still, the question in some respect is more about the prevailing attitudes PRIOR to Pearl Harbor, those who wanted war against those who didn’t. It seems that the war against Germany in WWII is endowed with a moral quotient greater than the mere disappointment shown toward Japan by the US, or Italy by England and France. What was the overall difference? IF it were about Jews, then the moral quotient failed as millions were killed. Late, in this case, is not better than never.
As a hawk I yet shroud my attitudes with common sense that I have to be under some direct, clear and present threat, so much so that I voluntarily join other like minded people to fight. The US was not directly or presently threatened by German actions in Eastern Europe or Japanese actions in Manchuria/China.
Indeed, Jorad. I do not support the draft. I did not say that I did.
WalterBoswell writes:
Of course, and I should have mentioned that in my reply to the point that Brendan made. In fact that is an answer to Brendan and other non-intervenionists: plenty of Irishmen and Americans and others decided that they wanted to do their bit to resist Hitler’s designs.
A big “maybe” indeed.
Indeed. In the case of WW2, it was about the attempt by a radical socialist-racist’s desire to build an Aryan one. Britain more or less losts its empire trying to bring down Hitler’s. I get the impression that a lot of old-style conservatives never quite forgave Churchill – who was, let us not forget, not a consistent Tory – for that fact.
Australia did so out of a sense of loyalty to the old country. Admittedly this must strike many of today’s generation of Australians as quaint, even barking mad. Whatever. We were mighty glad to have the Australians on our side in battles like El Alamein, etc.
The Irish leadership of the type was not just unpalatable, it was cowardly, duplicious, and has decidedly unsavoury leanings in its political complexion. The Irish were probably wise not to join the British war effort: the domestic population would not have supported it, although as I noted above, thousands of Irishmen joined the Allied war effort. Anti-British feeling ran high at the time, and Hitler calculated, rightly, that this would outweigh any sense of revulsion at his vile regime. And let’s not forget that many of the leading figures of Irish nationalism had the sort of views that would have gone down a treat with AH and friends.
Ireland’s neutrality was a serious problem for the Brits in some ways: it has a long western coastline that would have been ideal for British/Irish naval base operations to deal with the German U-Boat menace. The removal of Ireland from that effort meant it was much harder for the Royal Navy to win the Battle of the Atlantic, a grueseome, long-drawn out battle. No wonder Churchill loathed the Irish government and never forgave it.
To be fair, sometimes neutrality was the best option because it depends on the circumstances of the time; the Irish probably guessed that Germany had no real quarrel and would – for a while – leave them alone, much as they left Francos’s Spain alone. Birds of a feather…..
Brad;
That’s just wrong. The USA was putting enormous economic pressure on Japan before the outbreak of the Pacific War. It wasn’t just “soured relations”, but a near blockade on strategic materials without which the Japanese economy might well have collapsed. FDR knew this, but did it anyway and claimed it was precisely because of our moral obligation to prevent the innocent in China, just as we were doing in Europe, not “disappointment”. Try reading about the Rape of Nanking. It’s not possible to understand the situation in the Pacific without knowing about that.
I would not know where to start going at some of these counterfactual histories. Perhaps when Perry gets back on line we can discuss some interesting ones, such as the fact that the correlation of forces was actually in France’s favour had they decided to take out Germany pre-emptively in 1938.
Without lend-lease a peaceful Western Front, I doubt Russia would have held out. Germany would have been weakened, but hey, they’d have millions and millions of new slave laborers to build new weapons for them. Wouldn’t even have to feed them much cause there were plenty of replacements.
The UK would have been emasculated even if it was not outright invaded. Even as it is, the US would have been in range of the follow on to the A-10 rocket which could have reached NY.
There would have been two wealthy facist empires based on slave labour, death camps and vast stolen resources astride most of the world from mid Pacific to the coast of Europe and from polar ice to the far edge of the Sahara. At the least. With strong allies in South America as well…
America would have been cornered, cut off from resources and facing a monstrosity even worse than Communism. Communism at least had the good trait that it did not work very well economically. Facism unfortuneately did work rather better on that front. On the ground at least they had better troops and better equipment.
The only way we beat them was in shear volume of production enabled by having factories that were out of range of enemy intervention.
Perry? You back yet?
I wondered how long it would be before someone would blame Auschwitz on America.
“I do not support the draft. I did not say that I did.”
That demurrer is conspicuously un-accounted for in the general thrust of your original article.
Also: your phrase, “a massive Russo-German fascist empire stretching from Vladivostok to Brest,” is horrendously clumsy, at best. The natural implication is one of an alliance, the idea of which would just be plain stupid.
that is a really dishonest debating ploy: so I fail to mention that I oppose something, ergo, I must be in favour of it. You have been commenting and reading this blog for long enough not to have to pull that sort of move, Billy. Give me a bit of respect.
Duh. I was making the point that had we just let Stalin and Hitler fight it out, as isolationists argue, we’d either have a Nazi or Communist regime stretching across Asia and into Europe. Either would have been horrendous, and threatening even to those countries that had initially stayed out of the fight.
“…that is a really dishonest debating ploy.”
It most certainly is not, sir, and you would do well to attend the precision of your language with far greater diligence. You might not appreciate what I said, but that is no warrant to call it, or me, dishonest.
Now, since you mention the general subject of how people should act, I’ll point this out: smart people who hold libertarian premises (if not outright principles) will account for the draft in anything like so general an approach to World War II. They don’t let that flag hanging out there like that. It’s dangerous precisely because that war could have been very appealing to libertarian sentiments and it is always wise to keep the issue of the draft right out of the way.
“Duh. I was making the point that …”
Stop complaining. You didn’t make it very well.
One wonders what would have happened to the European Jewry if America had not formulated lend- lease, Britain fell, and British shipping was used to transport Jews to, perhaps, Madagascar along the lines of the Polish plan.
I wondered how long it would be before someone would blame Auschwitz on America.
Is that what I did? News to me.
Auschwitz et al is squarely only the German People’s fault. THEY were the ones who installed the Fascists/Nazis. The question is merely what would have happened if American Statists had not intervened in a fight that wasn’t theirs to fight. The course of the Final Solution could have taken a similar course regardless of what America did. But maybe not. It’s certainly possible to insert what ifs in the matrix of decisions. And those sitting in their armchairs in 1938 America SHOULD have pondered the effect of their actions or inactions. State intervention has all sorts of unintended consequences. And the only reason I bring up the issue is that so many people justify WWII in retrospect because of what happened to European Jews when, if the war had been over after about a year or so, it may never have happened at all. But that only speaks of extermination. It still stands that life would have been unpleasant for Jews and Slavs under the new order.
The question still stands that what business was it of the America’s? And if it categorically was our business, why in this circumstance and not so many others where attrocities happened or are currently happening? If ours is the righteous cause of assisting others, then there are a lot of theaters we could open hostilities. Just pick a side and have at it. But then again a goodly number of our founding fathers cautioned against getting involved in foreign affairs, since the fights never truly end, and picking a side will only get you an intractable enemy that wasn’t yours to begin with.
If any more weight needs to be given to this argument, it was the right/libertarians who were against getting involved in WWII, it was the socialist left that got us involved. One needs to question their motives. Granted SOME isolationist folk went too far and actually began to support Germany via propoganda, which certainly was not correct.
