The following is pretty long and is something like an attempt to sum up my world-view and contains many tangential connections. You may be more interested in my case against WW2 being black-and-white (without even mentioning nukes or firebombs), which appears to have succeeded in convincing my target, although it could be that I’m failing to recognize sarcasm on the internet.
I, and I suspect many of my readers, are wary of something we call (among other things) “universalism”. The universe is a large and scary thing, the local and particular less so. Universalism seems to have the upper hand in the battle of ideas, which perhaps shouldn’t be too surprising given it (duh) universal appeal. Even in critiquing universalism I must approach it with a universalist mindset. The particulars I cherish are universalist and my defense of particularism is universal.
As I noted upon his death, despite his history as a neoconservative, Samuel Huntington was perhaps the most high-profile academic example of a paleoconservative. While he is most well known for his attack on the democratic triumphalism of then-neocon Francis Fukuyama in Clash of Civilizations, Who Are We? (his final book) most clearly places him in the paleo camp. On his passing Matthew Roberts at TakiMag pooh-poohed his reactionary reputation by quoting Sam Francis’ review. Francis’ point is that the American creed of liberalism grows out of the Anglo-Protestant culture that Huntington said defined America (rather than a creed or “proposition”). Moreover, that creed is false in that it claims universal status when it is particular to that Anglo-Protestant culture.
In his book Huntington makes the useful and (these days) uncommon distinction between immigrants and settlers. The book on the settlers of America who define its culture even now which Huntington drew from is David Hackett Fischer’s Albion’s Seed. Of his “four folkways” Fischer surprisingly enough (Razib disagrees) deems the Quakers to have had the most influence on present-day America. This despite the fact of their smaller numbers (they didn’t even make up as large a portion of their own Mid-Atlantic region as the other folkways did of theirs) and being less educated than the Puritans of New England. I myself feel more akin to the Puritans and still refer to myself sometimes as an ultra-Calvinist. Thought I complain a lot about my country’s involvement in war, I’ve never had the pacifist spirit but get vicarious enjoyment of some Wrath of a Vengeful God righteous smiting. My awareness of war as a negative sum game is purely System 2 thinking. I’ve noted before the decline of war, and agree with Sailer that due to modern economics its benefits increasingly shrink. Quaker folkways are especially suited to a mercantile society, a “nation of shopkeepers”. Mencius Moldbug gives a dissenting take on Quakerism here, replacing his previous supreme bugaboo of Puritanism. It is his disgust with the modern American creed that led me to write a Straussian interpretation of him as proponent of Islam (with a bonus update for Hinduism).
A previous figure who denigrated his own culture’s Christianity with its slave morality in favor of a more vigorous religion such as Islam or non-universal pagan religions like Shinto was Adolf Hitler. While today associated with the political right, it’s not hard to find seeds of leftism in Christian scripture and as Razib points out, it began as a self-conceived progressive movement in opposition to the conservative defenders of traditional Roman paganism. The trouble with a conservative today (like Alain de Benoist) rejecting Christianity as liberal in favor of something like Asatru is that paganism is no longer traditional. A modern paganism would be an Ossian-esque reconstruction afflicted with all the ills of modernity that plague related nationalist movements. Eric Voegelin famously claimed that both the Nazis (some of whom, not including Hitler, were actually involved in pagan revivalism) and Bolsheviks of perpetuating the Gnostic heresy in the political sphere. Whether or not we buy into his particular framing, there does seem to be a similar failure-mode that serves as a warning to any radical proponent of particularism (among other things), and so I see little possibility of completely excising the universalist parts of our culture while avoiding a “Gnostic” death-spiral.
Lawrence Auster has said that the problem with neocons is that they are too universalistic while the paleocons are too particularist and he (of course) occuppies the reasonable and moderate middle ground. I’m going to dissent from him on the claim that the paleos deny the existence of any universal truth. That sounds like post-modernism. The speed of light is absolute and the same everywhere for everyone, and I’ve never heard of any paleos denying that. Perhaps it doesn’t qualify as a “transcendent truth”, whatever the hell that is, because it’s too mundane or something. That’s the way facts are. Values on the other hand (which may be what he was getting at) are another story. I don’t claim to be speaking for any paleos (the majority of whom likely disagree with me) but I do deny the universal truth of any values. This not to say I embrace “cultural relativism” in thinking that different values are somehow “true” in different places, but a complete skepticism about value-statements (or “norms”) having any truth-value whatsoever. This emotivist (or non-cognitivist, to be more general) meta-ethical view will of course be a tough sell to Auster (and, as mentioned, most paleos) as it runs up against a belief in the truth of any religion I’m sufficiently familiar with.
If human beings were a blank slate, then they could hold arbitrarily divergent conceptions of the good without any pesky fact about the truth of those claims interfering. As it happens, people share an evolutionary history which gives rise to what Tooby & Cosmides call the Psychological Unity of Mankind. There are some outliers who are masochists (not that there’s anything wrong with that!), but you can predict fairly accurately that a random person will avoid the experience of pain and seek to alleviate it. If you are modest enough, it is then not completely crazy to think of some things as generally good. I approve of some things and a I think a very large number of other people would as well. I don’t regard those who don’t as wrong in any objective sense. Without believing in the objective truth of such propositions, there’s not much point in trying to impose them on people who would resist. On a practical level, those people who don’t share your goals would disrupt your attempts to achieve said goals, especially if they involve them. We see this problem repeatedly, from TARP to drug prohibition. An example of a change I approve of which is compatible with a divergence of goals or conceptions of the good is seasteading.
My skepticism about moral truths does not derive from any pomo type dismissal of anything being true, but rather a more positivist insistence on the separation of objective facts and subjective opinions. I do, however, advocate a good deal of epistemological humility regarding our ability to know of and have confidence in objective facts, which reflects my view of the map rather than the territory. Abandoning doubt could always have existential risks we don’t fully comprehend at the time. A proponent of this sort of epistemological humility discussed here recently is Karl Popper, but an even more radical figure in that respect is P. K. Feyerabend, whose position on the scientific method is often summed up with the phrase “anything goes”. If you’ve read David Stove making fun of him and think his ideas are ridiculous, I agree. I think Popper’s method of trying to falsify hypotheses is actually productive, mystical shamanism is not. Unlike Feyerabend, I see nothing wrong with scientists making fun of astrology or rain dances. On the other hand, I have no great desire to stamp out such practices and could even endorse Robin Hanson’s proposal to fund faith healing with Medicare (I can’t find a link at the moment).
This view of science/epistemology intersects with politics in the feature of libertarianism/laissez-faire which permits islands of socialism such as Israeli kibbutz to exist within the broader capitalist system. On the off-chance that socialism works, good for them. Given the reality that many people find capitalism displeasing, it’s understandable that some might try to find a better way. There have been a number of utopian communes based on such a model which have usually broken down after a certain scale is passed, but ones with religious foundations have proven more durable. I find more to admire in the achievements of the Amish than Will Wilkinson (only one murder recorded in their history), but since I happen to value the benefits of impersonal exchange more than community I wouldn’t choose to live in such a community myself.
I subscribe to an email group set up by Keith Preston which contains (among others) a number of people that describe themselves as “national anarchists”. I have a very low opinion of nationalism, but fortunately they seem to be thinking on the scale of tribes (they even use that word) rather than 19th century style nation-states. They have a sense of communal identity and wish for this community to constitute the political system they live under rather than the current and much larger one. Nationalism generally comes with a prefix, and even pan nationalist movements come in specific varieties like “pan-slavic nationalism” or even “pan-African nationalism” (which isn’t built on a nation at all, and is thus as silly as white nationalism) which may conflict with other nationalisms. Here too we find the “national anarchists” of the Bay Area in the odd position of getting in a tizzy about how some in the San Franciscan community raise their children. A more universalist vision is what might be called panarchy, implying some respect for all particularisms. This idea of tolerance does not imply the politically correct position that we must celebrate all forms of diversity, and as I’ve noted earlier I have a very active disgust reflex which might make me sympatico with the Bay Area National Anarchists, and panarchy implies toleration of this disgust as well. Jonathan Haidt has argued that pretty much everyone other than university-educated liberals considers disgust (or “purity/sanctity”) along with ingroup-outgroup and dominance/submission factors morally relevant. Trying to set up a society while ignoring that feature of human nature leads to failure.
This doesn’t imply that I have a very high opinion of all those features of human nature. An us vs them mentality leads to feuding and other negative sum games, while purity rituals seem only tangentially related to the health concerns that they are presumably rooted in. Ed Glaeser has argued that liberalism is found in dense cities that previously had lots of immigration due to early industrialization simply because it is functional in a society with so much diversity. I myself am something of a “rootless cosmopolitan” in that I don’t feel any special attachment to a community. However, the idea of universal citizenship is something of an illusion. As mentioned earlier, the liberal creed of Huntington’s book seems specific to an unusual culture. Thomas Sowell argued (rather persuasively in my book) that a lot of the social dysfunction we associate with blacks today seems to come out of an earlier redneck or “cracker” culture originating in the borderlands of England. However, Steve Sailer correctly noted how ordinary “rednecks” are around the world and how unusual in contrast were the more educated Quaker and Puritan folkways. Most people are not liberals either and liberalism may only be functional in a limited set of circumstances (with Scandinavia being the poster-child). Greg Clark has pointed out that most of human history has been characterized by no long-run economic growth, with no exceptions until the Industrial Revolution began in England. There are probably very few circumstances that would produce liberalism, just as cultures that can produce economic growth are going to be unusual. We should be aware of our unusually good fortune in belonging to such a culture and temper our liberal enthusiasm for it with a conservative appreciation of how improbable are its requisites (and the implication of how fragile it may be) and how difficult it may be to replicate our own particular universalism.
Entitled to an Opinion 
February 24, 2009 at 11:43 am
Your posts are like scrunched-up books.
Do you have a link for Haidt’s line regarding the normative relevance of disgust/hostility/status?
February 24, 2009 at 8:03 pm
Most of my posts are short and have very little original content, just links to stuff I find interesting. I suppose I feel the need to compensate with my other posts.
My first post on Haidt is here. The idea that a social system needs to accommodate aspects of human nature we don’t find particularly desirable I don’t get from him, but is the standard take on communism and various failed utopian communities. I think Douglass North is also relevant.
I probably should have linked to Jacob Levy’s Liberalism’s Divide, since a lot of what I”m talking about here is pluralism vs rationalism.
February 28, 2009 at 5:37 pm
[…] A Particular Universalism by TGGP […]
March 18, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Yvain, the most murderous dictator the world had ever seen and the biggest imperialist power of the day were on the side of the Allies
Nonetheless it remains true, as Yvain said, that “on the whole the balance of righteousness in WWII was so clearly on the Allies’ side that the most practical way to save the world was to give the Allies all the support you could.”
March 18, 2009 at 9:22 pm
I disagree with the notion that “saving the world” was at stake. Also, would valuable support include supporting the invasion of Finland?
March 21, 2009 at 8:18 pm
(shrug) Inasmuch as the Axis ambition was global domination, “saving the world” is not that bad of a description of what was at stake. Even if you think the Axis would have left the Western Hemisphere alone and “only” dominated Eurasia, “saving the world” is still a reasonable characterization.
When the Soviets invaded Finland, they weren’t one of the Allies yet. Disregarding that, though, it is already conceded that Stalin was the most murderous dictator the world had ever seen, and still it was necessary to support him. Adding Finland to the scales on top of everything else doesn’t really tip the scales and make Stalin “too evil to support” in my view. We did not support Stalin because he was a nice guy. We supported him because he controlled a strong country in the center of the Eurasian landmass between two aggressive powers bent on global domination. Just as a sheer fact of geography Russia would likely have played the same role as Stalin’s USSR historically did in American and British strategy no matter what regime controlled Russia.
March 21, 2009 at 9:06 pm
I don’t accept the characterization that the Axis goal was “global domination” or even “European domination”. There were a decent number of European countries that were successfully able to stay neutral. Sweden was while Norway was not because the Allies attempted to make use of it as a staging platform for attacks against Germany. Hitler sought an alliance with England (against the Russians) rather than war, but it was England that declared war on Germany and started bombing their cities. Here is my view of what Germany’s goals were: reverse the losses of the Versailles treaty and cement Germany’s position over France, “Drang nach osten” to obtain lebensraum in the east to be settled with Germans (a significant number of which, dubbed Volkdeutsch, had been for some time until they were removed after WW2) and crush the Bolshevik (or “Judeo-Bolshevik” as they dubbed it) threat.
I’m not claiming Finland tips the scales (Stalin is plenty bad even ignoring that). I’m saying that happenstance put it in the camp of the Axis and the Allies considered it an enemy nation, and so support for the Allies included supporting the invasion of Finland. The United Kingdom declared war on them and even if the U.S didn’t, they still sent large amounts of military aid to the Soviet Union knowing that some would go toward the invasion of Finland.
The Soviet Union at least officially held to a universalist ideology that prescribed “world dommination”. In practice though, Stalin’s ambitions were much more pragmatic than Trotsky’s had been. The Nazis did not have any master plan for conquering China and had actually been very supportive of the Kuomintang government. Circumstances led them into an alliance with the Japanese, just as with the Grand Mufti or Subhash Chandra Bose (who no more viewed themselves as agents of “world domination” than the Finns).
It is a sheer fact of geography that led England to ally with Russia against Germany rather than the reverse. Both of them invaded Poland in cooperation, so they were no more duty-bound to declare war on one of them than the other. Germany was simply the closest large threat to British hegemony, just as France and Spain had been in the past.
March 23, 2009 at 9:57 am
There were a decent number of European countries that were successfully able to stay neutral.
“Domination” does not require the invasion and military occupation of every single country. Switzerland and Sweden were permitted to remain neutral because Germany did not need their territory for strategic purposes, but nevertheless these countries were careful not to offend Germany and to make their economic resources available to Germany. In short, Germany dominated them!
Hitler sought an alliance with England (against the Russians) rather than war, but it was England that declared war on Germany and started bombing their cities.
How can you possibly consider Hitler’s efforts to secure an alliance with England as proof that he didn’t want to dominate Europe? Hitler sought an alliance with England in order to dominate Europe, not instead of dominating Europe. The British were right to reject this offer, because it was obvious that if Germany dominated Europe, then Britain would ultimately be reduced to the status of a German satellite and junior partner in the German quest for global domination.
If Hitler attacked Poland knowing that this would bring about a British declaration of war – and how could he not know that? – then Germany started the war, not Britain. The intent of the British guarantee of Poland was clearly defensive, and German intent in attacking Poland was clearly offensive.
Here is my view of what Germany’s goals were: reverse the losses of the Versailles treaty and cement Germany’s position over France, “Drang nach osten” to obtain lebensraum in the east to be settled with Germans (a significant number of which, dubbed Volkdeutsch, had been for some time until they were removed after WW2) and crush the Bolshevik (or “Judeo-Bolshevik” as they dubbed it) threat.
Hitler did not merely want to reverse Versailles and “cement Germany’s position over France”. He described France as a mortal enemy that had to be decisively crushed once and for all. And how can you think of the objective of crushing France and Russia as anything else but a quest for European domination? To eliminate France and the USSR, and stand victorious from the Atlantic to the Urals is the very definition of European domination. Moreover, such European domination was the indispensable prerequisite for a German bid for global domination.
happenstance put it in the camp of the Axis and the Allies considered it an enemy nation, and so support for the Allies included supporting the invasion of Finland.
