Well, yeah, we wouldn't be hearing anything from any Jews.

Churchill said it best: that to defeat Hitler he would make a deal with the devil.

Well he did, for Stalin was just that. And the allies did defeat Hitler.

But what does it say about someone who still does not (or refuses to) comprehend the threat to civilization posed by Nazi Germany?

Robert Conquest tells in this book of once meeting an elderly European Jew who told him that the best ending to World War II would have been a Nazi victory over Russia, followed by the thermonuclear destruction of the Nazi empire by the Americans.

Conquest said: "But you would be dead."

To which the Jew replied: "Ah, yes -- there is that."

And by the way, before the numerous WWII buffs on this site start flaming me, please note that I'm only reporting and not endorsing that view.

oj:

To be cold about it, and accepting Mr. Ferguson's casualty figures (with which I don't disagree), Americans were killed at a rate of 1:20. Whatever the merits of pursuing war, no country (or insurgency, for that matter) can sustain a rate of 20 dead for the death of one of the enemy. Unless, of course, one has the assistance of the media to amplify the effect of that one death.

Barry:

The better question is when has a deal with the devil ever helped anyone but the devil? We lost Civilization.

It may well be true that the USSR deserves most of the credit for the victory over Hitler, though there are several good reasons to dispute such an assertion; however, to claim, as Furguson does, that the reason why the USSR deserves such credit is because it suffered the highest number of casualties is specious, faulty logic and patently absurd.

While in no way wishing to minimize the Russian war effort, one may objectively claim there are several very good reasons why the Nazis did not ultimately succeed on the Eastern front. One of these is Russian steadfastness, courage and military prowess certainly.

However, all too often, the attempts to valorize the USSR's wartime achievements have had the effect of minimizing the role of the western allies: they minimize or ignore the campaign to supply sorely needed arms and materiel to the USSR by sea (under great duress) via Murmansk and by land via Iran; they minimize or ignore how British and American victories in North Africa and Italy affected the Nazi Eastern Front; they minimize or ignore the toll taken by the day-and-night allied bombing of German targets (preferring to focus on the purportedly inhuman destruction it wrought on German citizens); they relegate and misrepresent D-Day as a long overdue (and perhaps intentionally delayed!) assualt finally taken---only taken---to prevent Russia from reaching western Europe.

But most egregiously, they all too often ignore how the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact cushioned Stalin from the Nazi juggernaut (though for not as long as he would have liked) while partitioning overpowered Poland between its two monstrous neighbors and exposing Western Europe and Britain to the full brunt of the Nazi onslaught.

Though it is surely understandable why some might wish to ignore that ignoble, criminal agreement.

Harry:

Yes, it was just a choice.

Barry:

But it was just that Stalin was willing to kill that many. Without guns at their backs they'd not have faced the ones to the front.

We're always in the process of losing civilization.

(That's what makes this blog so appealing, at least for some. At least at times.)

Still, it would help from time to time not to be so perversely ahistorical in the interest of certain pet ideologies.

We provided what they lacked (material); they provided what we lacked (spirit and the will to match the Nazis body for body).

Would the celebrations this weekend have been much different if we'd helped Hitler defeat Stalin and then had a Cold War against him?

OJ, you do remember that Hitler declared war on us, not the other way around?

And if we had followed your plan, there would be no celebation since the Nazi empire (with its capitalistic economic base) would still be standing. If it weren't for Gorbachav's reforms which spun out of control, an ossified USSR would still be standing.

Now I'm usually in agreement with President Bush, buth his recent comments are simply unhistorical and unfactual. As historian Arthur Schlesinger wrote in response:

The American president is under the delusion that tougher diplomacy might have preserved the freedom of small East European nations. He forgets the presence of the Red Army. No conceivable diplomacy could have saved Eastern Europe from Soviet occupation. And military action against the Soviet Union was inconceivable so long as the Pacific War was still going on. Our military planners, in order to reduce American casualties, counted on the Red Army to enter the war against Japan. At Yalta Stalin promised a firm date in August. And in February the atom bomb seemed a fantasy dreamed up by nuclear physicists.

Now assuming you can stay in the real world, how exactly do you propose that we force the Russians out of Eastern Europe after VE day?

