The Libertarian Alliance made a bit of a splash during the week, after a Daily Mail journalist conflated the LA’s regular blogger, David Davis, with a man of the same name who happens to be a senior Tory MP. Sean Gabb, one of the head honchos of the LA, has had a bit of fun with this, and very enjoyable it is to watch the discomfiture of a journalist who, plainly, did not do the necessary checks.
But during my reading of this silly saga, I came across Sean Gabb’s thoughts about the start of the Second World War – 70 years ago – which the Daily Mail journalist came across, and which no doubt prompted some sharp intakes of breath. Here is his opening paragraph:
“Today is the 70th anniversary of our declaration of war on Germany. My own view is that this was the greatest single disaster in British and perhaps world history. It beats the decision to go to war with Germany in 1914. That was a disaster in its own right, but did not necessarily mean the destruction of western civilisation. By 1945, around fifty million Europeans had been killed in battle or murdered or starved or bombed, and Bolshevik Russia was supreme across half the continent. British liberalism and world power had collapsed. Their best replacement was American corporatism with its increasingly ludicrous fig leaf of “human rights” and “democracy”. None of this would have happened had we stayed out of another European war.”
Repeat that final sentence: “None of this would have happened had we stayed out of another European war”.
It seems to me that Sean Gabb is seriously overplaying the argument and as a result, has rendered it seriously defective, in my opinion. For a start, it is far from clear to what extent Britain, and its then-empire, could have “stayed out” of a conflict involving various European nations only a few hundred miles away. For instance, one question I would put to Sean and others is this: how neutral could Britain have been, and to what extent would it have been endurable, either morally or practically, for Britain to stand aside while millions of refugees, such as Jews, sought a place of escape? For example, suppose that Hitler had demanded, as a condition of UK neutrality, that the UK ban any of its citizens from joining anti-Nazi resistance movements, or even promoting causes designed to weaken Hitler’s regime?
It is also, in my view, verging on outright nuttiness to suggest that had Britain stood aside, that Western civilisation would have been saved in some way. Western civilisation necessarily includes the West, ie, Western Europe – you know, places such as France, Italy, Spain, Germany, the Scandanvian nations, and so forth. It is not just about the UK, North America and the Anglosphere diaspora. And consider this point: had Hitler defeated Soviet Russia, and the whole Eurasian continent, from Bordeaux to Vladivostok, fallen under his iron hand, it is naive to suppose that this would be a great result for “Western civilisation”. At best, the remnants of that civilisation would have lived under the shadow of a huge and menacing empire, based on racial and socialist dogmas that are too obviously horrifying to need spelling out.
So while I can heartily endorse Mr Gabb’s disgust at some of the outcomes of the war and its cost, his argument does not convince me. That is not to say that there are not revisionist interpretations of WW2 that do not deserve taking seriously, nor do we have to denigrate those men, such as former UK prime minister Neville Chamberlain, who worked so hard to avert a conflict. But unlike Sean Gabb, I am glad that the young Winston Churchill escaped a violent death during his soldiering days, and ignored the advice of those who imagined that Britain could cut some sort of deal with a revolutionary racialist-socialist with a proven record of deceit.
Victor Davis Hanson has a good take on WW2 revisionists like Pat Buchanan. I also recommend this post by Patrick Crozier, taking on, and taking apart, the arguments of Ralph Raico, another revisionist, but unlike Buchanan, is a libertarian.
Selling weapons to both (or all) sides is nothing new.
Preparing the marketplace by selling ideologies that require them is only common sense. American corporatism (as well as British, European, and Eurasian)
have first sold the illusion of their national loyalties.
The current ideology market is resultant of former developments. (Chicago’s Haymarket Riot, or Tragedy)
The history of radical ideologies is not in their leaders or
followers; but, in the often hidden backers, profiting from it.
The formost statist “regulatory agency” is dogma.
Whilst there is something to be said for the enhancement of learning from “contrafactual” history studies of, say, Niall Ferguson, revisionism and worse, defeat the possibilities of learning.
But then, from a very sketchy set of observations, in the U.S. the 16 to 25 year-old sector has no interest in learning – only in experiencing.
This is almost Tranzi in its nonsensical arrogance. Blaming the fall of Western Civilization on Britain in general and Churchill in particular without a single nod to the part Hitler and Germany, (let alone Stalin and Russia or Hirohito and Japan), played in the outbreak of WW2.