No they didn’t consider Finland an enemy. The US never declared war on Finland, and the British only declared war on Finland when Finnish forces went beyond the boundaries of 1939 Finland. AFAIK the British never took any military action against Finland, and Britain and Finland never killed a single one of each others soldiers. Roosevelt emphasized the need for an independent postwar Finland at Tehran and Yalta, a step he took for no other Axis satellite.
they still sent large amounts of military aid to the Soviet Union knowing that some would go toward the invasion of Finland.
Oh for pete’s sake, the US could hardly send aid to the USSR and demand that it only be used against Germany and never against Finland. Even if we’d made such an absurd demand, any aid we gave the Soviets against Germany would automatically free up Soviet resources for use against Finland.
The fact is that the Finns allowed Germany to use their soil and participated in the attack on the USSR. This was not sheer “happenstance”. They could have remained neutral during Barbarossa, but they chose to join the German team, and they had to expect some negative consequences from that decision. That Finland suffered such consequences does not establish that the Anglo-Americans “supported the Soviet invasion of Finland”.
The Soviet Union at least officially held to a universalist ideology that prescribed “world dommination”.
A fact that was irrelevant in the specific circumstances of WW2.
The Nazis did not have any master plan for conquering China and had actually been very supportive of the Kuomintang government. Circumstances led them into an alliance with the Japanese,
Stalin didn’t have a master plan for conquering China, either.
It is not necessary to establish that Hitler had a master plan for conquering China to establish that he sought global domination.
I love your use of the passive voice. “Circumstances” led Finland to attack the USSR, “circumstances” led Germany to ally with Japan. Poor innocent victims, bumbling along reacting to events. Sorry, but Hitler’s decision to ally with the Japanese did not passively emerge from “circumstances”, it was a deliberate decision he made to secure a partner in his bid for world domination. He wanted someone to attack the British, French and Soviets from the rear because he planned to attack them from the front.
The Japanese pretty obviously regarded themselves as equal partners in Germany’s bid for global domination. If the Finns and the other Axis satellites did not regard themselves as agents of German domination, then they were deluded. The only way their own limited objectives could be realized would be if Germany’s large objectives (European and then global domination) were realized.
It is a sheer fact of geography that led England to ally with Russia against Germany rather than the reverse.
Not just geography but strategic intent and capability. Russia did not plan to attack Britain or British allies, and had no capability to attack Britain or its allies, and Germany had both the capability and intention to do so. For the British to have viewed the Germans and the Soviets as equally threatening would have been crazy, and not just because of geography.
Both of them invaded Poland in cooperation, so they were no more duty-bound to declare war on one of them than the other.
Since the Poles ordered their forces not to resist the Soviets, the Anglo-Polish Treaty did not come into effect. The treaty required Poland to be “engaged in hostilities” with the USSR, and it wasn’t.
March 23, 2009 at 10:47 pm
Switzerland and Sweden were permitted to remain neutral because Germany did not need their territory for strategic purposes, but nevertheless these countries were careful not to offend Germany and to make their economic resources available to Germany. In short, Germany dominated them!
It sounds like their “domination” consisted of trading with Germany (the common gripe against the Swiss is all the money they made). Did this “domination” precede Hitler’s coming to power?
How can you possibly consider Hitler’s efforts to secure an alliance with England as proof that he didn’t want to dominate Europe?
The same way I’d use his alliance with Japan as evidence he didn’t want to dominate Japan.
then Britain would ultimately be reduced to the status of a German satellite and junior partner in the German quest for global domination.
Considering the amount of territory and population under British rule, it would be quite a feat for the Germans to outdo them.
If Hitler attacked Poland knowing that this would bring about a British declaration of war – and how could he not know that?
It was a stupid decision, but not obviously so. The British had made a similar pledge regarding Czechoslovakia which was revealed to be cheap talk. Hitler most likely thought history would repeat itself.
The intent of the British guarantee of Poland was clearly defensive
Defensive of Britain?
He described France as a mortal enemy that had to be decisively crushed once and for all.
I used the word “cement” to indicate that desire for permanence, though for my own part I don’t suspect it would have been so much more than WW1 was for Germany or the Franco-Prussian war was for France. Apparently Pat Buchanan’s book argues that Hitler did not plan on attacking France until they declared war on Germany. I haven’t read his book, though from what I know I don’t find that story likely. At any rate, Vichy France was in quite a different position from Nazi-dominated Poland.
To eliminate France and the USSR, and stand victorious from the Atlantic to the Urals is the very definition of European domination.
Is there some dictionary you’re reading from that I’m unaware of? I recall there being countries in Europe other than France and Russia. Britain, for one, whose decision to declare war on Germany I am claiming was for non-defensive reasons. And of course we can’t give the Allies any credit for “saving” eastern Europe when the Soviets gobbled it up anyway (including Poland, the casus bellli).
Moreover, such European domination was the indispensable prerequisite for a German bid for global domination.
The British Empire did quite well for itself despite being kicked out of even the Pale of Calais on the continent. Earlier you seemed to be granting that Germany had no designs on the western hemisphere. As I happen to live in the U.S, I’m disappointed to know that I don’t live on the globe and it makes me wonder why we bothered to fight to save another planet.
No they didn’t consider Finland an enemy
I suppose it’s normal to declare war on countries that aren’t your enemy then.
AFAIK the British never took any military action against Finland
They did bomb a mining operation prior to the declaration of war (it was run by Germans, I don’t know if there were Finns there) and also seized Finnish ships. The United States once regarded British seizure of ships as justification for war.
They could have remained neutral during Barbarossa
Finland was invaded in 1939, during the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, when they were not on the German side. The Finns use the term “Continuation War” to remind people like you of that.
A fact that was irrelevant in the specific circumstances of WW2.
Yes, I don’t think official ideology is all that important. But between the Germans and the Russians, the latter make for a better (if still weak) case of world domination ambitions.
Roosevelt emphasized the need for an independent postwar Finland at Tehran and Yalta, a step he took for no other Axis satellite.
I suppose it was nice of him, though odd that nobody stuck up for Poland, whose invasion is supposed to have been the reason France & England entered the war.
Oh for pete’s sake, the US could hardly send aid to the USSR
If there’s one nation it would have been crazy to aid in the first place, it’s the USSR.
Stalin didn’t have a master plan for conquering China, either.
The Chinese Communists were taking orders from the Soviet Union prior to the Sino-Soviet split. He did have some good relations with the Nationalists before they split with the Communists, which is why Kuomintang was close to becoming a member of the communist international.
It is not necessary to establish that Hitler had a master plan for conquering China to establish that he sought global domination.
It’s just the most populous nation in the world, it hardly counts.
“Circumstances” led Finland to attack the USSR
The Soviet Union invaded Finland in 1939. Prior to that they had a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union.
“circumstances” led Germany to ally with Japan
I mean to say that an alliance of Germany with China seemed plausible at an earlier stage. Even during the Japanese invasion, Nazi officials who had been in China for some time sometimes undermined their rule.
Poor innocent victims, bumbling along reacting to events.
I think Hitler instigated the war and is responsible for invading countries that posed no threat, but I view his aims as limited rather than the cartoonish TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD a la Pinky & the Brain figure you seem to imagine.
If the Finns and the other Axis satellites did not regard themselves as agents of German domination, then they were deluded.
Of course, they only reason the Finns wouldn’t take a Soviet invasion lying down is that they were deluded by those tricky Germans!
The only way their own limited objectives could be realized would be if Germany’s large objectives (European and then global domination) were realized.
Except that Finland was succesful despite the defeat of Germany, India eventually did win independence and Palestine is not part of Britain anymore either (though not as a result of WW2).
Russia did not plan to attack Britain or British allies
If Poland is an ally, then the Soviets plainly did invade it. The Germans did not plan to attack Britain either, they responded in kind after Britain bombed their cities.
and had no capability to attack Britain or its allies
Right after the war that was precisely the big fear. Before the war it was the Soviets who helped the Germans rearm in defiance of the Versailles treaty in the first place.
Since the Poles ordered their forces not to resist the Soviets, the Anglo-Polish Treaty did not come into effect.
The Poles had planned to resist the Soviet invasion (and the troops were at first ordered to do so) but because of the German invasion they did not have the forces and so ordered their troops to retreat and engage with the Soviets only defensively. Since the Soviets actually did attack some Polish troops, they did in fact engage in hostilities. But I suppose that the battles of Wilno, Grodno, Szack, Modlin, Wytyczno and Kock were just fabrications. Polish Ambassadow Raczynski tried to persuade the British that they were obligated to come to Poland’s aid against the Soviets by their pact, but was not that it was England’s own business to decide whether to declare war.
March 24, 2009 at 2:05 pm
It sounds like their “domination” consisted of trading with Germany (the common gripe against the Swiss is all the money they made).
That’s part of it, but not all of it. They traded with Germany, but they had no option but to give Germany the things it wanted on the terms it wanted. This was not “fair and equal” trade by any means. Germany dominated the transactions!
How can you possibly consider Hitler’s efforts to secure an alliance with England as proof that he didn’t want to dominate Europe?
The same way I’d use his alliance with Japan as evidence he didn’t want to dominate Japan
The analogy is false. Hitler wanted to use his alliance with Japan to dominate (jointly) Asia. This would not have entailed German domination of Japan simply because German power would have been extremely distant from Japan. On the other hand, Hitler wanted to use an alliance with Britain (or more plausibly, to have Britain stand aside) while he dominated Europe. Such an alliance would automatically entail German domination of Britain if it succeeded, because it is impossible to dominate Europe successfully without dominating Britain. If Britain had been stupid enough to stand aside (or help) as Germany crushed Russia, then Germany could demobilize her army and convert her industry into aircraft, ship, and u-boat construction. Britain would have no chance to compete against this, and would have to become Germany’s junior partner or be destroyed. In short, Germany would dominate Britain.
then Britain would ultimately be reduced to the status of a German satellite and junior partner in the German quest for global domination.
Considering the amount of territory and population under British rule, it would be quite a feat for the Germans to outdo them.
Not if Germany had the entire continent of Europe at its disposal, with France and the USSR eliminated. The amount of territory and population under British control overstates the effectiveness of British power. Only the white dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa) were really worth a damn. Even when Germany was completely distracted by her war in the USSR, the British barely held on, and that was with considerable American assistance, which would not have been forthcoming if the British had been allied with Germany against Russia or sitting on its hands while Germany crushed Russia.
It was a stupid decision, but not obviously so. The British had made a similar pledge regarding Czechoslovakia which was revealed to be cheap talk. Hitler most likely thought history would repeat itself.
No, it was a clear indication that he wanted war. If he didn’t want war, all he needed to do was threaten and bluster and try to achieve another Munich. The British did not guarantee a specific Polish border, they only guaranteed Poland against armed attack. If Hitler didn’t want war he could, quite reasonably, have demanded return of the German parts of Poland at an international conference. He attacked, so he clearly wanted war.
The intent of the British guarantee of Poland was clearly defensive
Defensive of Britain?
Yes.
I don’t suspect it would have been so much more than WW1 was for Germany or the Franco-Prussian war was for France.
Obviously it would have been much more than that. Hitler knew better than anyone else that Germany was able to recover after WW1, and France after 1870. Hitler did not intend that France should be able to make such a recovery after he crushed them.
Vichy France was in quite a different position from Nazi-dominated Poland.
Only insofar as Hitler did not plan to exterminate the French. Economically and militarily, France was every bit as dominated as Poland.
Is there some dictionary you’re reading from that I’m unaware of?
Yeah, it’s called the dictionary of not needing to state the obvious – unless you’re talking to TGGP. My mistake…
I recall there being countries in Europe other than France and Russia.
From the standpoint of German domination, no, there isn’t. The other countries in Europe were either (a) Allied to Germany, or (b) had armies too insignificant to oppose Germany. If the French and Soviet armies were defeated, Germany had literally NO opposition that it needed to fear, and in that I include the prospect of Britain defeating Germany.
Britain, for one, whose decision to declare war on Germany I am claiming was for non-defensive reasons.
If France and the USSR were defeated, Britain was defeated too. Britain had no hope of beating Germany in that scenario, and it would only be a matter of time before the Germans built enough aircraft and u-boats to defeat the British.
Your claim of non-defensiveness is wrong. You might as well say that if the USSR had invaded West Germany during the Cold War, then the US would have been “attacking” the USSR when it honored the defensive NATO alliance and helped West Germany.
And of course we can’t give the Allies any credit for “saving” eastern Europe when the Soviets gobbled it up anyway (including Poland, the casus bellli).
We can give them credit insofar as the Soviet intent was not physical extermination of much of the Eastern European population, unlike the German intent.
The British Empire did quite well for itself despite being kicked out of even the Pale of Calais on the continent.
Oh please, that was before airpower and submarines. Even in the sailing era, the reason the British Empire did well was precisely because Europe was never united under a single conquering power as it would have been if Germany had beaten the USSR as well as France. This was not an accident, either – it was always British policy to ensure that no single power dominated Europe.
Earlier you seemed to be granting that Germany had no designs on the western hemisphere.
No immediate designs, and no immediate capability. Long term, if Germany beat France and the USSR and cowed the British, well, that would be a different story.
As I happen to live in the U.S, I’m disappointed to know that I don’t live on the globe and it makes me wonder why we bothered to fight to save another planet.
We saved this one, that we live on, that would have been considerably worse for us, and for our own selfish interests, if Germany and Japan had conquered Eurasia.
I suppose it’s normal to declare war on countries that aren’t your enemy then.
Ever taken a look at how many countries declared war on Germany for political reasons and then never did a single thing to attack Germany? I recommend you do.
They did bomb a mining operation prior to the declaration of war (it was run by Germans, I don’t know if there were Finns there) and also seized Finnish ships.
Pah, that’s nothing.
They could have remained neutral during Barbarossa
Finland was invaded in 1939, during the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, when they were not on the German side. The Finns use the term “Continuation War” to remind people like you of that.
It was the “continuation war” because the Finns chose to continue, they did not have to, and this was a bad choice. They should have remained neutral – they’d have lost less territory that way. The smart move would have been to remain neutral until Germany conquered the USSR, in which case Finland would get its territory back without lifting a finger. This would have risked no punishment for Finland if Germany lost.
Yes, I don’t think official ideology is all that important. But between the Germans and the Russians, the latter make for a better (if still weak) case of world domination ambitions.
We’ll have to agree to disagree if we’re talking about the 1930s and early 1940s.
The fact that the Germans announced their ambitions, and actually took action on them, ought to count for something, but oh well.
I suppose it was nice of him, though odd that nobody stuck up for Poland, whose invasion is supposed to have been the reason France & England entered the war.
Churchill stood up for Poland, but his voice did not count for much at that point.
Oh for pete’s sake, the US could hardly send aid to the USSR
If there’s one nation it would have been crazy to aid in the first place, it’s the USSR.
From 1933 to 1945, it would be absolutely crazy not to aid the USSR, for all that Stalin was an evil scoundrel.
Stalin didn’t have a master plan for conquering China, either.
The Chinese Communists were taking orders from the Soviet Union prior to the Sino-Soviet split. He did have some good relations with the Nationalists before they split with the Communists, which is why Kuomintang was close to becoming a member of the communist international.
Weren’t you the one who insisted that domination necessarily requires conquest?
Stalin dealt with China strictly on the basis of their power relative to the USSR. They were weak, and he was strong, so he told them what to do. This doesn’t mean Stalin had a plan to conquer China.
It’s just the most populous nation in the world, it hardly counts.