Brad;
That’s just wrong. The USA was putting enormous economic pressure on Japan before the outbreak of the Pacific War. It wasn’t just “soured relations”, but a near blockade on strategic materials without which the Japanese economy might well have collapsed. FDR knew this, but did it anyway and claimed it was precisely because of our moral obligation to prevent the innocent in China, just as we were doing in Europe, not “disappointment”. Try reading about the Rape of Nanking. It’s not possible to understand the situation in the Pacific without knowing about that.
Given that the endgame was dropping two atomic bombs incinerating thousands of people instantly, I think, relatively speaking, economic pressures equals a soured attitude. Not making any comment on the propriety of the use, just delineating my scale.
If anything I’ve posted in this thread is felt that I am giving comfort in any way to Fascists (or Communists) I am not, or even saying our Statists betters were exactly equal. It does stand that America followed its own Statist path from the late 1890’s on, and it was THESE people who set the course in the 1910’s and the 1930/1940’s. I don’t adore them either. I simply wonder if America had followed a self interested course from 1890’s onward how things would have been different. Our conflicts with the Japanese likley would not have happened, WWI would have had a dramatically different outcome as far as the establishment of two of the most deadly Statist regimes, and WWII could possibly never have happened as well. What a Europe of pure stalemate without America tipping the scales either way in WWI would have been like is also an interesting question. But the BLAME for what happened in the European theaters in WWI and WWII remain solidly those who fought their and settled their Statist battles their.
America was right to enter the war, not for any ideological reasons, but because Germany and Japan upset the balance of power in Europe and Northwest Asia. The character of the two states is not really relevant from a foreign policy perspective. A single state dominating Continental Europe is unacceptably threatening to either Britain or America, whether the power in question is Fascist, Communist, Monarchist, or Liberal. By the time that happens, nothing can be done to prevent aggression, expansion, or missionary zeal on the part of the hegemon.
America fought Nazi Germany for the same reasons Britain fought Napoleonic France: to stop them before they became too powerful.
Well, the main reason why the US let the Soviet Union control part of Europe was that immediately after the war they did not think that the communists were so bad, and when they realized that, the only option was an atomic war.
The story of communists being regarded as better than the nazis is sad, but that does not make the justification of the US fighting in WWII less valid.
That is again a play in alternate history. I don’t think the US had a decisive role in WW1, and that the outcome would have been very different had the US stayed out.
As to WW2, after Britain and France declared war (following the invasion of Poland), and after France was overrun by the nazis, staying out (by the US) wasn’t a realistic option.
If you want to argue that the US should have pursued a different path, starting in 1890 and onwards – fine, maybe. But in 1940-41 that wasn’t an option.
The USA was putting enormous economic pressure on Japan before the outbreak of the Pacific War. It wasn’t just “soured relations”, but a near blockade on strategic materials without which the Japanese economy might well have collapsed.
In fact, FDR wanted to join in the war but knew that he could not do so, and bring the American people with him, without an external provocation. This pressure was designed to provoke Japan into a violent response, allowing the war to be then sold to the man in the street. The only surprise was Pearl Harbour, the attack had been expected in the Phillipines.
it was the right/libertarians who were against getting involved in WWII, it was the socialist left that got us involved.
FDR. The late, the great, the socialist.
Facism unfortuneately did work rather better on that front. On the ground at least they had better troops and better equipment.
Short term only. They started out with Europe’s largest industrialised economy and it takes time for command and control to really stuff things up. However, before the end of the war Hitler was routinely being lied to over the state of German design and production capabilities, and was making further command and control decisions based on these lies. Long term, a NAZI economy would have been no better at production than a communist one. In all the counterfactuals, take into account that a German dominated Europe would have been an unproductive soviet style mess. A truly nasty mess, but a mess. Massive industrial strength true, but only by dint of initial volume. It would soon have gone the way of Soviet industry.
Huh? The reason the US ‘let’ the Soviet Union control part of Europe is that due to the large well armed Red Army sitting in Europe… ie. there was simply no choice. Whilst Yalta was an abomination, the Soviet occupation was an indisputable military reality and a direct and inevitable consequence of the need to defeat Nazi Germany.
“Well, the main reason why the US let the Soviet Union control part of Europe was that immediately after the war they did not think that the communists were so bad, and when they realized that, the only option was an atomic war.”
That is woefully simplistic. Right off the bat: Eisenhower ceded enormous areas to Soviet control: he packed up his troops in these areas and moved them out so the Sovs could move in. The negotiations over Poland, for years in advance of VE Day, will always be an enduring disgrace. And to state that “immediately after the war they did not think that the communists were so bad” is like saying that Ronald and Nancy Reagan could sort of stand each other. The fact is that there was a lifelong — for the life of the Soviet Union, anyway — infatuation in the West for these animals. Almost nobody (Patton was an extreme anomaly) gave a moment’s serious thought to war with the Soviets because there just wasn’t room for it in the intellectual junk-closet that passed for thinking about the matter, for at least two whole generations right up to the moment of crisis.
Like I said before: all this was only a matter of consequences.
“…the Soviet occupation was an indisputable military reality…”
So was the Nazi occupation of Poland, Perry. The Western countries were in far, far worse military shape that year, and that didn’t get in their way of the right thing.
There was a moment: it went from 1945 to 1949 (the first Soviet nuke) when it would have been possible. Nothing about it would have been easy, but nobody had worried about that with Hitler and Tojo. I’ll rate my studies of the whole affair against anyone’s here: I say that there is no way in life that Stalin would have gone to war with the West over Eastern Europe.
The essential reason is generic: he was a fucking rat, and he would have run for cover.
Nobody in the West had the nerve called for at the moment.
That’s all there is to it.
Billy Beck,
You have demonstrated my biggest quarrel with doctrinaire libertarians: a tendency to imagine that humans can be discussed in terms of strict, homo economicus-type rationality.
The United States had just spent several years in an apocalyptic war against the forces of evil. The Soviet Union, for all that they too were the forces of evil, were not perceived as such by the American people; they were seen as true allies who had suffered horrific losses and did so willingly to defeat the Nazi menace (not only was this true, as far as it went, it was reinforced by official US domestic propaganda). Remember that the Soviets lost 35 MILLION citizens. (Mostly because of their own incompetence and callousness, but still.)
And yet you expect the US to say, “Right then, that’s finished. Now we’ll just roll right over you chaps too.”
In what universe do you see such a thing happening in a democracy? It would be viewed as betraying an ally, and starting a senseless war right after the previous apocalypse had wound to a close.
Think of the exhaustion that many are feeling at the thought of going to war against Iran—a second-rate military power that has been our avowed enemy for decades. Now multiply the Iraq War by two orders of magnitude, and imagine that Iran were an ally in that war, AND a world-class empire in its own right.
Do you get the picture?
Hitler often said he wanted to rule the world. He was one politician whose word you could rely on! (except on peace treaties, of course!)
I think that if the Anglophone world had stayed out of a European war, Russia’s resources would have made her victorious, and most of Europe would have been Red. France might have risen up in rebellion as German troops were recalled to defend the East, but Italy, as Hitler’s ally, would have been invaded. So the likely future for Europe would have been a humiliated French nation, A Russian empire to the East, Spain a fascist nation still, and the balkans in permanent revolt against everybody. As Stalin had no love for the jews (didn’t Marx also hate them?), not much future for them.
“…were not perceived as such by the American people…”
Did you read what I wrote, ‘stiff? That’s a great big part of the whole “picture”. In fact, that’s the frame.