Of course it’s arguable that different reactions to Hitler’s aggression would have different long term consequences, and it is fun discussing what those consequences might be, but to prattle on about some lost Golden Age because Chamberlain eventually stood by Britain’s treaty obligations to Poland and our other continental treaty partners is arrant nonsense.
By 1915 it was obvious that the War in Europe could only be run as a meat grinder, ending only with the destruction of a generation; at that point all sides should have climbed down and negotiated a peace. Failure to do so – or possibly, the failure of the people of Europe to hang the responsible political and military leaders after the war – set everything else in motion.
And what’s this business about British liberalism? How do we know that, left in place worldwide, it wouldn’t have evolved into what it has in Britain proper?
Kevin B, your comment is bang on the money. Exactly.
It is an extraordinary claim of Sean’s, implicit in that passage, that without WWII Britain would have retained and reinforced its High Victorian liberalism. Quite a lot of that had slipped away by 1939, and the likes of the Webbs were driving the intellectual agenda further towards socialism. In both the intellectual and political establishments (and the military too) there were many admirers of fascism, Nazism and Bolshevism and despisers of constitutional democracy. (The US had a number as well.) A quick victory for Hitler in Europe would have bolstered those. There might just as well have been a slide to totalitarianism without physical destruction, but much greater ideological damage.
I am sure that Sean only meant to be a little bit provocative of discussion in this case, or perhaps he was tired and irritable after a long day. And I don’t think he really meant that bit about Churchill either. For one thing, Churchill’s fertile brain brought off a number of distinct results for us under fire.
Gallipoli would have worked for example, if the Admiralty and Staffs in London had not buggered about for so long before it that the Central Powers got to know about it well in advance and fortified the Narrows properly.
In a later war, his irritation and anger at delays, plus his willingness to try things like “specialised armour” (which the American Generals in 1944 were quite reluctant to use) got stuff done which otherwise would not have been done.
Above all, Churchill’s skill as a writer and orator mobilised the English Language itself as a weapon of war. you just cna’t listen to his speeches, such as “Finest Hour” without being almost moved to tears. We having collectively decided to Do The Right Thing, albeit late in the day, and expensively, he articulated what most people thought.
As you will know: although a libertarian myself, I take the view that war in defence of ordinary human morality, and liberty, is no vice and is honourable and right: sometimes I would go so far as to say that a minimal libertarian state ought actually to intitiate wars against clearly wicked and dangerously un-psychopathic scumbags such as Saddam Hussein, and whatever that outfit is that’s buggering up Afghanistan right now. In the 1930s I certainly would have gone to war against Hitler and conducted a round of regime-change in Germany, slightly earlier, probably in about 1934 or 1935. However, that does not alter the general position that war is bad and big wars are very bad.
Sean knows that I have never failed to disagree with him about Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is all perfectly friendly.
I think this is a misjudgment by Dr. Gabb who I hold in high esteem.
When the Nazis explored the possibility of creating their own atom bomb their scientific consensus concluded that it would require such a huge industrial effort that it would not be possible under ‘wartime conditions’ i.e. under bombardment by the RAF’s Bomber Command.
Had the Nazis been at peace with the West in 1940 then I see no reason why the same happy accidents(Link) that accompanied the allied project should not have assisted the Nazi project too.
Nazis as the world’s sole atomic power?
Risky.
God bless Bomber Command.
I have never understood the rationale behind Britain and France giving Poland a guarantee early in 1939, and then making no effort to enforce it. If the French had prepared for an armoured thrust into Germany in the event of a German invasion of Poland, World War II would have been over in late 1939. As it was, the poor old Poles rejoiced when Britain and France declared war on Germany, and then, nothing. If Churchill had been PM in 1939, he would have gone for it. Chamberlain didn’t have the heart for the job. If you are going to declare war on a country, you need to have some sort of plan to take the war to them. I feel sure that if, in 1940, instead of invading Norway, Hitler had offered some sort of bullshit peace conference, Chamberlain would have bitten his hand off. An unelected Prime Minister, completely unsuited to the task of leading his country in a time of war. Reminds me of someone.
@ PersonFromPorlock By 1915 it was obvious that the War in Europe could only be run as a meat grinder, ending only with the destruction of a generation; at that point all sides should have climbed down and negotiated a peace.