They provided bodies and would have without us. They had no spirit.

They had no spirit.

That comment alone shows how abysmally ignorant you are of WWII history. Italy was an example of a nation without spirit, not Russia.

That sounds really good.

But it's arrant nonsense.

(Unless of course we're talking about Soviet "blood, sweat and tears." Though I suppose these days, one can claim just about anything--- even that the Battle of Britain was won in large part because of the inspiring example of Soviet gallantry on the battle field. As they were carving up Poland, perhaps).

Anonymous:

That's what this always comes down to: there are people like you who think National Socialism and Bolshevism were workable systems.

{My previous comment refers to the West's perceived need for and reliance on Russian spirit.}

one can claim just about anything--- even that the Battle of Britain was won in large part because of the inspiring example of Soviet gallantry on the battle field.

Who do you know of that is making this claim?

Barry:

The ahistory was written over fifty years by New Deal/Marxist historians.

daniel:

How many Italian conscripts did Mussolini have to kill?

Well OJ, you didn't answer any of the factual points in my post (sorry, I should have signed but was in a hurry), especially those made by Schlesinger. Nor did you respond to my question as to how we could hve conceivably fored the Russians out of Eastern Europe after VE day.

Which is not too surprising, whenever you are faced with a point you can't answer you ignore it and hope it goes away.

So tell you what, why don't you take an opportunity to explain in detail the step by step methods President Judd would have used to save Eastern Europe from the Russians. To quote the Beatles, "We'd all love to see the plan".

If you lack such a plan, I'm afraid we'll just have to conclude that all you are really doing with this weird obsession of yours is to rationalize your love for the Nazis (as you seem to prefer having them win).

How many Italian conscripts did Mussolini have to kill?

How many Russians strung up Stalin by he heels from a lampost? Was Stalin deposed when the Germans invaded Russia the same way that Musso was dpeosed when the Allies invaded Italy? How many Russians surrendered at the first opportunity like the Italians in North Africa?

Still waiting to see the plan OJ.

Fat Man and Little Boy would have been sufficient, though by then we'd already made far too many mistakes.

Italy was a far freer society, and not particularly brutal, so it was rather easy to get rid of Mussolini once he started losing. If you want to keep dictatorial powers you have to hate your own people.

Fat Man and Little Boy would have been sufficient,

I'm afraid your "plan" is a little light on specifics.

Are you saying we should have nuked Moscow and Leningrad instead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

How do you get the American people, Congress and our British allies to back such a plan?

Why would you pick a fight against Russia when the war with Japan was still raging in the Pacific?

How many a bombs would be necesary to bring Russia to its knees (a Russia that had suffered 20 million civilian and military casualties and emerged victorious)?

The bulk of Russia's war making capablity was in factories located in the Urals, out of reach of American bombers. How do you expect to do any serious damage to the Russian war machine even if a-bombs are available in quantity?

Aside from killing civilians, what do you hope to accomplish by dropping bombs on Russian cities (cities that had already been gutted by street fighting during the Russian advance)?

Fat Man and little Boy were the only a-bombs available at the time. A third was almost available but it would have taken the better part of 1945 to produce a sufficient quantity of a-bombs. So how do you stop Russian tanks from rolling over the Americans and British on their way to the Rhine and the English Channel?

What moral and/or legal justification do you have for launching a "Stab in the back" pre-emptive strike on an ally who has not threatened or attacked the United States?

Assuming that sufficient quantities of a-bombs were available, how does their mass use against Russian cities make Pres Judd any less a mass murderer than Hitler or Stalin?

Please answer ALL the questions.

though by then we'd already made far too many mistakes.

Alright then, go back in time to the early 1940s if you like and provide a detailed plan for your ideal ending to WWII - assuming you are capable of more than just half-baked crack pot ideas.

Last I checked we entered the War. No?

The National Socialists and the International Socialists were two sides of the same evil coin, and I for one view the fight against the Nazis and the Communists as related battles in the long (and unfinished) struggle between Democracy and totalitarianism.

Yes, we struck an alliance with Stalin to wage a life-or-death struggle against what at the time was the far more dangerous Axis foe. In the long term, however, we held to our Democratic faith and fought a longer and no less bloody fight against worldwide Communism. Both were good fights.

