Lessons from the fall of an empire - Roman empire fell, and American empire will fall too !
Armageddon Watch
By Harold James
Published: December 29 2002 19:05 | Last Updated: December 29 2002 19:05
It is the time of year when people are casting about for good books to
read to resolve the current perplexity. If you are sitting in
Washington, there are few guides to the unique position of the US,
whose military expenditure exceeds that of the next 14 countries
combined.
The most frequently cited historical parallels, Britain and its 19th-
century pax Britannica, or 16th-century Spain, the first country to
grasp New World prosperity to dominate the Old World, do not really fit
modern America. Both were locked in rivalry with other nearly equal
European powers: France and (in the British case) Germany.
Washington readers could do worse than go back to a study of the first
real exerciser of unipolar power, the Roman Empire. The book to read is
Edward Gibbon's classic study, whose first volume was (by chance)
published in 1776, the year of the signing of the American declaration
of independence. Gibbon's advice immediately looks quite attractive and
relevant to today.
He begins with praise for the peaceful character of the Emperor
Augustus and of Roman realism and multilateralism: "Inclined to peace
by his temper and situation, it was easy for him to discover that Rome,
in her present exalted situation, had much less to hope than to fear
from the chance of arms; and that, in the prosecution of remote wars,
the undertaking became, every day, more difficult, the event more
doubtful, the possession more precarious, and less beneficial."
Previously secure countries can quickly drift away from the political
grasp of the hegemon, as resentments and anxieties about the
unipolarity of the world grow. Gibbon even had words that might help
President George W. Bush understand or deal with Gerhard Schröder's
would-be independent foreign policy. "The forests and morasses of
Germany were filled with a hardy race of barbarians; and though, on the
first attack, they seemed to yield to the weight of Roman power, they
soon, by a single act of despair, regained their independence, and
reminded Augustus of the vicissitude of fortune." This is a good
description of the often counter-productive psychology of the need to
slap the hegemon. But such revolt alone is not enough to overthrow
hegemonic power.
Why did the Roman version of uni- polarity collapse? Gibbon's empire
depended at the height of its success on a sort of multiculturalism,
which Romans put in terms of the admission of local deities to the
quite crowded complex of the Roman imperial pantheon. In the same way,
the US has recently gone out of its way to show how eagerly it will
embrace a non-threatening version of Islamic (or indeed Hindu or
Confucian) values. A too emphatic insistence on any uniquely Roman
virtue or divinity would destroy a precarious notion of cultural
pluralism. But it was exactly that plurality of a social and economic
kind that proved to be a mechanism of disintegration.
Gibbon saw his story of decline and fall in terms of a revolt against
Roman universalism driven by a Christian and egalitarian protest
against the unequal distribution of property. This was an early version
of an anti-globalisation movement, in which inequalities stemming from
the character of imperial power touched off protests. "Most of the
crimes which disturb the internal peace of society are produced by the
restraints which the necessary, but unequal, laws of property have
imposed on the appetites of mankind, by confining to a few the
possession of those objects that are coveted by many." Maybe Gibbon was
also making a contemporary reference of his own, to the weaknesses of
the late-18th-century British empire, with its global commercial
culture, so signally exposed and attacked by the American Revolution.
This 18th-century historian's picture of empire and its rules breeding
resentment is at odds with a deeply reasoned view, drawn from American
social science, about the way in which the modern world can be made
peaceful. The argument of the September 2002 US national security
strategy initially appears compelling. Because the US can so clearly
outspend and defeat (pre-emptively if necessary) any other power, all
other powers have an interest in cutting back military spending and
threats to their neighbours. This will probably make them wealthier
and, therefore, more democratic and peaceful. The world will in this
manner be stabilised by the benign force of Washington - a dream very
close to that of Augustus.
Which of the arguments is right: the historian's view of long-term
decline and fall, or the social scientist's of permanent peace as a
result of rational calculation by rational leaders?
The answer depends as much on the stability of the country at the
centre as on the behaviour of the rest of the world. The US, unlike the
British empire, is building its rule on a foundation that is
potentially quite unstable. The British empire in its 19th-century
heyday ran enormous current account surpluses (7 per cent of gross
domestic product on the eve of the first world war). For more than 20
years, in the period of its cold war victory and of the conversion of
the world to a new consensus about markets, the US has had quite large
current account deficits. In 2001, the deficit was 4.2 per cent of GDP.
One way of reading this odd situation - which is popular with many
Americans - is that the rest of the world has bought into US stability.
The deficits are financed by capital inflows, as the non-American world
buys the stock of fast-growing US companies or - when the stock market
looks bad - property. Indeed, there appears to be a security premium
that the rest of the world pays, in that non-American purchases of US
assets show consistently lower returns than US purchases of foreign
assets.
But nobody thinks that this kind of inflow can be sustained
indefinitely. The inflows of foreign capital could be rapidly reversed
on some chance piece of bad news. Such a reversal would involve a
collapse of the US stock market, the property market and the dollar. US
consumers would no longer be able to binge on cheap goods supplied by
the rest of the world. American producers would try to protect their
markets; foreign producers would be thrown out of business and no
longer see any gains to be realised by peaceful integration in a benign
world economy.
The financial reversal would also bring the collapse of the US security
policy and of its calculated strategy of world pacification. The cost
of US defence spending would look much too high and scaling it down
would give a chance to would-be rivals, at least on a regional basis -
China, for example.
The American case would then look more like that of Spain (which also
ran a current account deficit, financed by the outflow of precious
metals from its imperial possessions) than that of 19th-century
Britain. And Gibbon's story of decline would begin.
The writer is professor of history at Princeton University and author
of The End of Globalization
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tommy
> resentment is at odds with a deeply reasoned view, drawn from American
> social science, about the way in which the modern world can be made
> peaceful. The argument of the September 2002 US national security
> strategy initially appears compelling. Because the US can so clearly
> outspend and defeat (pre-emptively if necessary) any other power, all
> other powers have an interest in cutting back military spending and
> threats to their neighbours. This will probably make them wealthier
> and, therefore, more democratic and peaceful. The world will in this
> manner be stabilised by the benign force of Washington - a dream very
> close to that of Augustus.
>
> Which of the arguments is right: the historian's view of long-term
> decline and fall, or the social scientist's of permanent peace as a
> result of rational calculation by rational leaders?
>
> The answer depends as much on the stability of the country at the
> centre as on the behaviour of the rest of the world. The US, unlike the
Well you forgot another point. WWII started after the 1929 crash. Liberal
Democracies rolled back their military spending for a decade before 1940s.
So is Global Peace to be is sustained out of fear from the US?
In a new world say 30 years from now smaller nations like N. Korea,
Pakistan, Israel, India do today, will have nuclear weapons and even
biological weapons. So this US defence outspending all others brings peace
is valid for only another 10-30 years. In 30 years perhaps 30 nations will
have nuclear weapons. Some of them, the poor cousins, will only be able to
nuke the entire US just once over.
I think America's current politics will bring America down. That is of
bombing nations ARBITRARY on the pretext of human rights. Why bomb Panama,
Grenada, Libya? Human Rights violations? Fine. What about China. In 1989
Tiananmen Square massacre, tanks ran over 10th people. Turkey in the 90s
murdered 40th Kurds. How can Panama, Grenada etc compare in human rights
violations with these two 'partners' of US?
People (outside the US) realise that there is NOT ONE MAN, least of all Bush
or Chomsky who gives a damn about human rights. Chomsky the fascist got a
prize in Turkey for his 'peace' efforts. Neither in his acceptance speech
nor later did this 'tireless crusader of peace' say ONE iota about the
condition of Kurds in Turkey. If there is injustice somewhere, there is
injustice everywhere.
All are interested in projecting power to the smallest of nations. It is
this ARBITRARY application of 'justice' and power that has sustained wars,
civil wars and dictatorships in the world, and motivates aggressors to do
more. And from these American Funded sources will America get it's payback.
True peace will come when America supports human rights even ABOVE it's
interests. Then aggressors living in a Global Rule of Law will role back
aggression and defence spending. Just like many western citizens don't have
guns in their houses due to the Rule of Law, so too nations in the future
living under a Global Rule of Law will not have armies and still feel safe.
Alternative if America continues Being the Global Bully, many of these
nation will:
a. Try and become America's ally (like Turkey), so they can continue their
gross human rights violations uninterrupted.
b. Or Create Nuclear/Biological Weapons (like China), so they can continue
their gross human rights violations uninterrupted.
To Avoid this we need a Global Rule of Law. That is have in the American
Constitution and UN Charter the non-arbitrary conditions when America and UN
should Bomb foreign nations. America is in a unique position and with unique
power to do this, and if it has credibility the entire world will follow.
Alternative face 30 nuclear nations in 30 years. Of 30 nations traumatised
by America's Arbitrary and Double Standards application of 'justice'. Say
mohhamed attta. Good Luck To Us All.
In a Global Rule of Law once America has a stock market crash, others will
not pounce on the Big Bully, but will help America out. This peace will
transcend situations such as economic shortfalls and stock market crashes.
Peace will no longer be underpinned by fear of US's defence spending
capabilities, but be God Forbid ... GENUINE PEACE.
Hawkeye
Americans to realize that Empire is what they are building and fighting
every war for. Once they realize that their government wants to rule world,
a different attitude will take hold. Lets pray that happens before more
damage is done.
"tommy" <trom...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3e181366$0$27997$afc3...@news.optusnet.com.au...
Mickey
news:72WR9.11$Yr2....@news20.bellglobal.com...
> Excellent post from both of you ---- I find the first big problem is to
get
> Americans to realize that Empire is what they are building and fighting
> every war for. Once they realize that their government wants to rule
world,
> a different attitude will take hold. Lets pray that happens before more
> damage is done.
Blah blah blah <insert some bullshit from those jealous of the USA position
in the world> blah blah blah.
Mickey
Mickey
news:l.104175110...@proxy.schoollink.net...
> Lessons from the fall of an empire
If we are going to use the Romans as an example, come talk to be in
ohhhh.... say about 1000 years.
Mickey
Seanie O'Kilfoyle
"Mickey" <mic...@comcast.netxxx> wrote in message
news:bS6dnYXRX4p...@comcast.com...
> "Hawkeye" <pos...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:72WR9.11$Yr2....@news20.bellglobal.com...
> > Excellent post from both of you ---- I find the first big problem is to
> get
> > Americans to realize that Empire is what they are building and fighting
> > every war for. Once they realize that their government wants to rule
> world,
> > a different attitude will take hold. Lets pray that happens before more
> > damage is done.
>
> Blah blah blah <insert some bullshit from those jealous of the USA
position
> in the world> blah blah blah.
>
> Mickey
>
For once I find myself AGREEING with Mickey
Nicolas
So what? They will still lack the technology to create a delivery
system, unless you think a coutry like Nigeria will gain the technology
necessary to manufacture ICBMs.
Furthermore, Bush cancelled *all* nuclear treaties with Russia a few
months ago and is going full speed ahead with an offshoot of Reagan's
Star Wars defense system.
In 30 years, the poorer countries will be even poorer and the richer
even richer. In this point in time, the only emerging economies are
affiliated and allied with the US and are dependant on the US for trade.
What makes you think this will change in the future?
> I think America's current politics will bring America down. That is of
> bombing nations ARBITRARY on the pretext of human rights. Why bomb Panama,
> Grenada, Libya? Human Rights violations? Fine. What about China. In 1989
> Tiananmen Square massacre, tanks ran over 10th people. Turkey in the 90s
> murdered 40th Kurds. How can Panama, Grenada etc compare in human rights
> violations with these two 'partners' of US?
What about China? I'll tell you about China. Billions upon billions have
been invested in that country (where most of the goods you buy come
from), by the Americans. If you think they'll let 10 deaths thwart them
from their imperialistic tendencies, you're sadly mistaken.
As for the other countries you mentionned, they are of significant
strategic importance to the US, hence the tolerence of Human Rights
abuses by the US. Not that I agree with it, but it's part of the hard
facts of geopolitics. Learn to live with it.
> People (outside the US) realise that there is NOT ONE MAN, least of all Bush
> or Chomsky who gives a damn about human rights. Chomsky the fascist got a
> prize in Turkey for his 'peace' efforts. Neither in his acceptance speech
> nor later did this 'tireless crusader of peace' say ONE iota about the
> condition of Kurds in Turkey. If there is injustice somewhere, there is
> injustice everywhere.
Very cute. You can get off your soap-box now. You sound like a bleeding
heart liberal, even though your ideology is clearly neo-liberal, judging
by the rest of your posts. Make up your mind, already.
> All are interested in projecting power to the smallest of nations. It is
> this ARBITRARY application of 'justice' and power that has sustained wars,
> civil wars and dictatorships in the world, and motivates aggressors to do
> more. And from these American Funded sources will America get it's payback.
Is this supposed to be a revelation?
> True peace will come when America supports human rights even ABOVE it's
> interests. Then aggressors living in a Global Rule of Law will role back
> aggression and defence spending. Just like many western citizens don't have
> guns in their houses due to the Rule of Law, so too nations in the future
> living under a Global Rule of Law will not have armies and still feel safe.
Which will occur at the about the same time hell freezes over.
> Alternative if America continues Being the Global Bully, many of these
> nation will:
>
> a. Try and become America's ally (like Turkey), so they can continue their
> gross human rights violations uninterrupted.
>
> b. Or Create Nuclear/Biological Weapons (like China), so they can continue
> their gross human rights violations uninterrupted.
>
>
>
> To Avoid this we need a Global Rule of Law.
Been there, done that. Wasn't the League of Nations and subsequently,
the UN supposed to accomplish this goal? It failed miserably and, if
anything, gave more of a voice to the transgressors than the abused.
Look at who comprises the security council.
That is have in the American
> Constitution and UN Charter the non-arbitrary conditions when America and UN
> should Bomb foreign nations. America is in a unique position and with unique
> power to do this, and if it has credibility the entire world will follow.
> Alternative face 30 nuclear nations in 30 years. Of 30 nations traumatised
> by America's Arbitrary and Double Standards application of 'justice'. Say
> mohhamed attta. Good Luck To Us All.
Do you really think you're innovating here or setting forth propositions
that haven't been thought of before?
> In a Global Rule of Law once America has a stock market crash, others will
> not pounce on the Big Bully, but will help America out.
They will? Care to wager on that?
This peace will
> transcend situations such as economic shortfalls and stock market crashes.
> Peace will no longer be underpinned by fear of US's defence spending
> capabilities, but be God Forbid ... GENUINE PEACE.
>
In conclusion, more sophomoric, ill-thought drivel from the same source.
I suggest you read some Plato or familiarize yourself with the history
of Humanity. What you are describing is utopic and will never work,
given Human Nature.
Try harder next time. A 10 year old can systematically analyse the
situation better than you.
Nicolas
Amir.M
"Mickey" <mic...@comcast.netxxx> wrote in message news:jJudnYsW2OY...@comcast.com...
Not really . If you take that the Roman Empire originated
somewhere 300 BC then the American Empire originated at
the end of the American revolution in 1776 then you could
argue that the American empire is currently at about 50 BC or
even 50AD . if you follow the same Roman timeline
The Roman Empire officially collapsed by 429AD with the Visigoth sacking of Rome
AD but some would argue that the decline started much earlier and I would
venture to speculate that the Empire collapsed when it was split into two part the
other one being in Constantinople around 200 AD
Therefore by the same timeline the American Empire has 200 years left of
hegemony before it's consigned to historical oblivion
I personally think that it will be much earlier and I predict that China is the
next No1 superpower on the horizon maybe within 20 years
Nicolas
Nicolas
Seanie O'Kilfoyle
"Nicolas" <n...@nbnet.nb.ca> wrote in message
news:wlZR9.4538$Hs3.5...@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
And good old Nicky boy appears to be talking a lot of sense today
I'm beginning to like 2003 already !
iHĞ
>> People (outside the US) realise that there is NOT ONE MAN, least of all Bush
>> or Chomsky who gives a damn about human rights. Chomsky the fascist got a
>> prize in Turkey for his 'peace' efforts. Neither in his acceptance speech
>> nor later did this 'tireless crusader of peace' say ONE iota about the
>> condition of Kurds in Turkey.
Not going to comment about the other parts of your post, but this
caught my eye as I was reading someone else's response, and it's
simply wrong.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=2805
Glad to be of service.
Joseph Hertzlinger
archetypical has-been empire:
If we take Rome as the model, those parts of Roman history that look
eerily familiar to present-day Americans occurred between the time of
Tiberius Gracchus (an analog of JFK) and the time of Crassus (an
analog of H. Ross Perot). I think the best analog for the Current
Unpleasantness occurred about 100 BCE when Rome was attacked by a
bunch of barbarians nobody had heard of before and was defended by
Marius (who made his reputation by jailing a previously untouchable
crook and was subsequently known for professionalizing the armed
forces). In that case, we can expect it will be five hundred years
before Washington is sacked.
The Muslim world, on the other hand, resembles the Roman Empire of
Justinian. It had thoroughly collapsed a century earlier and had even
lost control of the area that had made the universal state possible.
(The Muslim equivalent is the fact that Turkey is now secular.) It was
limited to the core cultural area of the Aegean Sea and Anatolia and
the even more thoroughly decayed civilization of Egypt. It's as though
the American Empire of six hundred years from now consisted of Europe
and possibly the mid-east. Under Justinian, the Roman Empire made a
last feeble attempt to regain its lost glory while simultaneously
shutting down what was left of its intellectual life. It was unable to
keep out previously harmless peoples for long ... just as Muslims are
unable to keep Jews out of Israel.
Roman comparisons work both ways.
Joseph Hertzlinger
wrote:
> Not really . If you take that the Roman Empire originated somewhere
> 300 BC
753 BCE.
OTOH, it started becoming an Empire with the First Punic War (264 BCE).
> then the American Empire originated at the end of the American
> revolution in 1776 then you could argue that the American empire is
> currently at about 50 BC or even 50AD . if you follow the same Roman
> timeline
100 BCE. That's when Marius professionalized the armed forces.
> The Roman Empire officially collapsed by 429AD with the Visigoth
> sacking of Rome AD but some would argue that the decline started
> much earlier and I would venture to speculate that the Empire
> collapsed when it was split into two part the other one being in
> Constantinople around 200 AD
313 CE.
OTOH, maybe Commodus (180 CE) would be a better choice.
> Therefore by the same timeline the American Empire has 200 years
> left of hegemony before it's consigned to historical oblivion
By that time, the Russians might have their act together and we can
hand over the world to another civilized capitalist nation.
One oddity of the last act of the collapse of Rome or the Ottoman
Empire is that the people who created the Empire in the first place
(Italians or Turks) gave it up with much better grace than people in
the original center of the culture in question (Greeks or Arabs).
Maybe the last-ditch die-hard supporters of the obsolete American
Empire will be French.
Tiglath
"Joseph Hertzlinger" <jher...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
news:av9v9v$6ar$2...@slb2.atl.mindspring.net...
> Time for my standard capsule comparison of America and the
> archetypical has-been empire:
>
> If we take Rome as the model, those parts of Roman history that look
> eerily familiar to present-day Americans occurred between the time of
> Tiberius Gracchus (an analog of JFK)
On target.
> and the time of Crassus (an
> analog of H. Ross Perot).
Crassus actually made it as triumvir. He fought an unnecessary war and pay
for it with his life. He is still a candidate for an analogue of George W.
Bush.
> I think the best analog for the Current
> Unpleasantness occurred about 100 BCE when Rome was attacked by a
> bunch of barbarians
I don't get that.
Rome's defense against the Cimbri and the Teutons was a legitimate act of
defense against invaders. The current unpleasantness involves a very good
case for Saddam Hussein to mount an clearly justified, pre-emptive attack on
the United States, which is bent on adding injury to insult.
tommy
"Mickey" <mic...@comcast.netxxx> wrote in message
> "Hawkeye" <pos...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:72WR9.11$Yr2....@news20.bellglobal.com...
> > Excellent post from both of you ---- I find the first big problem is to
> get
> > Americans to realize that Empire is what they are building and fighting
> > every war for. Once they realize that their government wants to rule
> world,
> > a different attitude will take hold. Lets pray that happens before more
> > damage is done.
>
> Blah blah blah <insert some bullshit from those jealous of the USA
position
> in the world> blah blah blah.
>
> Mickey
>
Helloo, America is already SECOND. EU's economy is LARGER than the US. But
they are US allies ... for now. In the 1950s Egypt nationalised the Suez
Canal. Britain and France invaded Egypt while America opposed the invasion.
So some situation can arise in the future that will put these two friends at
odds. EU in the non-distant future might include Russia. That surely will
make the US second.
Portuguese wanted to discover the sea route to India around Africa. They
invented the Caravels, which were the first ocean going ship capable of
navigating around Africa. They had complete monopoly of the Spice Trade and
grew wealthy. But sure enough Spain, France, England, Dutch became 'jealous
of Portugal's position' and simply JUST COPIED them. They adopted the
Caravels and the Spice Trade economy. Only with MORE POPULATION they made
Portugal into a second rate power.
America's income per capita is $35th. China is around $3th. All China and
India have to do is adopt the American Economic Model and in 30 years or so
will reach the American (or European) prosperity of $35 per capita. Only
there will be 1.5 billion capita in China and another 1.5 bn capita in India
verses 300 million in America. Both will be 5 times more powerful than
America.
That already makes America 4th. Today there are 1.5 bn Moslems. What if they
all unite in some EU fashion and adopt the American Economic Model? That
makes America 5th. That's not pretty. And that's without a stock market
crash or financial meltdown.
Empires fall. The Aztecs might not have seen the Spaniards coming, nor the
Romans seen the Goths and the Huns. But the Portuguese saw other powers
emerging and so too does America today.
A world peace underpinned by US defence spending capability is not
sustainable in the future, nor is it safe. This is America's window of
opportunity to create the Global Rule of Law of supporting human rights and
international law ABOVE short term national interests. It is in America's
selfish long term interests to create a genuine peace and justice. America
has nothing to fear from a Genuine Peace.
tommy
news:cisg1vk4pv1a6h2mr...@4ax.com...
I accept he has criticised Turkey's record, perhaps because it's Bush's
ally. But not in his acceptance speech for the peace prize. Having read one
of his interviews, I think Chomsky has no more intellectual integrity than a
nagging aunt.
In Turkey he tried to pursuade the Kurds that a war on Saddam will harm
their interests. When the Kurdish civilians experienced chemical warfare
from Saddam. This war is something Kurds have long being asking for. But
freedom for Kurds is too much for Chomsky. Nothing more would please his
Turkish hosts.
Amnesty International is not allowed in Turkey, but Chomsky is getting
Turkish awards.
http://www.kurdishobserver.com/2002/12/17/hab02.html
"U.S. linguist, author and human rights activist professor Noam Chomsky said
that the Kurds in northern Iraq would suffer seriously from a likely war in
Iraq, emphasizing that hundreds of thousands of people would desert the
region during the war, semiofficial Anatolia news agency reported yesterday.
Coming to Turkey in order to receive the Turkish Publishers' Union's 2002
Peace Prize, Chomsky went to Amed to deliver a lecture on the Iraqi war and
world order."
Matt Giwer
> Lessons from the fall of an empire
> By Harold James
> Published: December 29 2002 19:05 | Last Updated: December 29 2002 19:05
> It is the time of year when people are casting about for good books to
> read to resolve the current perplexity. If you are sitting in
> Washington, there are few guides to the unique position of the US,
> whose military expenditure exceeds that of the next 14 countries
> combined.
Despite the one memorable line from a third rate writer, history does not
repeat and there are no parallels.
When looking for the American empire it is required to look at it in the terms
in which it has developed. It matches Rome only in that there was sort of a
"cold war" between it and Greece before Rome won. The major difference being
when the Soviet Union fell the US did not occupy it, it did not fall by war and
the US is never likely to consider occupying it.
The form of the US empire is one that was honed in perhaps the greatest long
term confrontation ever, our Cold War. The rational response would have been
"Now we can make the UN work like it was intended to work." And with that
withdrawing all troops from around the world save maybe naval bases if the
locals did not have to be throttled into likely them, and disbanding all
organizations like NATO.
Unfortunately the US now has a breed of leaders in office who haven't outgrown
the Cold War any more than the Britain outgrew the first world war. They have no
reason to exist without an enemy. And with little enemies they have the
opportunity for military victories the Soviet Union denied them all of their
frustrated little lives.
Back when I was a grunt in DOD everyone I worked with was truly hoping to end
the damned thing while only peripherally wondering what we would do without a
need for constant preparations for war. These clowns want war and the objective
is not an empire but hegemony. The difference being they will settle for control
rather than direct rule.
Previous empires ruled directly usurping enough local powers to let them know
who was boss. The US will only have ambassadors and advisors to remind them what
decisions they are to make or else they will become new Hitlers and be removed.
Central Europe has learned with Milosevic as the horrible example. The mideast
is about to learn with Hussein. They will be ostensibly independent but if they
cross the US they will be attacked.
How long this can last depends upon how long those under US control are willing
to put up with it.
Another issue is, in the absense of the US, some other country will try for the
same control. Human nature is such that everyone will not sit back and forget
world domination. Forget that. Passive peace is not an option. It is not human
nature.
So the issue becomes if the US is more palatable than other countries. In that
regard, the US as the "melting pot" is in the best position to be the least
unacceptable. That is not much of a recommendation.
Despite the current hassle of mideast people in the US, the numbers are only a
few thousand and there is active opposition to it and no one in the opposition
has "disappeared" or suddenly become silent. That is a very good sign. The US
may not have many Arab speakers but it has substantial spokesrats from every
nation on earth from India to Ghana and a policy of pro-active civil rights.
If any country is the least unacceptable it is the US.
The usual question is, can the US pull it off. The proper question is should
the US try and if so, try what?
The obstacle to is all is US internal politics. That is what has busted all
previous attempts at anything on a large scale. Remember history does not repeat
and there are no parallels in development. There are only elements of power and
influence.
What we are seeing today is the internal politics of the US insisting upon war
with Iraq to no benefit to the world or the Mideast or the US. The Greek, Roman,
Spanish, British, French, and Russian Empires at least considered themselves
empires and their politics were directed towards being empires.
The example that raises the most controversy is Israel vs Islam. The benefit to
the US is the imposition of peace on the entire Mideast rather than the
promotion of Israel regardless of pro or con Israel positions. But the internal
politics of the US are, quite frankly, Israel uber alles. That cannot bring
peace. But the US cannot get its own house in order to come up with a definition
of "what the US wants to be" in the world.
Part of the problem is that WWII propaganda -- which no rational person takes
as more than propaganda -- intrudes upon decision making. The fact is the US
faught WWII because nations declared war on it and no other reason. All that
liberation talk was to insult the intelligence of our parents by expecting them
to believe it. But some of us children of our parents actually believe what they
laughed at in private because they suspected their neighbors who were also
laughing in private. No one really trusts the government or their neighbors not
to be government informants nor what the government might do to them.
The Emperor's New Clothes is realizing we are the government. Orwell said it
differently. If you actually have to confront a government agent up to no good,
blow his head off as he is wearing body armor.
If the US sets out to control the world -- hegemony -- based upon internal
politics it is doomed to failure sooner than later. And that is the approach the
US is taking. Such politics may make total sense inside the US but they are
meaningless even in Canada and Mexico much less further away. Again the Mideast
example, internal US politics has nothing to do with the politics in the
Mideast. It may get people elected in the US but it does not get "votes" in the
Mideast. Therefore internal politics as currently structured cannot work as the
basis for hegemony.
So why should the US do it rather than "The UN can finally do what it was
intended to do?" There is no reason. China is almost completely on board these
days and that means all the Security Council members are singing from the same
hymnal. The Cold War no longer exists so there is no longer a reason for US
politics to supercede UN politics and earn enemies for the US.
--
Israel has been offered peace and has refused.
There is nothing else to do for them.
-- The Iron Webmaster, 1414
BernardZ
>
> "Joseph Hertzlinger" <jher...@ix.netcom.com> wrote in message
> news:av9v9v$6ar$2...@slb2.atl.mindspring.net...
> > Time for my standard capsule comparison of America and the
> > archetypical has-been empire:
> >
> > If we take Rome as the model, those parts of Roman history that look
> > eerily familiar to present-day Americans occurred between the time of
> > Tiberius Gracchus (an analog of JFK)
>
> On target.
Agreed. At this particular point, the Romans were starting to turn from
a country to an Empire. An most empires find out suddenly Rome
discovered that she had interests all over the globe.
>
>
> > and the time of Crassus (an
> > analog of H. Ross Perot).
>
> Crassus actually made it as triumvir. He fought an unnecessary war and pay
> for it with his life. He is still a candidate for an analogue of George W.
> Bush.
This is probably stretching the analogy too much.
>
>
> > I think the best analog for the Current
> > Unpleasantness occurred about 100 BCE when Rome was attacked by a
> > bunch of barbarians
>
> I don't get that.
>
> Rome's defense against the Cimbri and the Teutons was a legitimate act of
> defense against invaders.
To the Romans, every war that they fought was a defensive war.
> The current unpleasantness involves a very good
> case for Saddam Hussein to mount an clearly justified, pre-emptive attack on
> the United States, which is bent on adding injury to insult.
Consider it from the point of view of an empire. Saddam is disruptive.
He must go.
William Black
"Matt Giwer" <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote in message
news:3E193D1C...@tampabay.rr.com...
The Nazi shit is back
--
William Black
------------------
On time, on budget, or works;
Pick any two from three
tiglath
>
> When looking for the American empire it is
> required to look at it in the terms
> in which it has developed. It matches Rome
> only in that there was sort of a
> "cold war" between it and Greece before
> Rome won.
Cold War?
Matt, the historical poseur, should tell us more about this Cold War
between Rome and Greece.
First, there was no Greece. The ancient Greeks never formed a nation.
There were just states speaking a common language and sharing common
religious festivals.
The wars between Greek states and Rome were always hot. Once King
Pyrrhus gave Rome the excuse for payback, and after dispatching the
Punic threat, Rome turned to the Greek states and consumed them along
the rest of the Mediterranean. There was no "containment" and no Cold
War. Matt is revising history again, as he so often does. He knows a
little Nazi history properly revised for his racist agenda, but when
it comes to the ancient world he is a laugh and a half, yet he has
incrusted himself in soc.history.ancient like a putrid barnacle,
driving away posters that we would rather have over there instead of
him.
>
> Previous empires ruled directly usurping enough local powers to let them know
> who was boss.
This is a contradiction. Direct rule doesn't allow a native ruler.
Indirect rule does. Matt's statement is also false. The Persians,
for instance, had an empire in which local monarchs paid tribute to
the Persian crown. Hence, the Persian king title of King of Kings.
> The example that raises the most controversy is Israel vs Islam. The benefit to
> the US is the imposition of peace on the entire Mideast rather than the
> promotion of Israel regardless of pro or con Israel positions. But the internal
> politics of the US are, quite frankly, Israel uber alles. That cannot bring
> peace. But the US cannot get its own house in order to come up with a definition
> of "what the US wants to be" in the world.
I hate to agree with Matt here, but this is right.
Were it not for the serious blunder of allowing a Jewish state to rise
in the middle of an Arab sea without Arab consent, and the unjust and
immoral acts the U.S. finds it necessary to commit to keep Israel
safe, the U.S. would be far more popular and viewed as much more a
benign master by those it seeks to exert influence over (the inner
solar system).
Schlau
Things are a bit more complicated then that. For example, for
the first fifteen years of it's existance, the US maintained a
complete arms embargo upon Israel, and it was the Soviet Union
via Czechoslovakia that first armed Israel in '48. And ironically,
the Jordanians and Lebbanese whom Israel fought against in '67, were
the ones flying US built jets, F-4 Phantoms, while Israel flew
French Mirages. And as late as 1973, France, not the US that was
Israel's main arms supplier.
Also even without Israel, there was still US actions in the rest
of the Middle East, such as supporting the Shah of Iran, which wasn't
popular to say the least, and US support of the Turkish government, which
didn't endear the US to the Arabs and Iranians anymore then it does to
the Kurds.