The Germans wanted peace like the Taliban want a secular government. You assume your values are universal – they are not.
Between WW1 and WW2 the classic WW1 novel ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ was interpreted as a great anti-war novel in France, the UK and the US.
In Germany the very same novel was seen as a proof of nationhood and a justification for war without end.
The American pacifists (Link)were correct in their final conclusions.
The fundamentals of the Nazi regime were poor performance covered by scapegoating and theft. The sale of their gold reserves and other “eat the seed corn” measures made it impossible to do anything but aggressively seek out new territory to suck dry.
No neutrality would be safe once the 3rd Reich ran out of jews and other scapegoats. The UK could only determine its placement on the list.
We’re probably all getting slightly off the point here. Sean is so deeply whiggish in his libertarianism that it’s not clear to him why Britain – or anybody at all for that matter – should ever go to war over either an abstract principle or a country or group whose existence or otherwise does not directly affect the UK.
This is fine as an academic policy-position. But in practice this planet is currently a sealed spaceship: consequently, there is nowhere to go for those who’d rather not endure the runnels and currents of blood, vomit, broken furniture, shouting, noise, gunshots, screams and human body-parts that sometimes start to channel down the corridors, and who say they have no interest in the particular quarrel that has broken out on Deck-8-aft.
As libertarians, we can’t isolate ourselves from these businesses, be we so ever keen to stay out for what will turn out to be only short-term benefits to ourselves.
However, I respect Sean’s position on this matter.
He has every right – nay, duty indeed – to point out to us that we should analyse very carefully the motives and objectives of people like Chamberlain (as well as Churchill) who thought (out of sheer goodness, for he was not an evil man) that he was acting for the best in attempting, in extremis, to avoid all-out war, a war which he genuinely thought his people would flinch from, after their last dip into the cesspool.
But I agree with TMLutas 05:38pm.
They’d have come for us too in the end. Poland 03.09.1939 was the last-chance-saloon, and France _should_ have attacked immediately. Lazy buggers, and they indeed got the result in June 1940 that their inaction deserved. (Sorry, that’s the way it is.)
I once asked Dr. Gabb if he would support a war [that he opposed] if that war were properly prosecuted, i.e. seriously and deliberately, to the full extent of our military and economic capabilities and with a lasting peace the only object of that war.
He said quite candidly that he would.
Dr. Gabb’s writing should be viewed in that light.
The enemies of classical liberalism are legion and it is wise not to provide them with ammunition.
To John W 06.12pm:-
I am sure that if I’d asked Sean that same question, he’d have said the same, but I never have. Should have done, then I could have said something earlier in a comment on ours.
Anyway, we must now only proceed (for the benefit of the enemies of classical liberalism) on the basis that there is, ingoing, an interesting and stimulating debate within libertarian circles about the effects of British participation in the Single World War of 1789-2009 [with embedded armistice-times] and (later) on the interesting chiaroscuro (is that the right spelling?) of alliances during and within that, and for what reasons.
I am generally less pro-interventionism than many who write or read this blog, and regard it as probably the one area I disagree with Samizdatistas. However, I do think that joining in the Second World War (or commencing it?) was the right thing to do (and not because of the holocaust, which we didn’t know about at the time). The old claim that Hitler had no plans to invade Britain is undoubtably a lie. Can you imagine a guy conquering Europe and then deciding, “nah, don’t want to get it all!”
American libertarians who oppose the intervention in the Second World war normally do so from an American perspective: Should the US have intervened. Again, I think they should have – by the time they got involved Britain had been routed from Europe. And I mean that – Dunkirk is usually celebrated as something we should be proud of, and forgotten as a route so complete and so humiliating that the British forces could not even rescue themselves and relied on fishermen! We would be speaking German if the Americans hadn’t got involved.
Dunkirk was indeed a colossal strategic defeat – or rather, the immediate events of the few days and weeks leading to it. We cannot deny it. I do not. But, if we had not got most of the Army away (to hell with the rifles and vehicles and guns, we could make more and we did) plus many thousands from other nations such as French and Poles etc, where would we have been?
I see no difference between thousands of fishermen and yachting chaps who individually and namelessly did more than their duty, and the Navy, which did its too. This gets us back to Churchill, whose presence and oratory was probably necessary before any of this sort of stuff could take place at all.