Ps. — Listen, I can stand honest statements of “exhaustion”, etc., as reasons for the failure to deal with communism — on the Soviets’ dead bodies — as long as it is duly logged in the record that that’s what it was. This is a major thread of twentieth century history that calls for attention, if only through the voices of the destroyed down those long halls and not us taking a flier on maybe learning something. (Like, maybe; the importance of principles.) The thing is, to really do it justice requires facing the facts of Western intellectual indulgences in communism, because that is essentially why this heroic country was militarily impotent at the hot-iron-strike moment.
“Get the picture?”
Midwesterner,
I just wanted to say that I read your post regarding the fractional reserve system and am still digesting it (as well as the subsequent posts).
Just so you know it wasn’t a hit and run and you wasted your time.
I’ve found in the past that Baker’s books do have a nasty habit of being somewhat too parochial, which is unfortunately enough reason for me not to like his works. Using that argument it is easy to see why anyone would dispute his rationale (if that’s the right word) in a book that makes sweeping statements about the morality of the Allies, for example that because Britain was the first to use bombers, the Allies’ war against the Axis was immoral – something that I wasn’t aware of since I thought that the Nazis were the first to use bombers in such places as Guernica.
Glenn Altschuler also criticises Baker’s very biased use of evidence and calls his premise that if Britain and The United States could not fight a war free of any morally questonable act, they had no right to defend themselves from Nazi Germany “infuriating.”
Equally Baker provides no analysis of the political and military options available to the Allies – there’s probably more intelligence on this post that there appears to be contained within the pages of his book.
Going to war with the Soviets in 1945? That is what you are talking about. They had Eastern Europe. We would have had to fight to remove them.
Sorry but I think that is absurd. The Red Army was already in occupation of Eastern Europe and to get them to leave, the Allied Powers would have to attack them and eject them and to think Stalin would have told the Red Army to simply cut and run requires you to completely ignore what had happened since 1941. It also assumes that an attack would have been successful (i.e. the Red Army would not have handed the West its arse in 1945) and nuclear strikes would have required air attacks all the way to Russia with the few nuclear weapons available (and given Russian casualty insensitivity, what makes you think nuking them with the small weapons available would have been all the militarily decisive?
Do you have any evidence for your scenario at all?
The Poles were such savage beasts that even after WW2 the only thing they could think of doing was organising yet more pogroms. Fuck them, no British troops or money should have been wasted preventing a brutal Soviet occupation they fully deserved. Same goes for the rest of them in the retarded half of Europe with the exception of Bulgaria.
They’ve come out of the whole affair a lot bloody saner than they went in and a probably a lot saner than most western countries, so they did OK out of it the end. They did bad, they got punished, the world worked for once – it’s just a shame that the Greeks, most of the Germans and others got away with everything.
Johnathan Pearce: “Britain more or less losts its empire trying to bring down Hitler’s. I get the impression that a lot of old-style conservatives never quite forgave Churchill – who was, let us not forget, not a consistent Tory – for that fact.”
Whilst this is true, I think the empire was effectively lost in WWI. The amount of blood and treasure expended fatally weakend it in physical terms and as an idea. I believe it was Neal Ferguson who suggested by the 1920’s/1930’s it had started to bring no net benefit – so the reaons for continuing fall away. So by WWII the last gasp brings down the house of cards. Of course to your last point there is the contention, as followed by the late Allan Clark that sueing for peace in 1942 could have been in Britain’s interests – personally I dont think so. I also though dont buy the justification that WWII as more moral that WWI, simply that the fact of the holocaust in its vileness was able to give a better post hoc moral veneer to the war, but it wasnt the reason why it was fought
Evan: Completly agree with your balance of power view, that the political colour of the regimes dont really play into this very much, no matter how vile they are.
I would add that in WW1, a great amount of blood was shed unnecessarily, because of idiotic moves by dumb generals.
On another matter- we could argue that the isolationism and non-intervention of the US between the two wars was a catastrophe. The US didn’t suffer very much in WW1, and wasn’t as exhausted as Britain and France. She could have led a move (with Britain and France) to stop Hitler in 1936, as he broke the peace terms, and thus, WW2 could have been prevented. Here is an argument for military intervention.
“We would have had to fight to remove them.”
So what? We’ve been over that. That’s the general point here: if it was the right thing to destroy Hitler, then it was also right to destroy the Soviets, on exactly the same premise. I disagree with you. I believe you’re wrong about that. But even if you’re right, it makes no difference to the ethical argument.
“…to think Stalin would have told the Red Army to simply cut and run requires you to completely ignore what had happened since 1941.”
The invasion of the Rodina and the occupation of Eastern Europe are two different things, Perry. I’m not ignoring anything.
“…and nuclear strikes would have required air attacks all the way to Russia…”
I know, Perry. Believe me: I understand all this. And so did U.S. commanders. The Join Chiefs of Staff had their planning headed straight down this road by the summer of 1947 anyway. Get that straight: barely two years from V-E Day, they had no more illusions about the Soviet Union. The tragedy of it is that it took them that long, and also that U.S. political leadership was so bloody timid. (Look: by then, Alger Hiss already had the UN Charter two years in the bag. That general project — the UN — started well before Hitler was dealt with.)
“…with the few nuclear weapons available…”
How many, and when? Do you know what you’re talking about? In the U.S. arsenal, there nine atomic bombs in June, 1946. There were thirteen a year later, and fifty-six of them in 1948. Here’s some “evidence” for you: Stalin had a pretty good rough idea of these numbers and he was terrified. That’s why he drove the espionage effort like a slave. He thought the JCS was thinking like him, and they should have been.
“…and given Russian casualty insensitivity, what makes you think nuking them with the small weapons available would have been all the militarily decisive?”
Strategic theory, for one obvious thing. The planning was was pretty much straight out of the 8th Air Force playbook, calling for attacks on Soviet military production capacity. Soviet planners were fully capable of deducing all this, and they knew the score in ways that, for example, Acheson didn’t, or wouldn’t think about.
“The Poles were such savage beasts that even after WW2 the only thing they could think of doing was organising yet more pogroms.”
You’re an ignoramus and an idiot.
I’m with Mastiff and Perry on this one.
You know what, Ian? It really isn’t that big a deal to me.
Look: you guys are making substantial arguments. I don’t think they’re dispositive. For (repetitive, now) example: the fact of the Soviet military fait accompli doesn’t impress me because the Nazi fait accompli did not impress the Allies in 1939. My principle here is about the moral determination present in the latter case and wholly absent in the former. Nonetheless, your points have to be dealt with. At the bottom line of it, however, what you’re doing is justifying the failure.
Now, if you really have a case, then what I mainly argue for is full integration of that case as authoritative history. No more “Greatest Generation” nonsense. It is not necessary that this must discount what uncounted heroes did in destroying Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. All that will stand forever in the annals of human glory. But it is long past time to put the failure to deal with the Soviets in proper perspective. And the strictly military aspects of the thing are nowhere near the whole story. It is a fact that Josef Stalin was cultivated as a popular hero in the West during the war, when everything opposite about that is the truth. I say that an essential element of this “exhaustion” that I keep hearing about was actually about bloody ignorance, at best. If people like Lincoln Steffens (“I’ve seen the future, and it works” — 1921) had been kicked squarely in the balls every single time they were seen in public, with all requisite ideological analysis attached, then the domestic political prospects would have been very different by mid-century.
To turn the argument on the strictly military prospects is to ignore the ideological fundamentals that launch the troop-ships in the first place, or not.
That, right there, is the giant hole in the history as it’s treated now.