--Oscar Schlaf--
http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/schlaf/
"Nihil Nisi Optimum"
BernardZ
> > > case for Saddam Hussein to mount an clearly justified, pre-emptive attack on
> > > the United States, which is bent on adding injury to insult.
> >
> > Consider it from the point of view of an empire. Saddam is disruptive.
> > He must go.
>
Look at the up teen wars that he has caused. One was the third biggest
war in the post WW2 history. Sounds pretty disruptive to me!
>
>
> That's why from the point of view of the Empire he "must go".
Everything in this world tends to measured from the Empire's point of
view.
From the point of view of this *Spengler* view of world history, its the
empire that matters here not the frontier. It will be about 400 years
before anyone can take it on.
BernardZ
@tiglath.net says...
> Matt Giwer <jul...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote in message
>
> >
> > When looking for the American empire it is
> > required to look at it in the terms
> > in which it has developed. It matches Rome
> > only in that there was sort of a
> > "cold war" between it and Greece before
> > Rome won.
>
> Cold War?
>
> Matt, the historical poseur, should tell us more about this Cold War
> between Rome and Greece.
>
> First, there was no Greece. The ancient Greeks never formed a nation.
> There were just states speaking a common language and sharing common
> religious festivals.
>
> The wars between Greek states and Rome were always hot. Once King
> Pyrrhus gave Rome the excuse for payback, and after dispatching the
> Punic threat, Rome turned to the Greek states and consumed them along
> the rest of the Mediterranean. There was no "containment" and no Cold
> War.
Before the Punic wars, a three way contest existed between the Romans,
the various Greek states and the Carthagians. Rome could have lost.
<snip - comment I agree with about Matt>
>
>
>
>
>
> >
> > Previous empires ruled directly usurping enough local powers to let them know
> > who was boss.
>
> This is a contradiction. Direct rule doesn't allow a native ruler.
> Indirect rule does.
True but say in India during the period of British rule. We have native
rulers and yet all of them would know who was boss.
<snip -more about Matt>
>
>
>
> > The example that raises the most controversy is Israel vs Islam. The benefit to
> > the US is the imposition of peace on the entire Mideast rather than the
> > promotion of Israel regardless of pro or con Israel positions. But the internal
> > politics of the US are, quite frankly, Israel uber alles. That cannot bring
> > peace. But the US cannot get its own house in order to come up with a definition
> > of "what the US wants to be" in the world.
>
> I hate to agree with Matt here, but this is right.
>
> Were it not for the serious blunder of allowing a Jewish state to rise
> in the middle of an Arab sea without Arab consent, and the unjust and
> immoral acts the U.S. finds it necessary to commit to keep Israel
> safe, the U.S. would be far more popular and viewed as much more a
> benign master by those it seeks to exert influence over (the inner
> solar system).
At the time the US would have had to intervene to stop Israel from
happening. Now the deed is done. The Arabs will just have to learn to
live with it.
Manuel Silva
Neither in his acceptance
speech
> >> nor later did this 'tireless crusader of peace' say ONE iota about the
> >> condition of Kurds in Turkey.
>
I think you guys have a problem reading English....
Did you really read the article written by Chomsky at:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=2805
Because if you did read it, you would kown that Chomsky is aware of the
Kurds situation, and writting about it!!!
Please Read !!!
"While in Istanbul, I was able to visit the miserable slums where unknown
numbers of Kurdish refugees seek to survive the damp cold winter months in
decaying condemned buildings: large families may be crammed into a single
room with young children virtually imprisoned unable to venture into the
dangerous alleyways outside, and older children working in illegal factories
to help keep the family alive. They too are effectively barred from
returning to the homes from which they were expelled, despite the new
legislation that lifts the state of emergency in southeastern Turkey --
formally, at least.
The founder and director of the KHRP is also barred from returning to his
country."
Human Rights Week 2002
by Noam Chomsky
December 28, 2002
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=2805
Bolshoy Murza
Actually Spengler gave the West far less time than that. Remember he
wrote that it was to Dostoyevsky that the next 1000 years of
Christianity would belong. The aspects of decay that he described at
the West would not allow for another 400 years' existence; plus when,
as he predicted, the West's greed would allow its technologies to fall
into the hands of the "barbarian" peoples, they would take the West
down.
How long till fanatic Arabs get nukes?
regards,
Bolshoy Murza
tiglath
wrote in
> >
> > in the middle of an Arab sea without Arab consent, and the unjust and
> > immoral acts the U.S. finds it necessary to commit to keep Israel
> > safe, the U.S. would be far more popular and viewed as much more a
> > benign master by those it seeks to exert influence over (the inner
> > solar system).
>
> At the time the US would have had to intervene to stop Israel from
> happening. Now the deed is done. The Arabs will just have to learn to
> live with it.
The problem with that thinking is that Arabs clearly don't. That's
why we have one of the ugliest conflicts carrying over from the
mistakes of the twentieth century with no end in sight.
The heat of that conflict is now felt worldwide. It affects oil
prices, air travel, and there are terrorist movements bent on
punishing those who help the Zionists. From where I sit it doesn't
look anywhere near to Arabs "learn to live with it."
------------------------
I am a fervent anti-Zionist, no apologies, but I make the careful
distinction between Zionists and Jews since most Jews are very happy
living in the Diaspora and have no intention to go steal land from the
Palestinians much as in their heart may support the Zionist cause.
The world has, however, a Jewish Problem.
I am well aware that there are many people of Jewish heritage that do
not fall into the group, the Jews, I refer to below, good for them. I
don't allude to them.
I welcome reasoned debate on this issue but I am quite immune to
mindless reactionaries that can only yell "anti-Semitic" to any
utterance less than glowing about Jews and Israel.
By Jewish Problem I mean both the problems the Jews have been having
from the mid eighth century B.C. to this day with anti-Semitism, AND
the problems non-Jews have been having with Semitism since Cyrus II
freed the Babylonian Jews to create the first Diaspora.
Idiot Check -- By Jewish Problem I do NOT mean that many Jews remain
ungassed.
By Semitism, here I mean Judaic Semitism, since Arabs and Syrians are
also Semites.
I have come to view Semitism and anti-Semitism as toxin and antitoxin:
their presence is abnormal and indicates a pathological condition.
The segregation which the Jews practise in order to preserve their
racial purity from non-Jews is entirely voluntary on their part.
If Jews freely intermarried with non-Jews, then the Jewish race, as
such, would cease to exist; and, with its disappearance, the Jewish
Problem would disappear. It is solely because the Jews insist on
preserving their racial identity and refuse to become assimilated with
the Gentiles that they are and have problem in every country in which
they settle.
Their clannishness gives them many advantages. Being all of one
"family" they are naturally disposed to help one another, and to
further the interests of their own community even at the expense of
the general community, in the midst of which they live, but from which
they deliberately hold themselves, in perpetuity, apart. That this
self-segregation is advantageous to Jews is obvious from the fact
that, by practising it, their race has survived and flourished for
thousands of years, though scattered among many communities and
nations larger than their own. Yet their exclusiveness, with all its
advantages, also has disadvantages.
The answer to Semitism is anti-Semitism; and when Jews gain too many
advantages for themselves, by their practice of self-segregation, they
invariably find that the majority of non-Jews will resent, and
eventually will curb, the privileges which the Jews have won for
themselves by concerted factional action.
As a non-Jew, I my prejudices are non-Jewish; and this means that, in
any conflict of interests between Jews, on the one hand, and non-Jews
on the other, my instincts place me naturally in the non-Jewish camp.
When I see an organised minority of Jews, actuated by their
self-interest, engaging in operations for their own sectional
self-aggrandisement against the interests of the country as a whole or
of the non-Jewish majority in it, then, as a non-Jew, I claim the same
right to organise non-Jews to safeguard the interests our interests.
The political validity of anti-Semitism, therefore, is no more and no
less than that of Semitism; for, if there were no Semitism, there
would be no need of anti-Semitism to counteract it. I don't believe
that counter-action should be violent, but such that it matches and
counteracts the action effectively -- an antidote of sufficient
strength to neutralise the irritant, without becoming itself toxic.
Anti-Semitism arises when as an organised minority, the Jews exercise
an influence disproportionate to their numbers, as compared with the
unorganised majority of non-Jews. It is clear that a minority which
knows what it wants, and can organise to get it, has an immense
advantage over a purposeless, lulled, and apathetic mob. That is the
case in the United States.
It is almost universal to abhor the thought of organised
anti-Semitism, because it is believed that this must lead to massacres
of Jews, or other ill-treatment of them, as so often happened
previously in human history. But are we to assume that the Jewish
Problem is insoluble in any other way than by force? To claim that a
mere discussion of Semitism might lead to pogroms, and therefore we
must make it taboo, is surely tantamount to an admission that Semitism
has a case that is logically weak, when presented for approval to
non-Jews. The taboo, to be fully effective, should be applied also to
arguments in favour of Semitism.
Our hearts may be temporarily moved with pity for the plight of people
who have suffered the monstrosity of the Holocaust, but there can be
no guarantee that they will not become similarly disliked and unwanted
here if they continue to hold our politicians in a testicular grip.
Tapes from the White House showed recently that there is a notion out
there from the president to the man in the street of the excessive
influence Jews exert in this country. History tells them to proceed
with caution.
They know the remedy and it is simple: let them cease to be Jews,
intermarry freely with Gentiles, abandon their claim to be "The Chosen
Race," abandon their exclusiveness, mix with the common stock of the
community which gives them refuge. If they did that, if they ceased to
be Jews there would be no Jewish Problem.
Alternatively they could form a state. Nothing wrong with that
notion, but the implementation of the idea was carried out in the
worst way, and what could have rid Jews and non-Jews of the Jewish
Problem by letting them gather in their own land, has provoked instead
a festering sore on the face of the Earth, and... a large Diaspora
continues to exert influence in many countries around the world,
especially the U.S., to the detriment of non-Jews... and the Jews of
Israel live in totally unenviable conditions -- the worst of all
worlds.
It can never be true that "all men are brothers," either within one
nation or in the world at large, or that we are all "Americans" first,
while Jews continue to practise an extreme form of biological
differentiation through rigid selective breeding.
Jews cannot have it both ways. They cannot expect to be listened-to
with respect when they preach to gentiles the universal oneness of
mankind, while at the same time they, as Jews, remain a race apart.
It is when this discrepancy between their words and their actions is
recognised, that Jews become disliked by non-Jews. Nobody likes to be
humbugged
Semitism today means that I cannot write that much without being
charged of attempting to malign Jews or appeal for their persecution,
when what I want is to expose and explain Semitism, and anti-Semitism
without justifying its most deplorable manifestations.
James A. Donald
On 7 Jan 2003 09:24:59 -0800, bolsho...@hotmail.com (Bolshoy
Murza) wrote:
> Actually Spengler gave the West far less time than that.
> Remember he wrote that it was to Dostoyevsky that the next
> 1000 years of Christianity would belong.
Spengler predicted Caeserism -- that the likes of Hitler and
Stalin would prevail. Had they prevailed, the west would have
declined in the manner predicted. Instead they failed.
> How long till fanatic Arabs get nukes?
If they do, they will use them on each other, and if they use
them on us, we will turn the sand to glass.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
haaJVgeg7y4WJJcm0F2rS0F4AptPjt/Sez7jxJAU
4doKxhyCf7OVahoCUPbuqmQ8KaZS+x+DGuEtCZein
Schlau
> wrote in
> > >
> > > Were it not for the serious blunder of allowing a Jewish state to rise
> > > in the middle of an Arab sea without Arab consent, and the unjust and
> > > immoral acts the U.S. finds it necessary to commit to keep Israel
> > > safe, the U.S. would be far more popular and viewed as much more a
> > > benign master by those it seeks to exert influence over (the inner
> > > solar system).
> >
> > At the time the US would have had to intervene to stop Israel from
> > happening. Now the deed is done. The Arabs will just have to learn to
> > live with it.
>
>
> The problem with that thinking is that Arabs clearly don't. That's
> why we have one of the ugliest conflicts carrying over from the
> mistakes of the twentieth century with no end in sight.
>
> The heat of that conflict is now felt worldwide. It affects oil
> prices, air travel, and there are terrorist movements bent on
> punishing those who help the Zionists.
The terrorist movements are against western influence in
the Middle East in general, not specifically support of
Israel. British & Russian interferance in Middle Eastern affairs
goes back centuries, before Zionism in it's modern form was even
thought up. For example current day Dagestan & Chechnya were once
part of Persia before Czarist Russia took them and Iran remembers
this as much as they remember the British forcing oil concessions
upon the Shah in the years just before WWI. And neither of those
things have a thing to do with Israel or Jews in general..
> By Jewish Problem I mean both the problems the Jews have been having
> from the mid eighth century B.C. to this day with anti-Semitism, AND
> the problems non-Jews have been having with Semitism since Cyrus II
> freed the Babylonian Jews to create the first Diaspora.
From the 8th cen BC up until the 20th cen. the only real legitimate
"problem" anyone had with the Jewish Semites was when Jews had the
crazy notion of not wanting Judea/Palestine controled by others, be
it the Greeks or the Romans, and decided to rise in revolt.
--Oscar Schlaf--
http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/schlaf/
"Låt dem hata, så länge de fruktar."
tommy
"Manuel Silva" <_m.fial...@netcabo.pt> wrote in message
news:3e1af200$0$858$a729...@news.telepac.pt...
> > > Apparently, "tommy" wrote
>
> Neither in his acceptance
> speech
> > >> nor later did this 'tireless crusader of peace' say ONE iota about
the
> > >> condition of Kurds in Turkey.
> >
>
> I think you guys have a problem reading English....
> Did you really read the article written by Chomsky at:
> http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=2805
>
> Because if you did read it, you would kown that Chomsky is aware of the
> Kurds situation, and writting about it!!!
>
> Please Read !!!
>
> "While in Istanbul, I was able to visit the miserable slums where unknown
> numbers of Kurdish refugees seek to survive the damp cold winter months in
I didn't argue if that he walked through Kurdish slums or not. I also don't
dispute that his work on linguistics is very influential. I said in his
acceptance speach for his peace prize he didn't mentioned one 'iota' about
the Kurds in Turkey. I bet the fascist thought, 40th Kurds died in the civil
WAR that's STILL ON in Turkey, who really cares anyway right? Especially
during a PEACE prize ceremony? I do accept once in America he does criticise
Bush's allies.
I also don't disagree that he talks about human rights. But I think his
political views are partisan, lack any credibility or originality. They
might look original and non-partisan to you.
If you yourself look deeper and start asking what's his position on
affirmitive action, pay leave for mothers, welfare and taxation and a range
of other issues that are important to working Americans, he will sound more
and more like any politicians that hasn't being elected to office yet.
If he was the greatest intellectual of our era why doesn't he solve the
greatest issue of our era. How to increase welfare and decrease tax at the
same time. That would be original. He clearly lacks the capacity to do so.
He should stick to his linguistics. Not only will this benefit American
families, but countries everywhere could copy it. Nagging at Bush's foreign
policy is an easy target. I can do it, you can do it, but Saddam does it
better.
Bolshoy Murza
> --
> On 7 Jan 2003 09:24:59 -0800, bolsho...@hotmail.com (Bolshoy
> Murza) wrote:
> > Actually Spengler gave the West far less time than that.
> > Remember he wrote that it was to Dostoyevsky that the next
> > 1000 years of Christianity would belong.
>
> Spengler predicted Caeserism -- that the likes of Hitler and
> Stalin would prevail. Had they prevailed, the west would have
> declined in the manner predicted.
Actually Spengler was right. Hitler's Caesaerism did prevail over the
West - as the pre-Barbarossa events proved. The resistence of the
liberal democracies was a sham; Britain's fall would have been
inevitable. Spengler's claim that money would never defeat raw power
proved true.
Spengler did not include Stalin as a Western Caesar, but as an Asian
despot (and as such, one who would ultimately control the future). He
warned that if Germany would be stupid enough to attack Russia - an
act he likened to striking the air (a madness reminiscent of
Caligula's battle against Neptune), than Germany would exit the
historical stage. And he predicted Nazi stupidity, too.
Spengler died in 1936, too soon to see the atom bomb which was the
only thing that prevented the Russians from just seizing all of the
West as Spengler predicted.
As for decline - it follows according to plan. As Berdyaev pointed
out, Spengler did not take the power of religion into account, but as
religion recedes his vision holds true. The West exists in a healthy
form only where Christianity also exists in a healthy form, presently
in Poland and Western Ukraine.
> Instead they failed.
>
> > How long till fanatic Arabs get nukes?
>
> If they do, they will use them on each other, and if they use
> them on us, we will turn the sand to glass.
Really? I doubt it.
regards,
Bolshoy Murza
Adam Meadows
> James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote in message news:<uj5m1vkb14f2pv00g...@4ax.com>...
> > --
> > On 7 Jan 2003 09:24:59 -0800, bolsho...@hotmail.com (Bolshoy
> > Murza) wrote:
> > > Actually Spengler gave the West far less time than that.
> > > Remember he wrote that it was to Dostoyevsky that the next
> > > 1000 years of Christianity would belong.
> >
> > Spengler predicted Caeserism -- that the likes of Hitler and
> > Stalin would prevail. Had they prevailed, the west would have
> > declined in the manner predicted.
>
> Actually Spengler was right. Hitler's Caesaerism did prevail over the
> West - as the pre-Barbarossa events proved. The resistence of the
> liberal democracies was a sham; Britain's fall would have been
> inevitable. Spengler's claim that money would never defeat raw power
> proved true.
>
Britain's fall was far from inevitable.
> Spengler did not include Stalin as a Western Caesar, but as an Asian
> despot (and as such, one who would ultimately control the future). He
> warned that if Germany would be stupid enough to attack Russia - an
> act he likened to striking the air (a madness reminiscent of
> Caligula's battle against Neptune), than Germany would exit the
> historical stage. And he predicted Nazi stupidity, too.
>
It seems like this Spengler guy covers his bets pretty well. If the
Nazis win then it's proof of the triumph of raw power and Caesaerism
over money and democracy and if they lose then it's proof of Nazi
stupidity.
> Spengler died in 1936, too soon to see the atom bomb which was the
> only thing that prevented the Russians from just seizing all of the
> West as Spengler predicted.
>
The Russians would have been hard pressed to have conquered the West
at any time. I don't think it could have been done, even in the
West's weakened state in '45. The Russians were still pretty poor
tacticians and lacked several key technologies (including the atom
bomb) that would have made victory (on foreign soil thousands of miles
from home no less) nigh impossible.
I don't know how much Stalin knew about the West's atomic capabilities
pre-Hiroshima. Anyone know? If he knew nothing about our secret
weapon, then what stopped him from pressing the attack in 45? If he
knew a lot, then he knew that after Nagasaki, we were temporarily
spent; again he would have attacked if that was the only thing
stopping him. Surely he had spies and scientists that would give him
some idea of the US's nuclear capacity at that time. It could not
reasonably have been much so why not attack then? Is he worried about
long term nuclear strikes? Maybe... My point is that I think there
were other factors besides the bomb that stayed his hand.
Now from the mid 50s onward, the nuclear threat wielded by both sides
undoubtedly served to dampen any military ambitions on both sides.
> As for decline - it follows according to plan. As Berdyaev pointed
> out, Spengler did not take the power of religion into account, but as
> religion recedes his vision holds true. The West exists in a healthy
> form only where Christianity also exists in a healthy form, presently
> in Poland and Western Ukraine.
>
I beg to differ. I can see plenty of healthy West from where I sit.
And I am no where near those areas. I think the west could grow
stronger as it abandons religion...
> > Instead they failed.
> >
> > > How long till fanatic Arabs get nukes?
> >
> > If they do, they will use them on each other, and if they use
> > them on us, we will turn the sand to glass.
>
>
> Really? I doubt it.
>
Which part? If it is the former, then I share your doubt. If it is
the latter point, rest assured that a nuclear strike by any government
against the US would be met in kind. More problematic is a nuclear
attack against Israel or US allies by a non-government sponsored group
like Islamic Jihad... I am not sure how likely this is, but how would
the US respond?
Adam
James A. Donald
Bolshoy Murza:
> > > Actually Spengler gave the West far less time than that.
> > > Remember he wrote that it was to Dostoyevsky that the
> > > next 1000 years of Christianity would belong.
James A. Donald:
> > Spengler predicted Caeserism -- that the likes of Hitler
> > and Stalin would prevail. Had they prevailed, the west
> > would have declined in the manner predicted.
Bolshoy Murza:
> Actually Spengler was right. Hitler's Caesaerism did prevail
> over the West
Could have fooled me.
> - as the pre-Barbarossa events proved. The resistence of the
> liberal democracies was a sham;
No it was not. French resistance was a sham, for which the
french are rightly derided to this day. British resistance was
real and effective.
> Britain's fall would have been inevitable.
Britain won the battle of Britain, Australia won the battle of
the kokoda trail.
Both of these were defensive victories, they "won" by holding
off the enemy. But Hitler's strategy, like Japan's was
predicated on a quick victory. As soon as Germany and Japan
were denied that quick victory, their whole strategy fell
apart. Suddenly Japan found itself throwing its finest men
into the meat grinder, a process that ate the guts out of its
army.
Hitler, fearing stalemate, turned east, hoping a quick victory
there would enable him to attack the British empire by land,
meeting up with his Japanese allies. At that time, everyone
thought, not entirely incorrectly, that due to the economic
ruin Stalin had inflicted on Russia, and the slaughter of his
finest generals, Russia was less significant militarily than
Poland, and at first this proved true, though things changed
when the US started supplying the Soviet armies and industry.
Had Hitler's strategy succeeded, America would have come into
the war to rescue Britain. It could less tolerate a world
dominated by Hitler than a world dominated by the Kaiser.
Against the British empire and the US combined, Hitler could
not prevail.
> Spengler's claim that money would never defeat raw power
> proved true.
Which is doubtless why the Soviet Union is a going concern
today. :-)
> Spengler died in 1936, too soon to see the atom bomb which
> was the only thing that prevented the Russians from just
> seizing all of the West as Spengler predicted.
>
> As for decline - it follows according to plan. As Berdyaev
> pointed out, Spengler did not take the power of religion into
> account, but as religion recedes his vision holds true. The
> West exists in a healthy form only where Christianity also
> exists in a healthy form, presently in Poland and Western
> Ukraine.
The Ukraine is as far from healthy as it can be -- it is near
social and political collapse.
> > > How long till fanatic Arabs get nukes?
James A. Donald:
> > If they do, they will use them on each other, and if they
> > use them on us, we will turn the sand to glass.
Bolshoy Murza
> Really? I doubt it.
Stalin did not doubt the equivalent. I do not know any
American that doubts it. America is not a paper tiger.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
DrEBQxHKY9Kz4g3XbCQAGiWJoN11VnMKvaDVosRK
4+jVaBn/iz5h9ckyTT2v8sskCEvRohZssb6Z63eoF
James A. Donald
On 7 Jan 2003 15:53:46 -0800, bolsho...@hotmail.com (Bolshoy
Murza) wrote:
> Actually Spengler was right. Hitler's Caesaerism did prevail
> over the West - as the pre-Barbarossa events proved. The
> resistence of the liberal democracies was a sham; Britain's
> fall would have been inevitable
Before Barbarossa, England, with aid from the US and the
empire, had defeated Germany at sea and in the air, cutting
them off from the resources they needed to continue the war,
while Britain could continue to draw on the limitless wealth of
the US, and the limitless manpower and resources of the empire.
You swallow too much Soviet propaganda.
The Soviet Union merely provided a good supply of cannon
fodder, a burden that would have otherwise fallen on the
countries of the British empire.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
LCefotLZO4Lw6+/i9LmhC368rkE+0/ykga0Ssdtc
4LDDIIESrtH+j8IGLj+ATF0zEWwTlUorqsOvDyFwO
tiglath
"BernardZ" <Bern...@LargeMailBox.com to reply delete Large and Box> wrote
> > The wars between Greek states and Rome were always hot. Once King
> > Pyrrhus gave Rome the excuse for payback, and after dispatching the
> > Punic threat, Rome turned to the Greek states and consumed them along
> > the rest of the Mediterranean. There was no "containment" and no Cold
> > War.
>
> Before the Punic wars, a three way contest existed between the Romans,
> the various Greek states and the Carthagians. Rome could have lost.
What specific time and conflicts are you referring to?
BernardZ
bolsho...@hotmail.com says...
If you read the posts which I was relying to it it compared the US today
with the era of Tiberius Gracchus, in which case the US has plenty of
time.
Also the only serious commentator that I know, that uses Spengler
theories is J.G. de Beus. He puts the world a bit later in the time line
then this but just before the rise of universal state.
>
> How long till fanatic Arabs get nukes?
Not long.
BernardZ
jam...@echeque.com says...
> --
> On 7 Jan 2003 15:53:46 -0800, bolsho...@hotmail.com (Bolshoy
> Murza) wrote:
> > Actually Spengler was right. Hitler's Caesaerism did prevail
> > over the West - as the pre-Barbarossa events proved. The
> > resistence of the liberal democracies was a sham; Britain's
> > fall would have been inevitable
>
> Before Barbarossa, England, with aid from the US and the
> empire, had defeated Germany at sea and in the air, cutting
> them off from the resources they needed to continue the war,
> while Britain could continue to draw on the limitless wealth of
> the US, and the limitless manpower and resources of the empire.
>
> You swallow too much Soviet propaganda.
>
> The Soviet Union merely provided a good supply of cannon
> fodder, a burden that would have otherwise fallen on the
> countries of the British empire.
Without the US and the atomic bomb or the Russian there is no way that
the Britain empire could have defeated Germany by itself. It was hard
enough just to survive. As in defense, Germany would have killed more
troops then they would have lost.
Now Germany lost about 4.859.056 troops. Then you would need to add in
her allies
Bulgaria - 10.000
Croatia - ?
Hungary - 200.000
Italy - 242.232
Romania - 300.000
Slovakia - ?
Then there are significant numbers of collaborators eg French and
Norway.
No way could Britain have lost so many men.
BernardZ
Not any particular conflict as such but the period from about 380 to say
the first punic war.
ottoman
> --
> On 7 Jan 2003 15:53:46 -0800, bolsho...@hotmail.com (Bolshoy
> Murza) wrote:
> > Actually Spengler was right. Hitler's Caesaerism did prevail
> > over the West - as the pre-Barbarossa events proved. The
> > resistence of the liberal democracies was a sham; Britain's
> > fall would have been inevitable
>
> Before Barbarossa, England, with aid from the US and the
> empire, had defeated Germany at sea and in the air, cutting
> them off from the resources they needed to continue the war,
> while Britain could continue to draw on the limitless wealth of
> the US, and the limitless manpower and resources of the empire.
>
> You swallow too much Soviet propaganda.
>
> The Soviet Union merely provided a good supply of cannon
> fodder, a burden that would have otherwise fallen on the
> countries of the British empire.
This is a very interesting point. I've had this argument with a
friend of mine a few months back, and he argued that, by and large, it
was the Russians who brought about the total defeat of Hitler, that
they could have done so even without American or British involvement
from the West, while the West had no chance of defeating the Germans
without help from Russians. (Admittedly, both of these seem to be
far-fetched, since Germans had to fight on both fronts. Who knows how
things would have turned out if they had only one enemy to fight at a
time?). My friend's thesis relied heavily on the fact that far more
Russians than Brits or Americans died in fighting Germans. I'd say
this is not a very reliable criteria. That Russians were willing to
endure more casualties does not mean they played the most significant
role in defeating Germany. But I'd like to hear your take on it.
Bolshoy Murza
due to no resources...
mead...@uclink.berkeley.edu (Adam Meadows) wrote in message news:<3b5326f6.03010...@posting.google.com>...
> > > On 7 Jan 2003 09:24:59 -0800, bolsho...@hotmail.com (Bolshoy
> > > Murza) wrote:
> > > > Actually Spengler gave the West far less time than that.
> > > > Remember he wrote that it was to Dostoyevsky that the next
> > > > 1000 years of Christianity would belong.
> > >
> > > Spengler predicted Caeserism -- that the likes of Hitler and
> > > Stalin would prevail. Had they prevailed, the west would have
> > > declined in the manner predicted.
> >
> > Actually Spengler was right. Hitler's Caesaerism did prevail over the
> > West - as the pre-Barbarossa events proved. The resistence of the
> > liberal democracies was a sham; Britain's fall would have been
> > inevitable. Spengler's claim that money would never defeat raw power
> > proved true.
> Britain's fall was far from inevitable.
Bernard Z addressed this point. Without the USSR Hitler would have
(eventually) taken the Brits.
> > Spengler did not include Stalin as a Western Caesar, but as an Asian
> > despot (and as such, one who would ultimately control the future). He
> > warned that if Germany would be stupid enough to attack Russia - an
> > act he likened to striking the air (a madness reminiscent of
> > Caligula's battle against Neptune), than Germany would exit the
> > historical stage. And he predicted Nazi stupidity, too.
> >
>
> It seems like this Spengler guy covers his bets pretty well. If the
> Nazis win then it's proof of the triumph of raw power and Caesaerism
> over money and democracy and if they lose then it's proof of Nazi
> stupidity.
The point is that the Nazis didn't lose to any Western powers but were
ground up by the Russians. The Nazis DID triumph over most of the
West (and victory over the rest would have been inevitable) - but due
in large part to the racial stupidity inherent in their sick ideology
(as Spengler described) Germany as the principle Western power
couldn't stand a chance against the East (Russia). He wrote a book
about Germany's place in the world called The Hour of Decision
(incidentally the only book criticisng the Nazis that was publsihed
during the time of the Third Reich).
> > Spengler died in 1936, too soon to see the atom bomb which was the
> > only thing that prevented the Russians from just seizing all of the
> > West as Spengler predicted.
> >
>
> The Russians would have been hard pressed to have conquered the West
> at any time. I don't think it could have been done, even in the
> West's weakened state in '45. The Russians were still pretty poor
> tacticians
The Russian tactic of "deep penetration" developed by the Russian
genius Tukhachevsky (the one who, prior to his execution on 1938 [?]
predicted the exact month and divisional strength of the German
attack) was not figured out and adopted by the Americans until the
1960's (it was brilliantly put to use during desert storm). Their
tanks were at that time considered the best in the world. And their
soldiers showed a willingness for self-sacrifice that could not be
matched by any of the western allies. German soldiers looked at
Russian soldiers in awe, as some kind of iron men, unhuman (not
subhuman).
> and lacked several key technologies (including the atom
> bomb) that would have made victory (on foreign soil thousands of miles
> from home no less) nigh impossible.
Well, the atom bomb did prevent the Russians ferom attacking. As for
key technologies, the Russians proved as adept at plundering and
learning from German science as the Americans. The Russians were the
first to send someone into space, showing that they would be the first
to be able to launch missiles across continents.
> I don't know how much Stalin knew about the West's atomic capabilities
> pre-Hiroshima. Anyone know? If he knew nothing about our secret
> weapon, then what stopped him from pressing the attack in 45? If he
> knew a lot, then he knew that after Nagasaki, we were temporarily
> spent; again he would have attacked if that was the only thing
> stopping him. Surely he had spies and scientists that would give him
> some idea of the US's nuclear capacity at that time. It could not
> reasonably have been much so why not attack then?
Any attack would not have been so swiftly successful that the US
wouldn't be able to build more nukes. It would have been even too
crazy for a bloodthirsty barbarian like Stalin.
> Is he worried about
> long term nuclear strikes? Maybe... My point is that I think there
> were other factors besides the bomb that stayed his hand.
Others played a role. However the threat of nukes made military
confrontation truly impossible. Would the US have won a war, cold or
otherwise, against the USSR if western Germany, France, Italy and
probably Britain were under Moscow?
> Now from the mid 50s onward, the nuclear threat wielded by both sides
> undoubtedly served to dampen any military ambitions on both sides.
>
> > As for decline - it follows according to plan. As Berdyaev pointed
> > out, Spengler did not take the power of religion into account, but as
> > religion recedes his vision holds true. The West exists in a healthy
> > form only where Christianity also exists in a healthy form, presently
> > in Poland and Western Ukraine.
> >
>
> I beg to differ. I can see plenty of healthy West from where I sit.