If we had not got (most of) the Army away, what would have befallen us? At least it and Churchill’s defiance afterwards showed the world that, even in the extremity of our deluded madness and our utterly non-credible belief in ultimate victory, someone would stand against wickedness.
For me the tragedy is that the German people, up till then a bastion and guardian of culture and education and all that was good about the Western Canon, could be so hoodwinked by a seriously-clever and driven and utterly serious socialist Utopian as to fall into such mistfortune, so fast and so bloodlessly. It has terrible lessons for us in the UK today, who are even now falling into the same cow-poo, without realising it.
Could you expand on this a little? It’s an interesting possibility, to say the least.
Purely in the context of the Nazi threat, it needs to be pointed out that Hitler was very clear in Mein Kampf that war was his way of keeping Germany’s population within bounds and weeding out the weak. There is no way he could have done this if he stopped trying to conquer new territory. Nazism had to make war.
To Zohar 08.44pm:-
Nobody can argue that 19th and early 20th Century Germany was unimportant in areas such as science and engineering. The generality of German classical music still marks the standard for the western classical idiom. I know less about literature.
Then along comes WW1 and the associated destruction. Out of the ashes rise beasts such as the NSDAP, and what follows. Insulated lords versus de-civilised peasants/thugs.
In our case, the cultural destruction has been brought about deliberately in the last 45 years or so, by those, such as Anglospheric GramscoFabians, who also favour a two-tier society of insulated Lords versus biddable de-civilised peasants/thugs.
In both cases the population goes along with it, because they’re too busy or because they’ve been already hoodwinked.
The Germans [and the French] are/were rationalists.
The Anglosphere was empiricist but empiricism is on its last legs.
Time is running out. The days of the Big Plan are upon us.
…It has terrible lessons for us in the UK today, who are even now falling into the same cow-poo, without realising it.
Indeed.
“…to what extent would it have been endurable, either morally or practically, for Britain to stand aside while millions of refugees, such as Jews, sought a place of escape?”
I thought we did? Because we didn’t want them all going to Palestine?
No, I think that’s just plain wrong, and illustrates why conservatism has no explanatory power regarding our current state. It’s not just a post war thing, let alone the other popular idea that it’s all been done by New Labour(!). Britain was not a liberal, free country before 1945, nor even before the First War. It was already beset by interfering busybodies at the highest level. It was already a socialising state. The fact that it was considered acceptable to nationalse the wireless in the 1920s ought to be enough proof that we are not looking at a recent phenomenon. The facts that kinematograph censorship was imposed before WWI, and that the telegraph system was nationalised in 1868 draws our eye further back through history.
I am an admirer of much of Gabb’s writing, but cringe every time I see him calling himself a “conservative” because it’s proof that he hasn’t “got it” yet. Conservatism- and much of erroneous “libertarianism” harks back to some glorious golden age coincident with the reign of Queen Victoria, in which supposedly the entire populations of the UK and USA were skipping around as free as lambs in spring, and supposedly all we have to do is go back to that and we’ll all be happy again. But the nineteenth century was the era when Progressivism- anglosphere reformist “socialism” was born- and that is our enemy, for heaven’s sake. The idea had already taken root before Victoria’s reign- and long, long before 1939- that the State must act for the common good, and that is what led us where we are today. If we want a political staging post, we might declare the Great Reform Act of 1832, but the radicals were already active well before then, which is why it happened at all.
People may say, “yes, but Victorian England was freer than we are now”, and that is true, but in any gradual process, looking back in time will show you progressively less of it. A falling ball two seconds ago was not so near the ground, but that does not mean it was not falling, and that its impact with the ground was any less inevitable at that point than it is now.
British- and American- liberty have been disappearing for a very, very long time. The marxists are just a later phase of it. Relgious and secular utopians were busy tearing it down during the supposed “golden age”. Conservatism is utterly useless, as it is just a dogma of going back to an earlier phase of statism, which was more religiously driven, and an early stage of state propaganda, which was all King And Country and stand in front of that machine gun, laddie, and less of the save the whales stuff we have now. Each is as bad as the other. At least the marxists in their era (mid C20) let us party a bit.