In the context of 1933 to 1945, China did not count for much. Its industrial power and effective fighting power were puny.
“Circumstances” led Finland to attack the USSR
The Soviet Union invaded Finland in 1939. Prior to that they had a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union.
And in 1941, Finland chose to enlist in the German bid for global domination.
an alliance of Germany with China seemed plausible at an earlier stage.
Until Hitler decided he needed Japan more than China. Sorry China, but that’s life.
I view his aims as limited rather than the cartoonish TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD a la Pinky & the Brain figure you seem to imagine.
I’m only going by what he said and what he did.
Of course, they only reason the Finns wouldn’t take a Soviet invasion lying down is that they were deluded by those tricky Germans!
They already lie down under a Soviet invasion. That war was over. There would have been no further threat to Finland if she’d remained neutral.
The only way their own limited objectives could be realized would be if Germany’s large objectives (European and then global domination) were realized.
Except that Finland was succesful despite the defeat of Germany, India eventually did win independence and Palestine is not part of Britain anymore either (though not as a result of WW2).
Finland was not successful in achieving the goals she set when she declared war in 1941. She did not get her old territory back – far from it, she lost even more territory (and was lucky not to lose everything and be absorbed into the USSR like the Baltic States).
India and Palestine are irrelevant. When I said “the Finns and the Axis satellites” that meant Finland, Rumania, Hungary, Slovakia, and Bulgaria.
Russia did not plan to attack Britain or British allies
If Poland is an ally, then the Soviets plainly did invade it.
The Soviets would not have done so if the Germans had not done so. Germany was the active force trying to destroy British power.
The Germans did not plan to attack Britain either, they responded in kind after Britain bombed their cities.
What a load of crap. The Germans intended to destroy Britain right after they realized the British weren’t stupid enough to fall for Hitler’s preposterous offer of an alliance. If Germany had elected to live peacefully within a modified Versailles system, Britain and Germany would never have come to blows. The German decision to overthrow the Versailles system forcibly meant that it planned to (and had to) attack Britain, because British power is what underwrote the Versailles system.
and had no capability to attack Britain or its allies
Right after the war that was precisely the big fear.
After the war, yeah, but we’re talking about 1933 to 1939, and in that time period Britian had nothing to fear from the USSR.
The Poles had planned to resist the Soviet invasion (and the troops were at first ordered to do so) but because of the German invasion they did not have the forces and so ordered their troops to retreat and engage with the Soviets only defensively.
In short, they were not resisting!
The idea that Britain had a moral or legal obligation to declare war on the USSR is absurd, and from a practical standpoint it is even more so. A declaration of war would do nothing for Poland, and would only have cemented the unnatural relationship between a country that was no threat to Britain (the USSR) and the country that was Britain’s mortal enemy (Germany).
March 24, 2009 at 11:17 pm
They traded with Germany, but they had no option but to give Germany the things it wanted on the terms it wanted. This was not “fair and equal” trade by any means. Germany dominated the transactions!
“Fair trade” is meaningless. Were they losing money in this trade relative to before?
Hitler wanted to use his alliance with Japan to dominate (jointly) Asia
Is this distinct from a separate-spheres-of-influence goal where Japan alone dominates Asia and Germany along dominates Europe?
On the other hand, Hitler wanted to use an alliance with Britain (or more plausibly, to have Britain stand aside)
As England declined to enter in such an alliance and stood by for some time, “plausible” might be more accurate ex post, but I don’t know if Hitler expected that ex ante.
Such an alliance would automatically entail German domination of Britain if it succeeded, because it is impossible to dominate Europe successfully without dominating Britain
Britain is part of Europe, so there is a sense in which that’s accurate. That sense would be if dominating Europe entails dominating all the countries of Europe, which I am arguing is an exaggeration of Hitler’s plans. With a weaker definition that can be satisfied by merely dominating a number of European countries, then Hitler clearly accomplished that without dominating Britain as with Napoleon before him.
If Britain had been stupid enough to stand aside (or help) as Germany crushed Russia
I think it would be smarter to mutter “If only they could both lose”, let them fight to the death and then deal with the weakened victor.
then Germany could demobilize her army and convert her industry into aircraft, ship, and u-boat construction
That sounds like quite an endeavor. The British navy always outclassed the Kriegsmarine by far.
The amount of territory and population under British control overstates the effectiveness of British power
What would be the appropriate metric?
Only the white dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa) were really worth a damn.
Funny, Victoria considered India to be the jewel of her empire and the British went to quite a lot of trouble to obtain it.
Even when Germany was completely distracted by her war in the USSR, the British barely held on
They won the battle of Britain before Barbarossa. Throughout it the Luftwaffe was at a distinct disadvantage thanks to the distance they had to travel and radar, and the dominance of the British navy unquestioned. I don’t know in what sense you mean they “barely held on” in the period after Barbarossa.
which would not have been forthcoming if the British had been allied with Germany against Russia
What threat is Britain under in the counter-factual in which they allied with Germany?
No, it was a clear indication that he wanted war
War with Poland, sure.
If he didn’t want war, all he needed to do was threaten and bluster and try to achieve another Munich.
Munich only gave him the Sudetenland. After that there was still the First Vienna Award, followed by the invasion of Czechoslovakia and its dissolution into Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia.
If Hitler didn’t want war he could, quite reasonably, have demanded return of the German parts of Poland at an international conference.
He wanted a larger portion of Poland, and we don’t know whether he would have gotten even that from a conference.
Yes.
There was British territory in Poland? No. Was Poland a stepping-stone to Britain? No. I just don’t see in what sense Poland is integral to the defense of Britain.
Obviously it would have been much more than that
Extrapolating over decades, most counterfactuals are not obvious.
Hitler knew better than anyone else that Germany was able to recover after WW1, and France after 1870.
France’s recovery was known by the end of WW1 and books like the Menace of Peace displayed an awareness of a possibly resurgent Germany and desire to prevent that. The Versailles Treaty was intended to prevent Germany from becoming a military power again.
Only insofar as Hitler did not plan to exterminate the French
A big “only”! I think the standard line is that the Poles were supposed to form a subordinate caste. During the German-Russian occupation of Poland the Russians killed twice as many Poles despite only holding half the population the Germans did.
Yeah, it’s called the dictionary of not needing to state the obvious
I suppose it contains the phrase “very definition”, defined as “whatever I say”. Under that definition the Soviets dominated Europe after WW2 and prior to Barbarossa.
If the French and Soviet armies were defeated, Germany had literally NO opposition that it needed to fear, and in that I include the prospect of Britain defeating Germany.
Britain had been one of the greatest powers in Europe for some time, so I wouldn’t count them out so quickly. After the war, did France & western Germany tip the balance enough to prevent the Soviets from having a similarly dominant position? And how do you think the Soviets would have fared if they had not received support?
If France and the USSR were defeated
Britain & France declared war on Germany after it invaded Poland, in alliance with the Soviets.
Your claim of non-defensiveness is wrong. You might as well say that if the USSR had invaded West Germany during the Cold War, then the US would have been “attacking” the USSR when it honored the defensive NATO alliance and helped West Germany.
Yes, and I would make the same claim if Saakashevilli had gotten into NATO before the Russians invaded Georgia. Despite the support some American pols gave for the idea, I don’t believe the U.S would have actually been willing to go to war for Georgia, and as it turned out France & Britains guarantees for Poland weren’t worth much either.
We can give them credit insofar as the Soviet intent was not physical extermination of much of the Eastern European population, unlike the German intent.
Like I said, the Soviets racked up quadruple the per-capita bodycount when they were sharing Poland, and I’m sure you’re aware of the Holdomor. I’m willing to grant that what the Red Army did from Stalingrad to Berlin was to steal Gould’s phrase a “contingent fact of history”, and being a lay-functionalist I also don’t consider German actions overdetermined.
it was always British policy
That’s actually my argument, which is made in a more crazy fashion (though before the end of WW1) in Vampire of the Continent (which Mencius Moldbug discusses here that for the most part accords with my view of WW2).
We saved this one, that we live on, that would have been considerably worse for us, and for our own selfish interests, if Germany and Japan had conquered Eurasia.
Elaborate.
The smart move would have been to remain neutral until Germany conquered the USSR
Just as the German invasion of Poland made it much easier for the Soviets to grab a chunk, the German offensive gave the Finns their best opportunity. The Soviets had planned to conquer Finland back in 1939, as they did eastern europe. The Finns recognized the continuance of this Soviet threat, which is why they maintained a state of war. And while you may think the actions of the Finns were foolish, Stalin disagreed.
The fact that the Germans announced their ambitions
When did they do that?
From 1933 to 1945, it would be absolutely crazy not to aid the USSR, for all that Stalin was an evil scoundrel.
I’m guessing you chose 1933 because that’s when Hitler rose to power, rather than 1939. Prioer to 1941 the Soviets had an alliance with Germany and it would have seemed daft aiding them because of Hitler (unless you thought the invasion of Poland was just grand). But I guess in your view the British were “crazy” not to do so until then.
Weren’t you the one who insisted that domination necessarily requires conquest?
I don’t claim the Soviets did dominate China, they were just closer to doing so than the Germans (which makes sense considering geography).
In the context of 1933 to 1945, China did not count for much. Its industrial power and effective fighting power were puny.
I’m not arguing in the context of it taking some sort of decisive action in europe, I’m saying that “dominating the world” should include the most populous country. Having a large population was Russia’s greatest strength.
And in 1941, Finland chose to enlist in the German bid for global domination.
Today Karalia, tomorrow the world? That’s just asinine.
I’m only going by what he said and what he did.
Where did he say eastern europe wasn’t enough?
They already lie down under a Soviet invasion. That war was over. There would have been no further threat to Finland if she’d remained neutral.
The Soviets grabbed for Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Finland under the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Only Finland kept its capital out of Soviet hands throughout the war.
lucky not to lose everything and be absorbed into the USSR like the Baltic States
In the view of Stalin & Mannerheim, avoiding that fate was precisely the objective. Finland was the only country granted to the Soviets on the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact that preserved its independence.
The Soviets would not have done so if the Germans had not done so. Germany was the active force trying to destroy British power.
The Soviets had warred with Poland between world wars 1 & 2 without German assistance. They invaded Finland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia even while the Germans stayed in Poland.
The Germans intended to destroy Britain
On what basis do you make that claim?
The German decision to overthrow the Versailles system forcibly meant that it planned to (and had to) attack Britain, because British power is what underwrote the Versailles system.
They had already gone beyond Versaille before they invaded Poland, without going to war with Britain.
After the war, yeah, but we’re talking about 1933 to 1939, and in that time period Britian had nothing to fear from the USSR.
I claim they similarly did not need to fear Germany, which you acknowledge was not prepared to take on a major navy.
In short, they were not resisting!
They fought several battles with the Soviets, I count that as being engaged in hostilities. The Polish ambassador seemed to share my view of things.
The idea that Britain had a moral or legal obligation to declare war on the USSR is absurd, and from a practical standpoint it is even more so. A declaration of war would do nothing for Poland
All true as well if you replace “USSR” with “Germany”.
a country that was no threat to Britain (the USSR) and the country that was Britain’s mortal enemy (Germany).
That is a point I disagree with. Hitler envisioned a long-lasting Anglo-German alliance and as deluded as his belief was, it is not compatible with being Britain’s “mortal enemy”.
March 26, 2009 at 8:44 pm
“Fair trade” is meaningless. Were they losing money in this trade relative to before?
Fair trade has a definite meaning that law and common sense recognize. If another country tells you who you can and can’t trade with, and what you’re allowed to sell, and requires you to sell certain products to them, this is obviously unfair and you are obviously losing money relative to what you could get an a situation that didn’t involve coercion.
Hitler wanted to use his alliance with Japan to dominate (jointly) Asia
Is this distinct from a separate-spheres-of-influence goal where Japan alone dominates Asia and Germany along dominates Europe?
It never really got any farther than the seperate-spheres-of-influence idea.
Such an alliance would automatically entail German domination of Britain if it succeeded, because it is impossible to dominate Europe successfully without dominating Britain
Britain is part of Europe, so there is a sense in which that’s accurate. That sense would be if dominating Europe entails dominating all the countries of Europe, which I am arguing is an exaggeration of Hitler’s plans. With a weaker definition that can be satisfied by merely dominating a number of European countries, then Hitler clearly accomplished that without dominating Britain as with Napoleon before him.
It is not necessary to dominate every country all the time on every single issue to dominate Europe. If Germany gets its way when it wants on issues it decides are important, then Germany is dominant in Europe. Hitler certainly planned to dominate Europe in this sense, and would not have needed to invade and occupy every single country in order to dominate Europe.
If Britain had been stupid enough to stand aside (or help) as Germany crushed Russia
I think it would be smarter to mutter “If only they could both lose”, let them fight to the death and then deal with the weakened victor.
Naively attractive in the short term, but the victor won’t be weakened forever. The victor will eventually recover and then present an overwhelming threat to Britain.
That sounds like quite an endeavor. The British navy always outclassed the Kriegsmarine by far.
Well yeah, that’s because Germany always had to put most of her resources into the Army. If Germany knocked France and Russia out, Germany wouldn’t need to put most of her resources into the Army, and could instead devote them to her Navy and Air Force.
The amount of territory and population under British control overstates the effectiveness of British power
What would be the appropriate metric?
White population of military age. But even that isn’t quite right because Canada and Australia only allowed a certain number of troops to serve overseas.
Only the white dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa) were really worth a damn.
Funny, Victoria considered India to be the jewel of her empire and the British went to quite a lot of trouble to obtain it.
Only a few Indian divisions served outside India and Burma. The vast majority of Indian troops simply defended India, and additional British and Commonwealth troops were needed to defend India as well. The military benefit of India is thus questionable relative to the costs of defending it.
Even when Germany was completely distracted by her war in the USSR, the British barely held on
They won the battle of Britain before Barbarossa. Throughout it the Luftwaffe was at a distinct disadvantage thanks to the distance they had to travel and radar, and the dominance of the British navy unquestioned. I don’t know in what sense you mean they “barely held on” in the period after Barbarossa.
What saved the British was, of course, American financial and industrial assistance and American entry into the war. Without that assistance the British would never even have lasted from the fall of France until December 1941 when the US entered the war.
What threat is Britain under in the counter-factual in which they allied with Germany?
The threat of a German backstab after Germany finishes off Russia.
No, it was a clear indication that he wanted war
War with Poland, sure.
No, war with France and Britain.
Munich only gave him the Sudetenland. After that there was still the First Vienna Award, followed by the invasion of Czechoslovakia and its dissolution into Bohemia, Moravia and Slovakia.
So? A Polish Munich, in which Germany recovered territory stolen after WW1, was well within the realm of possibility.
If Hitler didn’t want war he could, quite reasonably, have demanded return of the German parts of Poland at an international conference.
He wanted a larger portion of Poland, and we don’t know whether he would have gotten even that from a conference.
He wanted to destroy Poland completely and provoke war with Britain and France. He did not have to do this, and would not have done this if he had limited aims, but his aims were unlimited.
I just don’t see in what sense Poland is integral to the defense of Britain.
This is because you take the blinkered view that the defense of Britain cannot begin any further out than the low-tide line on British beaches. Poland was integral to the defense of Britain in the same way that France, Belgium, and Holland were integral to the defense of Britain.
Obviously it would have been much more than that
Extrapolating over decades, most counterfactuals are not obvious.
It is obvious from what Hitler said about it.
Versailles Treaty was intended to prevent Germany from becoming a military power again.