> And I am no where near those areas. I think the west could grow
> stronger as it abandons religion...
Well, unfortunately it can't even sustain itself demographically. In
Western Europe, which is about a generation or two more advanced than
the USA, you have the spectacle of huge negative growth. In Germany,
for example, the population by 2050 will be only 60 million, half of
whom will be pensioners. Spain will be majority Muslim. Etc.
> > > Instead they failed.
> > >
> > > > How long till fanatic Arabs get nukes?
> > >
> > > If they do, they will use them on each other, and if they use
> > > them on us, we will turn the sand to glass.
> >
> >
> > Really? I doubt it.
> >
>
> Which part? If it is the former, then I share your doubt. If it is
> the latter point, rest assured that a nuclear strike by any government
> against the US would be met in kind.
Absolutely, which is why that would probably never happen.
> More problematic is a nuclear
> attack against Israel or US allies by a non-government sponsored group
> like Islamic Jihad... I am not sure how likely this is, but how would
> the US respond?
This is the most likely scenario. And I don't know how the US would
respond. I doubt that it would just nuke the Arab world, however.
regards,
Bolshoy Murza
James A. Donald
BernardZ
> Without the bomb or the Russian there is no way that
> the Britain empire could have defeated Germany by itself.
It had already won, with material and technological aid from
the US, but before the bomb, and before Hitler's invasion of
Russia, by winning supremacy at sea and in the air. The rest
was just mopping up, and Hitler strugging within the trap.
Hitler's entirely strategy was predicated on lighting victory.
When Britain achieved air and sea domination, Hitler's whole
plan fell apart. The end, though still far off, was in sight.
Everyone in the west realized it.
In order to break out of this trap, Hitler would have had to go
far east, link up with his Japanese allies, and strike at the
British empire by land, which is a long journey, over some
mighty rough country, through hordes of enemies.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
sU16wHr8IGq3k6hCkGPZvaB9QqXH0l7UXH1kc2it
41UvX1UEwOGq10NcorU+MIIg4/RH2x3OF5akWc0c2
James A. Donald
On 8 Jan 2003 06:38:28 -0800, ottoma...@yahoo.com (ottoman)
wrote:
> This is a very interesting point. I've had this argument
> with a friend of mine a few months back, and he argued that,
> by and large, it was the Russians who brought about the total
> defeat of Hitler, that they could have done so even without
> American or British involvement from the West
Russia's army had suffered total logistic collapse. It was a
mass of hungry conscripts with inadequate clothing and
demoralized leadership, useful for slaughtering peasants but
not much else, hence the easy early victories of the Germans.
Recall that a short time ago the Soviet army had suffered first
a major defeat, and then a merely partial victory in fighting
Finland, a far lesser power than Poland.
Stalin fought for time, not time for winter to arrive, for his
troops were worse clothed than the germans, but time for
American economic and logistic aid.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
+ZsMSpjmarK4xAMyiIivedtuDu6V/zOOtVS/A93V
45Q75Tt6JfUxHtp1A4UraXKCcyV4GmbEwflQwLjs5
tiglath
wrote in
> >
> > > > The wars between Greek states and Rome were always hot. Once King
> > > > Pyrrhus gave Rome the excuse for payback, and after dispatching the
> > > > Punic threat, Rome turned to the Greek states and consumed them along
> > > > the rest of the Mediterranean. There was no "containment" and no Cold
> > > > War.
> > >
> > > Before the Punic wars, a three way contest existed between the Romans,
> > > the various Greek states and the Carthagians. Rome could have lost.
> >
> > What specific time and conflicts are you referring to?
>
> Not any particular conflict as such but the period from about 380 to say
> the first punic war.
We have to similar points here. Matt's claim that there was a Cold
War between Greeks and Romans, and your three way contest.
I dont' know how the concept of Cold War can apply to antiquity. If a
state's army didn't invade and its ships didn't bother yours there was
no war of any kind. Romans didn't have a four-minute, or four-hour,
warning from catapults aimed at them at the other side of the
Adriatic.
The 380 B.C. date is around the start of Rome rapid expansion *within*
Italy. At that time their military worries and endeavors included
Gallic raids and other Italian peoples. A Greek fleet ravaged the
coast in 349, but eventually withdrew, but that was no sustained
contest and distracted the Romans little from their bigger fish to
fry, namely the "tumultus Gallicus," which induced such panic that in
three occasions, later, the threat of Celtic invasions of Italy caused
the Romans to carry out utterly uncharacteristic human sacrifices by
burying alive in the Forum Boarium a pair of Gauls and a pair of
Greeks.
We have then that the first half of the fourth century the main threat
to Rome were the Gauls, and a distant second the Sicilian Greeks. In
the second half of the fourth century Rome signed a treaty with
Carthage, then followed the Romano-Latin war and two Samnite Wars, no
trouble with Greeks to speak of.
In the third century we have the Third Samnite War in 298-290. Then
came the Pyrrhic War; it was a quick affair. King Pyrrhus of Epirus
set out for Italy in aid of the Tarentine Greeks on 280 to win two
Pyrrhic battles within a year, went to Sicily where he achieved
little, went back to Italy to be defeated in 275, and he went home.
After that the Romans took over Magna Graecia, and got busy again with
revolting Samnites, Lucanians, and Bruttians for over a decade.
Which brings us to 264 the start of the First Punic War.
While Carthaginians and Greeks had terrible conflicts, over Sicily
mainly. I don't see in the period 380-264, any sustained contest
between Romans and Greeks. The romans had sporadic confrontations
with Greeks, at best, during this period in which the Romans fought
mostly Gauls, Etruscans, and other Italian peoples, including last and
least Italian Greeks, until they become masters of Italy.
Bolshoy Murza
> --
> Bolshoy Murza:
> > > > Actually Spengler gave the West far less time than that.
> > > > Remember he wrote that it was to Dostoyevsky that the
> > > > next 1000 years of Christianity would belong.
>
> James A. Donald:
> > > Spengler predicted Caeserism -- that the likes of Hitler
> > > and Stalin would prevail. Had they prevailed, the west
> > > would have declined in the manner predicted.
>
> Bolshoy Murza:
> > Actually Spengler was right. Hitler's Caesaerism did prevail
> > over the West
>
> Could have fooled me.
He crushed any western power he could get his hands on. Britian was
saved by its channel (though it's army was defeated), but the entire
continent was in Hitler's hands. Britain's fall would have been
inevitable, too.
> > - as the pre-Barbarossa events proved. The resistence of the
> > liberal democracies was a sham;
>
> No it was not. French resistance was a sham, for which the
> french are rightly derided to this day. British resistance was
> real and effective.
Yes. But would it have been able to last had Hitler not turned to the
east?
> > Britain's fall would have been inevitable.
>
> Britain won the battle of Britain, Australia won the battle of
> the kokoda trail.
And these, naturally, were comparable to Stalingrad : )))
>
> Both of these were defensive victories, they "won" by holding
> off the enemy. But Hitler's strategy, like Japan's was
> predicated on a quick victory. As soon as Germany and Japan
> were denied that quick victory, their whole strategy fell
> apart. Suddenly Japan found itself throwing its finest men
> into the meat grinder, a process that ate the guts out of its
> army.
I'm sticking to Germany here.
> Hitler, fearing stalemate, turned east, hoping a quick victory
> there would enable him to attack the British empire by land,
> meeting up with his Japanese allies.
???? Hitler feared the Russian invasion which would come once Stalin
got organized.
> At that time, everyone
> thought, not entirely incorrectly, that due to the economic
> ruin Stalin had inflicted on Russia, and the slaughter of his
> finest generals, Russia was less significant militarily than
> Poland, and at first this proved true, though things changed
> when the US started supplying the Soviet armies and industry.
Ah. The the US was responsible for the Soviet vicotry : )))). Don't
confuse helping, with causing. Otherwise you will have to say that
the Battle of Britain was won by Polish pilots.
> Had Hitler's strategy succeeded, America would have come into
> the war to rescue Britain. It could less tolerate a world
> dominated by Hitler than a world dominated by the Kaiser.
> Against the British empire and the US combined, Hitler could
> not prevail.
Those two had trouble handling him even though they were up against
about 1/4 of his army, one broken by the Russians at that. Correct me
if I'm wrong, but didn't the Western powers fight 70 German divisions
years after Germany was broken by the Russians, while the Russians
took care of about 240 divisions? (I don't have any books on me so my
numbers might be off). How about if the Americans faced three or four
times as many Germans. You still think they would have had a chance?
> > Spengler's claim that money would never defeat raw power
> > proved true.
>
> Which is doubtless why the Soviet Union is a going concern
> today. :-)
It crumbled from within, thanks in part to a westernized elite. But
if not for the nuclear deterrant, as I have said, the West would have
been finished long before the USSR would have had a chance to
collapse.
> > Spengler died in 1936, too soon to see the atom bomb which
> > was the only thing that prevented the Russians from just
> > seizing all of the West as Spengler predicted.
> >
> > As for decline - it follows according to plan. As Berdyaev
> > pointed out, Spengler did not take the power of religion into
> > account, but as religion recedes his vision holds true. The
> > West exists in a healthy form only where Christianity also
> > exists in a healthy form, presently in Poland and Western
> > Ukraine.
>
> The Ukraine is as far from healthy as it can be -- it is near
> social and political collapse.
Western Ukraine. It has one of the highest birth rates in Europe
(which is admittedly not saying much). A thriving literature, a
religious awakening (among the highest church attendence in Europe).
Dynamic politically, too - with young volunteers risking their lives
in Yugoslavia (for Croatia against the Serbs and then for Serbs
against Albanians) or Chechnia even as westerners, as shown on
Srbrenica or Somalia or Afghanistan, run away from combat or lob
missiles from far away, afraid of spilling their blood. In short,
western Ukraine (as well as other Slavic nations such as Poland,
Croatia, perhaps Serbia if its defeats have not crushed its spirit and
its pride )is far more healthy than any western European nation.
America is not quite as bad, simply because it is pretty backward.
> > > > How long till fanatic Arabs get nukes?
>
> James A. Donald:
> > > If they do, they will use them on each other, and if they
> > > use them on us, we will turn the sand to glass.
>
> Bolshoy Murza
> > Really? I doubt it.
>
> Stalin did not doubt the equivalent. I do not know any
> American that doubts it. America is not a paper tiger.
Fristly, as stated by someone else, it's doubtful an Arab state will
nuke the USA. On the other hand, ff a terrorist organization nukes,
say New York, I doubt that the USA will nuke a random Arab state as
revenge. If a suitcase nuke wipes out Manhattan, do you think that
the US will, say, nuke Baghdad with its 5 million civilians in
retaliation?
Bolshoy Murza
Bolshoy Murza
Well, after D-Day the Germans lost about 150,000 men on the western
front and about 1.5 million men on the Eastern front. German division
facing the western allies were often ill-equipped and made up of 13-16
year old conscripts. Plus, by the time the allies did enter the war,
the Russians were already on the inexorable march toward Berlin; the
only question was when it would happen.
American participation against the Germans thus didn't defeat the
Germans; it only prevented the Soviets from taking France and the rest
of western Europe (and saved a few 100,000 Soviet lives). It would
not be too unfair, then, to compare Western actions vis a vis France
to Soviet actions in areas occupied by Japan, once it was clear that
Japan was defeated.
As for what would have happened if the Soviets weren't at war with the
Germans, I googled up some interesting posts, written by a
"pal...@my-deja.com":
If Germnay never attacked the SU, then you have other dramatic events
taking place.
First of all the bulk of the German LAND forces, the Wehrmacht, can be
reequipped and trained, since there isn't much place to fight anyway.
By having the entire Luftwaffe in France and the Mediterenean, the
British are going to have major problems facing the Luftwaffe in equal
terms.
Rommel can be given several more divisions and a much stronger
poresence
of the Luftwaffe in the Med and especially in Italy and Sicily, can
make
sure that two things happen:
1. Rommel can get more forces, and equipment. He can also be
unproblematically resupplied.
2. Malta falls. And thsi will definetely happen, if the Luftwaffe has
the time to attack the island properly, rather than bombing Russians.
This leads to conclusion that Egypt also falls, making the
Meditterenean a "German Lake". I don't need to tell you about the
possible expansion of Rommels into Palestine, Iraq, etc...
So, Britain is in pretty bad shape. After that, the Gibraltar canal
will
probably fall as well, and a strong Wehrmacht in Northern Afrtica will
make it really tough for the Americans to launch "Torch".
Furthermore, you are forgetting one major point of conflict: The
Atlantic. Since the Wehrmacht isn't blown to pieces in late 1941,
industrial resources can be redirected in building more u-boats. With
Gibraltar in Axis hands, the Italian fleet can exit the Med and move
into the Atlantic. Furthermore the Luftwaffe will make certain that
British industry output won't be what it was supposed to be.
I don't think that the British will amnage to have a strong fleet of
escorts in the Atlantic neither, since a strong Wehrmacht across the
channels, will make every Brit want to keep a lot of destroyers in
hand,
just in case the Germans do decide to cross the Channel.
Don't forget that German bombers of every kind will also have the
capability to hit every major port city in Southern Britain (with
adequate protection from FW-190s) in 1942, making it clearly difficult
for the Brits to get enough supplies. The turning point of the
Atlantic
War was in mid 1943. The German attack on the SU was on the 22nd of
June
1941. That gives the Germans 2 years' time to switch a large part of
their production plans and produce more U-Boots than tanks, artillery,
etc.
Less deaths in the Eastern front, also means more workers in the
factories, better defence of Germany itself (the troops in the Flak
batteries, weren't front line soldiers in the war) and an overall
better
psychological situation.
A stronger Luftwaffe, fighting in only one front, after the Med has
been
cleared, will be a very hard opponent for the Brits.
As I see it, the Germans will have Britain starving in late 42, maybe
early 43.
As for any invasion plans you might have thought of, don't forget that
if Britain is pushed out of the war, there is nowhere to land your
troops, before letting them cross the channel, and no airport to
launch
an air campaign against the German industry. If Britain falls in 1942,
not by a Sea Lion, but simply because the U-boots together with the
Luftwaffe (larger numbers of FW-200s?) have total control of the
Atlantic, then there is no way to land "100 divisions" in France and
drive to Warsaw. And forget about Italy, North Africa will be in
German
hands.
Even if Britain survives, do you think it's going to be so easy to
beat
Germany? We are talking about facing the entire Luftwaffe, which would
look nothing like the real Luftwaffe, since the German industry can
actually focus its entire attention in producing U-Boots and aircraft.
The Atlantic Wall would be a real wall, defended by armored divisions
and the skies woudln't be that friendly, anyway.
And:
First of all if Hitler never decided to attack the SU, then he would
probably have reserved some forces near the borders with the SU and
would have started diplomatic moves in order to ensure that Stalin
would
never actually attack him.
Here are some thoughts about those moves:
At some point during the war it was found out that the French were
preparing together with the Brits a combined attack of the Russian
oilfields in Caucasus, since this would cripple the Russian military
power. This event has not been widely known, because it was clearly an
agressive move by the Allies against Russia. The attack was never
carried out, since France fell and quickly after that the Allies were
quite more busy.
The plans were discovered during the invasion of France, I think, and
were quickly sent through Berlin to Moscow. This was a typical example
of German-Russian cooperation. If a German North African campaign is
successfull, then Hitler can offer the Russians the option of a
combined
thrust against Iraq and Persia. The Russians were always pretty keen
in
spreading out to the South, especially towards Turkey for example or
Afghanistan. So, the Germans could offer Turkey and a part of the
Middle
East to the Russians for their cooperation. I think this would be
enough
for the Russians, in order to have good relations. If Hitler decided
to
cut off any relations with Finnland, it would be even better.
So, with the Russians on their side, the Germans can turn their
attention to the West.
With Malta, Egypt and Gibraltar taken by mid 1942 and total control
over
North Africa, the Luftwaffe can focus on attacking Britain and
supporting Rommels advance in the Middle East. U-Boots, combat vessels
and Luftwaffe units in Norway are no longer needed.
The Romanian oilfields are secured, and there is no way the Brits or
the
Americans can reach them. This in combination with a potential capture
of oilfields in the Middle East, or even import of oil from the SU,
gives the German industry the boost it needs. No more synthetic oil
factories are needed, fuel is available in large quantities for use in
experiments with rockets and jet engines. Remember that the collapse
of
the Luftwaffe in 1944 did also happen, simply because not enough fuel
was available for training hours, etc. This limited the quality of
German pilots. And this is not the case any longer.
As for jet fighters, true, the Germans and everyone else at that time
did have common problems, but a large part of these problems was due
to
inferior quality of the materials needed for the construction of jet
engines (I think Chromium.) With a friendly SU and control of a large
part of Europe, these materials can be available in large numbers.
The German Navy could prove to be a very dangerous opponent for the
convoys in the Atlantic. The Tirpitz can be brought to a naval port
and
prove to be a constant threat for British convoys. The increasing
number
of U-Boots, including U-Boots that would be normally operating in
other
areas (Med, North Sea) and the more U-Boots built by the German
shipyards (which can be protected adequately by a strong Luftwaffe)
can
hit the Allies harder in the Atlantic.
An interesting thought would be the American reaction to that issue,
that is whether the Americans would decide to withdraw carriers from
the
Pacific to protect the convoys in the Atlantic. Which would mean that
the Japanese could hope for a break in late 1942 in the Pacific (for
example in Guadalcanal).
Both Hitler and Stalin were dictators and if the German leadership
thought that they needed the SU as a friend for the time they could do
anything to insure that. This was demonstrated throughout 1940 and
early
1941, when Hitler needed the SU as a friend in order to focus on
France
and the Balkans. A Soviet attack on Germany in the early summer of
1940
could prove destructive for Germany and end the war pretty quick, with
Germans fighting a two front war. However that attack never happened,
probably because Stalin thought of Hitler as a friend, although he
could
have captured a huge part of Eastern Europe, while the German
divisions
were on the Rhine, with relative little cost.
A German-Russian friendship (not alliance) would be feasible, if the
appropriate actions were taken by the German side.
----Bolshoy Murza
Bolshoy Murza
James A. Donald
Bolshoy Murza:
> > > Actually Spengler was right. Hitler's Caesaerism did
> > > prevail over the West
James A. Donald:
> > Could have fooled me.
Bolshoy Murza:
> He crushed any western power he could get his hands on.
He could not get his hands on Britain because the British, with
US technological and economic assistance, DEFEATED him in the
air and on the sea, a British victory that shattered his entire
strategy.
> Britian was saved by its channel (though it's army was
> defeated), but the entire continent was in Hitler's hands.
> Britain's fall would have been inevitable, too.
Once Britain attained air and sea superiority, what did it care
for the continent, when the English speaking peoples had the
world?
At that time, after suffering defeat in the air and on the sea,
Hitler's only hope was that the Japanese could prevail on land,
which as it turned out they could not. The Japanese could not
prevail on land, nor Hitler on the sea. He could not join with
them, nor they with him, giving England world spanning
supremacy over them both, the capability to starve each one for
resources, and strike at either one at any time, in any place,
while itself remaining beyond reach.
> Yes. But would it have been able to last had Hitler not
> turned to the east?
What else could Hitler do after defeat in the air and on the
seas? Sit tight and twiddle his thumbs while his enemies
prepared to strike at a place and time of their own choosing?
That was not Hitler's way.
James A. Donald:
> > Britain won the battle of Britain, Australia won the battle
> > of the kokoda trail.
Bolshoy Murza:
> And these, naturally, were comparable to Stalingrad : )))
The battle of Stalingrad saved a city, and gained a little
time. The sinking of the Bismark saved all the world beyond
the continent, and gave Britain as much time as it pleased.
Stalingrad was just one city. Britain's naval victories meant
that Britain was invulnerable to attack, ruled the oceans of
the world, and could tap all the resources and peoples that
were near the oceans, and cut Germany off from all the
resources of the world, and from his Japanese allies.
The battle of the kododa trail demoralized the Japanese army,
and showed that the Japanese could not capture land against
determined European troops, which meant that they could not
link up with Germany, nor deny England access to the manpower
and resources of the British empire and the English speaking
peoples.
James A. Donald:
> > Hitler, fearing stalemate, turned east, hoping a quick
> > victory there would enable him to attack the British empire
> > by land, meeting up with his Japanese allies.
Bolshoy Murza:
> Hitler feared the Russian invasion which would come once
> Stalin
> got organized.
Don't be silly.
In Stalin's mind, Russia was a great power, and there was some
truth in that, for Russia is never as weak as it seems, nor as
strong as it seems. But in the eyes of the rest of the world,
its poor showing in the war with Finland showed it to be
insignificant and inconsequential, a lesser power than Poland,
due to its logistic paralysis. Hitler did not fear Russia's
attack, because he reasonably believed Russia incapable of such
attack, for lack of logistics, unless first beefed up by the
wealth of the West.
Stalin was aiming to conquer the rest of the world, not the
German empire. In his mind, it was a land rush by
totalitarians to grab everything. Then, after the whole world
was vacuumed up, then, and only then, would the victorious
totalitarian powers then turn on each other -- which by the
way, is Spengler's prediction of what was going to happen.
James A. Donald:
> > At that time, everyone thought, not entirely incorrectly,
> > that due to the economic ruin Stalin had inflicted on
> > Russia, and the slaughter of his finest generals, Russia
> > was less significant militarily than Poland, and at first
> > this proved true, though things changed when the US started
> > supplying the Soviet armies and industry.
Bolshoy Murza:
> Ah. The the US was responsible for the Soviet vicotry :
> )))).
Of course. Recall what happened when the Soviet Union
attempted to conquer Finland. It does not matter how vast the
horde of conscripts you can round up, when you cannot swiftly
transport them, feed them, cloth them for the local weather,
nor give them decent boots.
Similarly recall the one sided victories that the Germans won
over helpless pitiful Soviet cannon fodder during the early
part of the war.
> Those two had trouble handling him even though they were up
> against about 1/4 of his army, one broken by the Russians at
> that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Western powers
> fight 70 German divisions years after Germany was broken by
> the Russians, while the Russians took care of about 240
> divisions? (I don't have any books on me so my numbers might
> be off). How about if the Americans faced three or four
> times as many Germans. You still think they would have had a
> chance?
They would have just continued the air war a little longer. The
air war in the end succeeded in flattening German industry.
Then they would have invaded at their liesure and faced 240
divisions with no fuel, no spare parts, and limited ammo.
That is one of the many benefits of victory in the air and sea,
one of the many reasons why Britain's initial victory in the
air and on the sea was the decisive, world changing victory,
the victory that set the course of the war, whereas Stalingrad
was just one city among many others.
The allies invaded Germany earlier than they planned or desired
for fear that the armies of the Soviets would grab all of
Germany, and perhaps France as well. Had they stuck to their
own schedule, they would have flattened everything on which the
Germans depended from one end of Europe to the other before
invading.
Bolshoy Murza:
> > > Spengler's claim that money would never defeat raw power
> > > proved true.
James A. Donald:
> > Which is doubtless why the Soviet Union is a going concern
> > today. :-)
Bolshoy Murza:
> It crumbled from within, thanks in part to a westernized
> elite. But if not for the nuclear deterrant, as I have said,
> the West would have been finished long before the USSR would
> have had a chance to collapse.
Then why was Finland never communist?
Bolshoy Murza:
> > > How long till fanatic Arabs get nukes?
James A. Donald:
> > If they do, they will use them on each other, and if they
> > use them on us, we will turn the sand to glass.
Bolshoy Murza
> Fristly, as stated by someone else, it's doubtful an Arab
> state will nuke the USA. On the other hand, ff a terrorist
> organization nukes, say New York, I doubt that the USA will
> nuke a random Arab state as revenge.
Why not? The US is now considering bombing the crap out of a
random arab state and invading it in revenge for an attack by a
terrorist organization. If the arabs fail to act sufficiently
scared, will probably do so.
If arab terroists nuke New York, the US goverment will draw up
a list of arab states it does not much like, or considers
disposable, and nuke them till they glow in the dark. Saudi
Arabia is likely to be near the top of the list.
You seem to think that the humanitarian inclination of the west
is a congenital weakness, like blindness or paralyzed legs. It
is not. Rather, it is a luxury that that we tend to swiftly
discard when things get tough. The west will make every effort
to coexist with arabs, but if the west finds it cannot coexist
with arabs, very soon there will be no arabs.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
t9lLvacCbHTDTp0lsh1dNs5OHO2VrCjXiggPmyDM
4optsFqWppsRTGyDXOIvD4XKCa/QRTZx45cWW1kGL
Bolshoy Murza
>
> Hitler, fearing stalemate, turned east, hoping a quick victory
> there would enable him to attack the British empire by land,
> meeting up with his Japanese allies. At that time, everyone
> thought, not entirely incorrectly, that due to the economic
> ruin Stalin had inflicted on Russia, and the slaughter of his
> finest generals, Russia was less significant militarily than
> Poland, and at first this proved true, though things changed
> when the US started supplying the Soviet armies and industry.
>
I wanted to add what I found about the importance of Amerrican
military contributions to the Soviets' victory over Nazi Germany:
Indeed, Soviet production did not recover until late '42-early '43,
and this
recovery explains why suddenly the Red Army regained initiative in
'43,
together with greatly improved tactical capabilities. Lend-Lease was
very
useful, but it probably was not decisive. For one thing, Lend-Lease
deliveries
were greatest in 1944-45, when the Soviets were already on the
offensive. Not
very much (comparatively speaking) was delivered in '42 (there was a
long gap
in deliveries to Murmansk after the PQ-17 debacle), and almost nothing
in '41,
which was the decisive year for the E. Front. Even in January of
1945,
Lend-Lease trucks comprised only 1/3 of Red Army's truck park (about
200,000
out of 600,000 total), according to an article in the Journal of
Slavic
Military Studies, and raw number of Soviet-produced trucks in service
steadily
grew in '42 and '43, indicating that Soviet industry could and did
replace
losses in this area on its own. Presumably the same could be said for
telephone wire, etc. However, the Lend-Lease definitely did
accelerate Soviet
recovery and reduced the lulls between Soviet offensives from '43
onwards by
helping them replenish their forces faster than they could have on
their own.
You also have to keep in mind than already by spring of '42 the
Soviets'
strength had improved relative to the Germans'. While in '41 the
Wehrmacht
launched three simultaneous strategic offensives into the USSR, its
losses in
Barbarossa meant that in '42 it could manage only one (1.5 if you
count the
push into Crimea). The offensive into the Caucasus was successful
largely
because the Soviets initially thought it was a feint, designed to draw
away
forces from the central front, protecting Moscow. I doubt whether the
Wehrmacht would have had as much success had they attempted another
push on
Moscow in '42, which is what the Soviets expected them to do. And all
of this
was happening while US and British strategic bombing was barely
getting on its
feet and while N. African campaign was absorbing a tiny proportion of
German
assets. In short, Soviet survival in '41 and '42 is mainly a Soviet
accomplishment.
I also don't think the Luftwaffe had what it took to mount a
significant
strategic bombing campaign. Historically, all of its bomber units
(not just
the Stukas) had their hands full flying tactical air support for the
army, and
army commanders would have been livid about being deprived of this
support
which, after all, played a major role in their victories. Even
assuming it was
allowed to try to bomb Soviet factories, I doubt they would have had
much
success. Unescorted daylight raids would have quickly become out of
the
question, and at night the bombers' accuracy would have been
diminished and
could have been compensated only by sheer weight of bombs, Bomber
Command-style. A campaign of such magnitude was beyond Germans'
abilities,
though.
Mike Jasinski
-----Bolshoy Murza
Brian Blakistone
[...]
>This is a very interesting point. I've had this argument with a
>friend of mine a few months back, and he argued that, by and large, it
>was the Russians who brought about the total defeat of Hitler, that
>they could have done so even without American or British involvement
>from the West, while the West had no chance of defeating the Germans
>without help from Russians. (Admittedly, both of these seem to be
>far-fetched, since Germans had to fight on both fronts. Who knows how
>things would have turned out if they had only one enemy to fight at a
>time?). My friend's thesis relied heavily on the fact that far more
>Russians than Brits or Americans died in fighting Germans. I'd say
>this is not a very reliable criteria. That Russians were willing to
>endure more casualties does not mean they played the most significant
>role in defeating Germany. But I'd like to hear your take on it.
I think your friend is about half right. The Soviets did
take the majority of the casualties and did the heavy
lifting against the German army. Could they have mounted
the offensives like Bagration that drove the Germans out
without Lend Lease trucks? Very unlikely, IMO. The US
provided radios, trains and trucks that the Soviets rolled
up the German army with. There is evidence that even with
this logistical support, Stalin came close to opening a
negotiated settlement (See Gerhard Weinberg's _World at
Arms_). Lend Lease also allowed Stalin to focus his
industry on producing tanks and planes, thereby out
producing Germany with an economy only a quarter of the size
(See Richard Overy's _Why the Allies Won_).
The argument that only the Western allies or only the Soviet
Union could have won by themselves are both strained I
think. The allied development of the bomb provides the only
avenue for their victory; I can't see them accepting
anything like the kinds of casualties the Soviets did in
bringing the German army to its knees.
Brian
James A. Donald
On 8 Jan 2003 11:54:07 -0800, bolsho...@hotmail.com (Bolshoy
Murza) wrote:
> If Germnay never attacked the SU, then you have other
> dramatic events taking place. First of all the bulk of the
> German LAND forces, the Wehrmacht, can be reequipped and
> trained, since there isn't much place to fight anyway. By
> having the entire Luftwaffe in France and the Mediterenean,
> the British are going to have major problems facing the
> Luftwaffe in equal terms.
The British had already won in the air. Once they had
sufficient air power to stop the Luftwaffe from bombing their
airports and aircraft factories, their advantage rapidly
increased, swiftly becoming overwhelming, as the number and
quality of their fighters rapidly increased, while Hitler's
were suffering an equally rapid decrease. Hitler was running
on capital, in that he was prepared for war, while the west was
at first unprepared. The battle of Britain was his equipment
lead being consumed, and destroyed, and replaced by a western
lead in equipment.
Meanwhile on the seas, the same process took place, the German
navy was shattered, attempted to flee, and was destroyed in
flight, a victory which Churchill accurately told the British
people was decisive. Again, Hitler's initial capital advantage
was consumed and destroyed, on the seas as in the air.
Recollect the song "Sink the Bismark", which accurately
summarizes the course of the war:
In may of nineteen forty-one the war had just begun
The germans had the biggest ships
That had the biggest guns
The Bismark was the fastest ship
That ever sailed the seas
On her deck were guns as big as steers
And shells as big as trees
Out of the cold and foggy night
Came the british ship the Hood
And ev'ry british seaman he knew and understood
They had to sink the Bismark the terror of the sea
Stop those guns as big as steers
And those shells as big as trees
We'll find that german battleship
That's makin' such a fuss
We gotta sink the Bismark
'Cause the world depends on us
Hit the decks a-runnin' boys
And spin those guns around
When we find the Bismark we gotta cut her down
The Hood found the Bismark and on that fatal day
The Bismark started firin' fifteen miles away
We gotta sink the Bismark was the battle sound
But when the smoke had cleared away
The mighty Hood went down
For six long days and weary nights
They tried to find her trail
Churchill told the people put ev'ry ship a-sail
'Cause somewhere on that ocean
I know she's gotta be
We gotta sink the Bismark to the bottom of the sea
We'll find that german battleship
That's makin' such a fuss
We gotta sink the Bismark
'Cause the world depends on us
Hit the decks a-runnin' boys
And spin those guns around
When we find the Bismark we gotta cut her down
The fog was gone the seventh day
And they saw the mornin' sun
Ten hours away from homeland
The Bismark made its run
The admiral of the british fleet said
Turn those bows around
We found that german battleship
And we're gonna cut her down
The british guns were aimed
And the shells were comin' fast
The first shell hit the Bismark
They knew she couldn't last
That mighty german battleship is just a memory
Sink the Bismark was the battle cry
That shook the seven seas
We found that german battleship
Was makin' such a fuss
We had to sink the Bismark
'Cause the world depends on us
We hit the deck a-runnin' and
We spun those guns around
We found the mighty Bismark
And then we cut her down
We found that german battleship
Was makin' such a fuss
We had to sink the Bismark
'Cause the world depends on us
We hit the deck a-runnin' and
We spun those guns around
We found the mighty Bismark
And then we cut her down
That battle "shook the seven seas", because it gave the British
control of the seven seas. Germany lost that control. That
meant that for Britain, everything was won, and for Germany,
everything was lost. Britain and her allies now had access to
all the resources and manpower of the world, Germany did not.