Let me introduce a concept that many will find strange, but which I say is essential, and should condition evaluation of my arguments here:
“The Cold War” began no later than 1917.
(It actually began in 1789, but that’s to expand the scope of this particular discussion just a tad too far abroad.)
Billy, I think the two sides here may be arguing different points. You’re arguing what should have been done, ideally, whereas so far as I can see the likes of Perry and Mastiff are arguing what could be done, practically.
Not sure if anyone else has made this point; another thing to consider about launching an allied war against the USSR was that western europe was ravaged by war, without proper government, its infrastructure in tatters, under Allied military occupation. Could we really have kept western europe as nothing but a military staging ground for however many more years of total war against the USSR? That doesn’t seem likely to me.
“…the likes of Perry and Mastiff are arguing what could be done, practically.”
I understand that, Ian. I don’t know how to make that clear, but I’ll keep trying as long as I can stand the drill. Nothing about what you guys are saying is opaque to my understanding.
I think you’re wrong.
“Could we really have kept western europe as nothing but a military staging ground for however many more years of total war against the USSR?”
We did about half that job, anyway — about half-assed, and in the face of all kinds of protest — for almost five decades. As far as all that goes, we might has well have gone the whole shot because we took the heat anyway. (There is an analogy in the Vietnam air war; it was ridiculously constrained by politics, and that didn’t save the effort from being widely condemned by morons. We should have just bombed the fucking fuck out of North Vietnam and gotten everything that we paid for in world opprobrium, anyway.)
~~~~~
At this point, let me establish the very caveat over which I took Johnathan to task: this argument is taking place within the context of a politics that forced dissidents to pay for these efforts, and very often forced them to lay down their lives on the battle line. I completely reject any and everything like that.
None of that makes what I’m talking about impossible, in principles, some of which involved in all this are very wide. (That is: they are general principles, which are the most important ones.) For instance: I say that the necessity of the state to military operations is nonsense. It is no more necessary than it is in order for us to have, say, a General Motors. All this is about the nature of production — “the application of reason to the problem of survival”. That principle was very far — in all manifestations — from the ideological conditions in all of the twentieth century.
On points like the Vietnam analogy, above, I’m stipulating to instant historical conditions. We could have the argument whether Vietnam was a good idea. (Consider: try making the pitch to libertarians not interested to force their neighbors to join the effort. That would be eminently possible.) After 1965 however (let’s say), the point is about how to do this job.
“Never whistle while you’re pissing.” (Hagbard Celine)
“maybe, just maybe, if the US hadn’t insisted that Japan stay out of China, Japan wouldn’t hvae attacked. Maybe.” – jacob
Stunningly stupid. Even the ghost of Chamberlain would cringe at that.
What should China have done to keep Japan out of China?
Max,
You need to work on comprehension.
What I said was that if the US hadn’t insisted that Japan leave China alone, i.e. if it (the US) hadn’t tried to help China – Japan wouldn’t have felt it needed to attack the US.
Japan attacked the US because they wanted to establish a Japanese empire in the east (China, Indochina, etc.) and the US (and Britain) interfered. If the US had pulled out of the far East, the Japanese would have had no reason to attack the US.
Maybe, thus spelled out, you’ll get the point.
I can’t believe someone wrote a book on why WWII should not have happened – and then titled it ‘Human Smoke’. Far more offensive than a cartoon.
I make several points on this thread at my place. I’ll spare you all of that and cut to the main point.
Well, Mastiff is correct so far as he goes, Billy. But watch:
It’s my observation of history that only when people of courage are leading, do those two… ideal and practical stop being incompatible.
If the US had not intervened in any way, even before 1942, I can tell you something very dear and personal to myself:
I would not exist. My parents would likely be dead. If not malnutrition, then probably some other pogrom by the Japs to get rid of us chinese.
I am very grateful to the US for intervening. And for the mass conscription that enabled it to fight a successful war. And finally, for winning.
It’s all too well to suppose an Utopian world where we can all stay safely ensconced in our libertarian enclaves, but the real world will intrude, sooner or later, led by the monsters who have grown in strength and power when left unchecked. It always does.
I, for one, believe that Nazi Germany would have beaten the Soviet Union if Stalin did not receive any aid from the US. Even with aid, the USSR lost 35 million people. Without aid? They would have lost 50% more – 45 million!! All the equipment produced would be useless without troops to man them.
Let’s also not forget the eastern front. A Japan neutral with regards to the US, and trading freely with it, would have much less problems subduing the far east, and by 1941-1945, could be in position to strike at the eastern USSR themselves. The chinese resistance, without US aid, would have collapsed far earlier and not in any position to support Russian defenses.
Caught in a vise between Germany and Japan, the Soviets would have been very, very hard pressed. It would not be a surprise if Germany and Japan ended up dividing Eurasia between them.
You forget that China and Russia have much, much bigger population and territory than Germany and Japan. The bite was too big to swallow.
And China, saved by the US from Japanese brutality succumbed to communist, Maoist brutality of an unimaginable scale. Maybe a Japanese occupation would have turned out better for China.
I’m not asserting this, just engaging in idle speculation.
True enough, but I would note, if the bite is too big, take several smaller ones.
A scorched earth policy for the aggressor states to destroy enemy industrial capacity(China had virtually none) would have ensured that Russia and China would be incapable of much further resistance. After that, a pogrom per year would eventually cleanse Russia and China of their native people for Germany and Japan’s lebensraum.
The industrial capacity for airplanes, tanks, would have ensured that any armed resistance without these staples of modern warfare would be doomed to failure. And unlike the US, neither Germany nor Japan would feel bound by the conventions of warfare. Any guerrilla style resistance would be crushed by ethnic cleansing. Bomb them from the sky – how would Russia and China respond?
Assuredly not in one or two years, but within ten years, Russia and China would be ripe for the taking.
As for comparing Mao and the Japanese… I would think for all his brutality(and idiocy), Mao didn’t set out with the aim of killing as many of his own people as possible, while the Japanese, in many cases, started with exactly that end in mind. A significant difference, in that there would still be chinese around in Mao’s case(as we can see today), but in a Far East ruled by Japan, we’d be lucky to still be alive as a people in fifty years.
You wouldn’t know that, judging by the results…
Talking about the US, I tend to agree with “pacifist” libertarians that the conquest of the Philippines and the involvement in China were imperialist ventures that didn’t contribute in any way to the wellbeing of America, they were entanglements that were unnecessary and harmful.
Ludwig Von Mises well understood that both Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan had unlimited designs.
To claim that Hitler would have been satisfied with mainland Europe is as false as claiming that he would have been satisfied with “just” the Rhineland, or Austria, or …….
His words “this will be my last….” are contradicted by his ideology.
And this was also the case with Imperial Japan – the warlords would not have been satisfied with “just” China.
Just as with the Cold War against the Communists, the question was NOT “shall we oppose these people or live in peace with them” but rather “shall we oppose them or wait till they have taken over the rest of the world and come for us”.
A “Britain alone” or “America first” line of allowing the world to fall and expecting to survive would have been suicidal.
Again – Ludwig Von Mises understood all of the above (he considered it totally obvious). So it is a pity that some people who claim to be his followers understand none of it.
By the way Ludwig Von Mises was also good on the unlimited desires of Imperial Germany (for Brazil and so on) – again “just” Europe would not have been in accordance with their basic ideology.
All the above being said…..
The tactics used in World War One were criminal.
And.