The 20th century monstrosities- communism, fascism, social democracy and the current “anglosocialism” are a product of nineteenth century (and earlier) ideologies. We have beaten the first two of those, and the third has been absorbed by the hegemonic fourth (anglo-socialism is the unique socialism of the anglosphere- it’s primary driver is currently the USA, its secondary driver is the UK). Beating that fourth emanation means discarding the ideology carved into every one of us by the worthies of the C19- the belief that society’s survival is dependent on moral virtue. It’s useful to study the Enemy’s history and methodology- Fabians, Gramsci, Frankfurters etc- but we must remember that the ideology being imposed upon the world by that methodology is not foreign marxism, it is British/American moralism and state corporatism. We, literally, have only ourselves to blame.
“The Germans [and the French] are/were rationalists. The Anglosphere was empiricist but empiricism is on its last legs. Time is running out. The days of the Big Plan are upon us.”
It isn’t a fault of either rationalism or of empiricism that we are in the straits we are in today – neither of them have been in any sort of ascendancy for many years now, as RRS alludes:
“But then, from a very sketchy set of observations, in the U.S. the 16 to 25 year-old sector has no interest in learning – only in experiencing.”
“…the Single World War of 1789-2009…”
That’s an interesting perspective… but if the intention is bring ideology and ideological error into focus, then some accounting must also be made of the American Federalists during the 1780s.
“There is no way he could have done this if he stopped trying to conquer new territory. Nazism had to make war.”
That may well have been true of German Nazism in the 1930s/1940s, but there is surely a lot of context to be kept in mind with that charge. Today’s China for example, although ruled by a National Socialist ideology and harbouring similarly grand ambitions, is a lot more cautious in method than was Germany. They have not made “war” in any sense remotely comparable to WW2, although they have conquered Tibet, brutalized large segments of their own population and have recently renewed their efforts to conquer Taiwan by indirect means.
David Davis wrote that Sean probably did not mean to write that he’d have preferred it had Churchill had died as a young man. How does DD know that Sean “did not mean it?”.
The problem with the sort of comments that Sean writes, and issues in the form of press releases on behalf of the LA, is that they will be noticed. And people will naturally assume that Sean means what he says. If he doesn’t, then what’s the point of issuing such statements?
Sean was, as I suggested, mostly likely trying to be provocative of discussion.
Sean’s great usefulness to the British libertarian movement is that his pronouncements are often so complete in their internal logic, that he inescapably comes to what we all call “logical conclusions”.
One logical conclusion of Sean’s belief that the British Empire’s entry into WW2 was the greatest disaster in all history, is this. Since Churchill warned of its likelihood and predicted it while unpopular, and then ended up as PM in a moment of terrible crisis – thus exactly ensuring that Britain would stay in the war regardless, never offering or even planning to offer Hitler any terms whatever for his surrender to us, ever – it was inevitable that we would be ruined whatever the final result. It was also obvious to Churchill that the only “winners” would be Stalin, geopolitically, and the USA geo-economically (can one say that?)
The fact that no Allies’ leaders wanted to listen to Churchill after 1944 is not Churchill’s fault: they had already developed their postwar agendas without him needing to have an important part in them.
But a fully-reductionist Whig analysis of the war, and Churchill’s part in it and before, could lead to Sean’s position.
I don’t mind if Sean is controversial sometimes. that’s why he gets noticed by the BBC and gets on the wireless and stuff, even if they pull the mike-plug out from him sometimes.
It seems to me that most of human history has consisted of struggle; and of blood. If we’d stayed out of WW2 i’m sure we would have either ended up fighting the germans eventually or ended up fighting a host of proxy wars against them just as we did the soviets and the chinese.
Whether this translates to a need to fight the taliban or the baathists i’m not so sure; If there’s a new caliphate in the offing I don’t see any evidence of it yet. If we should intervene in our own interests then fine, but getting involved in other people’s turf wars is a sure-fire way to make a war with the eventual victor in our interests when had we stayed out of other people’s business it may not have been so.
Sean Gabb used to earn his bread as a paid apologist for the Sudanese regime that merged all that was ugliest about Arab Nationalism and Islamism and has, to this date, been responsible for, not one, but two, orgies of genocidal violence.
I don’t know how he sleeps at night, let alone blither on about people being “killed in battle or murdered or starved or bombed”.
I half suspect, based on his choices of most and least favourite countries, that his views on WW2 may have the same wellspring as Pat Buchanan’s, if you catch my drift. It’s a shame, as I 100% back his programme for battle with the Enemy Class.