Britain could now strike at Germany at any time or place she
chose, Germany could not strike at Britain.
> Rommel can be given several more divisions and a much
> stronger poresence of the Luftwaffe in the Med and especially
> in Italy and Sicily, can make sure that two things happen: 1.
> Rommel can get more forces, and equipment. He can also be
> unproblematically resupplied. 2. Malta falls. And thsi will
> definetely happen, if the Luftwaffe has the time to attack
> the island properly, rather than bombing Russians.
The Luftwaffe were defeated, and in large part annihilated,
long before the Soviet Union was in the picture. We let them
bomb the Russians, because we wanted both sides weakened, and
so we were more inclined to give the russians boots for their
conscript cannon fodder, rather than planes.
> Furthermore, you are forgetting one major point of conflict:
> The Atlantic. Since the Wehrmacht isn't blown to pieces in
> late 1941, industrial resources can be redirected in building
> more u-boats
But we already saw that the allies increased their naval power,
while the German naval power collapsed, before the Soviets were
in the picture. The unstealthy German U boats were swiftly
annihilated by British air and sea superiority. British
technology was superior. That battle was already over, and
Germany decisively and shatteringly defeated.
> Don't forget that German bombers of every kind will also have
> the capability to hit every major port city in Southern
> Britain (with adequate protection from FW-190s) in 1942
Don't be silly. That was Hitler's plan. He tried it, nearly
succeeded, but in the end it failed. The more fighters the
British built, the more easily they could build more fighters.
Hitler stopped because the German airforce was swiftly being
destroyed.
The plan initially almost succeeded because of Hitler's initial
lead in equipment, but British productivity, backed by US
wealth, rapidly swarmed him, with British fighters swiftly
increasing, and German fighters and bombers swifty decreasing.
His lead in equipment was consumed and destroyed, and that was
that. Once lost, it could never be regained, because his
enemies had enormously more wealth than he did, and superior
technology to his.
> making it clearly difficult for the Brits to get enough
> supplies. The turning point of the Atlantic War was in mid
> 1943.
The war was decided when the British sank the Bismark, thus
forever ending Hitller's plans of a lightning victory against
the unprepared west. He was now fighting enemies with more
and better military equipment than he, vastly more wealth than
he, substantially greater populations to draw on, and control
of enormously more natural resources, and as much time as they
chose to prepare for war in safety and comfort.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
EA8mTLczVJfPi5U+khFJZjDyuR3Iqf0QcyRyEus4
4XUs0z8Yw+5HZCU9/BuFLPvGcha2N/ZjyojflnSnP
James A. Donald
On Wed, 08 Jan 2003 20:51:18 GMT, bblak...@netzero.net
(Brian Blakistone) wrote:
> The argument that only the Western allies or only the Soviet
> Union could have won by themselves are both strained I think.
> The allied development of the bomb provides the only avenue
> for their victory;
The bomb was one aspect of the rapidly increasing western
technological lead over Germany. Another was that they broke
German codes, while Germans failed to break their codes.
Another was radar, which enabled british planes to spot German
snorkels, and the primitive German subs were very dependent on
their snorkels.
> I can't see them accepting anything like the kinds of
> casualties the Soviets did in bringing the German army to its
> knees.
Of course the west would never have tolerated those casualties,
could never have endured those casualties. But with air, sea,
and technological superiority over the Germans, the west had
time and space to find ways of defeating the Germans in one
sided ways, for example by flattening German cities from the
air with conventional bombs. If we had not come up with
nuclear weapons, we would have come up with something else.
The bomb was a reflection of the same technological superiority
that enabled the west to win the battle of Britain. That
technological superiority gave the West the air and the seas,
and thus the time and safety to develop further technological
advantages, like the bomb.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
GhVFE0wcSXl01eqB8lCaK7+8mzrrCY8jp2NEWYc5
4b4MocBG2PyWRHUIoCI+LXTcr/5p7zje2SNAk4iuU
Alex
> --
> On 8 Jan 2003 06:38:28 -0800, ottoma...@yahoo.com (ottoman)
> wrote:
> > This is a very interesting point. I've had this argument
> > with a friend of mine a few months back, and he argued that,
> > by and large, it was the Russians who brought about the total
> > defeat of Hitler, that they could have done so even without
> > American or British involvement from the West
>
> Russia's army had suffered total logistic collapse. It was a
> mass of hungry conscripts with inadequate clothing and
> demoralized leadership, useful for slaughtering peasants but
> not much else, hence the easy early victories of the Germans.
This is partially correct for 1941 but the fact remains that Germans
failed to take Leningrad and had been stopped (and then defeated) near
Moscow. At this time Lend Lease had rather limited volume.
> Recall that a short time ago the Soviet army had suffered first
> a major defeat, and then a merely partial victory in fighting
> Finland, a far lesser power than Poland.
Actually, this is a very bad example. Finns had been superb soldiers
who were uniquely adjusted to a very specific theater of war.
The most important sector of it had been heavily fortified and the
rest of it, Karelia, was "fortified" by nature. Soviets had big problems
fighting Finland in 1944 even after the (victorious against the
Germans) troops had been moved on this theater.
>
> Stalin fought for time, not time for winter to arrive, for his
> troops were worse clothed than the germans,
Now, this is a complete nonsense. Even the German troops fighting on the
Northern direction (beyond the Polar Circle) did not have the adequate
winter clothes and footwear. This was in a direct contrast with a winter
equipment of the Red Army.
> but time for
> American economic and logistic aid.
He would have too long to wait and, even at the pick, Lend Lease ammounted
only to a certain percentage of the total Soviet military effort. It's
arguable if SU could defeat Germans without this help but it was not _the_
decisive factor. Of course, trucks, strategic materials and even American
tanks and planes had been very useful but, except for the trucks, the
amounts of this equipment had been, by 1943, considerably lower than Soviet
home production. By the time of Kursk, Soviet tank production was few times
bigger than the German one.
BTW, it is not clear how "economic and logistic aid" converted "a
mass of hungry conscripts" in a formidable fighting force. Surely, they
also got some military experience and their leaders ceased to be "demoralized"
somewhere along the road.
r_o...@remove_this.hotmail.com
>bolsho...@hotmail.com (Bolshoy Murza) wrote in message news:<3757594a.03010...@posting.google.com>...
>> James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote in message news:<uj5m1vkb14f2pv00g...@4ax.com>...
>> > --
>> > On 7 Jan 2003 09:24:59 -0800, bolsho...@hotmail.com (Bolshoy
>Which part? If it is the former, then I share your doubt. If it is
>the latter point, rest assured that a nuclear strike by any government
>against the US would be met in kind. More problematic is a nuclear
>attack against Israel or US allies by a non-government sponsored group
>like Islamic Jihad... I am not sure how likely this is, but how would
>the US respond?
Question of the day. It's equally likely, if not more so ... IMO.
Robert
( modify address for return email )
Bolshoy Murza
> --
> On 8 Jan 2003 06:38:28 -0800, ottoma...@yahoo.com (ottoman)
> wrote:
> > This is a very interesting point. I've had this argument
> > with a friend of mine a few months back, and he argued that,
> > by and large, it was the Russians who brought about the total
> > defeat of Hitler, that they could have done so even without
> > American or British involvement from the West
>
> Russia's army had suffered total logistic collapse. It was a
> mass of hungry conscripts with inadequate clothing and
> demoralized leadership, useful for slaughtering peasants but
> not much else, hence the easy early victories of the Germans.
> Recall that a short time ago the Soviet army had suffered first
> a major defeat, and then a merely partial victory in fighting
> Finland, a far lesser power than Poland.
>
> Stalin fought for time, not time for winter to arrive, for his
> troops were worse clothed than the germans, but time for
> American economic and logistic aid.
A rather funny take on history (see my other post).
Bolshoy Murza
Brian Blakistone
> --
>On Wed, 08 Jan 2003 20:51:18 GMT, bblak...@netzero.net
>(Brian Blakistone) wrote:
>> The argument that only the Western allies or only the Soviet
>> Union could have won by themselves are both strained I think.
>> The allied development of the bomb provides the only avenue
>> for their victory;
>The bomb was one aspect of the rapidly increasing western
>technological lead over Germany. Another was that they broke
>German codes, while Germans failed to break their codes.
>Another was radar, which enabled british planes to spot German
>snorkels, and the primitive German subs were very dependent on
>their snorkels.
But you have to wonder if more engineering talent is put into
subs than say tank design for the east, what the Germans might
have achieved. You can also look to the German jets and the
rocket program to see that technology wasn't always an allied
monopoly, although they did have the better of it. The problem
comes in with the resources released for the Germans. What does
the war in the Atlantic, which by most measures was a close thing
at several points, if the Germans focused their production on U
Boats instead of tanks for the Eastern front? How many more
fighters are available if the Germans aren't fighting in the
Soviet Union?
>> I can't see them accepting anything like the kinds of
>> casualties the Soviets did in bringing the German army to its
>> knees.
>Of course the west would never have tolerated those casualties,
>could never have endured those casualties. But with air, sea,
>and technological superiority over the Germans, the west had
>time and space to find ways of defeating the Germans in one
>sided ways, for example by flattening German cities from the
>air with conventional bombs. If we had not come up with
>nuclear weapons, we would have come up with something else.
Even with conventional bombing, and likely would have been less
effective with no diversion of forces to the Soviet Union, the
Germans produced more in 1944 than in any prior year. The US had
all the advantages you mention in Vietnam and yet still lost
because they couldn't tolerate the casualties to the ground
forces. The Germans were not going to walk into the abyss, they
needed to be pushed and it would need to be done by ground
forces.
>The bomb was a reflection of the same technological superiority
>that enabled the west to win the battle of Britain. That
>technological superiority gave the West the air and the seas,
>and thus the time and safety to develop further technological
>advantages, like the bomb.
The Luftwaffe wasn't designed for the sort of campaign involved
with the battle of Britain, and their navy was never up to
escorting an invasion fleet in the first place. Sealion was
never anything but a pipe dream. With ramped up fighter
production, reduced weaponry getting into Britain due to more
U-Boats, and something like four times the divisions available to
defend the continent it is hard to picture how the Allies win,
absent the bomb and the Soviet Union.
Brian
BernardZ
jam...@echeque.com says...
> --
> BernardZ
> > Without the bomb or the Russian there is no way that
> > the Britain empire could have defeated Germany by itself.
>
> It had already won, with material and technological aid from
> the US, but before the bomb, and before Hitler's invasion of
> Russia, by winning supremacy at sea and in the air. The rest
> was just mopping up, and Hitler strugging within the trap.
> Hitler's entirely strategy was predicated on lighting victory.
> When Britain achieved air and sea domination, Hitler's whole
> plan fell apart. The end, though still far off, was in sight.
> Everyone in the west realized it.
>
> In order to break out of this trap, Hitler would have had to go
> far east, link up with his Japanese allies, and strike at the
> British empire by land, which is a long journey, over some
> mighty rough country, through hordes of enemies.
He would not have to do anything. Since without the US and Russia there
is no way that the British have sufficient manpower to defeat him. Just
ask yourself how many troops could the British loss? Then compare that
amount with the number that Hitler could loss. See my previous post.
BernardZ
@tiglath.net says...
> BernardZ <Bern...@LargeMailBox.com to reply delete Large and Box>
> wrote in
>
> > >
> > > > > The wars between Greek states and Rome were always hot. Once King
> > > > > Pyrrhus gave Rome the excuse for payback, and after dispatching the
> > > > > Punic threat, Rome turned to the Greek states and consumed them along
> > > > > the rest of the Mediterranean. There was no "containment" and no Cold
> > > > > War.
> > > >
> > > > Before the Punic wars, a three way contest existed between the Romans,
> > > > the various Greek states and the Carthagians. Rome could have lost.
> > >
> > > What specific time and conflicts are you referring to?
> >
> > Not any particular conflict as such but the period from about 380 to say
> > the first punic war.
>
> We have to similar points here. Matt's claim that there was a Cold
> War between Greeks and Romans, and your three way contest.
>
> I dont' know how the concept of Cold War can apply to antiquity. If a
> state's army didn't invade and its ships didn't bother yours there was
> no war of any kind. Romans didn't have a four-minute, or four-hour,
> warning from catapults aimed at them at the other side of the
> Adriatic.
Not sure about this if you look at the Roman vs Persian you can see long
lines of troops, massive fortifications, sometimes the war went hot and
sometimes it did not. But there was almost always tension on the border.
Then earlier on the Romans fought many wars with the Samnites. From the
accounts, the Samnites hated them with a passion.
>
> The 380 B.C. date is around the start of Rome rapid expansion *within*
> Italy. At that time their military worries and endeavors included
> Gallic raids and other Italian peoples. A Greek fleet ravaged the
> coast in 349, but eventually withdrew, but that was no sustained
> contest and distracted the Romans little from their bigger fish to
> fry, namely the "tumultus Gallicus," which induced such panic that in
> three occasions, later, the threat of Celtic invasions of Italy caused
> the Romans to carry out utterly uncharacteristic human sacrifices by
> burying alive in the Forum Boarium a pair of Gauls and a pair of
> Greeks.
>
> We have then that the first half of the fourth century the main threat
> to Rome were the Gauls, and a distant second the Sicilian Greeks. In
> the second half of the fourth century Rome signed a treaty with
> Carthage, then followed the Romano-Latin war and two Samnite Wars, no
> trouble with Greeks to speak of.
>
> In the third century we have the Third Samnite War in 298-290. Then
> came the Pyrrhic War; it was a quick affair. King Pyrrhus of Epirus
> set out for Italy in aid of the Tarentine Greeks on 280 to win two
> Pyrrhic battles within a year, went to Sicily where he achieved
> little, went back to Italy to be defeated in 275, and he went home.
Tarentum called a succession of Greek mercenaries general of which the
last and most famous is Pyrrhus.
> After that the Romans took over Magna Graecia, and got busy again with
> revolting Samnites, Lucanians, and Bruttians for over a decade.
> Which brings us to 264 the start of the First Punic War.
>
> While Carthaginians and Greeks had terrible conflicts, over Sicily
> mainly. I don't see in the period 380-264, any sustained contest
> between Romans and Greeks. The romans had sporadic confrontations
> with Greeks, at best, during this period in which the Romans fought
> mostly Gauls, Etruscans, and other Italian peoples, including last and
> least Italian Greeks, until they become masters of Italy.
Furthermore the Greeks were not united some actually welcomed Rome. In
Sicily they decided to throw there lot with the Romans against their
historical enemy Carthage.
As time went on the Romans became more Greek. Presumably the Greeks
became more Roman too.
Reading your post and checking some books, I think you are right and
Matt and I wrong! There certainly was nothing like the hatred and
conflicts of a *cold war* between Rome and the Greeks in general.
Bolshoy Murza
>
> Bolshoy Murza:
> > He crushed any western power he could get his hands on.
>
> He could not get his hands on Britain because the British, with
> US technological and economic assistance, DEFEATED him in the
> air and on the sea, a British victory that shattered his entire
> strategy.
This doesn't bear with the facts. The Bismarck was sunk but much of
the rest of German navy was safely at port; moreover the U-boat usage
did not peak until YEARS after the Bizmarck was sunk. For excample in
1940 the Germans sank about 4.4 million tons; they did so also in 1941
but in 1942 tthis total increased to *8,245,000* tons. Getting back
to the war against the Soviets, if those resources had instead been
directed for more u-boat developement and construction, etc. than
things would have been quite different.
> > Britian was saved by its channel (though it's army was
> > defeated), but the entire continent was in Hitler's hands.
> > Britain's fall would have been inevitable, too.
>
> Once Britain attained air and sea superiority, what did it care
> for the continent, when the English speaking peoples had the
> world?
India, Africa etc. could not be compared to the "World". Furthermore,
given greater German ability to isolate Britain this would have made
little difference.
> At that time, after suffering defeat in the air and on the sea,
> Hitler's only hope was that the Japanese could prevail on land,
> which as it turned out they could not. The Japanese could not
> prevail on land, nor Hitler on the sea. He could not join with
> them, nor they with him, giving England world spanning
> supremacy over them both, the capability to starve each one for
> resources, and strike at either one at any time, in any place,
> while itself remaining beyond reach.
Germany with its Romanian (and likely, Middle Eastern) oil fields was
not as dependent on natural resources as the Japanese. India and
Kenya do not compensate for France, Italy, etc.
> > Yes. But would it have been able to last had Hitler not
> > turned to the east?
>
> What else could Hitler do after defeat in the air and on the
> seas? Sit tight and twiddle his thumbs while his enemies
> prepared to strike at a place and time of their own choosing?
The point is that if Hitler had the resources in the West that he
would squander in the East the Allies would not have been able to
strike at a place or time of their choosing.
> That was not Hitler's way.
We are not discussing Hitler's mistakes, rather the situation of
Germany had it not been at war with the Soviets.
> James A. Donald:
> > > Britain won the battle of Britain, Australia won the battle
> > > of the kokoda trail.
>
> Bolshoy Murza:
> > And these, naturally, were comparable to Stalingrad : )))
>
> The battle of Stalingrad saved a city, and gained a little
> time. The sinking of the Bismark saved all the world beyond
The Bismarck was hiding in a port, presenting no threat. German naval
successes peaked years after it was sunk. Stalingrad was a city where
100,000s German soldiers perished; the Bismarck was only a ship.
> the continent, and gave Britain as much time as it pleased.
>
> Stalingrad was just one city. Britain's naval victories meant
> that Britain was invulnerable to attack, ruled the oceans of
> the world,
It lost a lot of tonnage for a nation "ruling the oceans of the
world". Now imagine how much this would have been worse if the
Germans had devoted more research and resources to the naval campaign;
if the Germans had far more divisions across the channel, far more
planes, etc.
> and could tap all the resources and peoples that
> were near the oceans, and cut Germany off from all the
> resources of the world, and from his Japanese allies.
You should also remember that the British colonials would probably not
die in large numbers for their masters. The millions of British
subjects in India thus were not militarily very useful. If you recall
there was a pro-Axis uprising under Rashid Ali El-Gailani in Iraq, in
May 1941. What would have happened if the Germans had brought troops
there?
> The battle of the kododa trail demoralized the Japanese army,
> and showed that the Japanese could not capture land against
> determined European troops, which meant that they could not
> link up with Germany, nor deny England access to the manpower
> and resources of the British empire and the English speaking
> peoples.
>
> James A. Donald:
> > > Hitler, fearing stalemate, turned east, hoping a quick
> > > victory there would enable him to attack the British empire
> > > by land, meeting up with his Japanese allies.
>
> Bolshoy Murza:
> > Hitler feared the Russian invasion which would come once
> > Stalin got organized.
>
> Don't be silly.
>
> In Stalin's mind, Russia was a great power, and there was some
> truth in that, for Russia is never as weak as it seems, nor as
> strong as it seems. But in the eyes of the rest of the world,
> its poor showing in the war with Finland showed it to be
> insignificant and inconsequential, a lesser power than Poland,
> due to its logistic paralysis.
American forces routinely lose to Scandanavians in war exercises. So
what? Speaking of Poland, however - certainly the Western powers were
lesser military forces than those brave Slavs sacrificed by Western
cowards. Poland inflicted more casualties, and fought longer, than
the French-British during Germany's conquest of France. The Slavs
truly are the last Europeans.
> Hitler did not fear Russia's
> attack, because he reasonably believed Russia incapable of such
> attack, for lack of logistics, unless first beefed up by the
> wealth of the West.
Zhukov and his tanks shattered the Japanese in 1940. If Stalin was
indeed interested in carving up the rest of the world he would have
simnply pressed south and taken the Japanese off the Asian continent.
The Russians used tactics that were far ahead of those of the
Germans', and the Russian t-34 tanks were, as British historian Norman
Davies wrote, the best ones used during the war.
Had Stalin more time to reorganize after his criminal purges and
attacked the Germans (say, in 1942) the Germans would have been
finished, quite quickly.
> Stalin was aiming to conquer the rest of the world, not the
> German empire. In his mind, it was a land rush by
> totalitarians to grab everything. Then, after the whole world
> was vacuumed up, then, and only then, would the victorious
> totalitarian powers then turn on each other -- which by the
> way, is Spengler's prediction of what was going to happen.
If Hitler had not attacked Stalin this is indeed what would have
happened. Had the Americans not developd the atom bomb, the Soviets
would have just captured the rest of the continent (say, in the late
1940's), and probably the middle east, and had won the cold war.
> James A. Donald:
> > > At that time, everyone thought, not entirely incorrectly,
> > > that due to the economic ruin Stalin had inflicted on
> > > Russia, and the slaughter of his finest generals, Russia
> > > was less significant militarily than Poland, and at first
> > > this proved true, though things changed when the US started
> > > supplying the Soviet armies and industry.
>
> Bolshoy Murza:
>
> > Ah. The the US was responsible for the Soviet vicotry :
> > )))).
>
> Of course. Recall what happened when the Soviet Union
> attempted to conquer Finland.
The fact that the tide had turned before significant Western help
found its way to Russia shows how effective Western help was. The
American historian col. David Glatnz recently concluded that if there
were no lend-lease, the Soviets would have defeated the Germans about
14 months later, and would have reached the English channel.
> It does not matter how vast the
> horde of conscripts you can round up, when you cannot swiftly
> transport them, feed them, cloth them for the local weather,
> nor give them decent boots.
>
> Similarly recall the one sided victories that the Germans won
> over helpless pitiful Soviet cannon fodder during the early
> part of the war.
...many of whom surrendered en masse in the vain hope that the Germans
would be better than Stalin....
Throughout the war as a whole the Germans suffered about 5 million
military casualties on the eastern front, the Russians 8 million.
> > Those two had trouble handling him even though they were up
> > against about 1/4 of his army, one broken by the Russians at
> > that. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the Western powers
> > fight 70 German divisions years after Germany was broken by
> > the Russians, while the Russians took care of about 240
> > divisions? (I don't have any books on me so my numbers might
> > be off). How about if the Americans faced three or four
> > times as many Germans. You still think they would have had a
> > chance?
>
> They would have just continued the air war a little longer. The
> air war in the end succeeded in flattening German industry.
Wrong. The German economy was hopelessly inefficient before the war
and so production actually *increased* as the war progressed,
*despite* allied bombing. As Norman Davies said, the bombing was
almost insignificant from a military standpoint, its chief "success"
being the slaughter of civilians.
For example, German production of planes:
Fighters 1941 - 3744; 1942 - 5515; 1943 - 10,898; 1944 - 25,285
Bombers 1941 - 3373; 1942 - 4337; 1943 - 4649; 1944 - 2287
Battle-
support fighers 1941 - 507; 1942 - 1249; 1943 - 3266; 1944 - 5496
The Germans also produced 1,041 jets in '44. Too little, too late.
Of course, most of this production was directed toward the Russians.
> Then they would have invaded at their liesure and faced 240
> divisions with no fuel, no spare parts, and limited ammo.
Simply not true, given that German production was increasing
throughout the war and that with no war against the Soviets the
Romanian oil fields would have been secure, and most likely the
Germans would have taken the middle east. Rommel had about 4 division
and stopped at El Alamain mostly due to a lack of supplies; with
another 150 or so divisions to spare it is likely that he would have
had more, no? With six or eight divisions and more supplies he would
have easily taken Egypt, and the Arabs would have risen against the
Allies.
> That is one of the many benefits of victory in the air and sea,
> one of the many reasons why Britain's initial victory in the
> air and on the sea was the decisive, world changing victory,
> the victory that set the course of the war, whereas Stalingrad
> was just one city among many others.
The Germans were being thrown back looong before the Brits or
Americans capitalized on Germany's failure to initially take Britain.
Attempts at attacking the mainland in 1942, for example, failed
miserably.
> The allies invaded Germany earlier than they planned or desired
> for fear that the armies of the Soviets would grab all of
> Germany, and perhaps France as well.
Sure. The jackal must move quickly if he wants some of the meat,
before the lion can eat it all.
> Had they stuck to their
> own schedule, they would have flattened everything on which the
> Germans depended from one end of Europe to the other before
> invading.
When. By 1955? Because their "flattening" in 1944 and 1945 did
little to affect production, although it certainly slaughtered a lot
of women and children. In 1944 the allies dropped 650,000 tons of
bombs on Germany (versus only 30,000 in 1941)...yet production was
increasing.
And, of course, had the Germans committed more airplanes, soldiers,
resources toward defending against bombing, rather than on the eastern
front, the bombing campaigns would have been even *less* effective.
> Bolshoy Murza:
> > > > Spengler's claim that money would never defeat raw power
> > > > proved true.
>
> James A. Donald:
> > > Which is doubtless why the Soviet Union is a going concern
> > > today. :-)
>
> Bolshoy Murza:
> > It crumbled from within, thanks in part to a westernized
> > elite. But if not for the nuclear deterrant, as I have said,
> > the West would have been finished long before the USSR would
> > have had a chance to collapse.
>
> Then why was Finland never communist?
Are you suggesting that the USSR was *unable* to take Finland, before
or after the war? Perhaps, then, the Swiss or Swedish armies were
also more powerful than the German?
> Bolshoy Murza:
> > > > How long till fanatic Arabs get nukes?
>
> James A. Donald:
> > > If they do, they will use them on each other, and if they
> > > use them on us, we will turn the sand to glass.
>
> Bolshoy Murza
> > Fristly, as stated by someone else, it's doubtful an Arab
> > state will nuke the USA. On the other hand, ff a terrorist
> > organization nukes, say New York, I doubt that the USA will
> > nuke a random Arab state as revenge.
>
> Why not? The US is now considering bombing the crap out of a
> random arab state and invading it in revenge for an attack by a
> terrorist organization. If the arabs fail to act sufficiently
> scared, will probably do so.
And it is hardly able to pull this off due to internal and external
opposition. Do you think that annhialating a nation of people will
meet less opposition? Furtheromore, if America had New York, LA or
other large cities nuked, what does this do to its status as a
superpower? The tens of millions of lost population, billions if not
trillians in economic loss, etc. would pretty much knock it out. The
Muslims, meanwhile, could afford to lose a country of two.
> If arab terroists nuke New York, the US goverment will draw up
> a list of arab states it does not much like, or considers
> disposable, and nuke them till they glow in the dark. Saudi
> Arabia is likely to be near the top of the list.
Wishful thinking. The Germans would have done it. Moving back to
speculation, with Germany securely holding the continent there would
be far more time for the Germans to develope the jet aircraft and
rocketry. Radar wouldn't help the British defend against a storm of
more sophisticated rockets that would probably come in the late
1940's. And British airpower would not last against a German airforce
consisting of jet planes. I've heard pilots talk about coming up
against German jets (and German pilots describing how, in their jets,
the British planes seemed to be like hot air balloons). Those jets
were primitive and prone to mechanical problems (due in part to lack
of resources thanks to Germany's shrunken territory - which would not
be a problem if not for the Soviet victories). But another year or
two of development...again, if Germany was not being crushed by the
Russians these technologies would have been more developed and more
utilized.
The notion that the Allies could have defeated Germany without the
Soviets is indeed rather laughable. The fact that the Soviets could
have defeated the Germans without the Allies is a topic of _some_
debate but the consensus seems to be that eventually it would be
inevitable.
> You seem to think that the humanitarian inclination of the west
> is a congenital weakness, like blindness or paralyzed legs.
True more of Europe than the USA. The USA is only a generation
behind. Its least backward areas on the coasts are pretty much the
same as Europe; this will attitude will grow as it is doing already.
Bolshoy Murza
Brian Blakistone
[...]
>> but time for
>> American economic and logistic aid.
>He would have too long to wait and, even at the pick, Lend Lease ammounted
>only to a certain percentage of the total Soviet military effort. It's
>arguable if SU could defeat Germans without this help but it was not _the_
>decisive factor. Of course, trucks, strategic materials and even American
>tanks and planes had been very useful but, except for the trucks, the
>amounts of this equipment had been, by 1943, considerably lower than Soviet
>home production. By the time of Kursk, Soviet tank production was few times
>bigger than the German one.
Yes, but modern armies move on their trucks, and either they
would have had to produce fewer tanks, or they would have
been far less mobile. Part of the German problem in
attacking the Soviets was their lack of trucks, at many
times Barbarossa was not held up by Soviet defenders, but by
German logistical problems. Beyond that the US trucks were
of a much higher quality than those the Soviets were
building. In many instances it is unlikely the Soviets
could have even built what the US provided, like the radios
and the aviation gas. They also provided something like
1,000 locomotives and huge amounts of rolling stock.
When you think Stalin came close to negotiating a settlement
as it was and that he was at the bottom of his very deep
manpower pool by the end of the war and it becomes very
dicey that the Soviets can prevail without the West, IMO.
Something as simple as being able to communicate with your
tanks and airplanes via radio is not going to show up as a
huge percentage of your GNP, but is vital to operations.
>BTW, it is not clear how "economic and logistic aid" converted "a
>mass of hungry conscripts" in a formidable fighting force. Surely, they
>also got some military experience and their leaders ceased to be "demoralized"
>somewhere along the road.
Absolutely, by the end the Soviets had made enormous gains
in modifying their doctrine to mask their weaknesses and
exploit their strengths. On the other hand the Germans
wouldn't have gotten nearly so far if the Soviets hadn't
eviscerated their officer corps during the purges of the
30s. I still see the allies as a three-legged stool, remove
any leg and the whole thing is likely to fall over.
Brian
Tiglath
"BernardZ" <Bern...@LargeMailBox.com to reply delete Large and Box> wrote
> >
> > I dont' know how the concept of Cold War can apply to antiquity. If a
> > state's army didn't invade and its ships didn't bother yours there was
> > no war of any kind. Romans didn't have a four-minute, or four-hour,
> > warning from catapults aimed at them at the other side of the
> > Adriatic.
>
> Not sure about this if you look at the Roman vs Persian you can see long
> lines of troops, massive fortifications, sometimes the war went hot and
> sometimes it did not. But there was almost always tension on the border.
>
> Then earlier on the Romans fought many wars with the Samnites. From the
> accounts, the Samnites hated them with a passion.
>
Then we are not talking about the same thing. What is your understanding of
"Cold War"?
I take it to be a state of rivalry and tension between two countries,
factions, groups, or individuals that stops short of open, violent
confrontation.
Covert fighting, yes, but no open fighting.
What you describe is open conflict with breaks during which, obviously,
there was tension, until the next raid, skirmish, or battle. But that is
not a Cold War.
Penguin Classics has separated Livy's work into distinct books for the
Italian conquest ("Early Rome") and the Mediterranean expansion
("Rome and the Mediterranean"). The former is little else
that a cacophony of the same conflict between Romans and its neighbors going
on and off ad nauseam. With the Samnites there were fewer but more
substantial
quarrels qualifying as wars. But tensions *always* ended in violent
confrontation, which is not a cold war.
>
> Furthermore the Greeks were not united some actually welcomed Rome.
That's right. Italian Greeks were more often at peace than at war with
Rome. Greeks were never conquered completely in some sense, since their
culture conquered Rome utterly, Romans aspire to imitate Greeks and suffered
the longest lasting case of cultural green envy, from Caesar's weeping
because
in middle age could not hope to emulate the achievement of Alexander in his
youth (were we to consider Alexander a Greek), to the widespread use of
Greek tutors for the children of the Roman well-to-do, and to the regard of
the Greek language by the Roman cultured. No small wonder that the
Greek language is far more expressive than Latin to describe the ideals and
the world from which ours has evolved, much as Greek doesn't have a word
for "altruism" Implications left as an exercise to readers and writer.
>
> Reading your post and checking some books, I think you are right and
> Matt and I wrong! There certainly was nothing like the hatred and
> conflicts of a *cold war* between Rome and the Greeks in general.
Refreshing. Thank you.
