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The Great Victor Davis Hanson Takes On World War II
American Thinker.com ^ | Marech 20, 2018 | John Dale Dunn

Posted on 03/20/2018 8:38:37 AM PDT by Kaslin

Victor Davis Hanson is a conservative icon, well known and respected; a prolific author of twenty-plus books and current occupant of a chair of historical, military, and agrarian classical studies; a Ph.D. from Stanford; and the founder of classical studies at University of California at Fresno. ;Now he occupies a chair at the Hoover Foundation of Stanford University.

I first came to know him reading The Western Way of War (1989), which explained the reason for the lethality and effectiveness of Western armies throughout history. ;This past year, he wrote one of his best books: The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict was Fought and Won (Basic Books, 2017).

Hanson titled the book for the fact that there were at least two major wars going on in World War II, and it is a mistake to think of the Axis Powers and the European and Pacific wars as a one big theater of war.

Hanson also sets up the thesis that the Axis Powers succeeded initially only because of the hesitance and even fecklessness of the Allies during the late thirties, when the Nazis and the Bushido Empire expanded without resistance to take regional control and acquire influence, and even more while the major Allied powers pretended not to see the threat or, in some cases, refused to do anything to stop the aggression.

For the French, English, and Americans, the problem was a collective memory of the carnage of WWI and the commitment to pacifism, or at least weak responses to evil and aggression that resulted.

When the Allies committed to unconditional surrender, the game was over. ;

(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: vdh; vdhwwii; victordavishanson; wwii
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1 posted on 03/20/2018 8:38:37 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

People were tired after WWI. Now we’re tired after Viet Nam and endless Gulf wars that solve nothing.


2 posted on 03/20/2018 8:43:10 AM PDT by miss marmelstein
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To: Kaslin

My understanding is that WW2 was three wars in one, not two. First there was the war in Europe, North Africa and the Atlantic, between the Axis and Allies. Then you have the Russian front, between the Germans and Soviets. Finally, the Pacific War was fought between the Japanese and Allies. Currently I am covering the third conflict in my podcast on Southeast Asian history.


3 posted on 03/20/2018 8:46:40 AM PDT by Berosus (I wish I had as much faith in God as liberals have in government.)
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To: Kaslin

A lot of Americans will have to die before this country fights with the resolve and ferocity that it had in the Second Word War. Even then, i’m not so sure.

Millions of people in this country side with our enemies. Millions.


4 posted on 03/20/2018 8:51:43 AM PDT by TTFlyer
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To: Kaslin

Cultural Maxism does tend to tire one out.
Overwhelmed, in fact!
And, after all, OVERWHELM IS “their” goal, now largely achieved via enemy within/without!
GunnyG@PlanetWTF?
Go: POTUS.45! Mr. Cocked & Locked!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++


5 posted on 03/20/2018 8:51:47 AM PDT by gunnyg ("A Constitution changed from Freedom, can never be restored; Liberty, once lost, is lost forever...)
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To: Berosus

I’m halfway through the new Benn Steil book on the Marshall Plan.
It was America’s war against Soviet communism and it’s plan to swallow Western Europe. At the same time, we were rebuilding Japan and within five years, used our footprint in Japan to rebuild South Korea.


6 posted on 03/20/2018 8:51:51 AM PDT by Eric in the Ozarks (Baseball players, gangsters and musicians are remembered. But journalists are forgotten.)
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To: Kaslin
Read the book review in NR and heard him talking about it (C-Span maybe).

Made some great points - so Germany (or Japan) never really thought it through. The US was their biggest enemy, and neither had a way to reach us.
Germany had no navy, and neither country had long-range bombers (or transports).
Neither had their own natural resources (like we did) - they were dependent on getting iron ore and oil (and etc) from across vast, hostile distances.

What the hell WAS their end-game?

7 posted on 03/20/2018 8:56:19 AM PDT by Psalm 73 ("I will now proceed to entangle the entire area".)
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To: Kaslin

Hanson also sets up the thesis that the Axis Powers succeeded initially only because of the hesitance and even fecklessness of the Allies during the late thirties, when the Nazis and the Bushido Empire expanded without resistance to take regional control and acquire influence, and even more while the major Allied powers pretended not to see the threat or, in some cases, refused to do anything to stop the aggression.

><><

That thesis is nothing new. Churchill and others knew that and were very frustrated because of it.


8 posted on 03/20/2018 9:01:06 AM PDT by laplata (Liberals/Progressives have diseased minds.)
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To: Kaslin

Marking.


9 posted on 03/20/2018 9:06:09 AM PDT by Rummyfan (In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel.)
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To: Psalm 73
What the hell WAS their end-game?

Japanese thought they were getting into another Russo-Japanese War of 04'-05' and they would be able to dictate terms after rapping the US on the nose a few times.

Hitler believed he was already at war with the US in the Atlantic anyway despite being on the ground in France in 1918 when the US was pouring in 100,000's of troops every month.

10 posted on 03/20/2018 9:06:47 AM PDT by Snickering Hound
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To: Psalm 73
What the hell WAS their end-game?

Except for WWI and WWII, nearly all the wars in human history have ended up in a peace treaty, not the virtual elimination of one of the 'defeated' enemies. Japan did not invade Russia in the 1904 war, yet won it decisively and achieved regional hegemony. Prussia defeated France in the late 1800's wars without occupying Paris. Their 'end game' was a negotiated peace with a relative advantage over the status quo ante.

Nations go to war for one or both of two reasons: They think they can get away with it (achieve something for a relatively small price) or they think they have nothing to lose (their nation faces destruction anyway).