@ mike “But then, from a very sketchy set of observations, in the U.S. the 16 to 25 year-old sector has no interest in learning – only in experiencing.”
Exactly.
That is my whole point because that is the purpose of modern progressive education which comes from William James, John Dewey and Charles S. Peirce – who were all rationalists.
I have always liked an idea of Moore, in ‘Eutopia’. His rational utopians rationally hired assassins to kill off the leaders of aggressive regimes who threatened them with war. They thought this was more rational than to leave the leaders unpunished, and it resulted in a demoralised enemy, with no-one willing to assume command, and risk assassination. Perhaps Britain could have adopted this strategy in WW2?
Gabriel, not for the first time, we are in total agreement.
“William James, John Dewey and Charles S. Peirce – who were all pragmatists.
Tidied. I suspect we may have rather different contextual referents in mind in our use of the term “rationalist”.
Austrian economics, for example, is “rationalist” in its’ emphasis on a-priori reasoning. William James was a bit anti-metaphysics (and consequently an ethical relativist) was he not?
Personally I think he has got it wrong here. By the time WW2 came about the damage had already been done, it could be argued that WW2 was not really a seperate conflict at all but was just part of a near continous 30 years of warfare between and within the various European powers.
If you really wanted to protect liberalism then it would have been better if the tyrannical communist regimes had been strangled in their craddle. Without the motivating force of the reds in Russia Fascism would have not seemed the lesser evil and so got fewer adherants itself. Get rid of the first actually existing Communist government and you get rid of most of its propogandists making it more difficult for the enemies of liberalism. It might also have continued the split amoungst the left between Marxists and Anarchists meaning there would have been less of a co-ordinated ideological attack by the propogandists since they would be critiquing from different directions.
There are plently of ways in which the rise of Communism in Russia could have been stopped. The Tsar and his generals could have not messed up so badly on the Eastern front, or only supported france logisitically but not got involved themselves, or not made war likely in the first place by not backing up Serbia. Since we are doing ‘what ifs?’ what if the Western powers being whole hearted in their support of the White forces in 1919. Or if the Kaiser not throwing his despearte gamble of lobbing Lenin at Moscow. What if the Kaiser had not written his ‘blank cheaque’ to the Austro-Hungarians and since we are looking at him what if the Kaiser had not broken up the intricate network of alliances created by Otto von Bismarck?
I have always suggested that WW2 was merely one of a series of transitional phases in a much longer war, possibly still going on, and starting at the latest in 1752 if not even earlier.
Teachoing students that the 20th century “world war” lasted from 1899 to 1991, with armistice periods inbetween, opens the shutters rather well on human behaviour and totalitarian psychology, in much better ways than they get in “school”.
All that we have established here, of course, is that there may be two libertarians somewhere on the planet who agree totally about everything, but that Sean Gabb is not one of them. Neither am I. Etc.
@ Mike
Indeed, William James, John Dewey and Charles S. Peirce were all pragmatists and though they claim, and appear, at first glance to be empiricists they are, in fact, rationalists belonging to the school of Descartes, Hegel, and Kant [it is Kant without the noumenal world].
Peirce said it best “…With the doubt therefore the struggle begins, and with the cessation of doubt it ends. Hence, the sole object of inquiry is the settlement of opinion. We may fancy that this is not enough for us and that we seek, not merely an opinion, but a true opinion. But put this fancy to the test and it proves groundless for as soon as a firm belief is reached, we are entirely satisfied, whether the belief be true or not.”
Hence metaphysics, identity, causality, and certainty are all dismissed, and truth is redefined as psychological equilibrium judged by a plan of action – hello Climate Change.
Pragmatism sounds so American – so practical, anti-dogmatic, this worldly, can-do, but in truth it is German in spirit and origin.
Sadly, there is a strong element of pragmatism in Austrian economics thanks to Von Mises’ praxeology, but at least one notable Austrian (Link)dissents.
By 1915 it was obvious that the War in Europe could only be run as a meat grinder, ending only with the destruction of a generation; at that point all sides should have climbed down and negotiated a peace.