It is not me who is right. Historical facts and scholars who interpret them
correctly are right.
Bolshoy Murza
> > If Germnay never attacked the SU, then you have other
> > dramatic events taking place. First of all the bulk of the
> > German LAND forces, the Wehrmacht, can be reequipped and
> > trained, since there isn't much place to fight anyway. By
> > having the entire Luftwaffe in France and the Mediterenean,
> > the British are going to have major problems facing the
> > Luftwaffe in equal terms.
>
> The British had already won in the air. Once they had
> sufficient air power to stop the Luftwaffe from bombing their
> airports and aircraft factories, their advantage rapidly
> increased, swiftly becoming overwhelming, as the number and
> quality of their fighters rapidly increased, while Hitler's
> were suffering an equally rapid decrease.
Wrong. Germany was producing more fighters as the war progressed, and
it produced the first useable jet fighters. An excellent description
of this program could be found here:
http://www.danshistory.com/ww2/jetrock.shtml
According to that site: By war's end 1294 Me-262 jet fighters had been
built but only 200 to 300 fought in the skies over Germany. All told
the Me-262s downed more than 700 aircraft in the face of overwhelming
air superiority (out numbered ten-to-one and in some battles
fifty-to-one.)
The allies were years behind in that department (and many advances
came from Germany; which would not have happened had the Soviets not
smashed the German military).
As for missile technology:
http://www.danshistory.com/ww2/vweapon.shtml
All ICBS are descendents of German technology. Once again, had there
been no war with the Soviets the Allies would have no chance of
pulling off a successful invasion and the Germans would have had ample
time to further develope these weapons; its Western forces would have
been far, far more powerful, and Britain would fall.
> Hitler was running
> on capital, in that he was prepared for war, while the west was
> at first unprepared. The battle of Britain was his equipment
> lead being consumed, and destroyed, and replaced by a western
> lead in equipment.
Wrong. Germany's productivity increased, dramatically, throughout the
war because before the war it was in pretty poor shape.
During the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffwe lost 1598 aircraft
(source: http://www.battle-of-britain.com/). This was less than the
over 2000 aircraft used in the invasion of Russia, and far less than
the 5515 fighters produced in 1941, over 10,000 produced in 1943 and
25,285 produced in 1944.
> Meanwhile on the seas, the same process took place, the German
> navy was shattered, attempted to flee, and was destroyed in
> flight, a victory which Churchill accurately told the British
> people was decisive. Again, Hitler's initial capital advantage
> was consumed and destroyed, on the seas as in the air.
See above. As for naval losses, as I have pointed out allied shipping
losses peaked years after the destruction of the Bismarck.
(song snipped...)
> That battle "shook the seven seas", because it gave the British
> control of the seven seas. Germany lost that control. That
> meant that for Britain, everything was won, and for Germany,
> everything was lost.
An interesting take on history.
> Britain and her allies now had access to
> all the resources and manpower of the world, Germany did not.
> Britain could now strike at Germany at any time or place she
> chose, Germany could not strike at Britain.
See above. With 3x the defences it's dountful that Britain could
strike at any time. With mass developement of missiles and jet
fighters, as well as decreased resupply thatnks to more emphasis on
u-boats, Germany's lead over Britain would grow exponentially.
America would be safe in the short term, sure, but Britain would be
lost. Good luck launching an invasion across the Atlantic. And guess
who would have ICBM's first?
> > Rommel can be given several more divisions and a much
> > stronger poresence of the Luftwaffe in the Med and especially
> > in Italy and Sicily, can make sure that two things happen: 1.
> > Rommel can get more forces, and equipment. He can also be
> > unproblematically resupplied. 2. Malta falls. And thsi will
> > definetely happen, if the Luftwaffe has the time to attack
> > the island properly, rather than bombing Russians.
>
> The Luftwaffe were defeated, and in large part annihilated,
> long before the Soviet Union was in the picture.
See above. Germans lost 1600 planes; less than they would use against
the Russians, less than half of what they produced in 1941 and less
than 1/10 what they would produce in, say, 1944.
> We let them
> bomb the Russians, because we wanted both sides weakened, and
> so we were more inclined to give the russians boots for their
> conscript cannon fodder, rather than planes.
Also Russian planes were better than yours; the Russians didn't need
or want them.
> > Furthermore, you are forgetting one major point of conflict:
> > The Atlantic. Since the Wehrmacht isn't blown to pieces in
> > late 1941, industrial resources can be redirected in building
> > more u-boats
>
> But we already saw that the allies increased their naval power,
> while the German naval power collapsed, before the Soviets were
> in the picture. The unstealthy German U boats were swiftly
> annihilated by British air and sea superiority.
They reached their peak long after the navy was supposedly shattered
with the Bismarck.
> British technology was superior. That battle was already over, and
> Germany decisively and shatteringly defeated.
See all of the above.
> > Don't forget that German bombers of every kind will also have
> > the capability to hit every major port city in Southern
> > Britain (with adequate protection from FW-190s) in 1942
>
> Don't be silly. That was Hitler's plan. He tried it, nearly
> succeeded, but in the end it failed. The more fighters the
> British built, the more easily they could build more fighters.
> Hitler stopped because the German airforce was swiftly being
> destroyed.
As was the British. A German once told me that Hitler stopped not
because he couldn't comntinue but because he wanted to switch from air
warfare to civilian bombing (something the allies would beat him in
anyways).
> The plan initially almost succeeded because of Hitler's initial
> lead in equipment, but British productivity, backed by US
> wealth, rapidly swarmed him, with British fighters swiftly
> increasing, and German fighters and bombers swifty decreasing.
Simply not true, see above.
> His lead in equipment was consumed and destroyed, and that was
> that. Once lost, it could never be regained, because his
> enemies had enormously more wealth than he did, and superior
> technology to his.
See above. Allies had radar and nukes but Germans had jets and
rockets. If the Russians had not crushed them, the latter
technologies would play an important, perhaps decicive role. We know
that only 2 nukes were ready in 1945 (the damage to an entire
German-run continent by those two nukes would not have ben
significant); more would not have existed until 1946 or 1947. Would
Britain have survived by then if Germany did not squander most of its
military and resources in the hopeless battle against the Soviets from
1941-1945? And, with Britain gone, how would the USA have delivered
the nukes?
Bolshoy Murza
James A. Donald
James A. Donald
> > The bomb was one aspect of the rapidly increasing western
> > technological lead over Germany. Another was that they
> > broke German codes, while Germans failed to break their
> > codes. Another was radar, which enabled british planes to
> > spot German snorkels, and the primitive German subs were
> > very dependent on their snorkels.
Brian Blakistone
> But you have to wonder if more engineering talent is put into
> subs than say tank design for the east, what the Germans
> might have achieved.
The west achieved all round technological supremacy over the
Germans and a all round growing technological lead. There was
no exciting technological advances in German tanks. There were
lots of exciting technological advances in western anti
submarine warfare.
There are two reasons why the west got the bomb, and Hitler did
not and they apply to a greater or lesser extent to all the
other technical advances.
1. The worlds best scientists fled germany and german power,
and mostly fled to the US.
2. Hitler was trying to get a quick war with a quick ending,
to capitalize on his greater initial military preparedness. The
west was aiming for a long war, and simply had more money to
afford technological advance, and to afford a long war.
In short, more scientists, more intellectuals, more money, and
more time. No way could Hitler compete with that.
> You can also look to the German jets and the rocket program
> to see that technology wasn't always an allied monopoly,
> although they did have the better of it. The problem comes
> in with the resources released for the Germans. What does
> the war in the Atlantic, which by most measures was a close
> thing at several points, if the Germans focused their
> production on U Boats instead of tanks for the Eastern front?
Had Germany devoted more resources to building U-boats, they
would have lost more U-boats.
At first the west was losing the battle of the atlantic, in
that they were losing ships faster than Germany was losing U
boats, which had it continued would have created a situation
where neither side could use the seas.
Soon however they built more anti U-boat planes and equipped
them with better devices to detect and destroy U-boats, with
the result that a U-boat lifetime got shorter and shorter,
until finally a U-boat mission to the atlantic was pretty much
a suicide run.
The west was not losing any of their anti-u-boat planes, so
their resources were continually and swiftly increasing.
Germany gave up on the struggle for the seas not because they
were diverting resources to the Soviet Union, but because a
U-boat's life expectancy had come to resemble that of a
snowball in a blast furnace.
> How many more fighters are available if the Germans aren't
> fighting in the Soviet Union?
None, because once the British gained the upper hand in the
air, they annihilated German fighters as fast as they came.
British victory in the air preceded, and arguably forced,
Germany's attack on the Soviet Union. Hitler wanted to send
his fighters somewhere they could survive.
> The US had all the advantages you mention in Vietnam and yet
> still lost because they couldn't tolerate the casualties to
> the ground forces. The Germans were not going to walk into
> the abyss, they needed to be pushed and it would need to be
> done by ground forces.
Then we would have nuked them, or found some similar high tech
system for mass destruction. Nuclear weapons were not some
lucky break -- they were part of a broad and rapid
technological advance in methods of killing people.
The US lost the war in Vietnam, and resolved to avoid wars of
conscript cannon fodder, and proceeded to defeat the Soviet
Union in other ways, ways that relied on its wealth, technology
and ideology. The same would have happened with Hitler.
And to get back on topic: The supposed decadence of the west:
The enemies of the west, the Caesers corrected predicted by
Spengler, tend to put all their energy and resources into
methods of killing people, while the west focusses on Nintendo
games and softer toilet paper (there has recently been a
technological breakthrough in soft toilet paper -- it is
predampened with certain non volatile chemicals) Spengler
incorrectly predicted that this would result in the West
losing.
By focussing all their energy and thought onto this single
goal, they can just barely keep up with the west in that one
small area -- and usually cannot even keep up.
But when the west gets a fright, it focusses on methods of
killing people, discards its humanitarian concerns, and zooms
way ahead of its enemies.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
jX16+E/UIsxytawR208nu+v2S5wChZwxW9rkgD6a
4aUObgWRJmeArcNqYpMKNdyUKH2oWjLwWxszzr2Yh
-Özzama Bin Kenøbi-
>"Armageddon Watch" <u3148...@spawnkill.ip-mobilphone.net> wrote in message
>news:l.104175110...@proxy.schoollink.net...
>> Lessons from the fall of an empire
>
>If we are going to use the Romans as an example, come talk to be in
>ohhhh.... say about 1000 years.
China is the new rising Empire. It is all over for the U$ already.
-Özzama Bin Kenøbi-
>Except that there was no American Empire in 1776.
>
>And your thoughts about China are old hat, cliched and show a patent lack of
>originality.
Originality? Uh, have you ever thought about speaking the truth,
rather than trying to be "original"?
-Özzama Bin Kenøbi-
>Stalin fought for time, not time for winter to arrive, for his
>troops were worse clothed than the germans, but time for
>American economic and logistic aid.
He fought to buy time for the T-34 to be completed and sent into mass
production. As soon as that appeared, it was all over for the Nazis.
"German general von Runstedt called the T-34 the "best tank in the
world" and von Kleist said it was the "finest in the world."
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/row/t-34.htm
"It was the most excellent example of the offensive weapon of Second
World War." - General Mellentin.
"Their T-34 was the best in the world." - Field marshal Kleist.
-Özzama Bin Kenøbi-
>For example current day Dagestan & Chechnya were once
>part of Persia before Czarist Russia took them and Iran remembers
>this as much as they remember the British forcing oil concessions
>upon the Shah in the years just before WWI.
Seems the ones most concerned with Chechnya are not the Persians, but
the same stinking Arabs in Saudi Arabia that fund Al Qaeda and the
Jihad throughout the world.
-Özzama Bin Kenøbi-
>The Cold War no longer exists so there is no longer a reason for US
>politics to supercede UN politics and earn enemies for the US.
But as long as the military contractors continue to demand payment
from the politicians they have bought, and as long as the oil
companies continue to demand new drilling and other priviledges, the
U$ will continue to be an aggressive Empire doomed to eventual violent
destruction.
Paul J Gans
This is a bit oversimplified. The west, being unprepared,
had no choice but to plan for a longer war.
>In short, more scientists, more intellectuals, more money, and
>more time. No way could Hitler compete with that.
>> You can also look to the German jets and the rocket program
>> to see that technology wasn't always an allied monopoly,
>> although they did have the better of it. The problem comes
>> in with the resources released for the Germans. What does
>> the war in the Atlantic, which by most measures was a close
>> thing at several points, if the Germans focused their
>> production on U Boats instead of tanks for the Eastern front?
> Had Germany devoted more resources to building U-boats, they
>would have lost more U-boats.
>At first the west was losing the battle of the atlantic, in
>that they were losing ships faster than Germany was losing U
>boats, which had it continued would have created a situation
>where neither side could use the seas.
>Soon however they built more anti U-boat planes and equipped
>them with better devices to detect and destroy U-boats, with
>the result that a U-boat lifetime got shorter and shorter,
>until finally a U-boat mission to the atlantic was pretty much
>a suicide run.
No. This is not what happened. What happened was that
early in the war the Allies were losing shipping faster
than they could build new shipping. That spelled disaster
sooner rather than later.
The counter that won was to build ships faster than they
were being sunk. They were being turned out in the US
at an amazing rate. I believe they were mostly built ot
the same set of plans. They were named "Liberty Ships".
>The west was not losing any of their anti-u-boat planes, so
>their resources were continually and swiftly increasing.
>Germany gave up on the struggle for the seas not because they
>were diverting resources to the Soviet Union, but because a
>U-boat's life expectancy had come to resemble that of a
>snowball in a blast furnace.
That came later once the production of military ships got
ramped up. Anti-U-Boat planes were of very limited use,
having a very short range. You forget that no war plane then
could fly the Atlantic. Those planes were useful at keeping
U-boats off the US coastline. During the early part of the
war ships were being sunk a mile offshore in the US.
But the submarine war soon moved out to the open sea. That
gave the Allies an advantage because they could fan out after
leaving port.
[rest deleted]
---- Paul J. Gans
James A. Donald
Bolshoy Murza:
> > > He [Hitler] crushed any western power he could get his
> > > hands on.
James A. Donald:
> > He could not get his hands on Britain because the British,
> > with US technological and economic assistance, DEFEATED him
> > in the air and on the sea, a British victory that shattered
> > his entire strategy.
Bolshoy Murza
> This doesn't bear with the facts. The Bismarck was sunk but
> much of the rest of German navy was safely at port;
Safely hiding in port, fearful to go out, and never leaving.
And there they remained.
> moreover the U-boat usage did not peak until YEARS after the
> Bizmarck was sunk. For excample in 1940 the Germans sank
> about 4.4 million tons; they did so also in 1941 but in 1942
> tthis total increased to *8,245,000* tons.
Western measures against U-boats were also improving, with the
result that the U-boat effort stopped abruptly, due to the ever
diminishing life expectancy of U-boats. It came to pass that
they no longer survived long enough to be worth building.
James A. Donald:
> > Once Britain attained air and sea superiority, what did it
> > care for the continent, when the English speaking peoples
> > had the world?
Bolshoy Murza:
> India, Africa etc. could not be compared to the "World".
> Furthermore, given greater German ability to isolate Britain
> this would have made little difference.
But Germany's efforts to isolate Britain were militarily
defeated, in large part due to a rapidly increasing technology
gap, which is a major reason that Germany gave up on that and
turned east.
India is just as big a source of expendable conscript cannon
fodder as Russia. Had Russia not come in, England would have
swung that way.
James A. Donald:
> > What else could Hitler do after defeat in the air and on
> > the seas? Sit tight and twiddle his thumbs while his
> > enemies prepared to strike at a place and time of their own
> > choosing?
Bolshoy Murza:
> The point is that if Hitler had the resources in the West
> that he would squander in the East the Allies would not have
> been able to strike at a place or time of their choosing.
He had lost in the air and the sea, and due the increased, and
increasing gap in technology and resources, resuming that
battle would merely have led to another, greater, defeat. So
being Hitler, he struck in another direction.
James A. Donald:
> > > > Britain won the battle of Britain, Australia won the
> > > > battle of the kokoda trail.
Bolshoy Murza:
> > > And these, naturally, were comparable to Stalingrad : )))
James A. Donald:
> > The battle of Stalingrad saved a city, and gained a little
> > time. The sinking of the Bismark saved all the world
> > beyond
Bolshoy Murza:
> The Bismarck was hiding in a port, presenting no threat.
> German naval successes peaked years after it was sunk.
Because the German navy was already defeated shortly before the
Bismark was sunk.
The German navy went out to contest British control of the
seas, and pretty soon was slinkijng back to port. On the way
back to homeland, the Bismark was sunk.
> Stalingrad was a city where 100,000s German soldiers
> perished; the Bismarck was only a ship.
The Bismark was the most powerful ship ever built to that time,
the flagship of Germany's navy, a symbol of Germany's intent to
rule the seas, to take rule of the seas away from England, and
. When the British sank the Bismark, that was the end of
that.
James A. Donald:
> > Stalingrad was just one city. Britain's naval victories
> > meant that Britain was invulnerable to attack, ruled the
> > oceans of the world,
Bolshoy Murza:
> It lost a lot of tonnage for a nation "ruling the oceans of
> the world".
Germany did not lose any tonnage because because it had already
lost it all. All its ships had been seized or were in hiding,
and it could not ship anything.
Britain could ship stuff, did ship stuff. Germany could not.
Therefore, Britain did rule the oceans of the world.
> Now imagine how much this would have been worse if the
> Germans had devoted more research and resources to the naval
> campaign; if the Germans had far more divisions across the
> channel, far more planes, etc.
They tried that, recall. They gave up because they failed.
James A. Donald:
> > and could tap all the resources and peoples that were near
> > the oceans, and cut Germany off from all the resources of
> > the world, and from his Japanese allies.
Bolshoy Murza:
> You should also remember that the British colonials would
> probably not die in large numbers for their masters.
In the guerrila war against Japan colonial people did die in
large numbers. Within the Soviet Union, there was no
comparable guerrila war against Germany. Therefore colonial
affection for Europeans was considerably greater than Soviet
affection for Stalin.
Bolshoy Murza:
> > > Hitler feared the Russian invasion which would come once
> > > Stalin got organized.
James A. Donald:
> > Don't be silly.
> >
> > In Stalin's mind, Russia was a great power, and there was
> > some truth in that, for Russia is never as weak as it
> > seems, nor as strong as it seems. But in the eyes of the
> > rest of the world, its poor showing in the war with Finland
> > showed it to be insignificant and inconsequential, a lesser
> > power than Poland, due to its logistic paralysis.
Bolshoy Murza:
> American forces routinely lose to Scandanavians in war
> exercises. So what? Speaking of Poland, however - certainly
> the Western powers were lesser military forces than those
> brave Slavs sacrificed by Western cowards. Poland inflicted
> more casualties, and fought longer, than the French-British
> during Germany's conquest of France. The Slavs truly are the
> last Europeans.
Slavs are slaves by their nature, and so make better conscript
cannon fodder. The west has never done well in wars of
conscript cannon fodder, due to our notorious preference for
dying in bed. And so we find clever ways to destroy our
enemies from safety, or render them helpless by outmaneuvering
them, or we use our enemies treachery and evil against each
other.
These are the methods that a civilized people, in the flower of
the vigor of their civilization, use against barbarians. A
civilization is decadent when its people can no longer outwit
their enemies, but are still reluctant to die fighting even
when that unpleasant necessity arrives.
Slavs are better than westerners at marching into the mouths of
cannon, but westerners prefer other methods of winning wars,
and we have demonstrated ourselves rather good at it.
James A. Donald:
> > Hitler did not fear Russia's attack, because he reasonably
> > believed Russia incapable of such attack, for lack of
> > logistics, unless first beefed up by the wealth of the
> > West.
Bolshoy Murza:
> Zhukov and his tanks shattered the Japanese in 1940.
The Japanese were not shattered -- they were stopped. For lack
of logistics, Zhukov could not chase after them. A typical
weakness of barbarians.
In contrast, after the Australians stopped the Japanese on the
Kokoda trail, they then proceeded to advance, cut off the
Japanese evacuation, and killed every Japanese soldier in New
Guinea, taking no prisoners, which is why the battle of the
Kokoda trail is often called Japan's first defeat, and the
various times the Japanese were unable to advance, as in the
battle of the Coral Sea, and in the Soviet Union, are for the
most part not called defeats.
> If Stalin was indeed interested in carving up the rest of the
> world he would have simnply pressed south and taken the
> Japanese off the Asian continent.
If he was interested in defending the Soviet Union and had the
logistics to press south, he would have indeed have "shattered"
the Japanese probe. He did not, and could not.
> If Hitler had not attacked Stalin this is indeed what would
> have happened. Had the Americans not developd the atom bomb,
> the Soviets would have just captured the rest of the
> continent (say, in the late 1940's), and probably the middle
> east, and had won the cold war.
Or to say the same thing, if the west was as poor, ignorant,
and backward as the Soviets.-- but it was not, it was and is a
civilization in the flower of its greatness..
> The fact that the tide had turned before significant Western
> help found its way to Russia shows how effective Western help
> was.
I find this :fact" unbelievable. US aid started instantly.
The tide did not turn until over one year later.
The Soviet Union was in a state of collapse until US logistic
aid reached the front -- US aid began in June 1941, the Soviet
collapse continued until September 1942.
> The American historian col. David Glatnz recently concluded
> that if there were no lend-lease, the Soviets would have
> defeated the Germans about 14 months later, and would have
> reached the English channel.
Did he now? I doubt it. Give us a quote.
Bolshoy Murza:
> > > > > How long till fanatic Arabs get nukes?
James A. Donald:
> > > > If they do, they will use them on each other, and if
> > > > they use them on us, we will turn the sand to glass.
Bolshoy Murza
> > > Fristly, as stated by someone else, it's doubtful an Arab
> > > state will nuke the USA. On the other hand, ff a
> > > terrorist organization nukes, say New York, I doubt that
> > > the USA will nuke a random Arab state as revenge.
James A. Donald:
> > Why not? The US is now considering bombing the crap out of
> > a random arab state and invading it in revenge for an
> > attack by a terrorist organization. If the arabs fail to
> > act sufficiently scared, will probably do so.
Bolshoy Murza
> And it is hardly able to pull this off due to internal and
> external opposition.
Again, you mistake humanity and mercy for weakness. Humanity
is a luxury that we are apt to swiftly discard when things get
tough.
The US is perfectly capable of pulling this off, and if Saddam
and the other arabs do not kiss ass sufficiently, will
doubtless do so.
> Do you think that annhialating a nation of people will
> meet less opposition?
We won't care. The opposition is mere empty words from people
we only pretend to be polite to. Consulting the international
community is merely politeness, not weakness.
Your thinking is that of a savage, who mistakes the pleasant
fictions and pretenses required by civility for fear and
weakness. The french do not matter, and we do not care what
they think, but we refrain from acting ways that make that too
painfully obvious.
> Furtheromore, if America had New York, LA or other large
> cities nuked, what does this do to its status as a
> superpower?
It would make it a very pissed off superpower that is about to
remake the world so that such a thing never happens again.
> The tens of millions of lost population, billions if not
> trillians in economic loss, etc. would pretty much knock it
> out.
Don't be silly. New York is merely one small part of America.
> The Muslims, meanwhile, could afford to lose a country of
> two.
Could they? I doubt it, but they continued to be
objectionable, we would just keep on deleting Muslim countries.
What I would expect to happen is that we would erase a few, and
then tell the rest to accept social reforms and western
tutelage aimed at changing their nature so that this problem
did not continue. Those that declined to accept such
benevolent assistance, would be destroyed, by conventional
means where economically accepable, by other means when
necessary.
James A. Donald:
> > If arab terroists nuke New York, the US goverment will draw
> > up a list of arab states it does not much like, or
> > considers disposable, and nuke them till they glow in the
> > dark. Saudi Arabia is likely to be near the top of the
> > list.
Bolshoy Murza:
> Wishful thinking. The Germans would have done it. Moving
> back to speculation, with Germany securely holding the
> continent there would be far more time for the Germans to
> develope the jet aircraft and rocketry.
Fact is, westerners had a technological lead from the
beginning, and that lead continually increased, and that lead
won the battle of Britain, and the battle of the Bismark. The
west getting nukes first was not a fluke, it was part of same
superiority and vigor that won the battle of Britain.
> Radar wouldn't help the British defend against a storm of
> more sophisticated rockets that would probably come in the
> late 1940's.
Rockets carrying conventional explosive large distances are not
cost effective compared to bombers. Using rockets, like using
U-boats, was act of desperation, a tactic of weakness against
strength.
Rockets gave Hitler less destruction for his money than bombers
gave the west for their money, and the west had more money.
> And British airpower would not last against a German
> airforce
> consisting of jet planes.
British jet development was only marginally behind German jet
development.
Again you are arguing "suppose Germany was ahead". But it was
behind overall, and its most advanced areas, its advantage was
slight and margiinal. This demonstrates the superior vigor and
greatness of western civilization.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
BzsDxZTB7Z820KMCzFoX+nCRGwzQLOOLq/1Mm8xp
473/sXerN/IiojkwgEzLeAO7fJ+DVITNnkqYlNkXA
James A. Donald
BernardZ
> > > Without the bomb or the Russian there is no way that
> > > the Britain empire could have defeated Germany by itself.
James A. Donald:
> > It had already won, with material and technological aid
> > from the US, but before the bomb, and before Hitler's
> > invasion of Russia, by winning supremacy at sea and in the
> > air. The rest was just mopping up, and Hitler strugging
> > within the trap. Hitler's entirely strategy was predicated
> > on lighting victory. When Britain achieved air and sea
> > domination, Hitler's whole plan fell apart. The end,
> > though still far off, was in sight. Everyone in the west
> > realized it.
> >
> > In order to break out of this trap, Hitler would have had
> > to go far east, link up with his Japanese allies, and
> > strike at the British empire by land, which is a long
> > journey, over some mighty rough country, through hordes of
> > enemies.
BernardZ
> He would not have to do anything. Since without the US and
> Russia there is no way that the British have sufficient
> manpower to defeat him.
We would have found away to destroy him without using up our
people as conscript cannon fodder, just as we usually do.
For example, we would have nuked him, or would have fostered
guerrila wars among his slave peoples, or whatever turned up.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
NQFyLBQZaYCltFAoP3lZG8hXvXUWTosZG+TEAo4E
4aayaRWaYI+HoN5FgsAO2c+HjDOEiaQEIvrdqDAZj
James A. Donald
BernardZ
> > > Without the bomb or the Russian there is no way that
> > > the Britain empire could have defeated Germany by itself.
James A. Donald:
> > It had already won, with material and technological aid
> > from the US, but before the bomb, and before Hitler's
> > invasion of Russia, by winning supremacy at sea and in the
> > air. The rest was just mopping up, and Hitler strugging
> > within the trap. Hitler's entirely strategy was predicated
> > on lighting victory. When Britain achieved air and sea
> > domination, Hitler's whole plan fell apart. The end,
> > though still far off, was in sight. Everyone in the west
> > realized it.
> >
> > In order to break out of this trap, Hitler would have had
> > to go far east, link up with his Japanese allies, and
> > strike at the British empire by land, which is a long
> > journey, over some mighty rough country, through hordes of
> > enemies.
>
> He would not have to do anything. Since without the US and
> Russia there is no way that the British have sufficient
> manpower to defeat him.
You seem to be adding more and more conditions to your "what
if". It is not only "what if Hitler stuck with his alliance
with Hitler", but also "what if the west did not have
increasing technological superiority, and the rest of the
world"
But the west did have technological supremacy and the rest of
the world.
Sure, the west could not win the game playing it by Hitler's
rules. But because the west controlled the air and the sea, it
could change the rules to suit itself.
The west does not do well at the game of conscript cannon
fodder, but its enemies find themselves powerless to make it
play that game, as Hitler found himself powerless to make
Britain play that game.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
psk6hcZIEWGVijovbNLa954Fv0X/C6u4Y4zqTFz3
40Lvq9671IgmqyUJP22hcvemIttuuH9JGCBMRxWkA
usertx
> --
<Skip>
> Slavs are slaves by their nature, and so make better conscript
> cannon fodder. The west has never done well in wars of
> conscript cannon fodder, due to our notorious preference for
> dying in bed. And so we find clever ways to destroy our
> enemies from safety, or render them helpless by outmaneuvering
> them, or we use our enemies treachery and evil against each
> other.
>
> Slavs are better than westerners at marching into the mouths of
> cannon, but westerners prefer other methods of winning wars,
> and we have demonstrated ourselves rather good at it.
Like in WWI ;))))
Schlau
Because Iran wants to continue purchasing weapons, including possible
nuclear technology, from Russia. Support of the Chechens would
end this. Also Iran has sizable minorities of it's own in the: Azeris,
Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis and Turkmen, who might be encouraged in separatist
activities and armed by Russia, if Iran was arming the Chechens.
Russia is closer to the Roman Empire parallel then the US is. It's
the "3rd Rome" after all.
--Oscar Schlaf--
Alex
> am...@hotmail.com (Alex) wrote:
> [...]
> >> but time for
> >> American economic and logistic aid.
>
> >He would have too long to wait and, even at the pick, Lend Lease ammounted
> >only to a certain percentage of the total Soviet military effort. It's
> >arguable if SU could defeat Germans without this help but it was not _the_
> >decisive factor. Of course, trucks, strategic materials and even American
> >tanks and planes had been very useful but, except for the trucks, the
> >amounts of this equipment had been, by 1943, considerably lower than Soviet
> >home production. By the time of Kursk, Soviet tank production was few times
> >bigger than the German one.
>
> Yes, but modern armies move on their trucks, and either they
> would have had to produce fewer tanks, or they would have
> been far less mobile.
We are in a complete agreement on this issue. But the post to which I was
answering simply discounted Soviets as a bunch of (probably unarmed)
conscripts waiting for the Western help. My point was that this was only
partially true and that Nazies had been stoped in 1941 before this aid
started coming in the really big quantities. Of course, it would be foolish
to deny (as Soviet propaganda tried to do in 80's) the importance of
Lend Lease for the events on the Eastern Front.
>Part of the German problem in
> attacking the Soviets was their lack of trucks,
They widely used horses, just as Soviets did (with much bigger resources
of a horsepower).
>at many
> times Barbarossa was not held up by Soviet defenders, but by
> German logistical problems.
Indeed. OTOH, Barbarossa, as it was planned, failed because it's main
premise proved to be wrong: after most of the existing Red Army had been
defeated near the border, Soviet resistance did not crumble. Besides a
gross miscalculation of the human resources (and their quality), Germans
seriously miscalculated Soviet industrial potential (Abwehr failed to
establish any efficient espionage network on the Soviet territory and, as
a result, Germans had very vague idea about locations and capacities of
the Soviet industry).
>Beyond that the US trucks were
> of a much higher quality than those the Soviets were
> building.
Indeed. Besides, there was no spare parts for the existing Soviet trucks and
most of them had been gradually dismantled to support the shrinking pool of
the active ones.
>In many instances it is unlikely the Soviets
> could have even built what the US provided, like the radios
Well, I have some idea about this with my father serving as a communication
officer during WWII. :-)
Sorry, but you are wrong on this particular issue. Radios had been built in
SU well before WWII and were a part of the standard army equipment. The
problem was with a real life supply but the same applied to the many low
technology items: in 1941 a barbed wire often had been used as a substitute
of the cable for the field phones. In 1943 there was an adequate supply of
the Soviet radios even on father's front (Karelian Front was one of the
less "prestigious" with a resulting low priority).
OTOH, Studebekkers had been ideally suited as the platforms for the powerful
army level Soviet radio installations. Trucks again. :-)
> and the aviation gas.
Not sure about this as well. Surely, Soviet constructors had been
designing the engines that were capable to fly on the available fuel.
Perhaps you are talking about the fuel for the Cobras and Spitfires?
> They also provided something like
> 1,000 locomotives and huge amounts of rolling stock.
>
> When you think Stalin came close to negotiating a settlement
> as it was and that he was at the bottom of his very deep
> manpower pool by the end of the war and it becomes very
> dicey that the Soviets can prevail without the West, IMO.
