h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

i've been told that if you fed all informations about ww1 into a computer it would tell you it never could have taken place

the reasons for ww2 seem even more absurd

A particualrly good orator can be a powerful, and potentially dangerous, influence on the masses. It is only with the sagacity of hindsight do thay look back and think "Was that really us?"

Lest we forget

I believe that the collapse of the German economy after World War I was a contributing factor in the next war. The Germans must have considered the 1918 Armistice extremely unfair, and they don't seem to have had many options for climbing out of the hole they were in. I part ways with them over their choice to institute the Holocaust and invade countries like Poland and Russia that were hardly bothering them. In a more transquil time, Mr. Hitler would have been lucky to have gotten elected dogcatcher in a small town.

Post 103:

...if only Hitler had stuck to Volkswagons, and made Volkswagons the basis of his foreign policy. For example, if he couldn't sell a Volkswagon to every adult member of an African village, he might have sold one to the entire village... ...there and anywhere else in the world that kind of a marketing strategy could be made to work... ...he just didn't have anywhere near enough sense of 'comedy', especially considering all that Henry Ford had done for him...




Posts 101 and 102:

The World Wars of the 20th Century, the climax and conclusion of the colonial era, actually had their roots in policy mistakes of the Court of the Hapsburg monarch, Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire (who was also Charles I of Spain), the reigning monarch of the age of the Conquistadores.

The Hapsburgs had dedicated their Germanic and Hungarian holdings to a superpower detente politics holding action versus the Turks, who were the wealthiest and most powerful empire in Europe at the time, to the purpose of preventing the Turks from breaking out into the colonial race; and their Spanish and Portuguese holdings to supporting their overseas colonial effort.

The detente holding action lasted for centuries and though it adequately served the needs of Hapsburg dynasts, it had the effect of delaying the entry of the Germanics into the colonial race until the late 19th century, coincidentally, during the same period as the Americans, in the immediate aftermath of the post Civil War Reconstruction Era, were entering their second overseas colonial era (there had been an earlier one during the early 19th century) and the Japanese during the Meiji restoration (contemporaneous with the Age of Bismarck in Germany) were going through their own industrial revolution (touched off by Commodore Perrys' gift of a theme park class working miniature steam railway to the Japanese during the opening of Japan) and conducting their own first overseas colonial adventures.

The delayed entry of the Germanics into the colonial race, by this time, was occasioning considerable resentment on the part of the Germanics, who felt their long term defensive effort versus the Turks was inadequately appreciated by the other western powers.

Next, came the Spanish-American war, the last of the colonial holdings of Spanish taken away from them; WWI, the Ottoman Empire broken, Turkey reduced to the status of a national state.

WW II was to a considerable extent a consequence of excessively harsh terms imposed on the Germans at the Versailles Armistice conference. Though Woodrow Wilson, on a basis of his boyhood experience in post-Reconstruction Virginia, had tried to ameliorate those terms, his effort failed when he was struck down with a case of the Spanish Flu, which made it impossible for him to continue as an active participant at the Versailles peace conference.

Post WW II changes, colonialism itself outlawed, the colonial empires dissolved. The world was confronted with a moral dilemma: how could one say that what the Germans, Japanese, Italians and their allies had done was wrong, if that kind of thing were to be tolerated any longer on the part of anyone? This was a key issue in the founding of the UN.

Meanwhile, taking this back to the age of Charles V, if the Hapsburgs had at that point in time instead adopted a policy of integrating their forces, using some of their Spanish and Portuguese forces to support the holding action versus the Turks, and some of their Germanic and Hungarian (and other east European forces) to supporting the overseas colonial effort, the World Wars of the 20th century might never have happened at all.




[The outbreak of WW I, a rather bizarre 'domino fall':

1> The Archduke Ferdinand, heir apparent to the Austrio-Hungarian Empire, assassinated by a Serbian anarchist.

2> The Austrio-Hungarian Empire declares a state of martial law in Serbia.

3> The Russians, despite their own problems with the Anarchists, enter the war on the side of the Serbs. It would have been more appropriate to respond with condolences over the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and an offer of support on the problem of the Anarchists.

4> In order to counter the Russian menace (Russias' wintertime access to the sea was through the Bosporus), Turkey enters the war on the side of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire.

5> France enters the conflict on the side of the Russians and in order to counter the Turkish threat to their north African colonial holdings.

6> In order to counter the French menace, the Germans enter the War on the side of the Austrio-Hungarian Empire.

7> on account of their geographic situation, the Belgians are dragged in to counter the German menace.

8> Their own North African colonial holdings threatened, Great Britain enters the war on the side of the French and the Russians.

9> In an effort to forestall an American entry into the war, the Germans attempt to foment a border war between the Mexicans and the Americans.

10> Disclosures on the Zimmerman note precipitates the American entry into the War.




This is oversimplifying considerably and doesn't even begin to address the far east issues. For example, Japan entered WW I on the side of the Americans, Great Britain, France and Russia.

Ho Chi Minh was a Vietnamese delegate to the post WW II peace conferences.

etc.

The 'ripple effect' of the 'domino fall' was global.]




Back to Post 98, taking it from the third paragraph,

"...the goose that lays the golden eggs."

...depends on how enlightened the aggressor is and how essential the services provided by the conquered are. There are many instances in history of 'the goose that lays the golden eggs' being destroyed, out of ignorance, or the sick thrill of destruction for its own sake.

paragraph five,

Its sufficient to take away the ability of the enemy to fight. Sometimes its sufficient if the enemy merely knows that you can and will. ...Catch 22, they have to know you will....

(...there's always a 'catch' to anything, a precondition that has to be met if the trick is to work...)

paragraph six,

...nitpicking, fine shades of meaning, 'vengeance' is perhaps a somewhat better term here, 'revenge' implies a retaliatory motive... ...and you put all too mildly.

paragraph seven,

"...they have to know you can and will..."

If they're in any doubt on either point, the criminal aggressor will not be deterred.

Balance of power becomes an issue when deterrence is succeeding and when deterrence has failed.

On the remaining points, all the above and more. Sometimes, it is an honorable question of do or die.