The mistakes made in World War Two were vast. Especially F.D.R.’s trust in Stalin and the Soviet Union. This is unforgivable – even making allowences for all the false information and advise that F.D.R. was given by traitors.
And yes I mean the word “traitors”.
Dealing with a larger population is trivial, as the Axis powers proved. You simply exterminate those you cannot enslave.
The long supply lines would be a harder problem, but not insurmountable.
I stick up for Charles Lindbergh on the war here. A libertarian WW2 revisionist says Human Smoke fails to measure up here.
mastiff,
Germany couldn’t swallow France, she left great parts of it + the colonies in Freanch (Petain’s) hands, and Russia is notoriously difficult to control, due to general Winter, etc.
Japan controlled the coastal cities of China but didn’t have the resources to control the interior.
In my opinion, a german occupation of Russia was possible only in some parts of Russia (the western part) and wouldn’t have lasted for too long. Same with Japan and China.
Charles Lindbergh was a great man in his youth.
But he erred badly with respect to Germany(wicky). He was too friendly with them, after their nastiness (murdering of people) was already evident. He was also an antisemite, his declaration to the contrary notwithstanding. He opposed entry into WW2 out of his sympathy for Germany, and not because of pacifism. So he is a bad authority for pacifist libertarians to invoke.
I assure you I am neither and frankly I’m bemused at your response. The active collaboration of Poles in anti-Jewish and other murderous activity dutring WWII is a perfectly well established fact, as are the many occasions where they went far beyond mere collaboration. The existence of numerous post-war pogroms is also undisputed by any competent historian. The Poles got exactly what they deserved in one of the few historical examples where people who acted really, really, shitty had to put up with they doled out to others.
This is not, of course (and only an idiot could imagine it was), any sort of argument against the wickedness of the Soviet system and empire, nor a claim that it should not have been a prime part of UK/US policy to resist Soviet agression in the strongest possible way from 1917 onwards. It is simply pointing out the fact that Poles and other Eastern Europeans were not innocents and their welfare should not have formed part of post WW2 planning because their behaviour didn’t merit it. If any of the above seems cruel and vengeful and based on a fairly bleak view of large sections of humanity – well, it is. The same goes for Russians in 1917 by the way.
Germany would not need to occupy Russia. It would only be necessary to capture and smash the Soviet Union’s prodigious industrial capacity so much so that it could never recover sufficiently to beat back the Wehrmacht. Having Imperial Japan on the other side to hit, or even just threaten, Siberia would have been a disaster for Stalin.
The Germans are students of Clauswitz, and they surely would have recognized that the center of gravity of any effective armed opposition rested on industrial capacity. It was for this reason they pressed so hard to take Moscow in 1941, and why they took the Ukraine in the first place.
Looking at the Wikipedia entry(Link), it stated that German forces were too weak in the winter of 1941 to take Moscow, but were thrown back by fresh, well-trained Siberian reserves following a guarantee of neutrality from Japan on the 6th December.
And we all know what happened on the 7th December 1941.
If Japan did not have to worry about the US, would it have negotiated a truce of neutrality with the Soviet Union? The likelihood, I think, would be much smaller. The absence of the Siberian divisions from the Eastern European front would have likely meant the fall of Moscow in the first half of 1942, as the German forces would have been as near as 30km away, as well as the loss of critical industries centered around the capital. Whatever industry Stalin had left to transport to the remote regions of the remnants of the USSR would have been too little to turn the tide.
After that, Germany and Japan can gobble up Eurasia at their leisure. No need to really occupy the ground. Wipe them clean of their native populations, and expand into the empty lands when possible. For who could stop them? Partisans with rifles against tanks and aircraft, of which might include the oh-so-beautiful Horten 229B featured a few posts after this one? This is not Spain in 1800-1810, where war had not been industrialized yet. Partisans would just get slaughtered.
I repeat. The participation of the USA is vital. Critically vital. Without the shipments to the British, the British Isles would have a much harder time of it as well, and might not have been able to launch aerial sorties into Europe that denuded German industries and defenses, a necessary diversion from the russian front.
For modern Americans to argue otherwise is always food for thought. I hear so many around the world ask for American withdrawal from the world, blaming the US for all the world’s ills, yet they do not realize that there is actually a very real, and quite strong strain in American sentiment of leaving the world to its own devices.
And woe betide the rest of us if that ever comes to pass.
Wobbly,
I’m not one of the isolationist libertarians that believe that if the US didn’t interfere abroad, the nasties would have left her alone. This is manifest nonesense. It’s better to see to it (by preventive military strikes, if necessary and possible) that belicose and murderous regimes don’t get too strong. (Iran).
Still, it’s fun to invent alternate histories: what would have happened if the US hadn’t conquerred the Philippines in 1898, and hadn’t established a presence in China (both unnecessary adventures). Maybe there would have been no war with Japan.
On the other hand – if she had been MORE involved in the security of Europe in the 1930ies, maybe there would have been no WW2 in Europe (as she would have helped topple Hitler in 1936, maybe). Maybe, if Hitler had been hanged in 1936, the Japanese, mindful of the example, would have been less aggressive in 1937-1941. A good case can be made that US isolationism after WW1 was a catastrophe. (That’s the usual view).
Even alternative history doesn’t make a good argument for isolationism.
Jacob, did you read my post on Lindbergh? If you want to argue with what I state there, you’ll need to do better than linking to the Wikipedia article on him.
belicose and murderous regimes don’t get too strong. (Iran).
Iran bellicose? Iran was invaded by Iraq with the blessings of the U.S. When the fanatically anti-Shi’ite Taliban was murdering Iranian officials, rather than treating it as a cause for war, their regime cool-headedly put up with it until the U.S was ready to depose them (and we should not forget the Iranians assisted us in that). Since then we have deposed their other neighboring enemy at the behest of Iranian-connect Shi’ite dissidents whom we have given governing power and then have acted surprised that this has strengthened the Iranian government. Who has Iran invaded? If their standards of bellicosity and murderousness were sufficient to provoke a military response, I should be demanding that the U.S be invaded.
Oh, and in case any of you are too dimwitted to get my point, I don’t think the U.S or any other country at the present should be invaded.
TGGP,
Argue… what’s there to argue ? Lindbergh himself said he wasn’t antisemitic didn’t he ? He said so in a public speech ! So, it’s settled then.
You said “I stick up for Charles Lindbergh”, read your history and you’ll see what Lindbergh position was: sympathy with Germany.
As to Iran – it repeatedly declares its unequivocal intention to wipe some state off the map. It also routinely murders it’s own people. The poor muhllas.
Not to mention financing, arming and fomenting terrorism in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. And starting wars of aggression by proxies. Fine people you found to speak on behalf.
If they hadn’t acted as barbarians and taken hostages the helpless American diplomats in 1979 contrary to any notion of civilized behavior, maybe the US would have helped them in the war with Iraq, and not Saddam, who looked at the time the lesser of two evils. Maybe if they would have refrained of calling the US “the great Satan” – a call motivated by religious fanaticism, and not by anything the US did.
Lindbergh himself said he wasn’t antisemitic didn’t he ? He said so in a public speech !