Well, the serious conversations about post-war arrangements (if this is
what you have in mind) started in Teheran and continued in Yalta and
Potsdam. Stalin got from FDR practically everything he wanted. AFAIK,
at no point there was a serious conversation about SU "prevailing"
without the West. On the contrary, Stalin kept insisting on the Second
Front and complaining about the delays.
> Something as simple as being able to communicate with your
> tanks and airplanes via radio is not going to show up as a
> huge percentage of your GNP, but is vital to operations.
I already addressed this issue. There were numerous important items and
materials supplied by US and UK.
>
> >BTW, it is not clear how "economic and logistic aid" converted "a
> >mass of hungry conscripts" in a formidable fighting force. Surely, they
> >also got some military experience and their leaders ceased to be "demoralized"
> >somewhere along the road.
>
> Absolutely, by the end the Soviets had made enormous gains
> in modifying their doctrine to mask their weaknesses and
> exploit their strengths. On the other hand the Germans
> wouldn't have gotten nearly so far if the Soviets hadn't
> eviscerated their officer corps during the purges of the
> 30s.
It was not as simple as that. Even if we assume that a big percentage
of the executed were incompetent (which was not a reason for the execution),
the massive repressions in all areas did a huge damage to the country.
You can add Stalin's ignorance and meddling everywhere, from the military
plans to the weaponry production.
>I still see the allies as a three-legged stool, remove
> any leg and the whole thing is likely to fall over.
A very good comparison.
yp11
>BernardZ <Bern...@LargeMailBox.com to reply delete Large and Box>
>wrote in
>> >
>> > Were it not for the serious blunder of allowing a Jewish state to rise
>> > in the middle of an Arab sea without Arab consent, and the unjust and
>> > immoral acts the U.S. finds it necessary to commit to keep Israel
>> > safe, the U.S. would be far more popular and viewed as much more a
>> > benign master by those it seeks to exert influence over (the inner
>> > solar system).
>>
>> At the time the US would have had to intervene to stop Israel from
>> happening. Now the deed is done. The Arabs will just have to learn to
>> live with it.
>
>
>The problem with that thinking is that Arabs clearly don't. That's
>why we have one of the ugliest conflicts carrying over from the
>mistakes of the twentieth century with no end in sight.
>
>The heat of that conflict is now felt worldwide. It affects oil
>prices, air travel, and there are terrorist movements bent on
>punishing those who help the Zionists. From where I sit it doesn't
>look anywhere near to Arabs "learn to live with it."
>
>------------------------
>
>I am a fervent anti-Zionist, no apologies, but I make the careful
>distinction between Zionists and Jews since most Jews are very happy
>living in the Diaspora and have no intention to go steal land from the
>Palestinians much as in their heart may support the Zionist cause.
>
>The world has, however, a Jewish Problem.
>
>I am well aware that there are many people of Jewish heritage that do
>not fall into the group, the Jews, I refer to below, good for them. I
>don't allude to them.
>
>I welcome reasoned debate on this issue but I am quite immune to
>mindless reactionaries that can only yell "anti-Semitic" to any
>utterance less than glowing about Jews and Israel.
>
>By Jewish Problem I mean both the problems the Jews have been having
>from the mid eighth century B.C. to this day with anti-Semitism, AND
>the problems non-Jews have been having with Semitism since Cyrus II
>freed the Babylonian Jews to create the first Diaspora.
>
>Idiot Check -- By Jewish Problem I do NOT mean that many Jews remain
>ungassed.
>
>By Semitism, here I mean Judaic Semitism, since Arabs and Syrians are
>also Semites.
>
>I have come to view Semitism and anti-Semitism as toxin and antitoxin:
>their presence is abnormal and indicates a pathological condition.
>
>The segregation which the Jews practise in order to preserve their
>racial purity from non-Jews is entirely voluntary on their part.
>
>If Jews freely intermarried with non-Jews, then the Jewish race, as
>such, would cease to exist; and, with its disappearance, the Jewish
>Problem would disappear. It is solely because the Jews insist on
>preserving their racial identity and refuse to become assimilated with
>the Gentiles that they are and have problem in every country in which
>they settle.
It is an interesting theory about the "Jewish problem". You mean, that
when Hitler realized that Jews could not be eliminated through
intermarriage with non-Jews over many centuries, he decided to
accelerate the solution of the Jewish problem by gassing them? And
even that didn't succeed, so I guess we will have to learn to live
with the Jewish problem for a long time to come.
Still there are other ethnic groups who like Jews do not readily
intermarry with others and maintain their heritage over centuries,
without being considered "a problem". For example, the Armenians who
had their own Holocaust early in the 20th century and who are also
spread throughout the world as a diaspora, have never been as hated by
the people where they reside as the Jews often are.
>
>Their clannishness gives them many advantages. Being all of one
>"family" they are naturally disposed to help one another, and to
>further the interests of their own community even at the expense of
>the general community, in the midst of which they live, but from which
>they deliberately hold themselves, in perpetuity, apart. That this
>self-segregation is advantageous to Jews is obvious from the fact
>that, by practising it, their race has survived and flourished for
>thousands of years, though scattered among many communities and
>nations larger than their own. Yet their exclusiveness, with all its
>advantages, also has disadvantages.
I believe that the reason for anti-Semitism is far deeper than the
Jewish clannishness and the advantages that it may give them. Jews
consider themselves to be a superior race, a race to which God himself
has given a special power, and they act accordingly. They are
extremely arrogant; they will fight anyone who stands in their way;
they flash their wealth and power whenever and wherever they can, etc.
When they do all this in countries where they settled "against" the
people of those countries, they encounter a lot of hate. Anyone who
has or had a Jewish boss knows what I am talking about.
At the same time, one cannot deny that Jews are very, very intelligent
and smart and money wise. There are proportionally more Jews who are
Nobel laureates, than any other nationality. Proportionally, there are
more doctors, lawyers, business executives and other professionals who
are Jews, than any other ethnic group. It looks that they have indeed
been blessed by their God. And by showing off all this smartness and
the power that it gives makes it difficult to like Jews and many are
very jealous of them for it. This is the main reason for
anti-Semitism.
>
>The answer to Semitism is anti-Semitism; and when Jews gain too many
>advantages for themselves, by their practice of self-segregation, they
>invariably find that the majority of non-Jews will resent, and
>eventually will curb, the privileges which the Jews have won for
>themselves by concerted factional action.
>
>As a non-Jew, I my prejudices are non-Jewish; and this means that, in
>any conflict of interests between Jews, on the one hand, and non-Jews
>on the other, my instincts place me naturally in the non-Jewish camp.
>When I see an organised minority of Jews, actuated by their
>self-interest, engaging in operations for their own sectional
>self-aggrandisement against the interests of the country as a whole or
>of the non-Jewish majority in it, then, as a non-Jew, I claim the same
>right to organise non-Jews to safeguard the interests our interests.
>
>The political validity of anti-Semitism, therefore, is no more and no
>less than that of Semitism; for, if there were no Semitism, there
>would be no need of anti-Semitism to counteract it. I don't believe
>that counter-action should be violent, but such that it matches and
>counteracts the action effectively -- an antidote of sufficient
>strength to neutralise the irritant, without becoming itself toxic.
>
>Anti-Semitism arises when as an organised minority, the Jews exercise
>an influence disproportionate to their numbers, as compared with the
>unorganised majority of non-Jews. It is clear that a minority which
>knows what it wants, and can organise to get it, has an immense
>advantage over a purposeless, lulled, and apathetic mob. That is the
>case in the United States.
>
>It is almost universal to abhor the thought of organised
>anti-Semitism, because it is believed that this must lead to massacres
>of Jews, or other ill-treatment of them, as so often happened
>previously in human history. But are we to assume that the Jewish
>Problem is insoluble in any other way than by force? To claim that a
>mere discussion of Semitism might lead to pogroms, and therefore we
>must make it taboo, is surely tantamount to an admission that Semitism
>has a case that is logically weak, when presented for approval to
>non-Jews. The taboo, to be fully effective, should be applied also to
>arguments in favour of Semitism.
>
>Our hearts may be temporarily moved with pity for the plight of people
>who have suffered the monstrosity of the Holocaust, but there can be
>no guarantee that they will not become similarly disliked and unwanted
>here if they continue to hold our politicians in a testicular grip.
>Tapes from the White House showed recently that there is a notion out
>there from the president to the man in the street of the excessive
>influence Jews exert in this country. History tells them to proceed
>with caution.
>
>They know the remedy and it is simple: let them cease to be Jews,
>intermarry freely with Gentiles, abandon their claim to be "The Chosen
>Race," abandon their exclusiveness, mix with the common stock of the
>community which gives them refuge. If they did that, if they ceased to
>be Jews there would be no Jewish Problem.
>
>Alternatively they could form a state. Nothing wrong with that
>notion, but the implementation of the idea was carried out in the
>worst way, and what could have rid Jews and non-Jews of the Jewish
>Problem by letting them gather in their own land, has provoked instead
>a festering sore on the face of the Earth, and... a large Diaspora
>continues to exert influence in many countries around the world,
>especially the U.S., to the detriment of non-Jews... and the Jews of
>Israel live in totally unenviable conditions -- the worst of all
>worlds.
>
>It can never be true that "all men are brothers," either within one
>nation or in the world at large, or that we are all "Americans" first,
>while Jews continue to practise an extreme form of biological
>differentiation through rigid selective breeding.
>
>Jews cannot have it both ways. They cannot expect to be listened-to
>with respect when they preach to gentiles the universal oneness of
>mankind, while at the same time they, as Jews, remain a race apart.
>
>It is when this discrepancy between their words and their actions is
>recognised, that Jews become disliked by non-Jews. Nobody likes to be
>humbugged
>
>Semitism today means that I cannot write that much without being
>charged of attempting to malign Jews or appeal for their persecution,
>when what I want is to expose and explain Semitism, and anti-Semitism
>without justifying its most deplorable manifestations.
James A. Donald
Bolshoy Murza:
> Wrong. Germany was producing more fighters as the war
> progressed, and it produced the first useable jet fighters.
> An excellent description of this program could be found here:
> http://www.danshistory.com/ww2/jetrock.shtml
Western supremacy in the air grew continually as the war
progressed. The German jet fighter program was only slightly
ahead of the english, but British radar was immeasurably in
advance of the German. What does it matter if German planes
could for a little while fly faster, when British planes had
sight, and German planes were blind?
This illustrates the superiority of western freedom, and the
resulting wealth and technological superiority, over eastern
slavery, and the resulting ability to round up hordes of ragged
conscripts and hurl them into the mouths of cannons.
> All ICBS are descendents of German technology.
Because then as now, putting conventional explosives on a long
range rocket is a form of desperation, a way for the weak to
strike against the strong, a way for the weak east to strike
against the strong west Bombers give you far more bang for
your buck, and are far more accurate. A long range rocket
costs almost as much as a plane, and you only get to use it
once.
> Once again, had there been no war with the Soviets the Allies
> would have no chance of pulling off a successful invasion and
> the Germans would have had ample time to further develope
> these weapons; its Western forces would have been far, far
> more powerful, and Britain would fall.
But the western lead in the air and the sea appeared in the
battle of Britain and continually grew till the end of the war.
At the start of the war, the Germans were bombing Britain
fairly safely, then with great losses, while Britain bombed
them, then Germany was unable to bomb any adequately defended
target, then the west was bombing Germany, again with ever
greater impunity, ever greater destruction, at an ever lower
cost.
Your argument rests on the assumption of no western
technological lead, no nukes, and so forth. But the same
liberty that made the west unable to win a contest of conscript
cannon fodder gave the west the technological superiority that
enabled them to avoid engaging Hitler in such a contest.
Sure if the west played by the rules of these would-be Caesars,
the west would have lost. But we had the power to refuse those
rules, and impose our own damned rules, which shows the west is
far from the state of decline that Spengler anticipated, We
are golden age Greece, not Imperial Rome. If Germany won World
War II, or the Soviet Union the cold war, then indeed we would
be in decline, we would be imperial Rome, with the Kremlin as
Rome, and America as the poor, ignorant, and disarmed
descendents of the Athenians.
But instead we won, because we are superior.
James A. Donald:
> > Hitler was running on capital, in that he was prepared for
> > war, while the west was at first unprepared. The battle of
> > Britain was his equipment lead being consumed, and
> > destroyed, and replaced by a western lead in equipment.
Bolshoy Murza:
> Wrong. Germany's productivity increased, dramatically,
> throughout the war because before the war it was in pretty
> poor shape.
Right or wrong, the west's air and sea superiority increased
continually throughout the war. While the Hitler Stalin pact
still in effect, Stalin sent Molotov to Berlin, only to have
the discussions continually and severely interrupted by
unopposed British bombing. Hitler told Molotov that the
British empire was ripe for the taking, and urged Russia to
strike eastwards, urged Russia to do what he needed to do, but
feared to do, to which Molotov replied that if the British
empire was so readily available, why was it that the British
were bombing unopposed?
> During the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffwe lost 1598
> aircraft (source: http://www.battle-of-britain.com/).
Because they stopped. And why did they stop? They stopped
because they had little chance of survival over Britain, while
British bombers were ever safer in German skies.
You are citing evidence of devastating and humiliating defeat,
as evidence of victory. You are counting weakness and calling
it strength.
At the beginning of the war the German air force could get at
the British, and the British could not get at the Germans. A
few months later, British airmen could get at the Germans, and
Germans could not get at the british, an imbalance that became
glaringly and humiliating evident well before Hitler in
desperation struck at his ally, an imbalance which grew ever
greater thereafter.
James A. Donald:
> > That battle "shook the seven seas", because it gave the
> > British control of the seven seas. Germany lost that
> > control. That meant that for Britain, everything was won,
> > and for Germany, everything was lost.
> >
> > Britain and her allies now had access to all the resources
> > and manpower of the world, Germany did not. Britain could
> > now strike at Germany at any time or place she chose,
> > Germany could not strike at Britain.
Bolshoy Murza:
> See above. With 3x the defences it's dountful that Britain
> could strike at any time.
During his mission to Berlin, Molotov found the British ability
to land bombs in his immediate vicinity sufficiently impressive
as to deter Stalin from trying to snaffle up the British
empire.
> With mass developement of missiles and jet
> fighters, as well as decreased resupply thatnks to more
> emphasis on u-boats, Germany's lead over Britain would grow
> exponentially.
But the reality was, as Molotov noted while being bombed in
Berlin, that instead of its Germany's lead growing, its lag
was growing. Germany did not lag because it invaded the Soviet
Union. It invaded because its ever growing lag denied it any
hope of using its conscript cannon fodder against the remaining
west.
James A. Donald:
> > We let them bomb the Russians, because we wanted both sides
> > weakened, and so we were more inclined to give the russians
> > boots for their conscript cannon fodder, rather than
> > planes.
Bolshoy Murza:
> Also Russian planes were better than yours; the Russians
> didn't need or want them.
Don't be silly.
Our planes smashed the Luftwaffe, the Luftwaffe easily smashed
the pathetic excuse for an air force that the Soviet Union had.
The Luftwaffe could not protect Berlin, but they could do fine
in Russia.
James A. Doanld:
> > But we already saw that the allies increased their naval
> > power, while the German naval power collapsed, before the
> > Soviets were in the picture. The unstealthy German U boats
> > were swiftly annihilated by British air and sea
> > superiority.
Bolshoy Murza:
> They reached their peak long after the navy was supposedly
> shattered with the Bismarck.
True, they reached their peak -- and then declined as their
life expectancy grew ever shorter.
At first the Germans responded to this increasing hazard by
striking at new areas, notably the coast of America, where at
first they sank an enormous amount of shipping with only
moderate loss, but of course these were soon patrolled as well,
and soon enough, the allies had enough military equipment to
patrol everywhere. The allies lost a lot of ships, but not
enough to stop them from shipping, and soon enough they were
losing very few ships, while Germany was losing rapidly
increasing numbers of U-boats.
If Germany had produced more U-boats, it would not have helped.
More U-boats meant more targets. U-boats are a weapon of the
weak against the strong.
> > > Don't forget that German bombers of every kind will also
> > > have the capability to hit every major port city in
> > > Southern Britain (with adequate protection from FW-190s)
> > > in 1942
James A. Donald:
> > Don't be silly. That was Hitler's plan. He tried it,
> > nearly succeeded, but in the end it failed. The more
> > fighters the British built, the more easily they could
> > build more fighters. Hitler stopped because the German
> > airforce was swiftly being destroyed.
Bolshoy Murza:
> As was the British.
But not however the US.
> A German once told me that Hitler stopped not
> because he couldn't comntinue but because he wanted to switch
> from air warfare to civilian bombing (something the allies
> would beat him in anyways).
As you said, "something the allies would beat him at".
James A. Donald:
> > The plan initially almost succeeded because of Hitler's
> > initial lead in equipment, but British productivity, backed
> > by US wealth, rapidly swarmed him, with British fighters
> > swiftly increasing, and German fighters and bombers swifty
> > decreasing.
Bolshoy Murza:
> Simply not true, see above.
Simply true. He lost the battle of Britain. He tried to win
it, but lost it.
The west won the air and sea, and having won, our advantage in
air and sea continued to increase uniformly throughout the
entire war, a fact that Stalin's envoy could detect by feeling
the earth shake under him.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
MdF0+keNWSKCJ0xEFSeQ1nzy6US8wdSSEUAYTVtA
4/Z4zeiQrpkGkFFYFCAymnrlq6FKxyl3fncG5Bi6T
James A. Donald
On 9 Jan 2003 16:53:12 -0800, am...@hotmail.com (Alex) wrote:
> the post to which I was answering simply discounted Soviets
> as a bunch of (probably unarmed) conscripts waiting for the
> Western help. My point was that this was only partially true
> and that Nazies had been stoped in 1941 before this aid
> started coming in the really big quantities.
The Nazis were stopped by outrunning their own logistics in
1941, a measure of Soviet weakness, not strength. That is how
the Soviets stopped the Germans in 1941. They ran away till
the Germans got tired.
Soviet strength was not demonstrated until Stalingrad, over a
year after US aid had begun.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
dEr3+MY8ZA7Tma4QxFvCLrmb/iMEgRPSIrWGXNmQ
4YXuuf6v+iqvPaXyOXjQl64/mze1HPY3AXhFpuRv+
Susan Cohen
to go wash my hands - I feel filthy just reading these trash.
yp11 wrote:
> On 7 Jan 2003 09:26:28 -0800, te...@tiglath.net (tiglath) wrote:
>
[snip lies and delusions]
Morten Reistad
According to James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com>:
Even without nukes, firebombing raids like the one against Hamburg in
AUgust 1943 would have made them in. At least Albert Speer said that
at the time, Germany could take one or two of those campaigns, but
five in a row would do them in. In 1943 five of those campaigns was
beyond the capabilitites of the combined RAF+USAF. It was not in
early 1945, but by then there was a successful land war to
support. Then there was the moral aspect of this indiscriminate
bombing to recon with.
The WW2 was to a large extent settled by industrial capacity
as well as amount of cannon fodder. Britain was behind Germany
in this respect, but not by much, and with the entry of the USA
Germany was outproduced about 1:3. (Japan only contributed around 1:10th
of the US production.).
But we have strayed from ancient study.
-- mrr
Morten Reistad
>Armageddon Watch wrote:
>> Lessons from the fall of an empire
>
>
>> Published: December 29 2002 19:05 | Last Updated: December 29 2002 19:05
>
>> It is the time of year when people are casting about for good books to
>> read to resolve the current perplexity. If you are sitting in
>> Washington, there are few guides to the unique position of the US,
>> whose military expenditure exceeds that of the next 14 countries
>> combined.
>
> Despite the one memorable line from a third rate writer, history does not
>repeat and there are no parallels.
>
> When looking for the American empire it is required to look at it in the terms
>in which it has developed. It matches Rome only in that there was sort of a
>"cold war" between it and Greece before Rome won. The major difference being
>when the Soviet Union fell the US did not occupy it, it did not fall by war and
>the US is never likely to consider occupying it.
>
> The form of the US empire is one that was honed in perhaps the greatest long
>term confrontation ever, our Cold War. The rational response would have been
>"Now we can make the UN work like it was intended to work." And with that
>withdrawing all troops from around the world save maybe naval bases if the
>locals did not have to be throttled into likely them, and disbanding all
>organizations like NATO.
With that victory comes an unprecedented set of allies, where the US is technically
a Primus inter Pares. It is not just NATO, it is Australia, Pakistan, Japan, Taiwan,
Thailand, and lots of smaller nations. Even Russia can be counted in.
These nations participate because there is a shared set of values, a great deal
of trust, and the Pax Americana is in their best interest.
Rome, Greece (or China for that matter) never had such a large and complex set
of alliances and supporters. You can see it in action in Afganistan; the US
spearheads and win the war, and then the allies rush in to assist in the
mopping-up.
> Unfortunately the US now has a breed of leaders in office who haven't outgrown
>the Cold War any more than the Britain outgrew the first world war. They have no
>reason to exist without an enemy. And with little enemies they have the
>opportunity for military victories the Soviet Union denied them all of their
>frustrated little lives.
>
> Back when I was a grunt in DOD everyone I worked with was truly hoping to end
>the damned thing while only peripherally wondering what we would do without a
>need for constant preparations for war. These clowns want war and the objective
>is not an empire but hegemony. The difference being they will settle for control
>rather than direct rule.
You never read any of the papers that worried about what would happen after the
USSR fell and all the gung-ho regimes were left to their own devices?
We still have a lot of mopping up to do after the cold war. This part of empire-building
took the Romans and the British almost a century.
> Previous empires ruled directly usurping enough local powers to let them know
>who was boss. The US will only have ambassadors and advisors to remind them what
>decisions they are to make or else they will become new Hitlers and be removed.
>Central Europe has learned with Milosevic as the horrible example. The mideast
>is about to learn with Hussein. They will be ostensibly independent but if they
>cross the US they will be attacked.
>
> How long this can last depends upon how long those under US control are willing
>to put up with it.
The polish used to tell a joke during the time of the USSR. How to
solve the problems of the country. "Declare war on the USA". "And then
we surrender, and get freedom, democracy and marshall aid.". May I
remind You that a very similar thing has happened to Poland now. It is
a free democracy now, a NATO member and soon will be EU member and
will receive a significant amount of EU trade support, if not outright
aid.
This makes them part of the US peace, rather than antagonists to it.
They have, in a sense, been voluntarily "Romanized".
This parallells what the Romans did. They occupied all right, but they
romanized as well. A Roman citizen from Britain would rapidly identify
far more with the fellow Romans than with the Picts beyond the wall.
>
> Another issue is, in the absense of the US, some other country will try for the
>same control. Human nature is such that everyone will not sit back and forget
>world domination. Forget that. Passive peace is not an option. It is not human
>nature.
>
> So the issue becomes if the US is more palatable than other countries. In that
>regard, the US as the "melting pot" is in the best position to be the least
>unacceptable. That is not much of a recommendation.
I would counter this. The US is the primary multiracial, multireligion power in the
world, and all the peoples in the world have relations among the US populace.
This makes the US a unique "Romanizer". I have heard it said from Italians, that
they have made Italy "America", in that it has taken on the US values, system, production
and prosperity.
> Despite the current hassle of mideast people in the US, the numbers are only a
>few thousand and there is active opposition to it and no one in the opposition
>has "disappeared" or suddenly become silent. That is a very good sign. The US
>may not have many Arab speakers but it has substantial spokesrats from every
>nation on earth from India to Ghana and a policy of pro-active civil rights.
And there the US stands out among the nations. The US is not just a "them", it
is a little "Us" to a majority of the world.
>
> If any country is the least unacceptable it is the US.
>
> The usual question is, can the US pull it off. The proper question is should
>the US try and if so, try what?
>
> The obstacle to is all is US internal politics. That is what has busted all
>previous attempts at anything on a large scale. Remember history does not repeat
>and there are no parallels in development. There are only elements of power and
>influence.
>
> What we are seeing today is the internal politics of the US insisting upon war
>with Iraq to no benefit to the world or the Mideast or the US. The Greek, Roman,
>Spanish, British, French, and Russian Empires at least considered themselves
>empires and their politics were directed towards being empires.
You challenge the Empire, and the citizens of the Empire conspire to destroy you.
I cannot see what is new here. Carthage, anyone?
> The example that raises the most controversy is Israel vs Islam. The benefit to
>the US is the imposition of peace on the entire Mideast rather than the
>promotion of Israel regardless of pro or con Israel positions. But the internal
>politics of the US are, quite frankly, Israel uber alles. That cannot bring
>peace. But the US cannot get its own house in order to come up with a definition
>of "what the US wants to be" in the world.
The US and the Arabs needs to resolve their conflict. This will involve Israel.
But, it takes two sides to a conflict. So far, the US has been exceedingly
patient with Arab sentiments. This is after all, not a shared set of systems,
values or beliefs. This is the core of the US backing of Israel as well.
> Part of the problem is that WWII propaganda -- which no rational person takes
>as more than propaganda -- intrudes upon decision making. The fact is the US
>faught WWII because nations declared war on it and no other reason. All that
>liberation talk was to insult the intelligence of our parents by expecting them
>to believe it. But some of us children of our parents actually believe what they
>laughed at in private because they suspected their neighbors who were also
>laughing in private. No one really trusts the government or their neighbors not
>to be government informants nor what the government might do to them.
>
> The Emperor's New Clothes is realizing we are the government. Orwell said it
>differently. If you actually have to confront a government agent up to no good,
>blow his head off as he is wearing body armor.
>
> If the US sets out to control the world -- hegemony -- based upon internal
>politics it is doomed to failure sooner than later. And that is the approach the
>US is taking. Such politics may make total sense inside the US but they are
>meaningless even in Canada and Mexico much less further away. Again the Mideast
>example, internal US politics has nothing to do with the politics in the
>Mideast. It may get people elected in the US but it does not get "votes" in the
>Mideast. Therefore internal politics as currently structured cannot work as the
>basis for hegemony.
You are right in that the US is leading a system that is controlled by an
elite in a web of alliances, just as the British Empire was. This in contrast
to the more integrated Roman Empire. The important thing for the US is to keep
the alliances intact and the network of friends satisfied.
I don't see any danger for this. Withess how rapidly the current, initially
very Americas-centered, president has come to appreciate the network of friends.
The problem is of course that Saudi Arabia is too important a piece in the
Pax Americana to ignore, because of the Oil and because it is the "Keeper of
the Islamic Faith". Saudi Arabia is the really problematic ally, as there
are no shared values, no shared production except for the oil. no shared system
and great alienation between the religions.
That Israel is backed the way it is is in a large extent a reaction to this
unbalance, as well as US disgust at european efforts to avoid the Holocaust.
Israel is the sole country in the middle east to even remotely qualify as
one of the US standard allies, with a minimum of shared values, system,
production and religion.
>
> So why should the US do it rather than "The UN can finally do what it was
>intended to do?" There is no reason. China is almost completely on board these
>days and that means all the Security Council members are singing from the same
>hymnal. The Cold War no longer exists so there is no longer a reason for US
>politics to supercede UN politics and earn enemies for the US.
The UN is a diplomatic tool. It will become very useful as a legal
tool once the US and friends has stamped out the "Evil Few", and proper
internation courts can operate within the framework of the Pax Americana.
-- mrr
Alex
> --
> On 9 Jan 2003 16:53:12 -0800, am...@hotmail.com (Alex) wrote:
> > the post to which I was answering simply discounted Soviets
> > as a bunch of (probably unarmed) conscripts waiting for the
> > Western help. My point was that this was only partially true
> > and that Nazies had been stoped in 1941 before this aid
> > started coming in the really big quantities.
>
> The Nazis were stopped by outrunning their own logistics in
> 1941, a measure of Soviet weakness, not strength.
Well, this point of view had been many times expressed by the German
generals in their post-WWII memories. They also blamed hot summer,
rainy fall and a cold winter. For their following defeats they usually
blamed Hitler, bad weather (all 4 seasons), and the wrong decisions made by
their peers and superiors. Two factors never had been mentioned: Soviet
Army and US help.
BTW, just for your information, in 1941 Red Army, unfortunately, did not
"run". It tried to stay and fight, which resulted in the huge losses.
OTOH, during the summer of 1942, it run against the Stalin's draconian orders.
Space had been lost but the troops were saved for the further fighting.
In other words, you are giving Red Army of 1941 too much undeserved credit
for deploying the only sound strategy that was possible at this time but was
not used. The only reasonable conclusion is that you don't have a clue.
>That is how
> the Soviets stopped the Germans in 1941. They ran away till
> the Germans got tired.
Actually, at least some of the German commanders denied that they became
"tired" on the outskirts of Moscow.
>
> Soviet strength was not demonstrated until Stalingrad,
Actually, it was demonstrated during the winter of 1941-42 when the Germans
suffered their 1st serious defeat.
>over a
> year after US aid had begun.
You probably have to provide some proof that Stalingrad had been won mainly
due to US help.
Bolshoy Murza
> > moreover the U-boat usage did not peak until YEARS after the
> > Bizmarck was sunk. For excample in 1940 the Germans sank
> > about 4.4 million tons; they did so also in 1941 but in 1942
> > tthis total increased to *8,245,000* tons.
>
> Western measures against U-boats were also improving, with the
> result that the U-boat effort stopped abruptly, due to the ever
> diminishing life expectancy of U-boats. It came to pass that
> they no longer survived long enough to be worth building.
"Coincidentally", at a time when all resouirces were being thrown
against the Soviet collosus crushing them in the East...
>
> James A. Donald:
> > > Once Britain attained air and sea superiority, what did it
> > > care for the continent, when the English speaking peoples
> > > had the world?
>
> Bolshoy Murza:
> > India, Africa etc. could not be compared to the "World".
> > Furthermore, given greater German ability to isolate Britain
> > this would have made little difference.
>
> But Germany's efforts to isolate Britain were militarily
> defeated, in large part due to a rapidly increasing technology
> gap, which is a major reason that Germany gave up on that and
> turned east.
Germany's efforts to isolate Britain were ultimately defeated by
Russia, not Britain.
> India is just as big a source of expendable conscript cannon
> fodder as Russia. Had Russia not come in, England would have
> swung that way.
You think that the Indians would die by the 100,000s for the British?
To defend the British Isles?
> Bolshoy Murza:
> > The point is that if Hitler had the resources in the West
>
> > that he would squander in the East the Allies would not have
> > been able to strike at a place or time of their choosing.
>
> He had lost in the air and the sea, and due the increased, and
> increasing gap in technology and resources, resuming that
> battle would merely have led to another, greater, defeat.
Incorrect. You forget about jet technology and rocket technology.
There was no "increasing gap"; on the contrary German production
increased trememdously throughout the war, peaking in 1944. Of course
it was all applied in the East.
Germany was using jets in late 44 and 45. When would the British had
been able to do so? They were at least a year behind.
BTW for "some reason" you cut out this info from my other post:
http://www.danshistory.com/ww2/jetrock.shtml
According to that site: By war's end 1294 Me-262 jet fighters had been
built but only 200 to 300 fought in the skies over Germany. All told
the Me-262s downed more than 700 aircraft in the face of overwhelming
air superiority (out numbered ten-to-one and in some battles
fifty-to-one.)
So you have a ratio of 2:7 or 3:7 in the Germans' favor. Stretch this
figure out over a year, and multiply it considerably because of the
much much greater strength that would be thrown against the western
allies if the Germans were not tied up witht he Soviets, and the
results of the next Battle of Britian are rather obvious.
The Battle of Britain prevented an invasion in 1940. That was its
significance. Everything else was owed to the Soviets. If not for
them the only question is whether or not the Nazis would mount a
successful invasion in 1943, or 1944, or 1945. The British won a
battle but the soviets won the war.
> So being Hitler, he struck in another direction.
Again, I am not defending Hitler's mistakes but rather pointing what
most historians accept: that the western allies w/o the Soviets would
have no chance of defeating Hitler.
> James A. Donald:
> > > The battle of Stalingrad saved a city, and gained a little
> > > time. The sinking of the Bismark saved all the world
> > > beyond
>
> Bolshoy Murza:
> > The Bismarck was hiding in a port, presenting no threat.