For the Germans, they thought they could get away with it. Time and again, they moved aggressively and in conflict with treaties and the 'Western powers' did nothing. And they thought they had nothing to lose because Hitler believed that the Aryan peoples needed 'living room' or they would wither within the too-small, too-few-resources space left over from the Treaty of Versailles. If he took Lebensraum from Russia then England and France would accept it. And he was nearly right. When the Battle of France ended, the French army still had more troops under arms and more tanks than the Germans had. So he 'got away with it' against the French, and thought the British (typified by Chamberlain) would not destroy another generation of their young men for France or Poland.

The Japanese were the same. They thought the Western powers were weak and decadent as shown in the war with Russia, the Panay incident, and the way the other nations did nothing when Japan invaded China. And if they did not get control of critical resources their civilization would either collapse or be relegated to third-world status forever. So, they had nothing to lose.

In both cases, their 'end game' was a negotiated peace that provided critical resources they needed to survive as an industrialized nation. History said that should have been achievable. It was not, but that was their plan.
11 posted on 03/20/2018 9:16:01 AM PDT by Phlyer
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To: Snickering Hound
"...would be able to dictate terms after rapping the US on the nose a few times."

Everybody thinks Americans are like everybody else on the planet. We are not.
From Lexington/Concord to Jefferson's "No deals" with the Barbary pirates to "NUTS"! at Bastonge - we are like no other peoples in history.

That's what vexes the libtards about guns - why don't we just fall in line like everybody else?

12 posted on 03/20/2018 9:19:42 AM PDT by Psalm 73 ("I will now proceed to entangle the entire area".)
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To: Phlyer
"History said that should have been achievable. It was not, but that was their plan."

Thanks for that well-thought out response.

13 posted on 03/20/2018 9:22:49 AM PDT by Psalm 73 ("I will now proceed to entangle the entire area".)
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To: Kaslin

I saw VDH on tv a few months back.

He had an absolutely brilliant observation about WWII.

He talked about the impact of the British and American heavy bombers against the Nazis.

He said that the heavy bombing of Germany caused the Nazis to pull their 88mm guns off the Russian front to fire at the bombers.

This allowed the Russian tanks to be much more successful and eventually overrun the Nazis.

What a brilliant observation!

I believe he said that this kept 10,000 88s off the Russian front.


14 posted on 03/20/2018 9:24:08 AM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: Psalm 73

The Americans had left Vladivostok after our intervention in the Russian Civil War in 1920.

And you could pick up a newspaper and read about how shocked Americans were about the casualties and cost of WWI.

The war weariness of the West was a common theme.


15 posted on 03/20/2018 9:28:29 AM PDT by Snickering Hound
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To: blueunicorn6

Love VDH. I will definitely check that book out. Also, it was my understanding that the German 88 was indeed constructed to serve equally well as artillery, anti-tank, and anti-aircraft weaponry. From all accounts, it had a lot of advantages in supply chain and training.

Another interesting observation from an EXCELLENT book “Freedom’s Forge” describes how allied armor was inferior in many aspects of performance and firepower to German armor, but there were two areas where teh allies had a significant advantage: Quantity and reliability.

As the saying goes, quantity has a quality all of its own, but the angle on reliability was not one I had ever considered.

The “reliablity” wasn’t what you might call “operational reliability” or MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure) though that might well have been worse too, but I don’t recall the author mentioning that.

He was talking about what happened when a tank did break down, and how the tank was brought back online and put back into battle.

Apparently, our tanks were constructed using Henry Ford’s mass production techniques that had been developed, refined and sharpened in the 1920’s up to the point we were embroiled in WWII, and those mass production techniques depended less on individual quality of component in some cases, and were more focused on uniform tolerances...for replacement and interchangability purposes.

For example, if a Sherman tank had a cracked manifold, they could go over to any other Sherman tank (say a severely damaged or disabled one) cannibalize a manifold off it, and install it on the tank other tank. It fit without too much fuss if the models were using the same part.

Apparently, that was not the case with German armor, which was constructed via mass production techniques, but had a focus on craftsmanship and making things a custom fit. So if a Tiger tank had a cracked manifold, they could take it off another severely damaged or disabled Tiger tank, but...the manifold would generally not fit quite right. They had to grind, enlarge or drill new holes, etc. to make the thing fit from a functional perspective. So once a tank needed maintenance, it took longer to repair it and required more expertise and manual intervention to make that happen.


16 posted on 03/20/2018 9:47:53 AM PDT by rlmorel (Leftists: They believe in the "Invisible Hand" only when it is guided by government.)
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To: rlmorel

I listened to a presentation from an American WWII Tanker at the Patton Museum.

He showed us the difference between the turret turning speeds of the Sherman and a Panther.

The Sherman turret was powered and the Panther turret had to be cranked.

He said they could get off a couple of rounds before the Panther could get them in their sights.


17 posted on 03/20/2018 10:07:51 AM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: blueunicorn6

The Panther turret was hydraulic but turned slower than the Sherman.

The last model of the Panzer IV, the Panzer IV J, substituted a manually cranked turret for the electric motor in the H to try to speed production.


18 posted on 03/20/2018 10:18:09 AM PDT by Snickering Hound
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To: Snickering Hound

Well, Snick, this one cranked.

I was there.


19 posted on 03/20/2018 10:21:37 AM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: Kaslin; ransomnote; Whenifhow; null and void; aragorn; EnigmaticAnomaly; kalee; Kale; ...

p


20 posted on 03/20/2018 10:26:15 AM PDT by bitt (The first to squeal gets the best deal.)
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