Hitler knew that Versailles could be circumvented, and he intended to impose such a harsh peace on France that it could not circumvent German controls and reconstitute its military power.
I think the standard line is that the Poles were supposed to form a subordinate caste. During the German-Russian occupation of Poland the Russians killed twice as many Poles despite only holding half the population the Germans did.
When Stalin occupied Poland after 1944, the Soviets didn’t kill nearly as many Poles as the Germans did from 1939 to 1944.
Under that definition the Soviets dominated Europe after WW2 and prior to Barbarossa.
No. If the very definition of European domination is to stand victorious from the Atlantic to the Urals, then the USSR did not in fact dominate Europe after WW2 – they only got as far as the Elbe – and certainly were not dominant before Barbarossa, when they weren’t even across the Bug and Germany and (for a while) France also had large armed forces.
Britain had been one of the greatest powers in Europe for some time, so I wouldn’t count them out so quickly.
I would. The balance of industrial power and manpower would have overwhelmingly favored Germany.
After the war, did France & western Germany tip the balance enough to prevent the Soviets from having a similarly dominant position?
No, the Americans did. Not even France, West Germany, and Britain together could have stopped Soviet domination without the US.
And how do you think the Soviets would have fared if they had not received support?
Badly. A stalemate deep inside Russia if not outright German victory.
If France and the USSR were defeated
Britain & France declared war on Germany after it invaded Poland, in alliance with the Soviets.
If Britain did not declare war when Germany attacked Poland: (1) Germany crushes Poland; (2) Germany crushes France; (3) Germany crushes the USSR; (4) Germany crushes Britain. Standing aside for 1, 2, and 3 means certain defeat in step 4.
Yes, and I would make the same claim if Saakashevilli had gotten into NATO before the Russians invaded Georgia. Despite the support some American pols gave for the idea, I don’t believe the U.S would have actually been willing to go to war for Georgia, and as it turned out France & Britains guarantees for Poland weren’t worth much either.
The claim of non-defensiveness would be wrong in all three cases.
The guarantee of Poland should have been enough to deter Hitler and preserve Poland. Hitler’s decision to attack Poland was ultimately suicidal for him.
Like I said, the Soviets racked up quadruple the per-capita bodycount when they were sharing Poland
We do know that Soviet control of Eastern Europe from 1944 to 1989 was relatively benign in body count terms. If Hitler had controlled the same territory for the same period of time I doubt the body count would have been as low.
That’s actually my argument, which is made in a more crazy fashion (though before the end of WW1) in Vampire of the Continent
Hah, the German vampire complains because the British vampire refuses to let him feed.
Elaborate.
Alas, sorry, don’t really have time at the moment.
Just as the German invasion of Poland made it much easier for the Soviets to grab a chunk, the German offensive gave the Finns their best opportunity.
No, German conquest of the USSR would give Finland its best opportunity. Finland’s opportunity to get its old territory back, and even more besides, would not disappear if the German army reached the Volga.
The Soviets had planned to conquer Finland back in 1939, as they did eastern europe. The Finns recognized the continuance of this Soviet threat, which is why they maintained a state of war. And while you may think the actions of the Finns were foolish, Stalin disagreed.
I don’t agree the Soviets wanted to conquer Finland entirely. If there was a Soviet threat in 1941, either the Germans would eliminate it or the Germans would fail to eliminate it. In either case the best Finnish strategy is to stand aside, because their contribution could not affect the outcome. If the Finns truly thought there was a Soviet threat in 1941, they should have gone all-out against the USSR, including helping the Germans conquer Leningrad and advance on Murmansk and Archangel to deny the Lend Lease route.
The fact that the Germans announced their ambitions
When did they do that?
Mein Kampf plus speeches.
From 1933 to 1945, it would be absolutely crazy not to aid the USSR, for all that Stalin was an evil scoundrel.
I’m guessing you chose 1933 because that’s when Hitler rose to power, rather than 1939. Prioer to 1941 the Soviets had an alliance with Germany and it would have seemed daft aiding them because of Hitler (unless you thought the invasion of Poland was just grand). But I guess in your view the British were “crazy” not to do so until then.
From 1939 to June 1941 the British did nothing to drive the USSR closer to Germany, and did their best to promote a falling-out. As soon as Germany attacked the USSR, the British began aiding Russia as best they could, and even at the expense of British interests (like Malaya). They would have been crazy not to do this.
I’m not arguing in the context of it taking some sort of decisive action in europe, I’m saying that “dominating the world” should include the most populous country.
Dominating Europe and eliminating the USSR certainly provides the capability to dominate China after that.
Having a large population was Russia’s greatest strength.
Eh, not so much as having great industrial power and great geographic depth, in my opinion.
And in 1941, Finland chose to enlist in the German bid for global domination.
Today Karalia, tomorrow the world? That’s just asinine.
Germany is trying to dominate the world, Finland fights on the German side, ergo Finland is helping the German effort to dominate the world.
I’m only going by what he said and what he did.
Where did he say eastern europe wasn’t enough?
Mein Kampf and in internal discussions.
Only Finland kept its capital out of Soviet hands throughout the war.
Finland did not need to attack the USSR in 1941 to keep its capital out of Soviet hands.
In the view of Stalin & Mannerheim, avoiding that fate was precisely the objective. Finland was the only country granted to the Soviets on the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact that preserved its independence.
Finnish independence was an accomplished fact as of March 1940. Finland did not need to attack the USSR in 1941 to preserve its independence – in fact doing so jeopardized it.
The Soviets had warred with Poland between world wars 1 & 2 without German assistance. They invaded Finland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia even while the Germans stayed in Poland.
None of that represented a threat to British power.
The Germans intended to destroy Britain
On what basis do you make that claim?
Read chapter 6 of Weinberg’s “Germany, Hitler and World War II” – that covers most of it.
Detaching Britain from France and forming an alliance with Britain was a dream Hitler had in the early 1920s when perhaps it seemed possible. After Hitler came to power, he quickly realized it was not possible. He got little encouragement from the British on this score, and he understood perfectly well that if Britain refused an alliance he’d have to destroy them. As soon as he came to power he gave the Kriegsmarine contracts to build large battleships, which is obviously inconsistent with an intent to befriend England. He pursued anti-British alliances with Italy and Japan far more vigorously and seriously than he pursued an alliance with Britain. I just don’t take his intention all that seriously, and it is not Britain’s fault that WW2 started because Britain refused to become Nazi Germany’s junior partner (which is what an alliance with Germany would have entailed).
The German decision to overthrow the Versailles system forcibly meant that it planned to (and had to) attack Britain, because British power is what underwrote the Versailles system.
They had already gone beyond Versaille before they invaded Poland, without going to war with Britain.
What happened before the invasion of Poland damaged the Versailles system but did not destroy it. The idea that Britain could stand aside when Germany destroyed Poland and then France is, as I said before, absurd.
After the war, yeah, but we’re talking about 1933 to 1939, and in that time period Britian had nothing to fear from the USSR.
I claim they similarly did not need to fear Germany, which you acknowledge was not prepared to take on a major navy.
The German Navy was not the only threat to Britain. The German Army and Air Force were also a threat to Britain, as was demonstrated in 1940 when the German Army knocked out Britain’s allies and established the bases necessary for the German Navy and Air Force to blockade and bomb Britain.
They fought several battles with the Soviets, I count that as being engaged in hostilities. The Polish ambassador seemed to share my view of things.
The Polish government didn’t.
All true as well if you replace “USSR” with “Germany”.
Britain had a moral, legal, and most importantly of all, practical reason to defend Poland from Germany.
That is a point I disagree with. Hitler envisioned a long-lasting Anglo-German alliance and as deluded as his belief was, it is not compatible with being Britain’s “mortal enemy”.
He “envisioned” it in the early 1920s, but did not act on it in the 1930s. His actions show that he knew this was impossible, and his efforts to achieve it were halfhearted at best. He took numerous actions that were very definitely anti-British. He was determined to conquer France and the USSR, and, being a realist, he knew that this would entail destroying Britain (not without regret on his part, but he fully intended to do it anyway). If Hitler had succeeded in attaining his objectives, the end result – a German Reich victorious from the Atlantic to the Urals – would be a mortal threat to Britain regardless of whether Britain fought Germany to try and prevent this, or stood aside and let it happen.
March 28, 2009 at 2:27 am
Fair trade has a definite meaning that law and common sense recognize
“Fair trade” is a political slogan opponents of neoliberal “free trade” came up with in their push for laws not currently on the books. I consider the word “fair”, like “good” to be meaningless in an objective sense.
If another country tells you who you can and can’t trade with, and what you’re allowed to sell, and requires you to sell certain products to them, this is obviously unfair and you are obviously losing money relative to what you could get an a situation that didn’t involve coercion.
Many people engage in contracts that stipulate certain degrees of exclusivity, I myself have one with my employer. Even I, a Stirnerite, don’t commit the Stirnerite fallacy. It is not obviously the case that you will be poorer due to signing any such contract. Even while Sweden was trading with Germany, the largest part of its merchant marine was leased to the Allies.
It never really got any farther than the seperate-spheres-of-influence idea.
“Jointly dominating” a regions seems to me to exclude “separate spheres of influence”. Roy Child’s rightly derided Robert Nozick for describing a system of different producers of security as a “monopoly” and that seems to be close to what you are doing here.
If Germany gets its way when it wants on issues it decides are important, then Germany is dominant in Europe.
That could fit in describing Germany’s situation in Europe now, though I wouldn’t call them dominant. What do you expect, say Franco, would have been prevented from doing had Germany won?
Naively attractive in the short term, but the victor won’t be weakened forever.
If your goal is to prevent any power from possibly rivalling Britain it would seem best to wait until one side has emerged as the stronger while the latter is weaker and THEN attack it but not to let it weaken to the point where the latter can become stronger than it originally was. Britain declared war on Germany while it was allied to Russia and later turned down generals that hoped to stage a coup to better continue the war on the eastern front when things were looking badly, resulting in the Russians expanding all the way into Germany. For my own part, I don’t think statesmen are competent enough in acting out their Risk-fantasies to recommend they even bother.
Well yeah, that’s because Germany always had to put most of her resources into the Army.
Here’s where I’ll ascribe less to contingency. The British navy wasn’t just temporarily the big kid on the block but had been so for a very long time, while the Germans had not been much of a naval power. Assuming the British kept up production it would be quite a while before the Germans could match them. And then what? The closest the Germans came to grabbing any of the British empire during the war was the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy (though I don’t know what involvement, if any, they had in it). There would be little reason for them to retain war-footing over such a long period and so it would become at worst a cold war, which is not a bad place to be.
White population of military age.
By that standard Japan was powerless.
The military benefit of India is thus questionable relative to the costs of defending it.
Did Germany drang noch osten to recruit troops?
when Germany was completely distracted by her war in the USSR
after Barbarossa.
I’m going to emphasize those phrases again since you ignored them to talk about the period before. BEFORE Barbarossa they were at least on the receiving end in the Battle of Britain (either over or mostly so, depending on who’s delimiting it, before the Lend-Lease act), but they performed well enough that Hitler gave up to attack the Russians.
The threat of a German backstab after Germany finishes off Russia.
Again I’m going to ask for evidence that the Germans had any intention of going after Britain in the absence of the British warring on them.
No, war with France and Britain.
I’ll agree with you against Pat Buchanan that Hitler did want war with France (though I don’t base my belief on the invasion of Poland). But after victory against France he sought a peace agreement with Britain, which Churchill refused. The Battle of Britain was an attempt to get the British to enter into negotations for peace, but after it failed rather than trying to build up strength or get at them another way Hitler decided to invade Russia. To me that all counts as quite strong evidence that he did not desire war with England, even apart from his delusional belief in an Anglo-German empire that would crush the Soviets before the war.
A Polish Munich, in which Germany recovered territory stolen after WW1, was well within the realm of possibility.
He had already established that any claims he might make about only desiring a small ethnically German area would have no credibility, and the threat of the allies to hold him to anything wasn’t very credible either.
He wanted to destroy Poland completely and provoke war with Britain and France.
I’ll most certainly grant you Poland, less certainly but at least lacking any objections grant you France (though I wouldn’t tie it to Poland and suspect he’d rather have taken the initiative against them, as with Russia) but your claim that he wanted war with Britain requires some evidence and you haven’t provided it.
He did not have to do this
Agreed. He wanted Poland.
and would not have done this if he had limited aims, but his aims were unlimited.
He wouldn’t have done it if he only wanted Poland? I think he would have even gotten away with it if his aims were limited to that. The “phony war” was the repercussion he faced from Poland alone. Even if he wanted to go to war with and only with Poland, France and Britain I wouldn’t consider that “unlimited”. A word like “unlimited” is simply hyperbolic for this subject matter and suggests not even bothering to define what aims he had. Cartoon supervillains have unlimited aims.
Poland was integral to the defense of Britain in the same way that France, Belgium, and Holland were integral to the defense of Britain.
All those countries were at least closer to Britain and France provided very nearby ports. Poland is actually further from England than Germany is. And if you make the laughable claim that Poland is “integral” to the defense of Britain, then its occupation by the Soviets should have been alarming.
It is obvious from what Hitler said about it.
Where? Not Mein Kampf.
It is obvious from what Hitler said about it.
Hitler said a number of things that didn’t turn out to be correct. The makers of Versailles thought they had defanged Germany, as those of Fontainebleau did Napoleon.
Hitler knew that Versailles could be circumvented, and he intended to impose such a harsh peace on France that it could not circumvent German controls and reconstitute its military power.
Even today few people claim that Versailles was not harsh enough. Hitler didn’t merely circumvent Versailles, he flouted it. One thing that Hitler could have done to neutralize France would be to divide into smaller territories, but even though the north & west were occuppied the Vichy government still had authority over it all.
When Stalin occupied Poland after 1944, the Soviets didn’t kill nearly as many Poles as the Germans did from 1939 to 1944.
I compared simultaneous occupations for a reason. Periods after war in which authority is completely established are not comparable to periods during war or their immediate aftermath. As a functionalist I see the large increase in killings in 1944 as directly related to setbacks in the war (comparable to prior massacres in Anatolia).
the very definition
Which you have made up, as it is not published in any collection of definitions.
they only got as far as the Elbe
As long as we’re making up definitions, I can insist one has to cross the Pyrenees and the channel.
No, the Americans did
In your counter-factual where the war ends in a stalemate inside Russia, would Britain and America be enough to tip the balance to stop German domination?
Germany crushes the USSR
Hasn’t happened since the Mongols, so I’ll consider the stalemate more likely although I also consider a Russian reversal plausible.
Germany crushes Britain
Which you have provided no evidence of Germany even seeking.
The claim of non-defensiveness would be wrong in all three cases.
Proclaim to be defending all of humanity and any perceived slight is then justification for a “defensive” war. Both the Georgians and Russians made claims about defending civilians in Ossettia (ethnic Georgians or Ossettians/Russians) as a facade on what were really grabs for power.
The guarantee of Poland should have been enough to deter Hitler and preserve Poland
In a more legalistic sense, he should have been deterred from invading Czechoslovakia. Ex post France & Britain actually did declare war, but it was a “phony war”.
Hitler’s decision to attack Poland was ultimately suicidal for him.
I would say instead it was his decision to invade Russia.
If Hitler had controlled the same territory for the same period of time I doubt the body count would have been as low.
We don’t know, we’d need a comparable period of peace and established authority.
Hah, the German vampire complains because the British vampire refuses to let him feed.