I have doubts about whether the US should have entered WWII, but am not so doubtful whether the US should have entered WWI. It should have not. Without the US entrance into WWI I believe that the stalemate would have ground to halt for both sides and Germany would not have been held unilaterally to account. Then there would have not been the rise of Naziism and Hitler and the rest that History has recorded. I believe that our entrance into WWI was made so easily by US Statists as they had just taken over the printing presses completely in 1913 and could fund War from those printing presses. And both the reaction to the horrors of WWI and easy money policies, we got the depression, which likely would not have happened without such Statist control with its inclinations.
As for involvement in WWII by either the US or the UK, I think for the UK it was economically necessary (in their opinion) to get involved as the balance of power in Europe was about to change. I personally don’t think that Hitler intended to attack the UK. I’ve read Mein Kampf a few times, and read many of Hitler’s speeches. He had no ill will toward the UK and held it to be an Aryan country (of course he thought the US was a mutt of a country, inconsequential and negroid).
Hitlers goal from what I have gathered was lebensraum in the East, at the expense of the Soviets. He then wanted to build his Reich and his majestic cities and highways etc etc. I think even Shirer in Rise and Fall of the Third Reich correctly characterizes Hitler as befuddled and confused as to why the UK felt the need to rain on his parade. He failed to realize that economically the UK had no interest in switching places with Germany. The UK didn’t spend the 1700 and 1800’s building an empire on which the sun never set only to have Germany carve out an empire of consequence right on the mainland of Europe.
As for the US, I think the Old Right was correct in concluding that invigorating its own domestic Fascists was unnecessary to fight Fascists overseas. I’m not a pacifist by any stretch, but the wars, the way they have been fought and why, waged the last 100 years had nothing to do with protecting the US or its citizens from direct threats. It was about the State fighting wars for reasons that benefit the State and its synergies with other States. Regarding Hitlerism specifically, many here in the US use the old ax that we too would have felt the lash of Nazi Germany hence why we had to involve ourselves. Hitler had no use for the US and did not fear it in any way. We had nothing to fear directly.
I realize that most of the samizdatistas believe that their turn was coming. It is the pivot point upon which its brand of libertarianism/minarchism hinges relative to other brands. It’s not a small point, certainly, but it is a watershed. To understand the other side, and not dismiss it moonbatism, the notion is that the threat was not so great as it is made out to be and that believing it was lent support to Statists to build the Fascistic Apparati both the US and UK are unfortunately saddled with today. Basically the battle of libertarain/minarchic sub-idealogies is which was to be feared more – foreign Fascistic threats or internal Fascistic threats. One has more fear of the former, the other the latter. The discussion should be to persuade to one side or the other, not categorically dismiss.
Brad, I’m confused. Because you seem confused. When the Bolshevic Revolution guaranteed stability on the Eastern front, Germany turned all her attention to the western front. Without the US forces, Kaiser Wilhelm would have conquered France. Would this have been a good thing?
And Britain didn’t fight for economics, but because Hitler had proven that he was a liar. (“Peace in our time”? More like, one piece at a time!) Even if Hitler did like the British Empire, so what? So did the Kaiser earlier, so much so that he wanted an empire just like it!
If Hitler had divided up Eurasia, Britain would have been next. And Hitler would then have had lots of V2 rockets, and later generations would have been used to intimidate the USA. Sprachen-ze Deutch, Brad?
John W:
“Hence metaphysics, identity, causality, and certainty are all dismissed, and truth is redefined as psychological equilibrium judged by a plan of action – hello Climate Change.”
Hello to countless other insanities too. I know this (pragmatism and its consequences)*. I see you meant the term “rationalist” in a pejorative sense to connote the disconnection of thought from the (illusory) evidence of the senses. I tend to hold the term “rationalist” in contrast to “irrationalist” (i.e. an irrationalism pertaining to ends, not means – a la Rand) rather than “empiricist” – that’s where my confusion came from.
* You know I wonder about the reach of pragmatism sometimes. I get the impression it appeals almost as second nature to a lot of people trained within the physical sciences – libertarians included – just as much as it appeals to politicians and media-types who deal in “public opinion”.
Brad, even if the above is true, your argument doesn’t take into account that Hitler could have changed this attitude at his own whim (sacrificing this presumed fondness of the UK to his megalomania or to whatever “greater good” that took his fancy or the fancy of those who had influence over him), or that someone else would have eventually and inevitably replaced him. And by that time the UK would have had to face a very powerful German Empire.