> > German naval successes peaked years after it was sunk.
>
> Because the German navy was already defeated shortly before the
> Bismark was sunk.
I suppose you don't consider u-boats as part of the navy?
> The German navy went out to contest British control of the
> seas, and pretty soon was slinkijng back to port. On the way
> back to homeland, the Bismark was sunk.
>
> > Stalingrad was a city where 100,000s German soldiers
> > perished; the Bismarck was only a ship.
>
> The Bismark was the most powerful ship ever built to that time,
> the flagship of Germany's navy, a symbol of Germany's intent to
> rule the seas, to take rule of the seas away from England, and
> . When the British sank the Bismark, that was the end of
> that.
Which is impressive, but ultimately ruling the seas in the way you
describe was of minimal importance in the war. It's like ruling India
or Australia or New Zealand - who cares? The u-boat warfare had it
been more extensive would have done the job without all of those
battleships. Incidentally, the Kaiser's obsession with battleships
and overseas colonies is generally considered to have been a major
mistake of his.
The only important "overseas" possession the British had were the
Middle eastern oil fields. Are you aware of how many men and
materials the Germans sent into Russia? Barbarrossa consisted of
almost 3.6 million German and other Axis soldiers, around 3,600 tanks
and over 2,700 aircraft, the largest force in European military
history.
Had they not been used in Barbarrossa, most of them would have been
used elsewhere. In that case you can forget about the Brits holding
Egypt and the Middle East and thus losing the world's oil supply. And
you can forget about any successful bombing, much less invasion of
Germany. As I will explain, below, with increased production and
technological superiority the German air force would certainly win a
repeat of the B.o.B. and with these *millions* of more soldiers to
spare and invasion would be rather simple.
> Bolshoy Murza:
> > It lost a lot of tonnage for a nation "ruling the oceans of
> > the world".
>
> Germany did not lose any tonnage because because it had already
> lost it all. All its ships had been seized or were in hiding,
> and it could not ship anything.
Where and why would it need to ship anything? It wasn't an island.
> Britain could ship stuff, did ship stuff. Germany could not.
> Therefore, Britain did rule the oceans of the world.
It also ruled India. Most of the world's pack elephants were under
British control. Hooray!
> > Now imagine how much this would have been worse if the
> > Germans had devoted more research and resources to the naval
> > campaign; if the Germans had far more divisions across the
> > channel, far more planes, etc.
>
> They tried that, recall. They gave up because they failed.
> Bolshoy Murza:
> > You should also remember that the British colonials would
> > probably not die in large numbers for their masters.
>
> In the guerrila war against Japan colonial people did die in
> large numbers. Within the Soviet Union, there was no
> comparable guerrila war against Germany. Therefore colonial
> affection for Europeans was considerably greater than Soviet
> affection for Stalin.
???? These same people then fought the Europeans. Remember Indonesia
or Viet Nam? I was reacting to your suggestion that somehow these
colonials would fight the Germans, i.e. on the European continent.
Actually they would most likely take the German side. Remembver the
pro-Axios uprising in Iraq, and the pro-Axis shah in Iran who was
deposed by the Anglo-Americans.
> Bolshoy Murza:
> > American forces routinely lose to Scandanavians in war
> > exercises. So what? Speaking of Poland, however - certainly
> > the Western powers were lesser military forces than those
> > brave Slavs sacrificed by Western cowards. Poland inflicted
> > more casualties, and fought longer, than the French-British
> > during Germany's conquest of France. The Slavs truly are the
> > last Europeans.
>
> Slavs are slaves by their nature, and so make better conscript
> cannon fodder. The west has never done well in wars of
> conscript cannon fodder, due to our notorious preference for
> dying in bed. And so we find clever ways to destroy our
> enemies from safety, or render them helpless by outmaneuvering
> them, or we use our enemies treachery and evil against each
> other.
Like in the American Civil war or perhaps World War (where
incidentally the French and British proved to be the ultimate cannon
fodder, suffering far more casualties than the Germans). I remember
reading about some Indian or Paki in British service looking at the
trenches and thinking about what savage fools his colonial masters and
their cultural brethren were. Hell, even in World War II the French
and British tried to replay the "cannon fodder" game, except the
Germans dashed those hopes. It was the Germans who outmaneuvered the
western allies, and the Russians who repeatedly outmaneuvered the
Germans.
The worst spectacle perhaps was when at Gallipoli the Australians
played the role of cannon fodder agianst the amused turkish forces.
Historically speaking western Europeans have been the greatest cannon
fodder.
Sorry to burst your racist bubble, though.
As for Russian "cannon fodder", the following, from some W.W.II web
cite, might interest you:
At Stalingrad, the Wehrmarcht had met its match. The soldiers had an
uneasy feeling they were fighting men of nearly superhuman strength
and resilience. The wounded Russian rarely cried out. Hoffman, a
German officer, confided to his diary that Russian's displayed an
"insane stubbornness." He said they are, "fanatics...wild beasts...not
men, but some kind of cast iron creatures; they never get tired and
are not afraid of fire."
> These are the methods that a civilized people, in the flower of
> the vigor of their civilization, use against barbarians. A
> civilization is decadent when its people can no longer outwit
> their enemies, but are still reluctant to die fighting even
> when that unpleasant necessity arrives.
Sounds like the USA to me.
> Slavs are better than westerners at marching into the mouths of
> cannon, but westerners prefer other methods of winning wars,
> and we have demonstrated ourselves rather good at it.
Not historically. I know that the Poles inflicted more casualties on
the Germans than did the French; I'm not sure if they themselves
suffered as many. The Russians suffered many more, but that was at
the beginning when they were caught off guard. In 1944 and 1945 their
ratio of casualties was little different from that of the Americans
marching through France. Pretty impressive given that the Americans
were fighting substandard, poorly equipped Germans while the Russians
were up against the best the Germans had.
> James A. Donald:
> > > Hitler did not fear Russia's attack, because he reasonably
> > > believed Russia incapable of such attack, for lack of
> > > logistics, unless first beefed up by the wealth of the
> > > West.
>
> Bolshoy Murza:
> > Zhukov and his tanks shattered the Japanese in 1940.
>
> The Japanese were not shattered -- they were stopped. For lack
> of logistics, Zhukov could not chase after them.
Stalin wanted those tanks against Germany; he couldn't care less about
Asia as long as it was secure. Why would he want China when he could
have Germanyy instead?
> A typical weakness of barbarians.
Like the Mongols : )))
> In contrast, after the Australians stopped the Japanese on the
> Kokoda trail, they then proceeded to advance, cut off the
> Japanese evacuation, and killed every Japanese soldier in New
> Guinea, taking no prisoners, which is why the battle of the
> Kokoda trail is often called Japan's first defeat, and the
> various times the Japanese were unable to advance, as in the
> battle of the Coral Sea, and in the Soviet Union, are for the
> most part not called defeats.
The Japanese sought to invade, the Soviet mission was to crush the
invasion and force a peace so that force could be concentrated in the
west. The Soviet forces accomplished their mission, and therefore
this was a victory.
Funny how when the British won far less in the Battle of Britian, you
brag about the great victory, but when the Soviets do far more (the
British, after all, did not accomplish all of their goals because of
the B.O.B.; and the Japanese battles involved more than just a couple
thousand planes) you dismiss it.
A double standard, wouldn't you say?
> > If Stalin was indeed interested in carving up the rest of the
> > world he would have simnply pressed south and taken the
> > Japanese off the Asian continent.
>
> If he was interested in defending the Soviet Union and had the
> logistics to press south, he would have indeed have "shattered"
> the Japanese probe. He did not, and could not.
He would not be defending the USSR by wasting resources on the
comparatively weak and ineffective Japanese forces at a time when the
Germans were looming on the western border. That would have been
really foolish. One reason why the Soviets can't take American claims
so seriously is because of the relative ease with which the Soviets
disposed of the Japanese threat. The one that was so difficult for
the Americans and the Australians to handle.
> > If Hitler had not attacked Stalin this is indeed what would
> > have happened. Had the Americans not developd the atom bomb,
> > the Soviets would have just captured the rest of the
> > continent (say, in the late 1940's), and probably the middle
> > east, and had won the cold war.
>
> Or to say the same thing, if the west was as poor, ignorant,
> and backward as the Soviets.-- but it was not, it was and is a
> civilization in the flower of its greatness..
>
> > The fact that the tide had turned before significant Western
> > help found its way to Russia shows how effective Western help
> > was.
>
> I find this :fact" unbelievable. US aid started instantly.
> The tide did not turn until over one year later.
> The Soviet Union was in a state of collapse until US logistic
> aid reached the front -- US aid began in June 1941, the Soviet
> collapse continued until September 1942.
The best short description of lend-lease I found was written by a Mike
Jasinski:
Indeed, Soviet production did not recover until late '42-early '43,
and this recovery explains why suddenly the Red Army regained
initiative in '43, together with greatly improved tactical
capabilities. Lend-Lease was very useful, but it probably was not
decisive. For one thing, Lend-Lease deliveries were greatest in
1944-45, when the Soviets were already on the offensive. Not very
much (comparatively speaking) was delivered in '42 (there was a long
gap in deliveries to Murmansk after the PQ-17 debacle), and almost
nothing in '41, which was the decisive year for the E. Front. Even in
January of 1945, Lend-Lease trucks comprised only 1/3 of Red Army's
truck park (about 200,000 out of 600,000 total), according to an
article in the Journal of Slavic Military Studies, and raw number of
Soviet-produced trucks in service steadily grew in '42 and '43,
indicating that Soviet industry could and did replace losses in this
area on its own. Presumably the same could be said for telephone
wire, etc. However, the Lend-Lease definitely did accelerate Soviet
recovery and reduced the lulls between Soviet offensives from '43
onwards by helping them replenish their forces faster than they could
have on their own.
You also have to keep in mind than already by spring of '42 the
Soviets' strength had improved relative to the Germans'. While in '41
the Wehrmacht launched three simultaneous strategic offensives into
the USSR, its losses in Barbarossa meant that in '42 it could manage
only one (1.5 if you count the push into Crimea). The offensive into
the Caucasus was successful largely because the Soviets initially
thought it was a feint, designed to draw away forces from the central
front, protecting Moscow. I doubt whether the Wehrmacht would have
had as much success had they attempted another push on Moscow in '42,
which is what the Soviets expected them to do. And all of this was
happening while US and British strategic bombing was barely getting on
its feet and while N. African campaign was absorbing a tiny proportion
of German assets. In short, Soviet survival in '41 and '42 is mainly
a Soviet accomplishment.
> > The American historian col. David Glatnz recently concluded
> > that if there were no lend-lease, the Soviets would have
> > defeated the Germans about 14 months later, and would have
> > reached the English channel.
>
> Did he now? I doubt it. Give us a quote.
I found a similar quote for you:
In "When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler" by David
Glantz, Colonel, U.S. Army (ret), Lend Lease is described as
materially
assisting the Soviet war effort, but not in a way that was decisive.
He
concludes:
"Left to their own devices, Stalin and his commanders might have taken
12 to 18 months longer to finish off the Wehrmacht; the ultimate
result
would probably been the same, except that Soviet soldiers could have
waded at France's Atlantic beaches." (pg 285)
(arab stuff snipped...)
> Fact is, westerners had a technological lead from the
> beginning, and that lead continually increased, and that lead
> won the battle of Britain, and the battle of the Bismark. The
> west getting nukes first was not a fluke, it was part of same
> superiority and vigor that won the battle of Britain.
As we have seen technological lead was mixed. Germans had an edge in
jets and rockets.
> > Radar wouldn't help the British defend against a storm of
> > more sophisticated rockets that would probably come in the
> > late 1940's.
>
> Rockets carrying conventional explosive large distances are not
> cost effective compared to bombers. Using rockets, like using
> U-boats, was act of desperation, a tactic of weakness against
> strength.
It depends. If Germany was nuked you could have had massive
biological/chemical weapon use placed in rockets in Britian and, had
rocket technology progressed to the late 1940's or 1950's, the USA
itself. The Germans were pretty good in chemistry, you know.
> Rockets gave Hitler less destruction for his money than bombers
> gave the west for their money, and the west had more money.
See above.
>
> > And British airpower would not last against a German
> > airforce consisting of jet planes.
>
> British jet development was only marginally behind German jet
> development.
At least six months behind, if not longer. Getting back to a conflict
of Germany versus western allies only, you would have a Germany with
vastly improved production capabilites and thus large numbers of jets
- with proven kill ratio versus non-jets of 3:7, pressing their
advantage over six months.
From the website I gave above, you would have these monsters waiting
for the allies around the time the first allied jets would appear in
combat:
"A vision of the future, the Horten Ho 229 was a flying wing. After
years of development two Junkers Jumo turbojet engines were
successfully integrated into an airframe based on Horten designs. In
December of 1944 test flights were initiated with the jet powered Ho
IX. Remarkably the plane showed good handling characteristics and
eventually surpassed 500 mph (800 km/h) in level flight. With a total
of just two hours flying time the Go 229 crashed in February of 1945,
killing its test pilot.
The potential of this awesome plane was obvious and the Gotha company
quickly readied the turbojet for production as a fighter-bomber with
the Air Ministry designation Ho 299 (because Gotha built it, the plane
is also called the Go 229.) The production version was expected to fly
as fast as 623 mph (997km/h.) This is significantly faster than even
the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter, it would have been virtually
unstoppable by allied aircraft. Before any Ho 229s could be produced,
however, the Gotha factory was over-run by U.S. forces in April of
1945."
So for every step forward the allies could make in jet technology, the
Germans would be ahead even more. And, coming back to production,
I'll bet the Germans could make more on the entire European continent
than the western Allies could ship.
Sorry, but once again you have not been able to show that the western
allies would have been able to defeat the germans had the Germans not
thrown the vast majority of their forces and resources against the
Soviets.
> Again you are arguing "suppose Germany was ahead".
There are no supposes involved, sorry. In those fields it was indeed
ahead.
> But it was behind overall, and its most advanced areas, its advantage was
> slight and margiinal.
> This demonstrates the superior vigor and greatness of western civilization.
Since when were the Germans not a western civilization?
Bolshoy Murza
James A. Donald
James A. Donald
> > Soviet strength was not demonstrated until Stalingrad, over
Alex
> Actually, it was demonstrated during the winter of 1941-42
> when the Germans suffered their 1st serious defeat.
Actually "first defeat", in the Soviet theatre, not first
serious defeat. Because of a bungle by Hitler, "thousands" of
germans were taken prisoner, as distinct from hundreds of
thousands of Russians in every previous battle.
> You probably have to provide some proof that Stalingrad had
> been won mainly due to US help.
Before US aid, the Soviet army had great difficulty defeating
finland., arguably failed to defeat them. Before US aid took
effect, the Soviet army was incapable of defending the Soviet
Union, due to lack of logistics.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
IBWVcS2SmJ3F+JrVOWNNW3ImJJ+yWWyT90KIQbty
4VppPSBfMXDpnOqd/uFK7holsUOMRzV2OAw1RnMXM
Bolshoy Murza
only focus on stuff that would not be a repetition:
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote in message news:<dh4s1vkhac26qad3m...@4ax.com>...
>
> Western supremacy in the air grew continually as the war
> progressed. The German jet fighter program was only slightly
> ahead of the english, but British radar was immeasurably in
> advance of the German. What does it matter if German planes
> could for a little while fly faster, when British planes had
> sight, and German planes were blind?
2:7 or 3:7 kill ratios in favor of German jets is the difference.
> This illustrates the superiority of western freedom, and the
> resulting wealth and technological superiority, over eastern
> slavery, and the resulting ability to round up hordes of ragged
> conscripts and hurl them into the mouths of cannons.
See W.W.I analogies. Besides Germans are Westerners.
>
> But the western lead in the air and the sea appeared in the
> battle of Britain and continually grew till the end of the war.
> At the start of the war, the Germans were bombing Britain
> fairly safely, then with great losses, while Britain bombed
> them, then Germany was unable to bomb any adequately defended
> target, then the west was bombing Germany, again with ever
> greater impunity, ever greater destruction, at an ever lower
> cost.
Western Allied bombing did little to affect production (ditto for
German bombing) and primarily just resulted in civilian casualties.
German production peaked in 1944 - the height of the bombing. What
does this tell you about the bombing "success"?
> Your argument rests on the assumption of no western
> technological lead, no nukes, and so forth.
Not at all. It rests on the reality of the situation, the technology
at hand, and the fact that without over 3 million troops, thousands of
planes and tanks in the Soviet Union Germany would easily brush off
any Allied attack and, moreover, would be able to take the Allied
middle east and, once jets gave the Germans a 6 month (at least)
window, Britain itself.
> But the same liberty that made the west unable to win a contest of conscript
> cannon fodder gave the west the technological superiority that
> enabled them to avoid engaging Hitler in such a contest.
As stated and proved, the West didn't have to fight because the
Soviets won the war.
> Sure if the west played by the rules of these would-be Caesars,
> the west would have lost. But we had the power to refuse those
> rules, and impose our own damned rules, which shows the west is
> far from the state of decline that Spengler anticipated,
You misunderstand Spengler, and misunderstand history. Germany was
defeated by the Sovuiets, not the Western allies. And the Anglo
variant of Western civilization declines as much as the German one
did, and does, only in a different way, according to Spengler.
> We are golden age Greece, not Imperial Rome. If Germany won World
> War II, or the Soviet Union the cold war, then indeed we would
> be in decline, we would be imperial Rome, with the Kremlin as
> Rome, and America as the poor, ignorant, and disarmed
> descendents of the Athenians.
???
> But instead we won, because we are superior.
Rather, you won, because the Soviets were superior.
> James A. Donald:
> > > Hitler was running on capital, in that he was prepared for
> > > war, while the west was at first unprepared. The battle of
> > > Britain was his equipment lead being consumed, and
> > > destroyed, and replaced by a western lead in equipment.
>
> Bolshoy Murza:
> > Wrong. Germany's productivity increased, dramatically,
> > throughout the war because before the war it was in pretty
> > poor shape.
>
> Right or wrong, the west's air and sea superiority increased
> continually throughout the war. While the Hitler Stalin pact
> still in effect, Stalin sent Molotov to Berlin, only to have
> the discussions continually and severely interrupted by
> unopposed British bombing. Hitler told Molotov that the
> British empire was ripe for the taking, and urged Russia to
> strike eastwards, urged Russia to do what he needed to do, but
> feared to do, to which Molotov replied that if the British
> empire was so readily available, why was it that the British
> were bombing unopposed?
Upon hearing of the meeting, Churchill had a few light bombers flown
to Berlin. This was the equivalent of Rusk's landing that plane in
central Moscow. As I said, at the very peak of Western allied bombing
Gemran industrial capabilites was imprioving, showing just how
ineffective (except for terror purposes) allied bombing was. Even in
Dresden the military stuff and railroads were left untouched.
> > During the Battle of Britain, the Luftwaffwe lost 1598
> > aircraft (source: http://www.battle-of-britain.com/).
>
> Because they stopped. And why did they stop? They stopped
> because they had little chance of survival over Britain, while
> British bombers were ever safer in German skies.
>
> You are citing evidence of devastating and humiliating defeat,
> as evidence of victory.
How so? 1598 lost fighters was as I stated less than half of the
number that the Germans would threow agaisnt the Soviets, and 1/10 of
what Germany produced in 1944 at the peak of the allegedly effective
bombing. Why did you cut those figures?
> You are counting weakness and calling it strength.
You show the poetics of Kid Rock in that statement.
> At the beginning of the war the German air force could get at
> the British, and the British could not get at the Germans. A
> few months later, British airmen could get at the Germans, and
> Germans could not get at the british, an imbalance that became
> glaringly and humiliating evident well before Hitler in
> desperation struck at his ally,
Wrong again, cowboy.
Tonnage of bombs dropped on Britain in 1941: about 22,000
Tonnange of bombs dropped on Germany in 1941: 30,000
Recall that Hitler's invasion of the USSR occurred in the middle of
the year, and thereafter resources, men, airforce was concentrated
there and not toward Britain whose bombings even in 1944 (650,000
tons) did not prevent Germany's industrial production from peaking.
> Bolshoy Murza:
> > Also Russian planes were better than yours; the Russians
> > didn't need or want them.
>
> Don't be silly.
>
> Our planes smashed the Luftwaffe, the Luftwaffe easily smashed
> the pathetic excuse for an air force that the Soviet Union had.
Er...only because the Luftwaffe had the advantage of a sneak attack.
Russian pilots had a poor opinion of American planes and preferred to
fly their own.
As for the Soviet airforce:
1 - The main Red Air Force's airplanes were sound designs,
specifically the Yaks 90's & 3's as well as the Lavochin 5 & 7 (as
some replies pointed out) were as good as the Me 109's & FW 190's in
Tech Specs as is evident from checking the Jane's Aircraft reference
for WW2 airplanes.
2 - Pilot Training, operational skill & unit tactics. Soviet pilots
quality on the average held its own against the average Luftwaffe
pilots in the Stalingrad time after late 1942 & early 1943. By late
1944 the average German pilot training levels had fallen to such
levels that young pilots were sent to front-line units in the West &
the East with 60 hours or so of training while Soviet Air Force pilots
averaged 250 hours. True the Luftwaffe retained its experterien,
pilots like Hartmann, Bar, etc. These pilots were few & were
exceptions in quality who were superior to the average Soviet or
American Pilot. However see point 3 below to judge for yourself their
true superiority.
3 - Military strategy & tactic. The Red Air Force like the USAAF was
on the offensive from 1943 onwards taking the war to the Germans. The
writings about & of the Luftwaffe aces such as Hartmann & tank buster
Rudel show that they were shot down many times but mostly over their
own front - indicating that the Luftwaffe was in a defensive war from
1943 on. Now how could they therefore have air superiority relative
to the Red Air Force? The battle of Krusk demonstrated the tremendous
value of the Soviet Il2 (later evolved into the Il 10) in killing
Whermacht tanks while the Luftwaffe was left to rely on the obsolete
Ju-87 Stuka. Their new He 177 was too complex system failure prone to
be useful and contributed little in the ground attack role. The Il
2/10 was the novel design concept that the Soviets originated (armour
plate that's part of the structure of the airframe) whose modern child
is the A-10.
Bolshoy Murza
Tiglath
"yp11" <yp...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:v45s1vkd4d7qn9vj2...@4ax.com...
>
> It is an interesting theory about the "Jewish problem". You mean, that
> when Hitler realized that Jews could not be eliminated through
> intermarriage with non-Jews over many centuries, he decided to
> accelerate the solution of the Jewish problem by gassing them?
He did.
When forces like Semitism and anti-Semitism remain in tension for long
periods it is quite unpredictible how a resolution will be attempted.
Hitler tried a solution, the most violent to date, as it pertains to
non-Jews. Zionists tried another solution, with much violence -- over a
century's worth -- as it pertains the Jews, by founding a state of Israel to
the detriment of people who refuse to be trampled underfoot.
Toxin/anti-toxin -- both pathological.
> And
> even that didn't succeed, so I guess we will have to learn to live
> with the Jewish problem for a long time to come.
>
It seems that almost half the Jews are marrying non-Jews; this is in my view
a peaceful solution in progress. It will take much time but we can only
hope that the nefarious political influence of the Jews of the Diaspora will
eventually decrease and that the Jews of Israel will figure out how to leave
in peace among Arabs, although the difficulty of the latter is delaying the
former.
> Still there are other ethnic groups who like Jews do not readily
> intermarry with others and maintain their heritage over centuries,
> without being considered "a problem". For example, the Armenians who
> had their own Holocaust early in the 20th century and who are also
> spread throughout the world as a diaspora, have never been as hated by
> the people where they reside as the Jews often are.
> >
I have experienced first hand how ANY group that becomes clannish will
engender anti-group resentment. Antipathy grows according to the
disproportion of the power exerted by the minority. That happens within
countries, corporations, political parties, families, or any human
organization. Few like an elite that rewards itself at the expese of the
majority. Your example is valid, as others that exist, however, none of
those groups has achieved the level or organization and the disproportionate
political power the Jews have, especially in the United States.
>
> I believe that the reason for anti-Semitism is far deeper than the
> Jewish clannishness and the advantages that it may give them. Jews
> consider themselves to be a superior race, a race to which God himself
> has given a special power, and they act accordingly. They are
> extremely arrogant; they will fight anyone who stands in their way;
> they flash their wealth and power whenever and wherever they can, etc.
> When they do all this in countries where they settled "against" the
> people of those countries, they encounter a lot of hate. Anyone who
> has or had a Jewish boss knows what I am talking about.
All that is part of the clan's culture.
There is nothing wrong with feeling special, but when Jews act on that
feeling by occupying a plot of land belonging to others, claiming their God
promised it to them, and back their claim with scriptural evidence of that
land being occupied by Jews 2500 years ago, and as members of the Chosen
People they take possession of it gun in hand prepared to shoot trespassers,
THAT is a sure way to provoke premium anti-Semitism.
It must be said that many Jews don't think that way, only the religious nuts
among them do. But MOST Jews are more than lenient with religious nuts
among them, and the lack of retribution to Jewish settlers who steal new
Palestinian land every day shows it.
>
> At the same time, one cannot deny that Jews are very, very intelligent
> and smart and money wise. There are proportionally more Jews who are
> Nobel laureates, than any other nationality.
Jews are an asset to any society in many ways, but they overpay themselves
grossly. They can be just as good an asset without their self-serving
political activism. They are not alone in excellence. Twelve percent of
Indians are doctors, were that a measure of excellence. Chinese are
extremely hard working and accomplished. Chinese and Indians are close-knit
groups, yet their "clan" has no political designs to exploit the society
they live in. Which must mean that mere cultural clannishness is benign.
> Proportionally, there are
> more doctors, lawyers, business executives and other professionals who
> are Jews, than any other ethnic group. It looks that they have indeed
> been blessed by their God.
One of the advantages of their organization is that they have excellent
family values. Most women regard a Jewish man potentially a better husband
and father than the average Joe. Superior family cohesion produces better
educated children. It is no divine endowment but a side-effect of the
centripetal force to keep the tribe together.
And by showing off all this smartness and
> the power that it gives makes it difficult to like Jews and many are
> very jealous of them for it. This is the main reason for
> anti-Semitism.
I disagree. Most anti-Semites would not like to be Jewish or like the Jews,
much as they might like to be doctors, bankers, or what have you.
Anti-Semitism comes from the indignation at realizing that Jews individually
are just like any other people, but that they derive benefits from the clan,
benefits that the clan obtains largely by concerted political activism, and
the exclusion of non-Jews. It is not a conspiracy, but a way of life that
over time takes far more than puts into the whole of society.
I know enough dumb Jews, as well as smart ones, to have figured out that
the Jewish individual is at no advantage by himself. It is the group that
fosters superior individual growth by collective effort. Similarly, many
Masons are successful; their successes help other Masons, and other Masons
cushion their failures.
Tiglath
I have fenced with Susan Cohen a few times. She is a Zionist of the first
order who will not be deterred by facts and history. I have stumped her
numerous times with evidence she could not refute. In that situation she
retreats into her warehouse where she keeps reams of "Anti-Semite!" labels,
which she launches at critics of Israel with automatic fire.
She is the Jewish equivalent of a Muslim or Christian fundamentalist. The
sooner you discover that you are not debating her reason but her will the
better, for the will cannot be persuaded by argument. She is a believer,
who would rather be devoured in the circus by beasts than renounce her god
and the land her god promised her -- a fanatic, who uses with no compunction
the tragedy of the Holocaust to claim coveted victim status, worthy of
compensation which must include freedom from criticism.
She is not too smart either, one of the few poorly educated Jews, and she
soon runs out of ideas and starts insulting. Then she find herself facing
evidence and arguments she is not smart enough to refute and insulted in
turn. Result: this pussy runs for her nine lives.
"Susan Cohen" <fla...@his.com> wrote in message
news:3E1E3B...@his.com...
Bolshoy Murza
> And to get back on topic: The supposed decadence of the west:
> The enemies of the west, the Caesers corrected predicted by
> Spengler, tend to put all their energy and resources into
> methods of killing people, while the west focusses on Nintendo
> games and softer toilet paper (there has recently been a
> technological breakthrough in soft toilet paper -- it is
> predampened with certain non volatile chemicals) Spengler
> incorrectly predicted that this would result in the West
> losing.
You are showing, sorry, a poor understanding of Spengler. His
theories about the decline of the west and the coming of Caesars
applied to Germany as well as to the Anglo-Saxon world. they were
both seen as part of the west, and both seen as declining. However
(as he outlined in some detail in his book "Prussianism and
Socialism") Germany and and the Anglo-Saxon world were on two
parrallel Western paths. The A-S world was the descendent of the
Viking plunderers/exploiters adventurers (who consequently focussed on
economic power, trade, wealth, etc.) while the Germans on the
continent represented the children of the feudal system. They
emphasized duty, and obedience (the whole lord and vassal thing), and
*land*. As he said, in an anglo democracy, anyone can achive the
highest wealth, while in a continental (Prussian) democracy, anyone
can achive the highest rank.
Spengler predicted that militarily the latter variant of the west
would triumph over the former, which in general (and despite the
evidence you disagree) is what happened. He also stated that America
would obviously take the lead in the Anglo-Saxon variant of western
(faustian) civilization.
Incidentally, we seem to be seeing the EU returning to its traditional
feudal pattern what witht he centralized EU beurocracy and increasing
anti-American\anti-"capitalist" sentiment.
Spengler also devoted a lot of energy into describing how either one
of those would have a devil of a time keeping the West afloat against
a younger and more vital race - such as the Russians. He claimed that
only the Germans could pull this off, but only if they were smart. He
ridiculed Nazi racial politics and other stupidities (he said of
Hitler, that Germany needed a hero, not a heroic tenor). He also
condemend thoughts of an invasion of the Soviet union as a recipe for
suicide.
Basically he hoped for a kaiser-like Germany (among other things such
a Germany would not have promted brilliant Jewish scientists, and thus
the atomic program, to leave the country). Such a Germany would wrest
dominance of Europe and the middle east from the British and the USa,
the weakened remnant of the Anglo ideal would be forced to take a
secondary role to Germany's position of leadership of European
civilization (just as would other defeated European systems such as
the Spanish).
As for decline in Anglo-Saxon (British, American) and resultant
caesarism, we have the caesarism of corporations and industries which
is coming to pass just as Spengler predicted:
"Contemporary English-American politics have created through the press
a force field in which each person unconsciously takes up the place
allotted to him, so that he must think and act as a ruling personality
somewhere sees fit. Man does not speak to man, the press and its
associate, the electrical news service, keep the waking consciousness
of whole peoples and continents under a deafening drum-fire of theses,
catchwords, standpoints, scenes, feelings, day by day and year by
year, so that every Ego becomes a mere function of a monstrous
intellectual Something.
Today we live so cowed under the bombardment of this intellectual
artillery that hardly anyone can attain tot he inward detachment that
is required for a clear view of the monstrous drama. The
will-to-power operating under a pure democratic disguise has finished
off its masterpiece so well that the object's sense of freedom is
actually *flattered* by the most thorough- going enslavement that has
ever existed. The liberal bourgeois mind is actually *proud* of the
abolition of censorship, the last restraint, while the dictator of the
press keeps the slave-gang of his readers under the whip of his
leading articles, telegrams and oictures. The book-world, with its
profusion of standpoints that compelled thought to select and
criticize, is now a profession for the few. The people reads *one*
paper, "its" paper, which forces itself through the front doors by
millions daily, drives the book into oblivion by its more engaging
layout...
What is truth? For the multitude, that which it continually hears and
read [or watches on TV - B.M.]. What the Press wills, is true. Three
weeks of press work, and the truth is acknowledged by everybody. The
Classical rhetoric, too, was designed for effect and not content - as
Shakespeare brilliantly demonstrates in Antony's funerasl oration -
but it did limit itself to the bodily audience and the moment. What
the dynamism of our press wants is *permanent* effectiveness. It must
keep men's minds continually under its influence. Its arguments are
overthrown as soon as the financial power passes over to the
counter-arguments and brings these still oftener to men's ear. At
that moment the needle of public opinion swings round to the stronger
pole. Everybody convinces himself at once of the new truth, and
regards himself awakened out of error [just think of "good", heroic
mujahaddeen vs. "bad" Taliban].