It is rather funny to hear moral indignance from such a source, but to his credit he puts aside his German nationalism and actually defends the Spanish monarchs and revolutionary/Napoleonic France. I would also describe it as the “aspiring Germany vampire”.
Alas, sorry, don’t really have time at the moment.
Oh, come on, you’ve spilled plenty of pixels here. The limited vs unlimited aims of Germany is one of the central points of contention here.
No, German conquest of the USSR would give Finland its best opportunity.
There was no German conquest. Waiting until Germany is defeated means taking on the USSR one at a time rather than requiring that it divide its attention rather than concentrate forces.
I don’t agree the Soviets wanted to conquer Finland entirely
They were given along with Estonia & Latvia in the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and they proclaimed the Finnish Democratic Republic the only legitimate government of Finland. In actual practice they exceeded what they originally had been alloted in the Baltics, grabbing Lithuania (including Scheshupe, which the Germans had not traded with the rest of Lithuania for part of Poland) and chunks of Romania (including Hertza, which they hadn’t even bothered to demand from the Romanian government). The only country allotted to the Soviets in the pact that they didn’t wind up with was Finland.
including helping the Germans
The Germans had sold them out to the Soviets in the first place, helping them out to more of Russia would be of questionable benefit. They were interested not in Russian domination, let alone “world domination” but Finland.
Mein Kampf plus speeches.
I don’t know which speeches you’re referring to, so I’ll stick to Mein Kampf. I just did a quick skim of it (I’ll admit not having read it, even Mussolini couldn’t be bothered to do that!). He states that the British Empire, the United States, Russia, China and France are all great powers due to their large amount of territory but that Germany is small and poor because it has been deprived of land. He wants enough land to make Germany a great power as well, and this will be in the east. “We put an
end to the perpetual Germanic march towards the South and West of Europe and turn our eyes towards the lands of the East. We finally put a stop to the colonial and trade policy of pre-War times and pass over to the territorial policy of the future”. He had scoffed at the Weltpoliticks of German statesmen that sought a powerful navy and overseas colonies (which he suggests would have negative racial effects). He wants the German people to be connected to their homeland, presumably meaning contiguous territory. France will oppose this because it has always opposed a strong/united Germany, but England has always opposed the most powerful nation in Europe, which had been France before the unification of Germany and is so again. France is such a dominant hegemon that it is irritating the rest of Europe, and so rather than fighting for its own existence against the rest of the world this time the other nations are interested in resisting France. The enmity between France & Germany is said to be eternal and the French will not stop until Germany is destroyed. Presumably that means the alternative is Germany destroying France, although I don’t know whether he expects that to happen in his own lifetime and how other countries will react to it. He also gives a limit that would be satisfactory for German foreign policy: “after barely a hundred years, there will be 250 million Germans living on this Continent, not packed together as the coolies in the factories of another Continent but as tillers of the soil and workers whose labour will be a mutual assurance for their existence.” I found nothing about wanting to dominate England (which he seems to greatly expect and think a natural ally) or anywhere outside the continent.
From 1939 to June 1941 the British did nothing to drive the USSR closer to Germany, and did their best to promote a falling-out
That sounds quite different from “aiding Stalin”, and would be a perfectly sensible policy if their goal was to ally with Germany against Russia.
Eh, not so much as having great industrial power and great geographic depth, in my opinion.
Which China also had.
Germany is trying to dominate the world
I didn’t get that reading from what I saw in Mein Kampf, you are going to have to support this with specifics.
Finland fights on the German side, ergo Finland is helping the German effort to dominate the world.
Germany was fighting Russia, and the Finnish fight with Russia dated back to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Finland’s fight was distinct from Germany’s and not about “dominating the world”. You yourself acknowledge how they didn’t go all out, which makes sense given limited goals.
Mein Kampf and in internal discussions.
In Mein Kampf he seems to explicitly say his ambitions are restricted to eastern europe. I don’t know what discussions you’re referring to, so you’ll have to present some specifics.
Finnish independence was an accomplished fact as of March 1940.
The Finns had managed to stop the Soviets at the Mannerheim line, but the Soviets were not easily satisfied. The Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians tried to avoid war by granting them bases, but then the Soviets used them to launch a full invasion. In their march west after Stalingrad the only countries kept free from communism were the ones with allied forces in the way, and the allies were not going to invade Norway, cross Sweden and enter Finland to defend it.
Read chapter 6 of Weinberg’s “Germany, Hitler and World War II” – that covers most of it.
Not available at my local library, you’ll have to summarize.
he understood perfectly well that if Britain refused an alliance he’d have to destroy them
And a neutral Britain would be impossible?
which is obviously inconsistent with an intent to befriend England
The Russians were making plans for a world class blue-water fleet before the war, was that “obviously inconsistent” with the alliance they made with Britain?
He pursued anti-British alliances with Italy and Japan far more vigorously and seriously than he pursued an alliance with Britain
They were more accomodating.
it is not Britain’s fault
They don’t have any responsibility for Poland, other than perhaps in deceiving the Poles into thinking they were protected. They were responsible for declaring war on Germany, bombing their cities and having their cities bombed in return.
because Britain refused to become Nazi Germany’s junior partner
Ignoring the possibility of neutral peace, which is what was on offer during the Battle of Britain.
What happened before the invasion of Poland damaged the Versailles system but did not destroy it.
That seems completely subjective.
The idea that Britain could stand aside when Germany destroyed Poland and then France is, as I said before, absurd.
France I can see an argument for. But I don’t know what line Poland falls on that Czechoslovakia doesn’t.
when the German Army knocked out Britain’s allies
Like “integral to the defense of Britain” Poland? You’ll have to give an argument for that.
established the bases necessary for the German Navy and Air Force to blockade and bomb Britain.
Germany was never capable of blockading Britain, Britain blockaded Germany. Germany was bombing Britain after Britain bombed Germany and then they gave up.
The Polish government didn’t.
Raczynski was the representative of the Polish government and later became its President-in-exile. He had helped win the British guarantee of suppoer for Poland in the first place. Jozef Beck, who had primary responsibility on the Polish side for the Anglo-Polish agreement refused it when it initially required that Poland cooperate with the Soviet Union & France.
Britain had a moral, legal, and most importantly of all, practical reason to defend Poland from Germany.
What is that reason which didn’t also apply to the Soviet Union? You say it existed but don’t say what it was.
but he fully intended to do it anyway
Then why did he give up with the Battle of Britain? It makes no sense to start a two-front war if you can avoid it, and his offers of peace to Britain (which had declared war on him first) were because he didn’t want to fight on that front.
March 28, 2009 at 8:51 pm
“Fair trade” is a political slogan opponents of neoliberal “free trade” came up with in their push for laws not currently on the books.
Yeah yeah yeah, I did not mean it in that sense, I meant it in the ordinary sense of just, equitable, and even-handed.
Many people engage in contracts that stipulate certain degrees of exclusivity,
Maybe so, but they agree to those terms voluntarily. Sweden and Switzerland did not. Both countries were poorer because Germany coerced them. I don’t know why you’re even fighting this point, since it is obvious that if two countries are trading, and one has other trading partners but the other doesn’t, the former has great advantages.
“Jointly dominating” a regions seems to me to exclude “separate spheres of influence”.
I don’t think it excludes it at all. When Germany was divided after the war, the US, British, and Soviets jointly dominated Germany, but at the same time had separate spheres of influence.
That could fit in describing Germany’s situation in Europe now, though I wouldn’t call them dominant.
It is not true now because Germany has to negotiate to get what it wants and does not always get what it wants. A victorious Third Reich would give orders and would always get what it wanted.
What do you expect, say Franco, would have been prevented from doing had Germany won?
What Franco did and did not do, like every other minor country in Europe, would have been subject to German orders and German vetos.
If your goal is to prevent any power from possibly rivalling Britain
The goal is not to prevent any power from rivaling Britain but to make sure that no single power dominates the continent. What Britain wants is multiple powers that can be played off against each other and that distract each other and that are forced to arm against each other.
Britain declared war on Germany while it was allied to Russia
Because Germany attacked a British ally.
and later turned down generals that hoped to stage a coup to better continue the war on the eastern front when things were looking badly,
Britain was right to rebuff those scoundrels. The traitors wanted to make peace with the USSR in order to fight off Britain and America. Why would Britain want to help them do that?
resulting in the Russians expanding all the way into Germany.
Britain’s ability to stop that at that point was limited, and in any event, Russia dominating the half of Europe that was far from Britain was preferable to Germany dominating all of Europe and being right across the Channel.
For my own part, I don’t think statesmen are competent enough in acting out their Risk-fantasies to recommend they even bother.
If they’re not competent enough to devise a strategy and execute it, what do you recommend they do, exactly?
Assuming the British kept up production it would be quite a while before the Germans could match them.
No it wouldn’t. Look how many u-boats the Germans built even while they had to fight Russia.
And then what?
And then Britain is starved into submission and occupied or forced into Vichy status.
The closest the Germans came to grabbing any of the British empire during the war was the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy
The Germans would have been able to do a hell of a lot more than that if they’d beaten Russia.
There would be little reason for them to retain war-footing over such a long period and so it would become at worst a cold war, which is not a bad place to be.
There would be every reason for Germany to fight until Britain was bombed and blockaded into submission, and it wouldn’t even have taken very long if Russia had gone down.
Even if Germany couldn’t beat Britain, a cold war with Nazi Germany controlling all of continental Europe would have been vastly worse than a cold war with the USSR controlling Europe east of the Elbe. It is astonishing to me that you don’t see this.
White population of military age.
By that standard Japan was powerless.
Japan’s military population was larger than that of Britain + Canada + Australia + New Zealand, and of course Japan did not limit service overseas like Canada, Australia and NZ did.
Did Germany drang noch osten to recruit troops?
Britain didn’t get any of those kinds of benefits out of India either.
BEFORE Barbarossa they were at least on the receiving end in the Battle of Britain (either over or mostly so, depending on who’s delimiting it, before the Lend-Lease act), but they performed well enough that Hitler gave up to attack the Russians.
They would have been toast without US aid.
Again I’m going to ask for evidence that the Germans had any intention of going after Britain in the absence of the British warring on them.
Germany issued contracts to start building a blue-water Navy of battleships and carriers – which could only be anti-British – in 1934, long before Britain declared war or showed any sign of acting to thwart Germany in any way.
That aside, the British would be completely stupid to require any expression of anti-British feeling before acting to block German domination of the continent. No matter what Germany’s declared intentions were, the mere fact of German domination of Europe would represent a mortal threat to Britain.
The Battle of Britain was an attempt to get the British to enter into negotations for peace, but after it failed rather than trying to build up strength or get at them another way Hitler decided to invade Russia.
He went after Russia not because he wasn’t “serious” about fighting Britain but because it was the only thing he could do. He also believed that England only refused peace because the Soviets existed, and after the Soviets were eliminated the British would either sue for peace or could be crushed. Thus, even Barbarossa had an anti-British aspect to it.
To me that all counts as quite strong evidence that he did not desire war with England,
Oh please. Of course Hitler wanted Britain to stand aside and let him do whatever he wanted, but that does not count as “not wanting war with Britain”.
“I don’t want to shoot you but I will unless you do what I want.” – the classic statement of a peace-loving friend! (NOT)
He had already established that any claims he might make about only desiring a small ethnically German area would have no credibility, and the threat of the allies to hold him to anything wasn’t very credible either.
That’s really beside the point. Chamberlain would have given rearranged the Polish borders if it meant avoiding war, but Hitler did not want to avoid war.
your claim that he wanted war with Britain requires some evidence and you haven’t provided it.
Attacking a country that Britain had guaranteed against military attack is all the evidence anyone should need that he wanted war with Britain and France.
He wouldn’t have done it if he only wanted Poland?
He didn’t just want Poland. What good is Poland? It is a liability not an asset. His plan was to turn around and attack in the west as soon as he could, and that’s what he did.
Even if he wanted to go to war with and only with Poland, France and Britain I wouldn’t consider that “unlimited”.
Since he wanted to go to war with many other countries than that, your point here is moot.
A word like “unlimited” is simply hyperbolic for this subject matter and suggests not even bothering to define what aims he had.
Destroying the status quo in Europe; eliminating France and Britain as independent powers (turning them into junior partners of Germany); reducing the minor countries of Europe into German satellites; physically eliminating a large segment of the eastern European population; destroying the USSR and killing tens of millions of people there; building a blue-water Navy capable of deterring or fighting the USA; a large colonial realm in Africa – these goals alone warrant the term “unlimited” as far as I’m concerned.
if you make the laughable claim that Poland is “integral” to the defense of Britain, then its occupation by the Soviets should have been alarming.
Poland was integral to the defense of Britain and France against Germany. It was not integral to the defense of Britain and France against the USSR, which did not intend to attack Britain and France anyway.
Where? Not Mein Kampf.
Yes, in Mein Kampf.
Hitler said a number of things that didn’t turn out to be correct.
Raising the obvious question of why you put so much stock in his professions of friendship for Britain and desire for alliance with Britain in that book.
Even today few people claim that Versailles was not harsh enough.
It obviously was not harsh enough to prevent a German resurgence. Part of the problem, of course, was British unwillingness to enforce its terms. This problem would not exist with respect to Hitler keeping the French down!
Hitler didn’t merely circumvent Versailles, he flouted it.
And you think France would have gotten away with flouting the terms of Hitler’s occupation of France?
One thing that Hitler could have done to neutralize France would be to divide into smaller territories,
He did not need to do this during the war because German troops occupied it. He might have done this after the war, if he’d won and wanted to reduce troop levels.
I compared simultaneous occupations for a reason. Periods after war in which authority is completely established are not comparable to periods during war or their immediate aftermath. As a functionalist I see the large increase in killings in 1944 as directly related to setbacks in the war (comparable to prior massacres in Anatolia).
Yeah, too bad the plans for all the killing were put in place before the military setbacks occurred. While they were still winning, the Germans planned to eliminate tens of millions of people in eastern Europe.
the very definition
Which you have made up, as it is not published in any collection of definitions.
Go read Haushofer, Mackinder, or Spykman.
they only got as far as the Elbe
As long as we’re making up definitions, I can insist one has to cross the Pyrenees and the channel.
If it is not obvious to you that you need to dominate more than what the USSR dominated from 1945 to 1989 in order to dominate Europe, then you’re astonishingly ignorant of history.
In your counter-factual where the war ends in a stalemate inside Russia, would Britain and America be enough to tip the balance to stop German domination?
Depends how much blood the Americans are willing to pay to do it.
Hasn’t happened since the Mongols, so I’ll consider the stalemate more likely although I also consider a Russian reversal plausible.
Germans would easily have done it in WW1 if the western front hadn’t held and the Russians hadn’t sued for peace.
Which you have provided no evidence of Germany even seeking.
Doesn’t even matter. The British would be stupid to assume that Germany would not seek to crush them after eliminating France and the USSR. In such a condition, Britain’s political independence would disappear. The British leaders understood this perfectly (unlike you).
Proclaim to be defending all of humanity and any perceived slight is then justification for a “defensive” war.
No. The defensive alliance is only activated when someone attacks a member of the alliance (duuuh).
Both the Georgians and Russians made claims about defending civilians in Ossettia (ethnic Georgians or Ossettians/Russians) as a facade on what were really grabs for power.
Russia didn’t have a defensive alliance with Ossetia, so this example is irrelevant.
Ex post France & Britain actually did declare war, but it was a “phony war”.
It was not phony just because Britain and France didn’t attack immediately. They planned for a long war, they didn’t need to attack immediately.