As far as the conventional and atomic bombing of enemy cities, those who plunged the world into that terrible war get zero sympathy and even less regret from me. As far as I'm concerned, the Germans were damn lucky to have surrendered before we finished the Manhattan project.

The National Socialists and the International Socialists were two sides of the same evil coin, and I for one view the fight against the Nazis and the Communists as related battles in the long (and unfinished) struggle between Democracy and totalitarianism.

Yes, we struck an alliance with Stalin to wage a life-or-death struggle against what at the time was the far more dangerous Axis foe. In the long term, however, we held to our Democratic faith and fought a longer and no less bloody fight against worldwide Communism. Both were good fights.

As far as the conventional and atomic bombing of enemy cities, those who plunged the world into that terrible war get zero sympathy and even less regret from me. As far as I'm concerned, the Germans were damn lucky to have surrendered before we finished the Manhattan project.

daniel:

Yes.

Why ask?

All you needed to take out was the regime.

We've already established that civilian casualties are acceptable so long as the end is just.

Nuke the Kremlin/Moscow during a Politburo meeting.

I'll answer some of those annoying questions.

The battle was "raging" in the Pacific? Except for Iwo and Okinawa, the majority of the people dying were Japanese civilians in Tokyo. Are you implying we needed Soviet help in Asia?

The Soviets could not have gone much further - egregious supply lines and the P-51 would have settled that. And using a bomb against Russian cities wasn't necessary - just drop one on Zhukov or Koniev and then start overflying all the other armies with B-29s. Watch the traffic jam to the East. The Red Army certainly moved out of Iran when Truman threatened to drop one on them.

An 'ally' - please. Lots of Russians died in the cause, but they were moving against us in the 1930s, plotting, manipulating and befuddling. Patton (for all his 'faults') was more correct in his assessment of the Soviets than Roosevelt, Wallace, or Harry Hopkins.

Was Moscow 'gutted' during the war? I doubt if a German plane overflew it after the spring/summer of 1942. Same for Leningrad.

I do not believe there was any will for a fight with the Soviets, and I do not agree (with OJ) that such a will could have been 'generated' in the summer of 1945. But that doesn't mean the questions you asked have historical validity.

OJ:

In 45 we did not have a bomber with the range to get to Moscow and drop one.

Our military planners, in order to reduce American casualties, counted on the Red Army to enter the war against Japan. At Yalta Stalin promised a firm date in August. And in February the atom bomb seemed a fantasy dreamed up by nuclear physicists.

Ah, so merely because something seemed necessary in February we shouldn't change our mind later? (Even noting that we were capturing Iwo Jima in February.) After all, that would be betraying our good friend Uncle Joe.

Mr. Judd, you asked for a difference. One answer is that, had we somehow been able to muster up the courage to fight the USSR (and merely because we couldn't is no reason that it wasn't morally wrong to let those nations suffer) many idiots throughout the West would never have realized the evils of communism.

In 1942, we did not have one that could have reached Tokyo. Oh, wait a minute.....

Anonymous:

Why do they realize Nazism was evil?

joe:

That will come as a shock to the people of Hiroshima. Or would if they hadn't been vaporized.

Joe:
The ultra long range B-36 was about to be test flown. If they had pushed it like they did with the B-29's they could've gotten them into service much faster.

daniel:

"At 2:45 a.m. on Monday, August 6, 1945, a B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, took off from Tinian, a North Pacific island in the Marianas, 1,500 miles south of Japan."

Got a map? Start at Moscow and measure.

B-29s. Are you under the impression that Europe was somehow incapable of supporting the airfields? You should read Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes. He tells hilarious stories about Curtis LeMay, who wanted to bomb Russia so badly he'd fly bomber formations over Moscow just to show how easily he cdould take them out.

Short term? There was no rush. Build the airfields.

These discussions can be fun, but why do so many worship the Russian military? Since WWII, what have they done?

They made some (repeat, some) good fighter aircraft, but they couldn't really use them and their proxies were hopeless. Whenever they came up against Western pilots or tactics, they repeatedly exploded.

