Deterrence, not deference!

Victor Davis Hanson discusses World War II:

"The more you try to defer to someone when you have power that you did not need to defer, you earn contempt for your magnanimity."

Why the war? American isolationism, British appeasement, and Russian collaboration.

Stalin cut deals with all six major combatants.

Hitler stupidly invaded the Soviet Union in June, 1941.

Japan attacked us at Pearl Harbor in December, assuming that because we did not come to the aid of Britain, we would do little or nothing to fight back after Pearl Harbor.

Germany and Italy declared war on us on December 11.

Now the war was global.

By July, 1942 the Axis had almost defeated the Allies.

The people who killed the most people lost to the people who built the most stuff!

Members of the Axis did not trust each other. Roosevelt and Churchill could trust each other, and Stalin could trust them.

The biggest winner and the biggest loser? The Soviet Union! They lost 27 million men, but they gained most of Europe for their totalitarian pleasure!

Britain fought the entire six years of the war. They were flat broke when the war was over. They began to socialize everything and they gave up their empire willingly. Within ten years Japan and Germany were industrial powers. Italy quit in 1943. Japan killed 17 million people in China.

We had to rebuild Germany and Japan and convince China and others that things would work out!

War is a measuring device, a very bitter one. Each side has material power, and each side has willpower. War then tells you in a very difficult way who is stronger after all. But it doesn't need to occur if you can convey that message before the war breaks out.