I would say instead it was his decision to invade Russia.
Which wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t attacked Poland first. Ergo Poland was the suicidal decision.
We don’t know, we’d need a comparable period of peace and established authority.
While the war was still in progress, the Germans started planning to eliminate tens of millions of eastern Europeans after the war was over.
you’ve spilled plenty of pixels here.
I’m trying to limit the damage. =)
There was no German conquest.
All the more reason not to jump in!
Waiting until Germany is defeated means taking on the USSR one at a time rather than requiring that it divide its attention rather than concentrate forces.
In no case would the Finnish contribution be decisive, so it was stupid to commit itself. The only reason to jump in would be if Finland’s attack makes the difference between Germany winning or losing, and that obviously wasn’t the case.
In the real-world 1941, German victory did not depend on Finland in any way – they could attack or remain neutral and it would not affect the outcome. If Finland remained neutral it could get all the benefits of German victory without taking any of the risk of punishment after a German defeat.
The only country allotted to the Soviets in the pact that they didn’t wind up with was Finland.
The Soviets didn’t conquer all of Finland when they could have in 1940 or 1944. The case for the Soviets wanting to do so is thus extremely weak.
They were interested not in Russian domination, let alone “world domination” but Finland.
The fact remains that even though the specific benefit to Finland of German world domination would be small, the Finns were helping the Germans achieve world domination.
I don’t know which speeches you’re referring to, so I’ll stick to Mein Kampf.
For example:
“Germany will either become a World Power or will not continue to exist at all. But in order to become a World Power it needs that territorial magnitude which gives it the necessary importance to-day and assures the existence of its citizens.”
In short, conquering Europe provides Germany with the resource base necessary to be a world power. It ought to be obvious to anyone that this is necessarily antithetical to British interests and that is why the British opposed it strenuously.
Which China also had.
China had great industrial power in 1939? ROFLMAO!
Germany was fighting Russia, and the Finnish fight with Russia dated back to the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact. Finland’s fight was distinct from Germany’s and not about “dominating the world”. You yourself acknowledge how they didn’t go all out, which makes sense given limited goals.
Germany was fighting Russia in order to dominate the world, and the Finnish fight with Russia was over in 1941 and did not have to be resumed. Finland cannot fight a distinct fight with Russia and not help Germany dominate the world. If Finland fights Russia, it helps Germany dominate the world, period.
In Mein Kampf he seems to explicitly say his ambitions are restricted to eastern europe.
As the basis for becoming a global superpower.
The Finns had managed to stop the Soviets at the Mannerheim line, but the Soviets were not easily satisfied.
The Soviets could easily have kept going, but were satisfied to stop in March 1940.
In their march west after Stalingrad the only countries kept free from communism were the ones with allied forces in the way,
The Finns are the clear exception. Nothing would have stopped the Soviets from keeping going into Finland in 1944 if they’d wanted to.
Not available at my local library, you’ll have to summarize.
He shows that Hitler’s efforts to reach an “understanding” with Britain were not serious, whereas Hitler’s military and diplomatic preparations for war with Britain were extremely serious.
And a neutral Britain would be impossible?
Yes, obviously. It was not in Britain’s interest at all to remain neutral.
The Russians were making plans for a world class blue-water fleet before the war, was that “obviously inconsistent” with the alliance they made with Britain?
The Soviets were not seeking an alliance with Britain when they made those plans, as you claim Germany was. Also, it was not obviously inconsistent inasmuch as the USSR had an enemy with a powerful navy who was not Britain (i.e. Japan) whereas the only possible naval opponent for Germany was Britain.
They were more accomodating.
Because their interests coincided with Germany’s, while Britain’s didn’t.
Hitler made no serious effort to accommodate British interests, so why do you think Britain should accommodate Germany’s? Indeed, Britain bent over backwards to accommodate German interests and salve German pride until it became clear that Germany was not interested in peaceful revision of Versailles, she wanted to dominate Europe.
They were responsible for declaring war on Germany, bombing their cities and having their cities bombed in return.
No, Germany was responsible for that by attacking Poland.
Ignoring the possibility of neutral peace, which is what was on offer during the Battle of Britain.
Rubbish. What was “on offer” during the Battle of Britain was not a neutral peace but British surrender. Germany insisted that Britain recognize German domination of western Europe and return German colonies, and that is hardly a “neutral peace”. If negotiations had actually begun, no doubt other German demands would have arisen.
What happened before the invasion of Poland damaged the Versailles system but did not destroy it.
That seems completely subjective.
It is an objective fact that Germany did not go to war before Poland.
I don’t know what line Poland falls on that Czechoslovakia doesn’t.
Britain should have gone to war over Czechoslovakia.
Like “integral to the defense of Britain” Poland? You’ll have to give an argument for that.
For what? It is a demonstrated fact that Germany knocked out Britain’s allies and established bases to bomb and blockade her.
Germany was never capable of blockading Britain, Britain blockaded Germany. Germany was bombing Britain after Britain bombed Germany and then they gave up.
Um, the Battle of the Atlantic was an effort to blockade Britain, and by no means an ineffective one.
The idea that German bombing of Britain was somehow in response to, or provoked by, or justified by, Britain bombing Germany is utterly stupid and contemptible.
Germany did not give up bombing Britain. Germany bombed Britain until March 1945.
What is that reason which didn’t also apply to the Soviet Union? You say it existed but don’t say what it was.
Duuuh, the Soviet Union was no threat to Britain in September 1939, and Germany was. Good grief, I can’t imagine anything more obvious than this.
Then why did he give up with the Battle of Britain? It makes no sense to start a two-front war if you can avoid it, and his offers of peace to Britain (which had declared war on him first) were because he didn’t want to fight on that front.
Germany declared war on Britain when Germany attacked Poland in defiance of the British guarantee and refused the British demand to withdraw from Poland. War was not automatic, and the option was Hitler’s: if he didn’t withdraw from Poland, then war would exist. He knew this and chose not to withdraw from Poland.
Germany intended to destroy Britain but abandoned the effort to bomb her into submission in the fall of 1940 because that wasn’t working. Hitler intended to destroy Russia and then use the expanded resource base to destroy Britain. Even while the Germans were preparing for Barbarossa, they were also preparing for protracted air and naval combat with Britain that the Germans expected would continue after Russia was defeated.
March 29, 2009 at 8:49 pm
I did not mean it in that sense, I meant it in the ordinary sense of just, equitable, and even-handed.
That is the same sense which the “fair trade movement” wants to use it, and fortunately for them its unfalsifiable (and so meaningless as far as I’m concerned).
Both countries were poorer
You are the only person I’ve heard make that claim about those countries during that period. The standard gripe is that they profited from evil.
since it is obvious that if two countries are trading, and one has other trading partners but the other doesn’t, the former has great advantages.
Sweden did have other trading partners. If 37% of its exports went to Germany, 63% must go elsewhere. I already mentioned how more of their merchant marine was leased to the allies and only a minority involved in shipments to Germany. Germany itself had its trading partners restricted, with Britain blockading them as in the previous war. It was this lack of trading partners that caused Germany to develop liquefied coal, as did the pariah state of aparheid South Africa later.
When Germany was divided after the war, the US, British, and Soviets jointly dominated Germany, but at the same time had separate spheres of influence.
The Berlin airlift and escapes to the west occurred precisely because of a lack of “joint” domination. The Soviets dominated one side.
It is not true now because Germany has to negotiate to get what it wants and does not always get what it wants.
Germany had to negotiate even back then with its allies and trading partners. What German demands go unsatisfied in the EU today?
What Franco did and did not do, like every other minor country in Europe, would have been subject to German orders and German vetos.
I’m not aware of many vetoes or orders he was subject to. Can you give some examples?
The goal is not to prevent any power from rivaling Britain but to make sure that no single power dominates the continent.
I would disagree, Britain had been greatly concerned in the past about rivals by its colonies away from the continent.
What Britain wants is multiple powers that can be played off against each other and that distract each other and that are forced to arm against each other.
Something like the Iran-Iraq war, on which I quoted Kissinger earlier.
Because Germany attacked a British ally.
The Soviets invaded Poland as well, and it’s not even as if the Poles were providing any significant benefit to Britain.
Britain was right to rebuff those scoundrels. The traitors wanted to make peace with the USSR in order to fight off Britain and America.
I have never heard that interpretation, but the opposite. The “traitor” generals wanted to make peace with Britain in order to fight off the USSR.
Why would Britain want to help them do that?
The same reason the U.S wanted to help Iraq fight Iran (though they gave some help to the latter as well).
Britain’s ability to stop that at that point was limited
Yes, they should have thought of that when they turned down the offer from those generals.
that was far from Britain
Like Poland? But that’s “integral to the defense of Britain”!
If they’re not competent enough to devise a strategy and execute it, what do you recommend they do, exactly?
Build up their own armamements and use the simple and optimal iterated prisoner’s dilemma strategy with unknown play-length.
The Germans would have been able to do a hell of a lot more than that if they’d beaten Russia.
Before Barbarossa Germany was not at war with Russia. Yet the Germans didn’t get any of the empire or display any initiative on that front. If they were really interested in dominating Britain, that would have been the time to do it. It would even be easier to fight Russia if they had removed Britain as a source of support. But they decided to give up and attack Russia anyway.
There would be every reason for Germany to fight until Britain was bombed and blockaded into submission
Except that Germany decided to stop bombing Britain. Why didn’t they keep on until Britain submitted?
and it wouldn’t even have taken very long if Russia had gone down.
The Germans seemed to think it took too long while the Soviets were officially allied to them.
a cold war with Nazi Germany
What are the major downsides to that? The Nazis had a nationalistic rather than universalist ideology, so it didn’t have the same trans-national appeal that spread communism after the war.
Japan’s military population
Was large but not WHITE, which you made a requirement when I emphasized population. Paul Emil von Lettow Vorbeck, with a small band of black askaris with German officers and single-shot black powder rifles, was able to take on much larger and better equipped forces of Indians, Afrikaaners & British in east Africa during WW1.
Britain didn’t get any of those kinds of benefits out of India either.
The Ghurkas and Sikhs were well known for their service in the British military, although not in WW2. But if the benefits from Poland & India are equivalent, why does conquering Poland make Germany a great and threatening power while the much larger British empire counts for nothing?
They would have been toast without US aid.
Are you referring to “cash and carry”?
which could only be anti-British
As I mentioned, the Russians were planning on making a modern bluewater fleet. The French had battleships and a carrier (with another planned when war broke out). The U.S built a great bluewater navy and though you may stick up for the indominitable British will, they did become America’s junior partner. I don’t consider any of that anti-British. It would only count as such if you think, as Mencius Moldbug put it, “John Bull owns the world”.
the mere fact of German domination of Europe would represent a mortal threat to Britain.
Napoleon never managed to pose a “mortal threat” to Britain, and he was a lot smarter than Hitler and was at it for longer.
He went after Russia not because he wasn’t “serious” about fighting Britain but because it was the only thing he could do
He must have been really stupid not to grasp your 1. build more ships 2. dominate Britain strategy.
He also believed that England only refused peace because the Soviets existed
It wasn’t even supporting Britain at the time. If the mere existence of another great power does the trick, that would still leave the U.S.
Thus, even Barbarossa had an anti-British aspect to it.
Makes sense if you think the world revolves around them. In a counter-factual with a British-German alliance, would they not have invaded Russia?
Of course Hitler wanted Britain to stand aside and let him do whatever he wanted, but that does not count as “not wanting war with Britain”.
Britain wound up having just that sort of “junior partner” relationship to the U.S. No way that can count as the U.S “not wanting war with Britain”!
“I don’t want to shoot you but I will unless you do what I want.” – the classic statement of a peace-loving friend! (NOT)
If “do what I want” translates as “stop shooting at me” then it makes a pretty good analogy.
Chamberlain would have given rearranged the Polish borders if it meant avoiding war, but Hitler did not want to avoid war.
Chamberlain declared war on Germany after they rearranged Poland’s borders. And if Hitler wanted war with Britain, why was he seeking a peace deal shortly afterward? What would be the point of a war with Britain in which he didn’t grab anything from them? Do you seriously believe that he would have been dissapointed if only France had declared war on him after he invaded Poland?
Attacking a country that Britain had guaranteed against military attack is all the evidence anyone should need that he wanted war with Britain and France.
Their guarantees didn’t do any more for Poland than Czechoslovakia (the French did admittedly invade the Saarland, but didn’t give Poland the air-support they promised).
He didn’t just want Poland.
I’ll agree, he wanted more to the east and the Bolsheviks removed from power (he seemed to view Tsarist Russia as appropriately led by Germans, if not strong enough in their dominance to keep from being overthrown by the agents of international jewry, so I’m agnostic on whether he’d have invaded Russia if the Tsar was still in charge).
What good is Poland?
Are you serious? Have you never heard the term “lebensraum”?
His plan was to turn around and attack in the west as soon as he could, and that’s what he did.
France initiated hostilities against Germany rather than the other way around, and it would be more accurate to say that he turned from the west to east to attack Russia (which he had been at peace with).
Since he wanted to go to war with many other countries than that, your point here is moot.
The ability to comprehend counter-factuals is what separates us from other animals. I’m trying to get at what constitutes limited vs unlimited.
eliminating France and Britain as independent powers (turning them into junior partners of Germany)
I’ll give you France, but don’t see how Britain’s relationship to Germany had they accepted peace offers would have been any more that of a “junior partner” than was Russie before Barbarossa.
reducing the minor countries of Europe into German satellites
Nobody considers Sweden & Switzerland to have been German satellites. While generally viewed as fascist fellow-travellers, Franco & Salazar behaved the same way with & without Hitler.
building a blue-water Navy capable of deterring or fighting the USA
The USA? You earlier seemed to grant that Hitler wasn’t interested in the western hemisphere, you should really provide an argument for why you think he was.
a large colonial realm in Africa
Any evidence for that? The Vichy had territory there and Mussolini wanted to create one. Did the Germans send colonists back to Namibia or Tanganyika?
Poland was integral to the defense of Britain and France against Germany. It was not integral to the defense of Britain and France against the USSR, which did not intend to attack Britain and France anyway.
A priori, Poland should be MORE integral to defense against the USSR because it between the USSR and western europe. Invading Poland does not bring the Germans any closer to the allies.
Yes, in Mein Kampf.
I just quoted from Mein Kampf: there’s plenty of drang noch osten but nothing about dominating Britain, ambitions in the western hemisphere or colonies in Africa (on the contrary, he considers that racially harmful).
Raising the obvious question of why you put so much stock in his professions of friendship for Britain and desire for alliance with Britain in that book.
The book was in retrospect a very good predictor of his actions. He explicitly takes up the notion of an alliance with Russia against the west, but says it could only be an alliance of convenience rather than the one with Britain which would be “not made between arms but between men”. Hitler certainly didn’t predict that he would be committing suicide in a bunker, and nor should he be expected to.
Raising the obvious question of why you put so much stock in his professions of friendship for Britain and desire for alliance with Britain in that book.
I’m not claiming any of the material was disingenuous (rather, his later disavowal as a statesmen was) or that he later rejected any of it. I think it is only accurate in predicting his own actions and understanding his goals.
And you think France would have gotten away with flouting the terms of Hitler’s occupation of France?
They got away with arresting German intelligence agents and refusing to hand over Giraud. Yes, I think they could have gotten away with more.
He did not need to do this during the war because German troops occupied it.