The same for their ships and boats. They had some innovations (the Typhoon, the Akula) but even the trade-offs they made for them were marginally useful.

Multiple belts of Soviet air defenses and waves of YAK interceptors? Sounds like something from Star Wars. Sure, the Soviets had air defenses. But later. Not in 1945. We bombed the Germans for 2.5 years during the day - what did the Russians have that was better than the German air defense?

Leningrad was besieged, but not blasted into oblivion like Stalingrad. Did the Germans bomb Leningrad after the autumn of 1942? Probably not. They attacked the convoys (while they still could).

With respect to the Japanese armies in China, Korea, and SE Asia: "Yes, we did need the Soviets". Somehow, that explains it all.

jim:

Because to do other than imagine Nazism and Bolshevism as mighty is to face the waste of WWII and the Cold War. It also inflates our egos to think they were worthy foes.

To jim:

He was speaking of an invasion of mainland Japan which would have been a bloodier affair than any Americans have faced since the Civil War. Forces in the Pacific weren't adequate and they'd be importing troops from Europe who were sick of war and might well have mutinied.

Granted, there was still the will to fight because of Pearl, but Americans are not a bellicose people at heart and in Europe, fighting a country which didn't attack us, most were just cynically doing what they had been ordered (nothing more) and wanted to get back home to their families. Often officers couldn't get their men to do advance. "Let artillery do the work." In a country promising life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, you can't put a gun to people's heads, throw them in uniform and then tell them to throw their lives away for abstract principles, wartime rhetoric to the contrary. The Soviets on the other hand...

It takes a monster to destroy a monster. Stalin was that monster. We just did the best we could without losing too many lives.

Why attack? Where were the Japanese going?

Well if we didn't attack with nukes or conventional forces, the Soviets would have. Agitating for nuclear war against the Soviets, making the vast leap that such a thing was feasible, was something no American politician would have attempted when the people back home and the troops out there just wanted to end the damn war without dying. After four years nobody was in the mood for wild-eyed gambles.

Why ask them? There's nearly never been a war that the president didn't gin up on false pretenses.

Sure, after a 5 to 20 year cooling off period. What pretense would you have ginned up, oj?

I'd have told Patton to keep going until he'd started a shooting war.

daniel:

No, he was an idiot and had no idea how much damage the Japanese could inflict. Pearl took him completely be surprise. The oil embargo was an act of war.

The "boys" are still there. The American people took it without a word.

I am a coward. But beating the Germans was rather easy and getting rid of the Bolshevik regime would have been. This isn't Starship Troopers where having wornm the uniform gives you some special insight into WWII strategy, you know? I defer to you on cleaning a gun and polishing boots though.

he wasn't much of a manipulator, he was the manipulated.

when did the draftees leave?

You took the classes--you didn't teach them.

Mark and Wesley Clark wore the uniform, too - and with little stars on them. Didn't stop them from being complete idiots, now did it?

daniel:

Yes, strategic idiots.

Yes, strategic idiots.

Please elaborate on this cryptic comment.

And while you're at it:

Please site evidence that the Soviet Union and Stalin's rule would have collapsed by itself in the 1930s without a German invasion. (Which is going to be very interesting since Hitler didn't invade until 1941)

Please explain - in detail - exactly how all the devastation of WWII actually helped the USSR survive longer than it would have.

Maybe you'll respond on this thread.

Wes Clark is an obvious nitwit. Mark Clark was a fine field commander but there's no reason to believe he knew anything about running a war--he left North Korea in place after all.

Russia was prostrate by the 30s, an economic basketcase with a regime propped up only by mass murder and the gulag. Stalin was lucky to have a sworn enemy of communism and Slavs rise in Germany, in the form of Hitler and to have a dupe like FDR help him to build a war machine. Then rather than remove the regime after WWII we presented ourselves as an eternal threat and gave him another rallying point. Throughout we treated them as equals even though they were obviously inferior, until Reagan made it clear the emperor had no clothes and they crumbled within a few years.

The environment is too target rich, but I'll pick two obvious idiocies:

(1) The Soviets were easily accessible by US bombers, indeed LeMay was still overflying Soviet territory with impunity in the early 50s.

