People were tired after WWI. Now we’re tired after Viet Nam and endless Gulf wars that solve nothing.
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.
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.
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!
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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?
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.
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That thesis is nothing new. Churchill and others knew that and were very frustrated because of it.
Marking.
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.
p
bttt
It certainly isn't a primer on the war, that's for sure, in the fashion of John Keegan's one-volume history. It is divided into subject-matter sections that are within themselves chronological but overall, the book isn't. VDH had a little fun with some of the titles - four of them are Earth (infantry and army matters), Air (the air war), Water (naval matters), and Fire (new weapons technology), after the classical Elements. Some of his observations are commonplace but take on a new significance under scrutiny, for example, that the Axis never really did act as if they were allied to one another, no overall strategies or shared campaign plans, and when the Germans did act to save Mussolini's African campaigns they did so at the expense of resources that would have gone into the Barbarossa campaign, whose success it cost them, and it may have cost them the war. Or that Hitler quixotically declared war on the United States after Pearl Harbor without securing any guarantee from the Japanese that they would hold the Soviet armies on the Manchurian border, which armies ended up sealing 6th Army's fate at Stalingrad. Or that even while the Germans were in death-grips with the Red Army their Japanese allies were allowing American Lend-Lease supplies to reach the Soviets through Vladivostok unmolested (50% of them if VDH's sources are correct) through the entire war, even when they themselves were being ground up by the U.S. Navy.
Great stuff, great resource book, and food for a lot of thought. Highly recommended.
I just finished reading this book. I highly recommend it.
I read this book and it is a tour de force offering facts and analysis across numerous major topic areas of how the war was fought and why it ended as it did. There are the well-known blunders, but there are other, less obvious factors, among them, the manufacturing power of the USA and the USSR (and to a lesser extent, England), Germany’s poor manufacturing choices, such as too many vanity and special weapons projects, dissipating manufacturing manpower, money and resources that could have been used to focus on producing massive numbers of additional superb weapons (88’s, Me109’s, trucks, Sturmgewehr 44’s) as force multipliers. Many FReepers are very knowledgeable and astute enough to know a lot of the points but the sheer force and sweep of VDH’s arguments is a pleasure for someone who wants a “big picture” feel for the whole shooting match.
Yes, I’m a VDH fanboy. The man is brilliant, a fine writer and an incredibly solid conservative. What’s not to like?
I read this book and it is a tour de force offering facts and analysis across numerous major topic areas of how the war was fought and why it ended as it did. There are the well-known blunders, but there are other, less obvious factors, among them, the manufacturing power of the USA and the USSR (and to a lesser extent, England), Germany’s poor manufacturing choices, such as too many vanity and special weapons projects, dissipating manufacturing manpower, money and resources that could have been used to focus on producing massive numbers of additional superb weapons (88’s, Me109’s, trucks, Sturmgewehr 44’s) as force multipliers. Many FReepers are very knowledgeable and astute enough to know a lot of the points but the sheer force and sweep of VDH’s arguments is a pleasure for someone who wants a “big picture” feel for the whole shooting match.
Yes, I’m a VDH fanboy. The man is brilliant, a fine writer and an incredibly solid conservative. What’s not to like?