He broke up other countries, and the Morgenthau plan explicitly stated that Germany should be broken up after occupation to prevent it from rising again. Even within the occuppied region the Vichy government still had its police, militia and administration throughout all of France (other than Alsace-Loraine, though it was not formally annexed). It is also hard to disentangle the occupation of the north & west of France from the continued hostilities with Britain. The southeast was left unoccupied because prior to Operation Torch it was not vulnerable to naval attack, as the occupied zone was.
Yeah, too bad the plans for all the killing were put in place before the military setbacks occurred
By when?
Go read Haushofer, Mackinder, or Spykman.
Which dictionaries did they write? Even if I did accept Mackinder’s “Heartland/Pivot”, it was entirely located in the Soviet Union (even before Stalin) so once they were no longer inferior in “virility, equipment and organization”, they would rule the “world-island” and hence the world. That would just undermine your argument that the Soviets were not dominant.
If it is not obvious to you that you need to dominate more than what the USSR dominated from 1945 to 1989 in order to dominate Europe, then you’re astonishingly ignorant of history.
Then so is Mackinder, who you are citing. Furthermore, I explicitly rejected the claim that they were dominant because I don’t place the bar that low. It was precisely because I rejected it and assumed you would as well that I brought up the idea that the Soviets dominated Europe.
Germans would easily have done it in WW1 if the western front hadn’t held and the Russians hadn’t sued for peace.
Napoleon failed miserably, and he was certainly no less competent than the German general staff. Furthermore, in WW1 Russia had undergone a revolution which I don’t think could have happened under Stalin. Hitler failed even though he had achieved in France what his predecessors had failed to do.
Doesn’t even matter.
Yeah, who needs evidence!
The defensive alliance is only activated when someone attacks a member of the alliance (duuuh).
The Germans claimed to be looking out for the interests of ethnic German minorities who were supposedly being mistreated by eastern european governments. This was of course as disingenuous as the name “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. Poland certainly wasn’t capable of defending England, so this was another one way benevolent defense akin to Britain’s earlier intervention against the Turks, which the rest of Europe accepted because screw the wogs.
Russia didn’t have a defensive alliance with Ossetia, so this example is irrelevant.
Russia had peacekeeping troops in South Ossettia and were a party to the previous cease-fire agreement between the Georgian government and the South Ossettians.
They planned for a long war, they didn’t need to attack immediately.
How comforting for the Poles.
Which wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t attacked Poland first. Ergo Poland was the suicidal decision.
Yes, Poland is in the way and it would be quite tough for Germany to invade Russia without going through there first. My point is that if they had taken Poland but not attacked Russia they would not have been committing suicide at all.
I’m trying to limit the damage. =)
Abandon all restraint and open the floodgates!
All the more reason not to jump in!
The maximum of any set must at least be a member.
In the real-world 1941, German victory did not depend on Finland in any way
And yet you claim that the Finns were fighting for “world domination”. I brought up the Finns because I thought it obvious that if “all the support you could” give to the Allies included supporting the invasion of Finland, that was support there was no reason to give.
If Finland remained neutral it could get all the benefits of German victory without taking any of the risk of punishment after a German defeat.
There are no examples of countries between Germany and the Soviet Union that managed that trick. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania tried to accomodate the Soviets but got invaded anyway. Czechoslovakia even had a multi-party democracy that included the communists after the war, but they staged a coup and took over the country.
The Soviets didn’t conquer all of Finland when they could have in 1940 or 1944. The case for the Soviets wanting to do so is thus extremely weak.
Okay, that’s a good point. I don’t really know how important Finland was to them.
The fact remains that even though the specific benefit to Finland of German world domination would be small, the Finns were helping the Germans achieve world domination.
That’s completely inconsistent with “German victory did not depend on Finland in any way”.
In short, conquering Europe provides Germany with the resource base necessary to be a world power.
He lists multiple world powers existing simultaneously. They didn’t all simultaneously “dominate the world”. They just held large territories, which precisely what I’m claiming his goal was in eastern europe (in addition to his racial/political antipathy towards the Bolsheviks).
China had great industrial power in 1939? ROFLMAO!
It was a mistake on my part quoting the whole sentence. I was actually only referring to geography.
As the basis for becoming a global superpower.
No, that itself would make Germany a global superpower. He explicitly rejects colonies that would not be connected to the Vaterland.
The Soviets could easily have kept going, but were satisfied to stop in March 1940.
I guess for certain values of “easily”.
The Finns are the clear exception.
It was precisely the exceptional nature of Finland I was trying to point out.
The Soviets were not seeking an alliance with Britain when they made those plans, as you claim Germany was.
They actually entered into such an alliance.
whereas the only possible naval opponent for Germany was Britain.
The French navy was still the 4th largest in the world (after Britain, the U.S and Japan). As mentioned, the Russians wanted a fleet, and even if they didn’t the Germans would still be happy to use one against them. Finally, having been blockaded they were probably very anxious to avoid repeating the experience.
Hitler made no serious effort to accommodate British interests, so why do you think Britain should accommodate Germany’s?
They could have tried to obtain some of those interests in exchange for ending the war, but wouldn’t accept even the offer of the coup-plotters to kill Hitler.
No, Germany was responsible for that by attacking Poland.
If they could throw Czechoslovakia under the bus they could do the same for Poland. In Ribbentrop’s memoirs, he notes that Hitler was surprised that Chamberlain declared war on him after the invasion of Poland and asked his foreign minister “What now?”, to which he had no response.
If negotiations had actually begun, no doubt other German demands would have arisen.
According to Klaus Hildebrand, Hitler didn’t really care about the former colonies (though Ribbentrop did) and only used them as a negotiating card with Britain, as the “right of return” for Palestinians is often considered today.
Britain should have gone to war over Czechoslovakia.
Okay, that’s a coherent position.
It is a demonstrated fact that Germany knocked out Britain’s allies and established bases to bomb and blockade her.
Poland was not a base of attack against Britain, it’s further away from it than Germany.
The idea that German bombing of Britain was somehow in response to, or provoked by, or justified by, Britain bombing Germany is utterly stupid and contemptible.
I don’t think anything can be justified in any objective sense, but it is simply the case that Britain started bombing Germany before they responded in kind.
Duuuh, the Soviet Union was no threat to Britain in September 1939, and Germany was. Good grief, I can’t imagine anything more obvious than this.
They had instigated communist revolts throughout europe and had agents in the British government. Lenin had written “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism” to explain why capitalism still persisted in the most industrialized nations, and the Soviet Union did indeed put a lot of energy into anti-colonial movements. Being the largest colonial power, this put Britain square in the cross-hairs. In response to a similar spread of revolutionary ideology, England had declared war on the Jacobins. Winston Churchill certainly saw them as a threat to be extinguished before the war. In my own opinion, I don’t think either the Bolsheviks or Jacobins constituted any mortal threat to Britain and think the reaction was based on the belief that John Bull owns the world.
March 30, 2009 at 2:27 pm
Incidentally, I’m going to be busy for the rest of the week, so I won’t be able to respond for some time, if at all.
That is the same sense which the “fair trade movement” wants to use it, and fortunately for them its unfalsifiable (and so meaningless as far as I’m concerned).
I don’t see how it’s unfalsifiable and meaningless that a monopoly is less fair, just and equitable than a non-monopoly. Germany monopolized trade with Sweden and Switzerland, which was manifestly to the disadvantage of the latter two.
The standard gripe is that they profited from evil.
The standard view is often stupid. I don’t see how anyone could fail to understand that Sweden would get a better price for iron ore if others were allowed to bid for it besides Germany.
Sweden did have other trading partners.
Uh, yeah, in stuff that had no strategic value to Germany, perhaps.
The Berlin airlift and escapes to the west occurred precisely because of a lack of “joint” domination. The Soviets dominated one side.
Joint domination was precisely what gave the western allies their right to be in West Berlin and to have access to it.
Germany had to negotiate even back then with its allies and trading partners. What German demands go unsatisfied in the EU today?
If you think the nature of the “negotiations” between the Third Reich and the rest of occupied Europe is the same as the negotiations between Germany and the rest of the EU you are truly pathetic.
What Franco did and did not do, like every other minor country in Europe, would have been subject to German orders and German vetos.
I’m not aware of many vetoes or orders he was subject to. Can you give some examples?
You will note that we were discussing the hypothetical case in which Germany won the war, so no such examples are possible.
The goal is not to prevent any power from rivaling Britain but to make sure that no single power dominates the continent.
I would disagree, Britain had been greatly concerned in the past about rivals by its colonies away from the continent.
Britain only cared about the colonies of countries that threatened to dominate the European continent.
Something like the Iran-Iraq war, on which I quoted Kissinger earlier.
British history from at least 1688 through 1945 is nothing else but an effort to prevent a single power from dominating Europe.
Because Germany attacked a British ally.
The Soviets invaded Poland as well, and it’s not even as if the Poles were providing any significant benefit to Britain.
The Soviet Union is not Germany (duuh). Poland provided a very definite benefit to Britain – a second front against Germany consisting of 39 divisions and almost 1,000,000 men. When one considers that the allies in the west in 1940 had only 2.9 million men versus 3.3 million Germans, the reason Britain perceived Poland as critically important becomes obvious.
Why would Britain want to help them do that?
The same reason the U.S wanted to help Iraq fight Iran (though they gave some help to the latter as well).
Uh, what? To repeat: why would Britain ever want to help the Germans make peace with Stalin in order to fight Britain and America?
Britain’s ability to stop that at that point was limited
Yes, they should have thought of that when they turned down the offer from those generals.
Didn’t I just say the “offer” had no value to Britain under any circumstances?
The only possible strategy for Britain later in the war was to guide America in the direction Britain desired. Trying to cut a deal with German traitors was a non-starter for many different reasons.
that was far from Britain
Like Poland? But that’s “integral to the defense of Britain”!
Poland in Russian hands is different from Poland in German hands (duuh).
If they’re not competent enough to devise a strategy and execute it, what do you recommend they do, exactly?
Build up their own armamements and use the simple and optimal iterated prisoner’s dilemma strategy with unknown play-length.
You just said they were incompetent to execute strategy, so they’re not going to be able to do that right, either.
The Germans would have been able to do a hell of a lot more than that if they’d beaten Russia.
Before Barbarossa Germany was not at war with Russia.
BUT Germany nevertheless had to maintain an army to defend against Russia! They couldn’t demobilize their army and build nothing but ships and aircraft to fight Britain with the whole Red Army sitting there on the borders of the Reich.
Yet the Germans didn’t get any of the empire or display any initiative on that front.
What they wanted to do and what they could do were different things. If they’d succeeded in Africa they would have gotten a lot more of the British empire, but of course what they could send to Africa was limited because they had to prepare for Barbarossa.
If they were really interested in dominating Britain, that would have been the time to do it. It would even be easier to fight Russia if they had removed Britain as a source of support. But they decided to give up and attack Russia anyway.
No. The only time to attack Russia was in the summer of 1941. Later than that and both the USSR and the British (with US support) would be too strong.
They could not remove Britain as a support before attacking Russia. The British home islands were too stoutly defended.
Except that Germany decided to stop bombing Britain. Why didn’t they keep on until Britain submitted?
They didn’t STOP bombing Britain! They kept bombing it throughout the whole damn war! They also kept the u-boat war going throughout the war, which was clearly an effort to starve Britain into submission.
and it wouldn’t even have taken very long if Russia had gone down.
The Germans seemed to think it took too long while the Soviets were officially allied to them.
Again, so long as the Soviets exist, Germany cannot devote a maximum effort to air and naval war with Britain.
a cold war with Nazi Germany
What are the major downsides to that? The Nazis had a nationalistic rather than universalist ideology, so it didn’t have the same trans-national appeal that spread communism after the war.
The Nazis would have had a much larger resource base, been located 20 miles from Britain instead of 500 miles, and would have had much better access to the ocean than the Soviets did. Also, if the Nazis had won, their appeal would have been much larger than after they were defeated.
Was large but not WHITE, which you made a requirement when I emphasized population.
God you’re dense. The non-white male population of the British Empire was basically worthless as a military asset, that is the point. The non-white male population of Japan was not worthless as a military asset, but the British did not control the Japanese anyway so why are you even bringing them into the argument?
Paul Emil von Lettow Vorbeck, with a small band of black askaris with German officers and single-shot black powder rifles, was able to take on much larger and better equipped forces of Indians, Afrikaaners & British in east Africa during WW1.
Which is totally irrelevant. Britain in WW2 could only arm and train and motivate limited numbers of non-white troops for front-line service against Germany in WW1 and WW2, or against Japan in WW2.
The Ghurkas and Sikhs were well known for their service in the British military, although not in WW2.
Um, and how many of them were there? Enough to take on the Wehrmacht? Don’t think so.
But if the benefits from Poland & India are equivalent, why does conquering Poland make Germany a great and threatening power while the much larger British empire counts for nothing?
Who said the benefits from Poland and India were equivalent?
They would have been toast without US aid.
Are you referring to “cash and carry”?
All kinds of aid, including financial. Britain was bankrupt in late 1940.
which could only be anti-British
As I mentioned, the Russians were planning on making a modern bluewater fleet. The French had battleships and a carrier (with another planned when war broke out). The U.S built a great bluewater navy and though you may stick up for the indominitable British will, they did become America’s junior partner. I don’t consider any of that anti-British. It would only count as such if you think, as Mencius Moldbug put it, “John Bull owns the world”.
It shouldn’t take a genius to figure out why the US, French, and Soviet navies were no threat to Britain but the German navy was.
the mere fact of German domination of Europe would represent a mortal threat to Britain.
Napoleon never managed to pose a “mortal threat” to Britain, and he was a lot smarter than Hitler and was at it for longer.
Um, yeah, French domination of Europe under Napoleon didn’t pose a mortal threat to Britain because the British stopped him from achieving that domination. If Napoleon had successfully subjugated Europe it would have been a mortal threat to Britain just as Hitler’s domination would have been.
He went after Russia not because he wasn’t “serious” about fighting Britain but because it was the only thing he could do
He must have been really stupid not to grasp your 1. build more ships 2. dominate Britain strategy.
1. and 2. depend on not having a continental enemy and thus not needing an army and thus having more resources to devote to ships and aircraft. Step 0 is defeat France and the USSR.
He also believed that England only refused peace because the Soviets existed
It wasn’t even supporting Britain at the time. If the mere existence of another great power does the trick, that would still leave the U.S.
Its mere independent existence supports Britain by forcing the Germans to maintain the army necessary to deter / defend against the Soviet threat.
Hitler recognized that the Brits were counting on the US as well as the USSR, but he could not do anything to the US, and could do something to the USSR. He also thought eliminating the USSR would offset the threat from the US by increasing Japanese power in the Pacific.
Thus, even Barbarossa had an anti-British aspect to it.
Makes sense if you think the world revolves around them. In a counter-factual with a British-German alliance, would they not have invaded Russia?
From Hitler’s point of view, the world did revolve around Britain. If they stand aside or are defeated, he wins.
Absolutely they would have invaded Russia – and France, too, as step 0 before proceeding to steps 1 and 2 (see above).
Of course Hitler wanted Britain to stand aside and let him do whatever he wanted, but that does not count as “not wanting war with Britain”.
Britain wound up having just that sort of “junior partner” relationship to the U.S. No way that can count as the U.S “not wanting war with Britain”!
Is it so hard to understand that from a British point of view, it is extremely different (and better) to be America’s junior partner rather than Hitler’s? Moreover Britain did not go into WW2 thinking they would emerge as anyone’s junior partner.