No, I really suspect at this point that you did not read the post I linked to. I specifically address the Des Moines speech, which I assume you are referring to. He stated that the Germans were attacking the British and Jews, and so for perfectly understandable reasons they (specifically referring to the leaders of both peoples rather than as a whole) wished to enlist the U.S against Germany (he also stated that the Roosevelt administration was pushing for war, but I don’t recall what reasons he gives, possibly it is assumed it is the same as with the previous war: our relationship with Britain). He also specifically states that there are Jews farsighted enough to realize the negative consequences of war and who do not favor it. He furthermore stated that nobody of good conscience could condone the treatment of Jews and he could not blame the Jewish and British leaders for trying to bring the U.S into the war.
Was he sympathetic to Germany? To the German people as a whole, certainly. He sympathized with the Japanese even as he feared them (yes, for racialist reasons, but also understandably since they did attack us) and killed them and deplored the racist bloodlust displayed toward them by his comrades in the same breath as what the Germans were doing to Jews in Europe (granted, that seems sorely lacking a sense of proportion). He also feared Bolshevism and sympathized with the fear Germans had for it, though to my knowledge he never advocated war with the Soviet Union.
As to Iran – it repeatedly declares its unequivocal intention to wipe some state off the map.
Iran has no capability of carrying that out. Anyone who knows jack about Iran knows that Ahmadenijad wouldn’t have the authority to carry that out even if Iran did have the capability. Iran is a theocracy/kritarchy, its elected President is mostly symbolic and the real power belongs to the “Supreme Leader” and unelected mullahs. Just as for all his hot air Hugo Chavez still sells most of his oil to the U.S, Iran has not presented a real threat to any other country since the Iran-Iraq war (and quite understandably so in that situation).
It also routinely murders it’s own people.
Are you referring to its fondness for executions? You know the U.S and China do that as well? I’m not saying I condone making sodomy a capital crime but it doesn’t necessitate military strikes.
Not to mention financing, arming and fomenting terrorism in Iraq
In Iraq, Iran supports the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution and its paramilitary wing, the Badr Brigade. Those happen to be the groups most supportive of the government we created in Iraq. Its rivals are the Iraqi nationalist (he prefers Sunni Arab Iraqis to Persians) Muqtada al Sadr and his Mahdi Army, famous for its death-squads, and the Sunni Arabs. We are currently paying and arming large numbers of the latter that admit to previously being anti-American terrorists in the form of the “Awakening”. The outside countries supporting the terrorism are the “moderate Arab states” like Saudi Arabia and Egypt that we have enlisted to counterbalance the Iranians.
Syria
What terrorism is occurring now in Syria? A long time ago the local branch of the Muslim Brotherhood seemed like it might cause problems for the secular regime, but it was completely crushed at Hama.
Lebanon
Syria and Hezbollah are not owned by Iran, even if they are allies. Syria had plenty of reason to want Harriri dead, he didn’t matter as much to Iran.
And starting wars of aggression by proxies.
Aside from the previously mentioned actors, I’d say Israel and the U.S can get plenty of blame for that clusterfuck. Since they live right next door to the action and have to deal with the reality, the Israelis tend to be more sane than our leaders, which is why Olmert and Kadima are in the doghouse after that. In America we promote the people who were proven wrong and resign our Cassandras to obscurity.
Fine people you found to speak on behalf.
There is nobody I would refuse to speak on when false things are said about them. If Iran is a threat, it would be best to have an accurate assessment of it.
If they hadn’t acted as barbarians and taken hostages the helpless American diplomats in 1979 contrary to any notion of civilized behavior, maybe the US would have helped them in the war with Iraq
We DID help them out against Iraq (remember Iran-Contra? a good move, in my honest opinion). We also helped Iraq against them. As Kissinger said “Isn’t it a pity they can’t both lose?”. One could also turn your statement around by saying the revolution wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t overthrown Mossadegh and replaced him with the Shah (which is not to say I personally wouldn’t prefer the latter to the former). Does that act justify military strikes against the U.S?
Maybe if they would have refrained of calling the US “the great Satan”
I thought people here believed in free speech!
a call motivated by religious fanaticism, and not by anything the US did.
Can’t it be both? We supported the hated Shah and Israelis and we overthrew Mossadegh.
I’m not much of a libertarian and it’s late in the discussion, but I’d like to make a contribution. Why exactly is WW2 remembered as the “good war”? Well, there’s the fact of the Holocaust on the enemy side to be sure, but I’d suggest a more important factor is that it is the only modern war that had the support of the Left. To be more precise, the war against Nazi Germany had the enthusiastic support of the Left after the June 1941 German attack on the USSR. Before that, the war was most emphatically NOT supported by the Left. The U-turn that Communist parties had to do in 1941 was embarrassing, and cost them some members in the same way that Khrushchev’s reversals in 1956 did.
A couple of posters mentioned the pro-Soviet war propaganda put out by the U.S. government during 1942-45. Say, who do you think actually authored stuff like Mission to Moscow? American communists and fellow travellers is the answer. Any military effort against the USSR in 1945 and after would have drawn the immediate opposition and obstruction of this group. They would have done just what they did during the wars in Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq.
TGGP,
But, it’s also perfectly understandable that Lindbergh didn’t care about what the Germans did to Jews and Britain, and didn’t see no reason to help the British and Jews. In the fight between the angels and Satan, he was kind of neutral. Except he admired the Germans, and was glad to accept medals from Goering.
True, but the supreme leaders put this moonbat there, to bark his lunacies. They could have stopped him if he didn’t express exactly their opinions.
Not yet. But not for lack of will or for lack of trying. But she’s working hard on it and will have them very soon.
Strange question. Uninformed one. Syria is sponsoring terrorism in Lebanon, Iraq and Israel (at least). Many terrorist organizations have their headquarters and logistics based in Syria. Syria is rearming Hezbollah with missiles. And Syria itself isn’t that big and rich. It is rather a front and proxy for Iran.
I believe in free speach, and in calling moonbats – moonbats. After all, I, too, enjoy free speach. I also believe in taking seriously threats, and hitting those who threaten me (a threat isn’t free speach).
Billy, you accused me of holding a view on the basis of something I had not said; claiming that I had failed to make it clearer earlier is no excuse for putting words into my mouth. I expect rather better from you than that. Kindly withdraw the point. You are not a troll, so stop behaving like one.
I was broadly justifying the UK’s and USA’s decision, by their governments, to go to war with Germany and Japan. I assume that it is taken as read by regular commenters like you that I oppose the draft. Actually, I tend to assume that regular readers, like you, don’t have to have such opinions spelled out from scratch. Very tiresome that can be.
Even a nightwatchman state with some defence capabilities is entitled to declare war on a hostile power. quite how it goes about implementing that policy, in terms of its specific armed forces, tactics, strategy, is not something that you can judge on the basis of abstract principle.
“Kindly withdraw the point.”
No.
I said what I have to say about it.
“Even a nightwatchman state with some defence capabilities is entitled to declare war on a hostile power. quite how it goes about implementing that policy, in terms of its specific armed forces, tactics, strategy, is not something that you can judge on the basis of abstract principle.”
Oh, really? How, then? Ouija board?
But, it’s also perfectly understandable that Lindbergh didn’t care about what the Germans did to Jews and Britain
Right in that very Des Moines speech he deplores what the Germans are doing to the British and Jews, he just doesn’t think it is in the interests of America to engage in humanitarian intervention. Maybe you can claim he secretly didn’t mind what was being done to them and we can’t trust we he says, but none of us can read minds so I don’t know what else we have to go on. Lindbergh also attempted to go back to his old command to fight the Germans when we went to war with them, but Roosevelt refused to let him do that, which is why he fought in Japan as a civilian (de jure at least, when you are shooting down planes that would seem to make you a de facto combatant).
and was glad to accept medals from Goering.