(2) The draft ended in '73, so the "boys" you insist had to be brought home post haste were there for another 28 years, not to mention being sent to Korea, Vietnam, etc., in absurd proxy wars.

daniel:

Yes, but he did nothing useful with his electoral victories.

Only the military buildup ended the Depression and we'd been the world behemoth since the Civil War, we just don't much like paying for a military. It was a great advantage because we basically started from scratch.

Get them in a shooting war and they don't mutiny. Leave them sitting around and they do.

Daniel:

I think you are missing the forest for the bark. Sure, logistics is vital, and the specific details of this or that operation are determinative.

But please remember how weak Russia was in 1938, especially after the purges in the Army. Absent the war, would Stalin have survived until 1953? Who knows? But it is almost certain that they would not have become as strong as they did (with the war).

Daniel

All your comments are exactly on point.

And OJ's dismissive of your service is obnoxious--having spent time in the service myself, I know how much academic training officer's get.

As one example, my Senior Service School paper analyzed, and seriously criticized, the strategic bombing campaign in Europe.

OJ's lack of a meaningful response strongly suggests he is sucking on an empty oxygen mask.

Service is honorable, but it isn't wisdom and the last place to learn that American wars were futile is in the military.

daniel:

Republicans had just caused a Depression

Just let Patton start a shooting war. That would have kept them busy.

The B-29 could easily reach. It reached Japan. The Soviets had no military strength and we needn't have aimed at its military.

Start a war.

Republicans had just caused a Depression

Well that explains the first election. What about the next three?

Just let Patton start a shooting war. That would have kept them busy.

Busy crossing the Rhine and heading towards the English Channel. America has never had the amount of men and metal in Europe (even in 1945) to stop a full-scale Russian conventional assault, let alone launch a succesful offensive. As a general rule of thumb,the attacker requires 3 time the men, equipment and firepower as the defender. The Soviet army in 1945 greatly exceeded American strength with battle hardened divisions numbering in the hundreds.

The B-29 could easily reach. It reached Japan. The Soviets had no military strength and we needn't have aimed at its military.

It reached Japan from bases on Tinian and the crews had to land in China. Moscow was at the extreme range of he B-29 from air bases inWestern Europe. The Urals were too far away. Once again you reveal your ignorance.

Start a war.

And how would that make Pres. Judd any different than Stalin of Hitler? Aside from Patton (who both Ike and Beadle Smith considered to be nuts - as did nost normal people)who is going to help start this war?

Service is honorable, but it isn't wisdom

Really? And where did you get your wisdom and depth of understanding of things military and strategic? Aside from Hollywood movies, conspiracy theories and playing with your littel green army men in a sandbox when you were a kid, what exactly is your experience of the military?

and the last place to learn that American wars were futile is in the military.

We who have actually worn our country's uniform know all about the futility and waste of war. It's people who have never seen blood that tend to be the most bloodthirsty. Nowadays, such people are called chicken hawks.

daniel:

The Depression was the worst catastrophe in our history, how quickly should they have been forgiven? Conservatives didn't even regain control of the Senate until '42, when FDr got us into the war in Europe. the Democrats fared as poorly after the Civil War for similar reasons.

So they could have rather easily nuked Moscow too.

When God hands you a nut you should use him.

It doesn't require any experience.

Yes, and people who wear the uniform always think the war they fought was just and the one they ducked was unwinnable. It's only natural.

Orrin, Stalin beat Hitler by September 1941. He didn't get any help from us, though it was perhaps crucial for him that the British and the Greeks (and, in a real sense, the Italians) drained off just enough Germans to allow him to accomplish it.

Anyhow, he did it before he got even a pair of boots from the United States.

Harry:

And note that there was no reason for Americans to fear Communism, ample reason for Germans.

Harry:

Exactly. You've joined the side of the angels again. There was never any prospect of a country of Germany's size being able to conquer and control Russia--too much territory and too many people. We should have just left them in that state slogging it out.

OJ:

... the last place to learn that American wars were futile is in the military.

is a stunningly ignorant statement.

Perhaps you should review the curricula of the various officer continuing education schools before trafficking such nonsense.

They're purely political creatures of a notorious bureaucracy.

OJ:

Once again, you are prominently displaying ignorance nearly beyond comprehension.