“I don’t want to shoot you but I will unless you do what I want.” – the classic statement of a peace-loving friend! (NOT)
If “do what I want” translates as “stop shooting at me” then it makes a pretty good analogy.
Hitler started pointing the gun – and shooting it at British friends – before Britain started shooting.
Chamberlain would have given rearranged the Polish borders if it meant avoiding war, but Hitler did not want to avoid war.
Chamberlain declared war on Germany after they rearranged Poland’s borders. And if Hitler wanted war with Britain, why was he seeking a peace deal shortly afterward? What would be the point of a war with Britain in which he didn’t grab anything from them? Do you seriously believe that he would have been dissapointed if only France had declared war on him after he invaded Poland?
Chamberlain wanted peaceful rearrangement of Poland’s borders, not Poland’s extinction as a state (which was Hitler’s goal). Hitler’s “peace offer” in late 1939 was not serious. He wanted to crush the French and knew he wasn’t going to get war with France without war with Britain.
Attacking a country that Britain had guaranteed against military attack is all the evidence anyone should need that he wanted war with Britain and France.
Their guarantees didn’t do any more for Poland than Czechoslovakia (the French did admittedly invade the Saarland, but didn’t give Poland the air-support they promised).
The actual effectiveness of the guarantee is immaterial. The fact is that attacking a country Britain had guaranteed clearly indicates Hitler wanted war with Britain.
What good is Poland?
Are you serious? Have you never heard the term “lebensraum”?
Yes, and Poland wasn’t it. Poland had not enough food, and too many natives, to constitute Lebensraum. Only the USSR could be Lebensraum, and its population – like that of Poland – would have been significantly reduced after German victory.
His plan was to turn around and attack in the west as soon as he could, and that’s what he did.
France initiated hostilities against Germany rather than the other way around, and it would be more accurate to say that he turned from the west to east to attack Russia (which he had been at peace with).
Again with the fatuous idea that France and Britain were “attacking” poor innocent Hitler. Again, France had a defense treaty with Poland, and thus the German attack on Poland constituted an attack on France, a fact of which Hitler was of course aware.
I’m trying to get at what constitutes limited vs unlimited.
In my view “limited” could only mean revision of Versailles without war – which was certainly on offer from the British and French. Once Hitler started a war with Britain and France by attacking their allies, it could not possibly remain limited.
eliminating France and Britain as independent powers (turning them into junior partners of Germany)
I’ll give you France, but don’t see how Britain’s relationship to Germany had they accepted peace offers would have been any more that of a “junior partner” than was Russie before Barbarossa.
Britain’s political independence would have been hopelessly compromised.
reducing the minor countries of Europe into German satellites
Nobody considers Sweden & Switzerland to have been German satellites. While generally viewed as fascist fellow-travellers, Franco & Salazar behaved the same way with & without Hitler.
They were certainly economic satellites.
building a blue-water Navy capable of deterring or fighting the USA
The USA? You earlier seemed to grant that Hitler wasn’t interested in the western hemisphere, you should really provide an argument for why you think he was.
The navy would probably have been more to deter the USA and to project power in Africa and the Middle East than to fight the USA.
a large colonial realm in Africa
Any evidence for that? The Vichy had territory there and Mussolini wanted to create one. Did the Germans send colonists back to Namibia or Tanganyika?
Take a look at Tomorrow the World by Norman Goda.
A priori, Poland should be MORE integral to defense against the USSR because it between the USSR and western europe.
Not while Germany still exists, and the Brits would have plenty of time to prepare if the USSR attacked Poland and then Germany. The same is not true if Germany attacks Poland.
Invading Poland does not bring the Germans any closer to the allies.
It eliminates 1,000,000 allied troops and a two-front threat, allowing Germany to concentrate in the west.
I just quoted from Mein Kampf: there’s plenty of drang noch osten but nothing about dominating Britain, ambitions in the western hemisphere or colonies in Africa (on the contrary, he considers that racially harmful).
He openly says that DNO is the prelude to Germany becoming a world power, which necessarily means he will dominate Britain if he succeeds.
The book was in retrospect a very good predictor of his actions. He explicitly takes up the notion of an alliance with Russia against the west, but says it could only be an alliance of convenience rather than the one with Britain which would be “not made between arms but between men”. Hitler certainly didn’t predict that he would be committing suicide in a bunker, and nor should he be expected to.
There is no reason to take it totally at face value. For God’s sake, the man expected it to be read in public. There was especially no reason for the British to believe that an alliance with Germany would be anything other than an alliance of convenience for Hitler that would be discarded at Hitler’s convenience.
I’m not claiming any of the material was disingenuous (rather, his later disavowal as a statesmen was) or that he later rejected any of it. I think it is only accurate in predicting his own actions and understanding his goals.
It was perhaps accurate in predicting his thinking in the 1920s when he wrote it. One should not take it as an ironclad guide to his intentions when he actually achieved power 10 years later.
They got away with arresting German intelligence agents and refusing to hand over Giraud. Yes, I think they could have gotten away with more.
With secretly rearming? No way in hell.
and the Morgenthau plan explicitly stated that Germany should be broken up after occupation to prevent it from rising again.
Yeah, and the idea was that would happen after the war. As I said, Hitler might have broken up France after the war but during the war he didn’t need to.
Even within the occuppied region the Vichy government still had its police, militia and administration throughout all of France (other than Alsace-Loraine, though it was not formally annexed). It is also hard to disentangle the occupation of the north & west of France from the continued hostilities with Britain. The southeast was left unoccupied because prior to Operation Torch it was not vulnerable to naval attack, as the occupied zone was.
So what?
Yeah, too bad the plans for all the killing were put in place before the military setbacks occurred
By when?
The intent to kill tens of millions in the East was expressed as early as 1937, and practical plans made during the run up to Barbarossa.
Go read Haushofer, Mackinder, or Spykman.
Which dictionaries did they write? Even if I did accept Mackinder’s “Heartland/Pivot”, it was entirely located in the Soviet Union (even before Stalin) so once they were no longer inferior in “virility, equipment and organization”, they would rule the “world-island” and hence the world. That would just undermine your argument that the Soviets were not dominant.
Nah. He posited that the basis for global domination would emerge as a result of German conquest of Russia or Russian conquest of Germany.
Then so is Mackinder, who you are citing.
No, Mackinder would not agree that the USSR dominated Europe from 1945-89.
Furthermore, I explicitly rejected the claim that they were dominant because I don’t place the bar that low. It was precisely because I rejected it and assumed you would as well that I brought up the idea that the Soviets dominated Europe.
The Cold War was self-evidently an effort to prevent Soviet domination of Europe, which would have been as disastrous for the USA and Britain as Nazi domination of Europe.
Napoleon failed miserably, and he was certainly no less competent than the German general staff.
Napoleon didn’t have railroads, tanks, trucks and aircraft. His defeat was not inevitable – and neither was Hitler’s.
Doesn’t even matter.
Yeah, who needs evidence!
The evidence is there, you’re just determined to ignore it and place all your faith in Hitler’s words in Mein Kampf. Thank God you weren’t Prime Minister of Britain in the 1930s or 1940s!
The Germans claimed to be looking out for the interests of ethnic German minorities who were supposedly being mistreated by eastern european governments. This was of course as disingenuous as the name “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. Poland certainly wasn’t capable of defending England, so this was another one way benevolent defense akin to Britain’s earlier intervention against the Turks, which the rest of Europe accepted because screw the wogs.
Fascinatingly incoherent! The fact remains that Poland had a defensive alliance with Britain and France, and Germany attacked Poland. Germany’s bullshit excuses for doing so are beside the point.
Russia didn’t have a defensive alliance with Ossetia, so this example is irrelevant.
Russia had peacekeeping troops in South Ossettia and were a party to the previous cease-fire agreement between the Georgian government and the South Ossettians.
So they didn’t have a defensive alliance, as I said.
They planned for a long war, they didn’t need to attack immediately.
How comforting for the Poles.
Yup, too bad for them.
Which wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t attacked Poland first. Ergo Poland was the suicidal decision.
Yes, Poland is in the way and it would be quite tough for Germany to invade Russia without going through there first. My point is that if they had taken Poland but not attacked Russia they would not have been committing suicide at all.
Of course they would. What Germany conquered up to June 1941 was not large enough to fight off Britain and the USSR and the USA. If Germany hadn’t attacked the USSR, eventually the USSR would have attacked them. Not attacking Russia only postpones the suicide, it doesn’t avoid it.
In the real-world 1941, German victory did not depend on Finland in any way
And yet you claim that the Finns were fighting for “world domination”. I brought up the Finns because I thought it obvious that if “all the support you could” give to the Allies included supporting the invasion of Finland, that was support there was no reason to give.
I did not claim the Finns were fighting for their own global domination. I said they were fighting in support of the German bid for global domination. The Finns did not have to do this.
If Finland remained neutral it could get all the benefits of German victory without taking any of the risk of punishment after a German defeat.
There are no examples of countries between Germany and the Soviet Union that managed that trick.
Um, because Germany didn’t win! Countries that were sitting on the fence waiting to see if Germany won included Spain and Turkey. If Germany had beaten the USSR, Turkey would have jumped in. If Germany had beaten Britain, Spain would have jumped in. Both Spain and Turkey avoided punishment by remaining neutral.
The fact remains that even though the specific benefit to Finland of German world domination would be small, the Finns were helping the Germans achieve world domination.
That’s completely inconsistent with “German victory did not depend on Finland in any way”.
No, they helped Germany but their help could not be decisive – it did not mean the difference between victory and defeat.
They just held large territories, which precisely what I’m claiming his goal was in eastern europe (in addition to his racial/political antipathy towards the Bolsheviks).
I don’t think there was any reason to believe, even without benefit of hindsight, that he would stop there.
No, that itself would make Germany a global superpower. He explicitly rejects colonies that would not be connected to the Vaterland.
Yet the Reichskolonialbund agitated for precisely that from 1936-43.
The Soviets could easily have kept going, but were satisfied to stop in March 1940.
I guess for certain values of “easily”.
For the value that existed in March 1940, certainly. They were through the Mannerheim line. No similar forts existed between Soviet forces and Helsinki, plus the weather would only improve.
The Soviets were not seeking an alliance with Britain when they made those plans, as you claim Germany was.
They actually entered into such an alliance.
After Germany attacked them!
whereas the only possible naval opponent for Germany was Britain.
The French navy was still the 4th largest in the world (after Britain, the U.S and Japan).
Pshaw. France is not a naval opponent for Germany, because Germany can conquer France even if Germany has no navy at all.
As mentioned, the Russians wanted a fleet, and even if they didn’t the Germans would still be happy to use one against them. Finally, having been blockaded they were probably very anxious to avoid repeating the experience.
The German navy was even less relevant against the USSR than against France!
Who’s going to blockade Germany? Oh, Britain. So we agree the German Navy can only be directed against Britain.
Hitler made no serious effort to accommodate British interests, so why do you think Britain should accommodate Germany’s?
They could have tried to obtain some of those interests in exchange for ending the war, but wouldn’t accept even the offer of the coup-plotters to kill Hitler.
Do you go into a negotiation planning to beg for the right to keep what you already have? That’s what you’re saying the British should have done from 1933 to 1939. After 1939 it was obvious that Hitler had no plans to respect British interests, and thus negotiations would be fruitless. Killing Hitler wouldn’t even solve any British problems after 1941.
No, Germany was responsible for that by attacking Poland.
If they could throw Czechoslovakia under the bus they could do the same for Poland.
They didn’t guarantee Poland before they threw CZ under the bus, they did it after. This was a clear signal that they weren’t going to let Hitler attack Poland, which he ignored, and only Hitler is to blame for the consequences.
In Ribbentrop’s memoirs, he notes that Hitler was surprised that Chamberlain declared war on him after the invasion of Poland and asked his foreign minister “What now?”, to which he had no response.
That still doesn’t make it Britain’s fault or some kind of British aggression when Germany failed to respect the British ultimatum.
According to Klaus Hildebrand, Hitler didn’t really care about the former colonies (though Ribbentrop did) and only used them as a negotiating card with Britain, as the “right of return” for Palestinians is often considered today.
Would have been different had he won the war.
It is a demonstrated fact that Germany knocked out Britain’s allies and established bases to bomb and blockade her.
Poland was not a base of attack against Britain, it’s further away from it than Germany.
Poland was not Britain’s only ally (duuh).
it is simply the case that Britain started bombing Germany before they responded in kind.
OK then, the very first aggressive action between Britain and Germany in WW2 was taken by Germany when she torpedoed the Athenia. Everything Britain subsuquently did in WW2 is therefore justified and was simply a response to this aggression.
Duuuh, the Soviet Union was no threat to Britain in September 1939, and Germany was. Good grief, I can’t imagine anything more obvious than this.
They had instigated communist revolts throughout europe and had agents in the British government. Lenin had written “Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism” to explain why capitalism still persisted in the most industrialized nations, and the Soviet Union did indeed put a lot of energy into anti-colonial movements. Being the largest colonial power, this put Britain square in the cross-hairs. In response to a similar spread of revolutionary ideology, England had declared war on the Jacobins. Winston Churchill certainly saw them as a threat to be extinguished before the war. In my own opinion, I don’t think either the Bolsheviks or Jacobins constituted any mortal threat to Britain and think the reaction was based on the belief that John Bull owns the world.
You’re talking about the early 1920s. From 1933 to 1939 the USSR was no threat to Britain, period.
August 8, 2009 at 11:54 am
Myths of Finnish defeat in the 1941-1944 Finnish-Soviet Continuation War die hard.
Finns were victorious on the battle fields, but – after fire had seized – they agreed to a few concessions, in search for lasting peace.
Importantly – however -, the Finns had succeeded in their objective, to save Finland as an independent and sovereign nation. They had prevented the take-over attempts of USSR, launched by two massive attacks of the Red Army, one initiating the Winter War on November 30, 1939 (ending March 13, 1940), and another initiating the Continuation War on June 25, 1941 (ending September 19, 1944).
Out of all warring nations in Europe during WW2, west from USSR and besides England, Finland came out as the only one whose capital was never occupied during the entire World War. Furthermore, whereas all other European nations bordering USSR ended up either becoming part of it, or were forced into becoming it’s satellites following WW2, Finland – despite of its longest border with USSR – continued as a sovereign democracy throughout WW2, and beyond.
USSR – on the other hand – fell far from its objective, conquering Finland, a goal set forth in Moscow on August 23, 1939, by signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between USSR and Germany. Two days before, Stalin had spelled out his plan to the Soviet State Duma.
August 8, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Pretty much the same points I was trying to make. However, it is telling that the Soviets declined to muster all of their force against Finland after defeating Germany (a stronger opponent, and one they had never managed to occupy before). That’s what made me change my mind to think conquering Finland was not a major priority.
November 5, 2010 at 5:33 pm
“Conquering Finland was” a major priority for the Soviets.
Finally – however -, after the critical ‘Battle of Tali-Ihantala’ and the devastating Soviet loss there, the Soviets decided to begin pulling troops from the Finnish front (what was left of them), to be joined with the Allied forced advancing towards Berlin (note: not before losing in the Battle of Tali-Ihantala first).
Later, in the very end of the Continuation War, the Soviets made their last serious attempt to cut across the Finnish border in Ilomantsi, but they were pushed back.
March 28, 2012 at 1:32 am
[…] actual irrationalism/superstition I come off as just another kind of (Cobden-like) liberal and even universalist. I praised Mark Kleiman’s defence of scientistic social policy, but I agree with […]