When he accepted the medal he was there on behalf of the U.S government. Nobody cared at the time. It was only later that people demanded he give it back. I personally don’t see why his refusal to do so would even matter.
True, but the supreme leaders put this moonbat there, to bark his lunacies. They could have stopped him if he didn’t express exactly their opinions.
His job is not to express the opinions of the mullahs. He’s there because people in Iran have been upset about corruption and economic mismanagement so having a populist like him on stage makes people feel better. There is a broad pro-nuke consensus though.
Strange question. Uninformed one. Syria is sponsoring terrorism in Lebanon, Iraq and Israel (at least).
You said Iran was supporting terrorism in Syria, which would imply that there is terrorism going on in Syria.
And Syria itself isn’t that big and rich. It is rather a front and proxy for Iran.
Its war machine is larger. Also, see Gary Brecher on proxy armies. For estimates on how much assistance Iran gives Hezbollah, see here.
I believe in free speach, and in calling moonbats – moonbats.
And that saying certain things merits an eight-year long war that killed over a million people?
I also believe in taking seriously threats, and hitting those who threaten me (a threat isn’t free speach).
Saying “I’m going to kill you” is often a threat (though often not, as discussed in “12 Angry Men”). Saying “death to X” or “may X rot in hell” is not. The U.S has started a considerable number of wars. When was the last time Iran did that?
You decide what sort of tactics, strategy, etc, based on the material to hand: the known strength of the opponent, his track record, your own experience, etc.
Not really very hard to grasp.
Okay, fine. I’ll bear this little exchange in mind in future: you’re one of those people who draw inferences on the basis of what you think people say, rather than what they actually say in a comment thread. Anyway, I am not going to pursue this silly spat further.
TGGP asks when was the last time Iran started a war. Answer: all that arms supply to Hizbollah, Hamas, encouragement of global terror.
Next question!
all that arms supply to Hizbollah, Hamas
The U.S and Israel supply lots of arms, but that doesn’t make them responsible for wars in which they are used.
encouragement of global terror
Come on, Global Terror, I know you can do it! Come on!
The key is if a regime supplies arms, trains operatives and if its leadership advocates the annihilation of a regime [like Israel] against which said groups operate. This is what Iran has been doing. Its supply of weapons is part of a broader national strategy; it is not as if it is just selling weapons for hard cash and for no other reason. To suggest otherwise is frankly disengenuous.
That is of course is one of the problems with rogue states like Iran that back terror groups with arms and money. They are able to use the plausible deniability move. However, not many people outside the ranks of the tin-foil brigade are fooled.
TGGP
Lindbergh was on a secret (not official) mission, and he received the medal as an individual, in 1938, well after the murderous, aggressive and criminal nature of Nazi Germany was known beyond any doubt.
It is simillar to eg. if some retired US military man (eg. Gen. H. Norman Schwartzkopf) were to recieve now a medal of honor from Ahmedinajad.
Of course, you wouldn’t see nothing wrong with this too, as Iran is just a nice nation, and Ahmedinajad just a popular hero to you.
I don’t know what your’e talking about. Did the US attack Iran and cause 1 million dead ? You’re out of your mind.
It was Iraq who attacked, and the US had little to do with it, though she wasn’t too sorry, correctly, IMO.
As to the 1 million dead – a great deal of responsibility for them rests on Ayatolla Homeini, who, after driving Iraq out of Iran, wasn’t cntent to stop the war, but insisted on conquerring Iraq, and hanging Saddam. The idea wasn’t a bad one, but the capability was lacking. Homeini sent wave after wave of human cannon fodder (young boys), to try to overrrun Saddam’s tanks. The casualties were the result of this madness. And a result of another madness – that of murdering most of the (competent ?) officers in the Iranian Army during the revolution, fearing they were loyal to the Shah.
At least 6 of the 8 years of war were due to Homeini’s madness, and maybe also that was the proportion of the number of casualties he is to blame for.
“Not really very hard to grasp.”
Mine was a trick question, Johnathan: don’t look now, but everything you pointed out is “abstract[ed]” from “principles”.
“…you’re one of those people who draw inferences on the basis of what you think people say, rather than what they actually say in a comment thread.”
Do your worst, son, but don’t mistake you know what you’re doing.
The key is if a regime supplies arms, trains operatives and if its leadership advocates the annihilation of a regime
Sounds like “regime change”, our official policy toward Iran and our reason for supporting the terrorist MEK. Hezbollah seem like pragmatic nationalists in comparison. Assigning Iran responsibility for the war sparked by Hezbollah’s kidnappings is also tricky when U.S and Israeli officials had been planning for the war long before that.
Its supply of weapons is part of a broader national strategy; it is not as if it is just selling weapons for hard cash and for no other reason.
The U.S doesn’t sell weapons for revenue purposes (the recipients tend to get a lot of foreign aid as well). An exception is Iran-Contra where Congress passed a law prohibiting aid to the contras and the weapon sales were a way of getting around that restriction.
rogue states
What the hell is that?
However, not many people outside the ranks of the tin-foil brigade are fooled.
Isn’t that a no-true-Scotsman argument?
Lindbergh was on a secret (not official) mission, and he received the medal as an individual, in 1938
Was it you who was earlier linking to Wikipedia? He was invited by Hugh Wilson, the American ambassador to Germany, to the American embassy where he received the medal (I have never heard of a medal given to something other than an individual). It was the U.S military that had him examine the airpower of Russia and Germany. Whether the Soviets and/or Nazis knew he was reporting back to the American government doesn’t seem especially relevant.
well after the murderous, aggressive and criminal nature of Nazi Germany was known beyond any doubt.
FDR recalled Hugh Wilson and declined to ever send another American ambassador after Kristallnacht (many people mistakenly think Lindbergh received the medal after that). That was also the event that made Lindbergh decide not to purchase a house in Berlin (he already had places in England and France). I guess they had similar standards of what was unnacceptably murderous.
It is simillar to eg. if some retired US military man (eg. Gen. H. Norman Schwartzkopf) were to recieve now a medal of honor from Ahmedinajad.
Lindbergh wasn’t retired at the time. He didn’t resign his command in the Army Air Corps until after the Des Moines speech when FDR questioned his loyalty. If Schwartzkopf received a medal from Ahmacrazyguy, why should we give a damn?
Iran is just a nice nation
No nation is nice, and Iran sure as hell is no Sweden.
Ahmedinajad just a popular hero
I am an elitist, as a libertarian must be. He is popular precisely because he is awful. I am glad Iran is just a fake-democracy and the unelected mullahs are in charge instead.
Everything you said on the Iran-Iraq war there is pretty sensible (the name is “Khomeini” though). What I am getting at is what you think is an acceptable consequence of shouting “Death to America!”. As a believer in free-speech, I say it merits not a single nick or scratch.
Sorry, but that won’t really pass muster, Billy. It is one thing to support the principle of X or Y, quite another to argue through the details of how X or Y is applied in practice. Which is why even libertarians, or especially libertarians, have argued over stuff like wars, even wars of strict self defence.
Well, an acceptable consequence is that when your’e attacked (by a third party) and in dire need, America will not lift a finger to help you (will not supply spare parts for American weapons Iran had from the time of the Shah), but rather shout back “Death to Iran”.