Through money, democracy becomes its own destroyer, after money has
destroyed intellect..."
"The press today is an army with carefully organized weapons, the
journalists its officers, the readers its soldiers. But, as in every
army, the soldier obeys blindly, and the war aims and operating plans
change without his knowledge. The reader neither knows nor is supposed
to know the purposes for which he is used and the role he is to play.
There is no more appalling caricature of freedom of thought. Formerly
no one was allowed to think freely; now it is permitted, but no one is
capable of it any more. Now people want to think only what they are
supposed to want to think, and this they consider freedom."
Pretty prophetic. So when I read your descents into platitudes I can
only smile at you the slave of another caesar, a caesar that exists
only thanks to Soviet victory : )
Bolshoy Murza
btw, interesting how these words written 80 years ago by
arch-conservative Spengler foretell exactly what Chomsky has been
going off about media control over the last few decades.
William Black
"BernardZ" <Bern...@LargeMailBox.com to reply delete Large and Box> wrote
> He would not have to do anything. Since without the US and Russia there
> is no way that the British have sufficient manpower to defeat him. Just
> ask yourself how many troops could the British loss? Then compare that
> amount with the number that Hitler could loss. See my previous post.
It doesn't matter.
All the UK has to do is hold on, and it can do that after it beats the
U-boat codes, which is before the US enters the war.
In about 1947 TUBE ALLOYS comes on stream, Berlin gets turned into a
mixture of green glass and radioactive gas and the war is over.
Germany can't win.
--
William Black
------------------
On time, on budget, or works;
Pick any two from three
William Black
"Bolshoy Murza" <bolsho...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:3757594a.0301...@posting.google.com...
> Wrong. Germany was producing more fighters as the war progressed, and
> it produced the first useable jet fighters.
No it didn't.
>
> The allies were years behind in that department
No they weren't, they just used their jet fighters against V1s as they were
trhe only thing they had that could catch them.
> As was the British. A German once told me that Hitler stopped not
> because he couldn't comntinue but because he wanted to switch from air
> warfare to civilian bombing (something the allies would beat him in
> anyways).
Yeah, right... A German told me...
leo sgouros
Tiglath wrote:
> I have fenced with Susan Cohen a few times. She is a Zionist of the first
> order who will not be deterred by facts and history. I have stumped her
> numerous times with evidence she could not refute. In that situation she
> retreats into her warehouse where she keeps reams of "Anti-Semite!" labels,
> which she launches at critics of Israel with automatic fire.
>
> She is the Jewish equivalent of a Muslim or Christian fundamentalist. The
> sooner you discover that you are not debating her reason but her will the
> better, for the will cannot be persuaded by argument. She is a believer,
> who would rather be devoured in the circus by beasts than renounce her god
> and the land her god promised her
finally some good news
> -- a fanatic, who uses with no compunction
Really?Hey pronounce the r in that really with a rolling d sound and get
that down, and then the part where a fanatic writes terrible things
about a total stranger over a bunch of written words.
Oh is it more ?
James A. Donald
Bolshoy Murza
> > > moreover the U-boat usage did not peak until YEARS after
> > > the Bizmarck was sunk. For excample in 1940 the Germans
> > > sank about 4.4 million tons; they did so also in 1941 but
> > > in 1942 tthis total increased to *8,245,000* tons.
James A. Donald:
> > Western measures against U-boats were also improving, with
> > the result that the U-boat effort stopped abruptly, due to
> > the ever diminishing life expectancy of U-boats. It came
> > to pass that they no longer survived long enough to be
> > worth building.
Bolshoy Murza
> "Coincidentally", at a time when all resouirces were being
> thrown against the Soviet collosus crushing them in the
> East...
The west was continually building up and improving U-boat
detection assets. Germany was not shooting those assets down,
could not shoot them down due western sea and air supremacy..
So no matter how many or how few U boats germany built, their
lifetime would have diminished just as fast.
As I said, U-boat warfare is measure used by weakness against
strength, and the strong usually find ways to deal with such
measures.
> Germany's efforts to isolate Britain were ultimately defeated
> by Russia, not Britain.
Germany's efforts to isolate Britain sank with the Bismark,
long before Russia became an issue. U-boat warfare was the
tactics of the weak against the strong.
Britain isolated Germany. Germany failed to isolate Britain --
that is why Hitler turned east.
> > India is just as big a source of expendable conscript
> > cannon fodder as Russia. Had Russia not come in, England
> > would have swung that way.
>
> You think that the Indians would die by the 100,000s for the
> British? To defend the British Isles?
They would have been reluctant, but far less reluctant that
Stalin's conscripts. Observe we were able to fight guerrila
wars in colonial territory against the Japanese, but Stalin was
not able to fight guerrila wars in colonial territory against
the Nazis. Or we could have tootled around lighting guerrila
wars and making hit and run raids until we developed a super
weapon, as we did develop, or until our air superiority was so
great we could flatten Germany with conventional bombs, the air
superiority that we eventually did attain.
Dominion over air and sea gave us the resources of the world,
and time to try one thing, and try another thing. Wealth,
skill and science was turned from producing more comfortable
toilet paper to methods of mass destruction, gave us an ever
increasing technological lead. One way or another way we would
have applied these, or some combination of them, to destroy
Germany.
James A. Donald:
> > He had lost in the air and the sea, and due the increased,
> > and increasing gap in technology and resources, resuming
> > that battle would merely have led to another, greater,
> > defeat.
Bolshoy Murza
> Incorrect. You forget about jet technology and rocket
> technology. There was no "increasing gap";
Don't be silly. The gap was obvious, and obviously growing, as
Molotov pointed out when Hitler suggested that Russia take care
of the British empire for him.
Long range rockets with conventional warheads are a weapon of
the weak against the strong, since the rocket costs as much per
bomb delivered as a bomber. It is like throwing away the
bomber after each run. Jets are useless without radar, as was
decisively demonstrated in the last days of the war. When you
are blind, and your enemy can see, flying faster just gets you
into trouble faster.
> on the contrary German production increased trememdously
> throughout the war, peaking in 1944. Of course it was all
> applied in the East.
>
> Germany was using jets in late 44 and 45. When would the
> British had been able to do so? They were at least a year
> behind.
>
> BTW for "some reason" you cut out this info from my other
> post:
>
> http://www.danshistory.com/ww2/jetrock.shtml
>
> According to that site: By war's end 1294 Me-262 jet fighters
> had been built but only 200 to 300 fought in the skies over
> Germany. All told the Me-262s downed more than 700 aircraft
> in the face of overwhelming air superiority (out numbered
> ten-to-one and in some battles fifty-to-one.)
You are playing games with statistics, just as you did with the
battle of Britain, which your statistics showed to be a German
victory. In any case, western jet fighters were in production
-- German lead in jets was ineffective -- the west had, as you
said, "overwhelming air superiority", and had it been
effective, it would have been short lived.
>
> So you have a ratio of 2:7 or 3:7 in the Germans' favor.
> Stretch this figure out over a year, and multiply it
> considerably because of the much much greater strength that
> would be thrown against the western allies
Western jets were on their way. Further, German facilities
for the production of jets were being steadily flattened. As
you said, the west had "overwhelming air superiority" We could
bomb germany with ever increasing safety and ever lower cost.
Germany had long been incapable of bombing us.
This steady and rapidly increasing advantage in technology,
numbers, and wealth, would have eventually brought us victory.
> Which is impressive, but ultimately ruling the seas in the
> way you describe was of minimal importance in the war. It's
> like ruling India or Australia or New Zealand - who cares?
Wealth, resources, power, and manpower. It was the Australians
and chinese who contained the Japanese expansion on land, while
everyone else was able to ignore the Japanese and concentrate
on Germany.
The west won the war because it had superior wealth and
science, and because, controlling the air and the seas, it was
free to apply that wealth and resources to whatever it chose,
whenever it chose.
The wealth of the west, which brought it victory in the war,
was a result of the freedom characteristic of the west. We are
Greece, not Imperial Rome. Had the Caesers predicted by
Spengler won, then indeed the west would be in decline today
with Berlin or Moscow analogous to imperial Rome, and America
as the ignorant and disarmed descendents of the Athenians. But,
of course, we won, liberty won, the vigor of our civilization
won.
> The u-boat warfare had it been more extensive would have done
> the job without all of those battleships.
u-boats could never suffice. The u-boats, like the rockets,
were a weapon of weakness against strength.
> Had they not been used in Barbarrossa, most of them would
> have been used elsewhere. In that case you can forget about
> the Brits holding Egypt and the Middle East and thus losing
> the world's oil supply. And you can forget about any
> successful bombing, much less invasion of Germany. As I will
> explain, below, with increased production and technological
> superiority
But the west had technological superiority. It was this
increasing technological superiorty that won the battle of
Britain. You cannot cliam that Gemany's technological
inferiority was caused by Hitler's decision to attack Russia.
On the contrary, German technological inferiority *caused*
Hitler's decision to attack Russia.
> the German air force would certainly win a repeat of the
> B.o.B.
But in the first battle of Britain, Germany had everything
going in its favor, Germany had been preparing, and Britain had
not.
A second battle of Britain would have ended in one day -- the
German airforce would be annihilated over the channel.
The tide turned against the German airforce, and turned ever
worse for the whole duration of the war, due to the rapidly
increasing technological lead of the allies, in particular
radar.
Bolshoy Murza:
> > > You should also remember that the British colonials would
> > > probably not die in large numbers for their masters.
James A. Donald:
> > In the guerrila war against Japan colonial people did die
> > in large numbers. Within the Soviet Union, there was no
> > comparable guerrila war against Germany. Therefore
> > colonial affection for Europeans was considerably greater
> > than Soviet affection for Stalin.
Bolshoy Murza:
> ???? These same people then fought the Europeans. Remember
> Indonesia or Viet Nam? I was reacting to your suggestion
> that somehow these colonials would fight the Germans, i.e. on
> the European continent. Actually they would most likely take
> the German side. Remembver the pro-Axios uprising in Iraq,
> and the pro-Axis shah in Iran who was deposed by the
> Anglo-Americans.
Those were people fighting for independence, not German rule.
When the Japanese took up rule, the locals fought guerrila wars
largely under white leadership, against the Japanese. The
arabs have a saying, "me against my brother, me and my brother
against my cousin, me and my cousin against the stranger." The
english have a saying "Better the devil you know".
James A. Donald:
> > These are the methods that a civilized people, in the
> > flower of the vigor of their civilization, use against
> > barbarians. A civilization is decadent when its people
> > can no longer outwit their enemies, but are still reluctant
> > to die fighting even when that unpleasant necessity
> > arrives.
Bolshoy Murza
> Sounds like the USA to me.
Reflect upon the fall of the Soviet Union, and the recent war
in Afghanistan.
Bolshoy Murza
> Funny how when the British won far less in the Battle of
> Britian, you brag about the great victory, but when the
> Soviets do far more (the British, after all, did not
> accomplish all of their goals because of the B.O.B.; and the
> Japanese battles involved more than just a couple thousand
> planes) you dismiss it.
>
> A double standard, wouldn't you say?
After the battle of Britain, Britain not only owned the air
above Britain, but was well on the way to owning the air above
Germany. Thus the British victory in the Battle of Britain was
akin to the australian victory on the kokoda trail, and unlike
the merely defensive Soviet "victory" over the Japanese.
James A. Donald:
> > Fact is, westerners had a technological lead from the
> > beginning, and that lead continually increased, and that
> > lead won the battle of Britain, and the battle of the
> > Bismark. The west getting nukes first was not a fluke, it
> > was part of same superiority and vigor that won the battle
> > of Britain.
Bolshoy Murza
> As we have seen technological lead was mixed. Germans had an
> edge in jets and rockets.
One could similarly claim that Saddam has a "lead" over Israel
in long range rockets with conventional warheads.
Long range rockets with conventional warheads were not a "lead"
but merely a weapon of weakness against strength, then as now.
It costs far more to deliver explosives by rocket than by
bomber. Hence Saddam's "lead".
Germany had a minor and short lived lead in jets, which was
useless because of its great lag in radar. Western air
superiority was overwhelming, and continually increased
throughout the whole duration of the war.
James A. Donald:
> > British jet development was only marginally behind German
> > jet development.
Bolshoy Murza
> At least six months behind, if not longer.
OK, so German development of jets could have postponed
annihilation through conventional bombing for six months -- or
possibly not -- radar was a pretty big advantage for the west.
> The potential of this awesome plane was obvious and the Gotha
> company quickly readied the turbojet for production as a
> fighter-bomber with the Air Ministry designation Ho 299
> (because Gotha built it, the plane is also called the Go
> 229.) The production version was expected to fly as fast as
> 623 mph (997km/h.) This is significantly faster than even the
> Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter, it would have been
> virtually unstoppable by allied aircraft. Before any Ho 229s
> could be produced, however, the Gotha factory was over-run by
> U.S. forces in April of 1945."
Nazi superweapon fantasies -- as soon as such planes flew
outside german ground radars they were blind, while western
planes had sight wherever they flew. Jets would have helped
Germany shield her cities for a little longer, they could not
have regained control of the air.
The west, not the Germans, was developing superweapons.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
UH7RHLF0lcl0RupcYmBSWGRNnOfVgTktH2LbvWBB
4zgeA4o0TcPMpahuLB5f6khSNwrp4pPNezPTaTj0p
Alex
If "we" means UK, it was hardly was in a position to win over
Nazies without US help. It was not even able to protect its own
convoys without US giving it the WWI destroyers. Judging by WC's
communications with FDR, he did not share your optimistic view
on Brittish perspectives against Germany.
An issue of the conscripts and the "cannon fodder" seems to be
your obsession but it was not unique for the Nazies and SU.
Otherwise, one of the Brittish generals would not have to tell
WC that a good generalship does not necessarily involve a big bill
from a butcher. And, as a matter of fact, Brits suffered heavy
casualties in their land operations. Narwick, Crete, Singapoor,
are hardly examples of a military skill.
About "usual", by the time of WWII a main "precedent" was WWI.
Should we get into the details of conscripts and cannon fodder
within _this_ context?
>
> For example, we would have nuked him,
UK "nuking" anyone during WWII is a very interesting idea. Did you try
to cut on the ...er... "controlled substances"? :-)
>or would have fostered
> guerrila wars among his slave peoples,
Who would serve as a "cannon fodder". Well, this is a nice description
of the advantages of a democracy over "the lesser races".
For your information, these movements existed in the most of the occupied
Europe (including, surprise, Soviet territory) and they were not an
instrument capable to overthrow Nazies on their own. The only place where
such a movement came close to being an independent fighting force was
Yugoslavia and, unfortunately, these guys had been Commies.
> or whatever turned up.
In other words, you have no clue.
Soren Larsen
"James A. Donald" <jam...@echeque.com> skrev i en meddelelse
news:3d1u1vcmijccv1o5l...@4ax.com...
> --
>
> As I said, U-boat warfare is measure used by weakness against
> strength, and the strong usually find ways to deal with such
> measures.
>
Oh like the US subs attacking Japanese shipping.
U-boats was used if your enemy was dependent
on merchant ships because they were a cheap and
efficient tool to sink them. Strength really
doesn't matter.
Cheers
Soren Larsen
James A. Donald
James A. Donald..
> > Western supremacy in the air grew continually as the war
> > progressed. The German jet fighter program was only
> > slightly ahead of the english, but British radar was
> > immeasurably in advance of the German. What does it matter
> > if German planes could for a little while fly faster, when
> > British planes had sight, and German planes were blind?
Bolshoy Murza
> 2:7 or 3:7 kill ratios in favor of German jets is the
> difference.
They had a good kill ratio over German cities, supported by
ground fire and ground radar, against bombers -- but not nearly
as good as British conventional fighters did against German
bombers in the battle of Britain in like circumstances.
If they had more jets, that would have sufficed to protect
German cities for six more months, until western jets became
available. It would not have sufficed to regain control of the
air away from the cities. The other technological advantages
of the west, in particular airborne radar, outweighed jet
engines by far. Going fast does little good when you are blind
and your enemy has sight.
James A. Donald:
> > This illustrates the superiority of western freedom, and
> > the resulting wealth and technological superiority, over
> > eastern slavery, and the resulting ability to round up
> > hordes of ragged conscripts and hurl them into the mouths
> > of cannons.
Bolshoy Murza
> See W.W.I analogies. Besides Germans are Westerners.
We politely pretend to think so, so long as they resolve to act
accordingly. I expect that if the pretence continues for long
enough, it will eventually become real.
James A. Donald:
> > We are golden age Greece, not Imperial Rome. If Germany
> > won World War II, or the Soviet Union the cold war, then
> > indeed we would be in decline, we would be imperial Rome,
> > with the Kremlin as Rome, and America as the poor,
> > ignorant, and disarmed descendents of the Athenians.
> >
> > But instead we won, because we are superior.
Bolshoy Murza
> Rather, you won, because the Soviets were superior.
Where are the Soviets today?
Bolshoy Murza:
> > > Wrong. Germany's productivity increased, dramatically,
> > > throughout the war because before the war it was in
> > > pretty poor shape.
James A. Donald:
> > Right or wrong, the west's air and sea superiority
> > increased continually throughout the war. While the Hitler
> > Stalin pact still in effect, Stalin sent Molotov to Berlin,
> > only to have the discussions continually and severely
> > interrupted by unopposed British bombing. Hitler told
> > Molotov that the British empire was ripe for the taking,
> > and urged Russia to strike eastwards, urged Russia to do
> > what he needed to do, but feared to do, to which Molotov
> > replied that if the British empire was so readily
> > available, why was it that the British were bombing
> > unopposed?
Bolshoy Murza:
> Upon hearing of the meeting, Churchill had a few light
> bombers flown to Berlin. This was the equivalent of Rusk's
> landing that plane in central Moscow.
Except that Rusk did not brush aside the German air force.
Molotov, no fool, was impressed, and Hitler, no fool either,
got very upset about the state of his air force.
James A. Donald:
> > At the beginning of the war the German air force could get
> > at the British, and the British could not get at the
> > Germans. A few months later, British airmen could get at
> > the Germans, and Germans could not get at the british, an
> > imbalance that became glaringly and humiliating evident
> > well before Hitler in desperation struck at his ally,
Bolshoy Murza:
> Wrong again, cowboy.
I think Molotov's judgment better than yourse.
James A. Donald>
> > Our planes smashed the Luftwaffe, the Luftwaffe easily
> > smashed the pathetic excuse for an air force that the
> > Soviet Union had.
Bolshoy Murza:
> Er...only because the Luftwaffe had the advantage of a sneak
> attack. Russian pilots had a poor opinion of American planes
> and preferred to fly their own.
Much of the Russian air force had double wings, looked like
something made by the wright brothers. Early World War I style
planes, the kind of planes you see in that movie "those
magnificent men in their flying machines."
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
/QcLpiAOvewaNjefi4EGnQSJi2gDSkMVVtDg/mBW
4EJSpmG5V31vfiGozYhoJwhnjgGFwkjuVn2HQBL6f
Brian Blakistone
>bblak...@netzero.net (Brian Blakistone) wrote in message news:<3e1d88c...@news.cis.dfn.de>...
>> am...@hotmail.com (Alex) wrote:
[...]
>>>Of course, trucks, strategic materials and even American
>> >tanks and planes had been very useful but, except for the trucks, the
>> >amounts of this equipment had been, by 1943, considerably lower than Soviet
>> >home production. By the time of Kursk, Soviet tank production was few times
>> >bigger than the German one.
>> Yes, but modern armies move on their trucks, and either they
>> would have had to produce fewer tanks, or they would have
>> been far less mobile.
>We are in a complete agreement on this issue. But the post to which I was
>answering simply discounted Soviets as a bunch of (probably unarmed)
>conscripts waiting for the Western help. My point was that this was only
>partially true and that Nazies had been stoped in 1941 before this aid
>started coming in the really big quantities. Of course, it would be foolish
>to deny (as Soviet propaganda tried to do in 80's) the importance of
>Lend Lease for the events on the Eastern Front.
This is so reasonable even I can't argue with it. ;-)
>>Part of the German problem in
>> attacking the Soviets was their lack of trucks,
>They widely used horses, just as Soviets did (with much bigger resources
>of a horsepower).
Yes, I have seen the German army described as two armies,
one highly modern and mechanized, the second un-mechanized
moving at the speed of hoof and foot.
>>at many
>> times Barbarossa was not held up by Soviet defenders, but by
>> German logistical problems.
>Indeed. OTOH, Barbarossa, as it was planned, failed because it's main
>premise proved to be wrong: after most of the existing Red Army had been
>defeated near the border, Soviet resistance did not crumble. Besides a
>gross miscalculation of the human resources (and their quality), Germans
>seriously miscalculated Soviet industrial potential (Abwehr failed to
>establish any efficient espionage network on the Soviet territory and, as
>a result, Germans had very vague idea about locations and capacities of
>the Soviet industry).
Right, German intelligence throughout the war was abysmal.
They thought they had defeated the entire army early and
were amazed when new divisions kept popping up. There is a
great quote from the commander of a Panzer division that
they needed to be careful or they would 'win themselves to
death', and that is pretty much what happened. [...]
>>In many instances it is unlikely the Soviets
>> could have even built what the US provided, like the radios
>Well, I have some idea about this with my father serving as a communication
>officer during WWII. :-)
That's very interesting, what sort of unit did he serve
with?
>Sorry, but you are wrong on this particular issue. Radios had been built in
>SU well before WWII and were a part of the standard army equipment. The
>problem was with a real life supply but the same applied to the many low
>technology items: in 1941 a barbed wire often had been used as a substitute
>of the cable for the field phones.
They were built, but not enough and not very well. For
instance only the lead tank would have a radio, the rest
would rely on visual signals from that tank. Very few
aircraft were equipped with radios, which was one of the
reasons why Soviets were later than the west to vector their
aircraft with radar. Even by the end of the war I believe
many Soviet aircraft were only equipped with receivers. In
part this is explained by the fact that the Soviets didn't
really have a consumer economy like the US where private
industry was turning out radios in mass. Even for many of
the radios made in the Soviet Union, many of the vacuum
tubes (which were more space efficient to ship than full
radios) were lend lease and the designs were clones of
British or US radios, so they weren't so much manufactured
as assembled.
This from _Stumbling Colossus by David Glantz:
"Signal forces were equipped with insufficient quantities of
largely obsolete radios, and Soviet industry lagged severely
in the production of all types of modern communications
equipment. In June 1941 mobilized signal units were at 39
percent fill in RAT radios, 46 percent in army and airfield
radios, 77 percent in regimental radios, 35 percent in
telegraph sets, and had only 43 percent of their required
telephone wire. Overall fronts averaged 75 percent of their
required radios, Army 24 percent, divisions 89 percent and
regiments 63 percent. This quantity, coupled with the
general lack of experience on the part of commanders in
using radios and radio procedures made communications during
the initial period of war a nightmare."
>In 1943 there was an adequate supply of
>the Soviet radios even on father's front (Karelian Front was one of the
>less "prestigious" with a resulting low priority).
>OTOH, Studebekkers had been ideally suited as the platforms for the powerful
>army level Soviet radio installations. Trucks again. :-)
I have to say I have no idea where the Soviet's large radios
came from; the US was leery of giving the Soviets their most
advanced gear. Also Soviet troops survived on supplies that
many Western nations would have considered wholly
inadequate, that they did so under the harshest of
conditions says a lot about the men that fought there.
>> and the aviation gas.
>Not sure about this as well. Surely, Soviet constructors had been
>designing the engines that were capable to fly on the available fuel.
>Perhaps you are talking about the fuel for the Cobras and Spitfires?
Yes, they did design them that way, but aviation fuel was
100 octane (even the Germans only used 90). Higher octane
allows you to tune an engine for better performance,
advanced timing and higher compression ratios. It wasn't so
much that they would have been grounded without it, but the
aircraft wouldn't have performed as well. The equipment to
make high-octane gas just wasn't available. Was it
decisive, probably not, but it was something else that would
have been hard to impossible for the Soviets to replace.
>> When you think Stalin came close to negotiating a settlement
>> as it was and that he was at the bottom of his very deep
>> manpower pool by the end of the war and it becomes very
>> dicey that the Soviets can prevail without the West, IMO.
>Well, the serious conversations about post-war arrangements (if this is
>what you have in mind) started in Teheran and continued in Yalta and
>Potsdam. Stalin got from FDR practically everything he wanted. AFAIK,
>at no point there was a serious conversation about SU "prevailing"
>without the West. On the contrary, Stalin kept insisting on the Second
>Front and complaining about the delays.
According to Weinberg in _World at Arms_ Stalin was seeking
a truce with Germany based on 1940's borders in late '43.
How serious he was is anybody's guess, but without the Lend
Lease gear coming in, it makes me wonder.
>> Something as simple as being able to communicate with your
>> tanks and airplanes via radio is not going to show up as a
>> huge percentage of your GNP, but is vital to operations.
>I already addressed this issue. There were numerous important items and
>materials supplied by US and UK.
Just to be clear, I think your position is entirely
reasonable, I think I misread some of your tone based on
what you were replying to. [...]
>It was not as simple as that. Even if we assume that a big percentage
>of the executed were incompetent (which was not a reason for the execution),
>the massive repressions in all areas did a huge damage to the country.
>You can add Stalin's ignorance and meddling everywhere, from the military
>plans to the weaponry production.
I agree completely.
Brian
Brian Blakistone
[...]
>Western Allied bombing did little to affect production (ditto for
>German bombing) and primarily just resulted in civilian casualties.
>German production peaked in 1944 - the height of the bombing. What
>does this tell you about the bombing "success"?
This is misleading and simplistic. If you look at the way
US production ramped up to the way Germany's did, you can
see the Germans didn't do nearly as well. The real question
is how much more production might they have had if they
hadn't had to spread out their factories, place them
underground and had their transportation system not been
hampered. Beyond that Hitler was very concerned about
civilian morale, partly ascribing defeat in WWI to it, so
the German economy was much more oriented towards 'Butter'
in the early years and shifted the economy to a war footing
much later than other nations.
Brian
James A. Donald
James A. Donald:
> > As I said, U-boat warfare is measure used by weakness
> > against strength, and the strong usually find ways to deal
> > with such measures.
Soren Larsen
> Oh like the US subs attacking Japanese shipping.
Japan did at first have supremacy in air and sea over an
alarmingly large part of the pacific. In the early part of the
war, it was the inverse of the war with Germany, with the
enemies of Japan using strength on land to resist Japanese air
and sea supremacy.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
IrrXKNBlhd5wVpCzE4yr41NImw4fbOf40lJmJeFA
4lgYo3vDe6OhSqMlOX5/dM5WXm5W3vem3OtL51pVd
James A. Donald
James A. Donald
> > We would have found away to destroy [Hitler] without using
> > usually do.
Alex
> If "we" means UK, it was hardly was in a position to win over
> Nazies without US help.
"We" means the west in general, and the English speaking
peoples in particular. I am neither British, nor American.
> An issue of the conscripts and the "cannon fodder" seems to
> be your obsession but it was not unique for the Nazies and
> SU. Otherwise, one of the Brittish generals would not have to
> tell WC that a good generalship does not necessarily involve
> a big bill from a butcher. And, as a matter of fact, Brits
> suffered heavy casualties in their land operations. Narwick,
> Crete, Singapoor, are hardly examples of a military skill.
Kokoda trail was an example of military skill.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
wc1jpokuv64Ag0pRi+JsnrrpswWeMHbZc2f+qqU/
4e7/9qVa+DVw722eAIDjW7oiP54OmxplKWvPbGZO8
James A. Donald
James A. Donald
> > And to get back on topic: The supposed decadence of the
> > west: The enemies of the west, the Caesers corrected
> > predicted by Spengler, tend to put all their energy and
> > resources into methods of killing people, while the west
> > focusses on Nintendo games and softer toilet paper (there
> > has recently been a technological breakthrough in soft
> > toilet paper -- it is predampened with certain non volatile
> > chemicals) Spengler incorrectly predicted that this would
> > result in the West losing.
Bolshoy Murza
> You are showing, sorry, a poor understanding of Spengler.
> His theories about the decline of the west and the coming of
> Caesars applied to Germany as well as to the Anglo-Saxon
> world. they were both seen as part of the west, and both
> seen as declining. However (as he outlined in some detail in
> his book "Prussianism and Socialism") Germany and and the
> Anglo-Saxon world were on two parrallel Western paths.
But they were not parallel. The Kaiser and Hitler were
characteristic of the East, of the huns, just as Stalin's
system resembled the Mongol empire and its puppet kings.
> Spengler predicted that militarily the latter variant of the
> west would triumph over the former,
He predicted that the easternized variant of the west would
triumph over the westernmost variant of the west -- which of
course it did not.
> which in general (and despite the evidence you disagree) is
> what happened.
Dont be silly.
What is globalization but the triumph of that "branch" of
western civilization that Spengler predicted would fail?
> Incidentally, we seem to be seeing the EU returning to its
> traditional feudal pattern what witht he centralized EU
> beurocracy and increasing anti-American\anti-"capitalist"
> sentiment.
The EU is expanding eastwards, and in the process becoming more
eastern. But in the process, the east is very visibly becoming
less eastern. There is certainly a great risk that the EU will
become another Nazi Germany, but on the whole, so far, it seems
that so far globalism is winning, and the EU's attitude is just
the bitterness of the losers.
> As for decline in Anglo-Saxon (British, American) and
> resultant caesarism, we have the caesarism of corporations
> and industries which is coming to pass just as Spengler
> predicted:
Nonsense -- that intepretation is just Marx's monopoly
capitalism -- you have no comprehension of what is really
happening in the western economy
Corporations are not growing into big monopolies, on the
contrary, they are becoming more numerous, and relatively
smaller.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
Ljfx4VQeDjeILEWJ5YKlKF69yZhhpPoyWdKGlFQH
48C/5mGVVv+CR2AVw5Znjx5tYjr9tcS8koXKmhtMS
Soren Larsen
> --
> James A. Donald:
> > > As I said, U-boat warfare is measure used by weakness
> > > against strength, and the strong usually find ways to deal
> > > with such measures.
>
> Soren Larsen
> > Oh like the US subs attacking Japanese shipping.
>
> Japan did at first have supremacy in air and sea over an
> alarmingly large part of the pacific. In the early part of the
> war, it was the inverse of the war with Germany, with the
> enemies of Japan using strength on land to resist Japanese air
> and sea supremacy.
>
U-boats was by anyone because it was an efficient way
of dealing with enemy shipping - stealth pays.
The US subs made their greatest scores in the _end_
of the war and german subs was studied with great
interest by the US navy after the war when it was
the strongest in the world.
Cheers
Soren Larsen
Paul J Gans
>I have fenced with Susan Cohen a few times. She is a Zionist of the first
>order who will not be deterred by facts and history. I have stumped her
>numerous times with evidence she could not refute. In that situation she
>retreats into her warehouse where she keeps reams of "Anti-Semite!" labels,
>which she launches at critics of Israel with automatic fire.
Tiggers, someone has to give you a clue here. Most of us,
including *you* stop arguing with folks when it becomes
clear that NOTHING will open their minds to another
point of view.
Perhaps she feels that way about you?
Self-awareness is a good thing.
---- Paul J. Gans
James A. Donald
James A. Donald:
> > > > As I said, U-boat warfare is measure used by weakness
> > > > against strength, and the strong usually find ways to
> > > > deal with such measures.
Soren Larsen
> > > Oh like the US subs attacking Japanese shipping.
> >
> > Japan did at first have supremacy in air and sea over an
> > alarmingly large part of the pacific. In the early part of
> > the war, it was the inverse of the war with Germany, with
> > the enemies of Japan using strength on land to resist
> > Japanese air and sea supremacy.
Soren Larsen
> U-boats was by anyone because it was an efficient way of
> dealing with enemy shipping - stealth pays.
Stealth pays if you are the weaker party.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
62LxMT6XbcjpGVe/9NtqxiMSOMFRDDYsh8iHqRWF
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