{"id":10688,"date":"2017-10-26T10:42:43","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T17:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/?p=10688"},"modified":"2017-10-26T10:42:43","modified_gmt":"2017-10-26T17:42:43","slug":"an-avoidable-great-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/an-avoidable-great-war\/","title":{"rendered":"An Avoidable Great War"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review<\/em><\/p>\n

Far from being inevitable, World War II resulted from the Allies\u2019 failure to muster their combined resources and power in the service of deterring Hitler.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s Note: The following is the fourth and final installment in a series of excerpts adapted from Victor Davis Hanson\u2019s new book The Second World Wars. It appears here with permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Throughout history, conflict had always broken out between enemies when the appearance of deterrence \u2014 the material and spiritual likelihood of using greater military power successfully against an aggressive enemy \u2014 vanished. From Carthage to the Confederacy, weaker bellicose states could convince themselves of the impossible because their fantasies were not checked earlier by cold reality. A stronger appearance of power, and of the willingness to employ it, might have stopped more conflicts before they began. Put another way, deterrence in the famous formulation of the 17th-century British statesman George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax, meant that \u201cmen are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

But once thieves were not hanged and more horses were indeed stolen, who is strong and who weak became confusing, and the proper recalibration that pruned rhetoric and posturing from knowledge of real strength returned only at the tremendous cost of a world war. Hitler\u2019s Mein Kampf \u2014 \u201cthe new Koran of faith and war,\u201d according to Winston Churchill \u2014 was in truth a puerile rant that gained credence only through German rearmament and aggressiveness, at least before Stalingrad. After that battle, Hitler was no longer read widely and was only rarely heard by Germans, as the ambitions of the Third Reich waned and Nazi Germany was exposed as far weaker than its enemies and led by an incompetent strategist. The prewar reality was that Russian armor was superior to German. Inexplicably, the Soviets had not been able to communicate that fact, and in consequence lost deterrence. Hitler later remarked that had he just been made aware of the nature of Russian tank production, and specifically about the T-34 tank, against which standard German anti-tank weapons were ineffective, he would never have invaded the Soviet Union. Maybe. But it took a theater war in the East that killed over 30 million people to reveal the Soviets\u2019 real power. Accordingly, leaders and their followers are forced to make the necessary readjustments, although often at a terrible price of correcting flawed prewar impressions. In the case of the timidity of the Western democracies in 1938\u20131939, General Walter Warlimont explained Hitler\u2019s confidence about powers that easily could have deterred Germany: \u201c(1) he felt their [the Allies\u2019] Far Eastern interests were more important than their European interests, and (2) they did not appear to be armed sufficiently.\u201d What a terrible cost ensued to prove Hitler wrong.
\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Only after the disastrous battles of Leipzig (1813) and Waterloo (1815) did Napoleon finally concede that his armies had never been a match for the combined strength of Russia, Prussia, Austria, Sweden, and England. Had all those states combined in a firm coalition a decade earlier, Napoleon might well have been deterred. Churchill without much exaggeration said of Hitler\u2019s military agenda, \u201cup till 1934 at least, German rearmament could have been prevented without the loss of a single life. It was not time that was lacking.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

By any fair measure, Germany in 1939 \u2014 in terms of the number and quality of planes, armor, manpower reserves, and industrial output \u2014 was not stronger than the combined French and British militaries \u2014 or at least not so strong as to be able to defeat and occupy both powers. The later German\u2013Italian\u2013Japanese axis was far less impressive than the alliance that would soon emerge of Great Britain, America, and Russia \u2014 having only little over a third of the three Allies\u2019 combined populations, not to speak of their productive capacity. After all, the United States by war\u2019s end in 1945 would achieve a wartime gross national product nearly greater than that of all of the other Allied and Axis powers combined. In sum, 60 million dead, 20th-century totalitarian ideologies, the singular evil of Adolf Hitler, the appearance of V-2 rockets, the dropping of two atomic bombs, the Holocaust, napalm, kamikazes, and the slaughter of millions in Russia and China seemed to redefine World War II as unlike any conflict of the past \u2014 even as predictable humans with unchanging characteristics, fighting amid age-old geography and weather patterns, continued to follow the ancient canons of war and replayed roles well known from the ages.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Why the Western world \u2014 which was aware of the classical lessons and geography of war, and was still suffering from the immediate trauma of the First World War \u2014 chose to tear itself apart in 1939 is a story not so much of accidents, miscalculations, and overreactions (although there were plenty of those, to be sure) as of the carefully considered decisions to ignore, appease, or collaborate with Adolf Hitler\u2019s Nazi Germany by nations that had the resources and knowledge, but not yet the willpower, to do otherwise.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Victor Davis Hanson\/\/ National Review Far from being inevitable, World War II resulted from the Allies\u2019 failure to muster their combined resources and power in the service of deterring Hitler.   Editor\u2019s Note: The following is the fourth and final installment in a series of excerpts adapted from Victor Davis Hanson\u2019s new book The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1,102,307],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-2Mo","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11459,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/us-strategy-on-china-great-powers\/","url_meta":{"origin":10688,"position":0},"title":"US Strategy On China, Great Powers","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 19, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Hoover Institution The United States should use a strategy of power, alliances, and triangulation to best navigate the emerging world of \u201cgreat power\u201d rivalries, Hoover scholar\u00a0Victor Davis Hanson\u00a0says. The\u00a0post-Cold War global order is in flux with\u00a0the ascendency of an economically-driven China and its foreign policy of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "China"","block_context":{"text":"China","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/china\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12891,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/is-the-biden-administration-stumbling-into-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":10688,"position":1},"title":"Is the Biden Administration Stumbling into War?","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 22, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/ American Greatness What causes wars? Innately aggressive cultures and governments, megalomania, the desire for power, resources, and empire prompt nations to bully or attack others. Less rational Thucydidean motives such as fear and honor and perceptions of self-interest are not to be discounted either.\u00a0 But what\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1699,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/victor-davis-hanson-on-war-and-history\/","url_meta":{"origin":10688,"position":2},"title":"Victor Davis Hanson on War and History","author":"victorhanson","date":"April 19, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson Video Transcript","rel":"","context":"In "April 2010"","block_context":{"text":"April 2010","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2010\/april-2010\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12362,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/victor-davis-hanson-war-on-covid-19\/","url_meta":{"origin":10688,"position":3},"title":"Victor Davis Hanson: War on COVID-19","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 8, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Below is an interview that I had on the war against COVID-19","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11665,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/area-45-the-second-american-civil-war-with-victor-davis-hanson\/","url_meta":{"origin":10688,"position":4},"title":"Area 45: The (Second) American Civil War? With Victor Davis Hanson","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 15, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"On the 210th\u00a0anniversary of Abraham Lincoln\u2019s birthday, some have suggested that United States faces a second \u201ccivil war\u201d \u2013 a conflict over culture, economics, and world view. Victor Davis Hanson, the Hoover Institution\u2019s Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow, contrasts the hands dealt to Abraham Lincoln and Donald Trump.\u00a0 Listen\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10767,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/c-span-military-historian-victor-davis-hanson-recounts-the-key-battles-of-world-war-ii\/","url_meta":{"origin":10688,"position":5},"title":"C-SPAN: Military Historian Victor Davis Hanson Recounts The Key Battles Of World War II","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 4, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson joins National Review editor-in-chief Rich Lowry to recount the key battles of World War II.\u00a0Airing Sunday, Dec 03 12:15am EST on C-SPAN2 Watch the full interview here \u00a0","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10688"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10688"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10689,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10688\/revisions\/10689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}