(Despite this very logical stance, America did supply Iran with considerable spare parts and arms, via Israel, her proxy, in the Iran-contra affair. It was done in the hope of restoring the cordial relations that existed between the US (and Israel) and Iran under the Shah. In hidsight we know it was an idiotic move. )
As to Lindbergh – by 1938 the notorious Nuerenberg race laws have been passed, Jews were expelled from government posts, universities, etc., many people were beaten or murdered by Hitler’s goons, for example – Rohm, the former head of the Nazi party.
A good thing that Rooseveld had the good sense to retire his ambassador and fire Lindbergh. I don’t have many kind words for FDR, but it seems he had a better and more decent grasp of the situation than some.
Lindbergh should have reported on his reconnaisance mission in Germany: “Hitler is a dangerous lunatic, he is arming at an alarming rate with high quality weapons. Stop him now, before it’s too late”. He failed.
So?
No, it usually sells arms to support regimes it believes deserve to be defended, like Israel, from those “pragmatic” Hizbollah types. That is not the same as declaring war. I believe that Iran, by supporting and arming Islamic terror groups, passing fatwas on people it does not like, is a state that is warlike.
You ask what a rogue state is. My rough definition is a state that carries out unprovoked acts of aggression versus another and typically hides behind third parties to carry out its crimes. Of course, these are not black and white issues, since most states are rogues to varying degrees, if one wanted to be purist about this. The Britain that made the empire back in the 17th Century etc was a rogue on that definition.
Gabriel – saying “fuck the Poles” (and “leave them to the Soviets”) is not good.
Yes there was widespread anti semitism in Poland – but your words are bad ones.
Perhaps “Tyrants and Mountains” by Denis Hills might give you a more balanced view – if you are open to one.
Jacob – I do not agree.
Japan stood a much better chance joining the German attack on the Soviet Union (thus meaning that the Soviets would have had to try and fight on two fronts) than they stood with the attack upon the United States.
Even with Hitlers foolish delay of the offensive on Moscow (allowing months for the Soviets to organize – and for winter to close in) the Soviets were in real trouble.
Had the Siberian army been busy with the Japanese then Moscow would have fallen.
And the Soviet Union of 1941 was very different from the Russia of 1812.
The Soviet Union was a centralized police state – and the old Russia (contrary to the words of its enemies) was not such a place.
This made the Soviet Union stronger – but also more vulnerable to having its heart cut out.
Paul,
Japan coveted China, Indochina and Indonesia (Duch east Indies), maybe also the Philippines. Much richer lands than the frozen Siberia, whose oil was not yet discovered.
Japan had more than enough on her hands, she didn’t need a war with Russia, and didn’t have the resources for it.
Madmen don’t last forever, and their folly usually brings them down fast. It doesn’t make sense to presume that Hitler’s Reich would have lasted a thousand years. It would have fallen, sooner rather than later, one way or the other.
As I said, when France was attacked – Britain and the US staying out was not an option. (Neither in WW1 nor in WW2).
The only remotely plausible scenario would have been: the whole West abandoning Poland and staying out of the war in Europe, and the US (and Britain) accommodating Japan in the Far East, ceding to them what they demanded (China and Indonesia). Even under such “ideal” conditions I don’t think the German and Japanese empires would have lasted very long.
But these are just speculations, there are no clear cut answers in alternate history.
As to Lindbergh – by 1938 the notorious Nuerenberg race laws have been passed, Jews were expelled from government posts, universities, etc., many people were beaten or murdered by Hitler’s goons, for example – Rohm, the former head of the Nazi party.
I’m glad he was murdered, the SA were the craziest thug wing of the Nazi party. And through all those awful laws, FDR still had Hugh Wilson schmoozing with the Germans and it was directly as a result that Lindbergh received the medal.
A good thing that Rooseveld had the good sense to retire his ambassador and fire Lindbergh.
He didn’t fire Lindbergh. Lindbergh resigned after FDR questioned his patriotism. When he tried to return to his old command to fight the Germans, he was not permitted to and so he helped design airplanes and then flew combat missions in the Pacific.
Lindbergh should have reported on his reconnaisance mission in Germany: “Hitler is a dangerous lunatic, he is arming at an alarming rate with high quality weapons. Stop him now, before it’s too late”. He failed.
Lindbergh did warn about German armaments, he is criticized now for EXAGGERATING. He urged France to build up its own arms to defend itself but advised not starting a war at that point because England and France were not strong enough to defeat Germany. He was proved right about France but wrong about England, as he underestimated the boon to its defence provided by the Channel.
Well, an acceptable consequence is that when your’e attacked (by a third party) and in dire need, America will not lift a finger to help you (will not supply spare parts for American weapons Iran had from the time of the Shah), but rather shout back “Death to Iran”.
I would agree, but that’s not exactly what the U.S did.
No, it usually sells arms to support regimes it believes deserve to be defended, like Israel, from those “pragmatic” Hizbollah types. That is not the same as declaring war. I believe that Iran, by supporting and arming Islamic terror groups, passing fatwas on people it does not like, is a state that is warlike.
Iran would claim it supports groups it believes deserve to be defended against Israel. Is that declaring war?
You ask what a rogue state is. My rough definition is a state that carries out unprovoked acts of aggression versus another and typically hides behind third parties to carry out its crimes.
So the U.S is a rogue state for attacking Iraq? Or is that not the case because it was TOO DIRECTLY linked to it, rather than using a third party? If Iran can be considered culpable for Hezbollah’s starting a war with Israel, can the U.S also be considered responsible for Saddam’s unprovoked war with Iran?
As I said, when France was attacked – Britain and the US staying out was not an option. (Neither in WW1 nor in WW2).
Switzerland and Sweden stayed out to no ill consequence. Britain was able to defend its island quite capably. Russia could have handled Germany all on its own (most of World War 2 was just the Soviets vs the Nazis).
That’s different from receiving medals of honor. You keep diplomats even in hostile countries for obvious reasons.
Dumb example.
Switzerland and Sweden stayed out to very good consequences for them: 1. They bribed the Nazis so as to be left alone, by supplying services to them. 2. They profiteered from supplying needed materiel to the Nazi murderers, 3. They were content to let others shed blood to get rid of the lunatic which would have swallowed them too if left alone.
That may be an understandable tactic for small and weak countries that don’t have many choices and capabilities, but it’s not a valid tactic for everyone.
They are not an example to make your point. They are an example to show your weak grasp of the realities.
That’s different from receiving medals of honor.
It only happened as a result of Wilson. Did Wilson tell Lindbergh not to accept it, as he easily could have? Did FDR denounce Lindbergh for accepting it? No. Nobody cared until Kristallnacht when the issue was whether Lindbergh should have given it back rather than accepted it in the first place.
Dumb example. Switzerland and Sweden stayed out to very good consequences for them
Thank you for making my point!
They bribed the Nazis so as to be left alone, by supplying services to them.
I was under the impression that the Nazis paid them, rather than it being that way around, as in your point #2.
They were content to let others shed blood to get rid of the lunatic which would have swallowed them too if left alone.
For the most part we let Russia handle Germany, and there is no reason to believe Germany would invaded Switzerland and/or Sweden. Hitler had laid out in Mein Kampf that he was going to attack France and Russia, as he in fact did. He expected to have an alliance with Britain, as he did in fact attempt, but the British declared war on him. The Nazis did invade Norway, but the reason was because the Allies were about to use it as a staging post against him.
That may be an understandable tactic for small and weak countries that don’t have many choices and capabilities, but it’s not a valid tactic for everyone.
If a stronger country has more options, why doesn’t it have that option?