Re: Further costs of war (fwd)

[Fabrice Planchon <fabrice@math.Princeton.EDU>]

On Sun, Nov 23, 1997 at 11:21:48PM -0600, Jim Choate wrote:
> 
> Japan beat the shit out of Russia in 1903. Had it not been for Richard

Reread what you quoted below, and you will see that I don't want to
debate over wether or not in a frontal clash between USSR and Japan the
japanese army wins or not. I will grant you they win the first
battle. The same way the germans won for a while... And even admittedly
if you destroy the organised forces from your enemy, it doesn't mean you
are done. You are only if you manage to get the population on your
side. Dimitri makes a very good point in his post, saying that the
germans fucked up in the west, as they could have taken great advantage
from being seen as liberators. As for "Moscow fall, Stalin  fall",
remember Napoleon ?

> > Somehow your ability to expand durably
> > depends on your ability to keep your new possessions. While occupying
> > France, using a satellite gouvernment, isn't that hard, occupying Russia
> > (for the germans) and China (for the japanese) is another, quite
> > impossible, task if you don't get the population support (or, at least,
> > indifference). So, if Hitler had known better, he would have stuck to
> > western europe...
> 
> Had it not been for the oil, food, and weapons we shipped Britian he would
> have owned Europe in toto. It is clear from Hitlers earliest writings that
> he had full intention of taking Russia. Had Stalin not had Sorge's

Yeah, he was stupid. That's my point ;-)

> Rim *and* keep America out of the conflict. China was beaten at the time.
> The only thing keeping the Japanese from taking over the entire country was
> two things. Their interest in expanding southward and eastward in the
> Pacific to gain more oil and resource reserves (Manchuria's oil was critical
> but no sufficient) and the fact that they simply didn't have enough men to
> do both, expand north/west and south/east. The Japanese chose to go

Ultimatly this cost them the game. Not enough men. Had the situation
last a little longer, japanese occupation forces in China would have
faced some serious problems (they were already, actually).

> Mussolini may not have been fond of Hitler but he certainly admired and
> respected the man, or at least that is what Ciano's diaries indicate.

Well, in 34 it wasn't yet the case: when there were serious rumors that
Hitler might be tempted to invade Austria, Mussolini moved troops close
to his autrian border. He was a close friend of the austrian prime
minister of the time (later to be killed...). How Mussolini changed his
mind is a mix of his internal situation in Italy, and his rejection by
the rest of Europe...

> peoples of north and south America sit untouched even if they hadn't planned
> to get the US involved. Consider where the only two locations for platinum
> are located and the impact of that metal on high-technology.* Further
> consider, had Germany and Japan worked in concert a little closer they could
> have had 90% of all the oil on the planet. You think the oil shortages of
> the 70's were a bitch. In such a world the US would not have been the first
> on the moon (I suspect we wouldn't even be in the running). We would not in
> all probability have developed the atom bomb in time; Germany would have
> inhereted all the work the British did and considering that at the time they
> had all the heavy water on the planet they would have had a definite
> advantage. Take that and put things such as the ME-262, the New York Blitz
> Bomber, the V2, the Tri-partite signatories expansionistic dreams, the
> picture becomes quite nasty.
> 
> And if you think for one minute that the US could have stood against Europe,
> Asia, Africa, and Australia combined under some sort of combined assault
> with the technological edge going to the tri-partites you are sorely
> misinformed.

I think you are the one playing games, not me. Once again, I don't
disagree with you on the fact that the US made the right decision
anyway. But had they waited until Hitler was knocking on their door it
wouldn't probably have changed the issue by much. (I would be a native
german-speaker, perhaps...)

                         F.

-- 
Fabrice Planchon                                          (ph) 609/258-6495
Applied Math Program, 210 Fine Hall                      (fax) 609/258-1735