No, he wouldn’t have. By the time the USA entered the war, a state of virtual stalemate had existed for years. The frenetic nature of the Schlieffen plan meant that Germany had one chance and one chance only to topple France, and it categorically failed to do so at the very beginning of hostilities, when the Western European objectives of the Plan were dashed at the Battle of the Marne. This resulted in the theatre getting bogged down in trench warfare – this all occurred well before the USA entered the war, in 1914.
I concur with Brad’s assessment.
John Terraine in “To win a War” suggests that the German armies in the West were ultimately defeated in the field by Haig’s armies principally – the French barely attacking by then, and the US soldiers really only just getting into their stride by August/sept 1918 and using 100% French artillery and armour (which was logical as it was on the spot and the US had none).
Contributory factors were the marine blockade of Germany, and the High Seas Fleet’s inability to interdict anything after Jutland (Jutland was nobody’s victory classically, but the Royal Navy was indeed “left in possession of the High Seas”, forcing the German Admirals and General Staff to confront the Kaiser with victory via unrestricted UBoat warfare (which brought the US in as he did know it would) or ultimate defeat of the German Empire, whether or not the USA came in.
If you examine Woodrow Wilson’s moral policy position, you will see that he cared not actually which side the US supported, or even remained neautral which is what he preferred. It was Tirpitz, Hipper, Scheer and Holtzendorff for the German Navy, and Hindenberg and Ludendorff fulminating at the Kaiser, which ultimately brought US involvement.
I recommend “Castles of Steel” by Robert K Massie. Also his earlier book “Dreadnaught”, for the political anticedents of WW1.
I agree that in 1918, the Allies were outfighting the Germans – largely due to the fact that they’d finally discovered how to use artillery to maximum effect and how it could protect advancing infantry from machine gun fire. And of course, if the Americans had never entered the war, an armistice would have eventually been reached at some point. However, Germany would have been in a considerably stronger negotiating position in such a scenario. It would have been a peace between equals.
So while it’s certainly true that Haig’s forces were doing most of the heavy lifting by 1918, the principal reason why Germany found itself defeated so comprehensively, and thus in such a weak position at Versailles, can be traced back to the US entrance into the war. As David Davis correctly stated, the US was providing some manpower and that was about it, however in 1918 the Germans, French and the Commonwealth forces were running short of men, not guns. The prospect of millions of fresh American soldiers in Europe in 1919 caused Ludendorff to panic and undertake several rash, extremely costly and unsuccessful offensives in 1918 in the hope of dealing a final blow to the French. After these failed, the Germans were exhausted and morale within the military (and also on the home front) collapsed. The Germans HAD to accept the terms at Versailles – the Allies were in a position to occupy and carve up their country. It wouldn’t have been such a one-sided affair if the Americans had have stayed at home.
@ Mike
Rand preferred the terms ‘rationality,’ ‘rational’ and ‘reason’ to describe the opposite of irrational.
Rationalism she defined as the theory that man obtains his knowledge of the world by deducing it exclusively from concepts independently of sense-perception.
I get the impression it appeals almost as second nature to a lot of people trained within the physical sciences – libertarians included – just as much as it appeals to politicians and media-types who deal in “public opinion”.
Yes, it is staggering how many scientists reject the validity of sense perception.
When Peikoff was a student at university he once asked his professor, ‘If physicists study matter, how do they find out what matter is?’ [independently of sense perception.]
His pragmatists professor said ‘They ask other physicists.’
Then Peikoff asked, ‘But where did the other physicists get their knowledge.’
‘They ask earlier physicists,’ came the reply.
‘So they all got their ideas from the first physicist?’
‘No, there was no first physicist.’
‘So the second physicist came first?’ asked Peikoff incredulously.
‘Yes.’
“When Peikoff was a student at university…”
Ha! Might I ask where you heard/read that story?!
Lectures on the History of Philosophy – highly recommended!
Thanks ever so much – however, it’ll be one of those “when I get around to it” readings…
And what would have happened to the Jews of Europe while Britain was being neutral, Brad? Much fewer left, I imagine. But you got Einstein in Princeton, so that’s alright!
We’re probably all lucky in one regard- it seems likely that Hitler suffered from Parkinson’s disease, and knew it. Therefore, he was impatient. If he thought he had plenty of time, he’d have waited a few years, and Germany would have been that much stronger.