Could America have stopped WWII?

[Peter King]

So here's the scenario:

1936

1. America wasn't isolationist pre-WWII. Quite the opposite. They called America, "the World's Policeman."

2. America had state of the art equipment. America produced the M4A1 Sherman tank in 1936. That year, the p47 fighter was also produced.

3. America had bases in Europe with tens of thousands of troops in France and Poland.

4. Soon as Hitler invaded the Rhineland, America made Hitler stop and withdraw back to his borders.

5. America stayed on top of things and made sure Hitler didn't go on any adventures.


We would've saved 440,000 Americans, for starters and 63 million dead world wide.

Forget about Japan for the moment.


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Tens of thousands of troops would have helped nothing. Complete armies were wiped out, the European bases would have been overrun by the Nazi's.

The German army of September 1939 totalled 3,706,104 men and 105,394 officers in 103 divisions (86 infantry, six full Panzer, four leichte (light), four motorized infantry, three Gebirgs (mountain), one improvised panzer division (Kempf), four motorized Waffen-SS regiments, two Fallshirmjager (paratrooper) regiments, and one cavalry brigade. With that power no US force could have stopped that army.

The US would not have spent huge amounts of money to create a tank like the M4A1 Sherman tank in 1936. The US was still in the clutches of results from crash in 1929. Neither would the US army have been able to pay for that many soldiers in France or Poland

 

[swing_voter]

Tens of thousands of troops would have helped nothing. Complete armies were wiped out, the European bases would have been overrun by the Nazi's.

The German army of September 1939 totalled 3,706,104 men and 105,394 officers in 103 divisions (86 infantry, six full Panzer, four leichte (light), four motorized infantry, three Gebirgs (mountain), one improvised panzer division (Kempf), four motorized Waffen-SS regiments, two Fallshirmjager (paratrooper) regiments, and one cavalry brigade. With that power no US force could have stopped that army.

The US would not have spent huge amounts of money to create a tank like the M4A1 Sherman tank in 1936. The US was still in the clutches of results from crash in 1929. Neither would the US army have been able to pay for that many soldiers in France or Poland

German GDP 1938 - 351 billion

American GDP 1938 - 1.132 trillion, almost 4 times the size

And America had 75% of the world's oil production at that time.

WWII was a struggle of GDPs.


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[Grand Mal]

German GDP 1938 - 351 billion

American GDP 1938 - 1.132 trillion, almost 4 times the size

And America had 75% of the world's oil production at that time.

WWII was a struggle of GDPs.


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America didn't do much to win the war in Europe. None of the Western allies did. Mostly the D-day invasions stopped the Soviet Union from over-running western Europe and punishing Franco.
Trade dick-measuring GDP's all you want, 80% of German casualties happened on the Eastern Front and weeks after D-day the Germans were sending divisions east to counter Operation Bagration.

 

[swing_voter]

America didn't do much to win the war in Europe. None of the Western allies did. Mostly the D-day invasions stopped the Soviet Union from over-running western Europe and punishing Franco.
Trade dick-measuring GDP's all you want, 80% of German casualties happened on the Eastern Front and weeks after D-day the Germans were sending divisions east to counter Operation Bagration.

I was comparing how proactive we are now compared to how isolationist we were back then.

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[Grand Mal]

I was comparing how proactive we are now compared to how isolationist we were back then.

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Far less pro-active now. So far. I don't say it can't happen but America looks unable to commit to anything.

 

[Sagittarius83]

The US largely created the conditions for world war 2.

It had no compelling interest in entering world war 1. And it is my opinion that world war 1 would have been fought by the belligerents to the point where an armistice would have emerged which would have been much more favorable to the Germans who would not have become so humiliated and desperate to elect a blood soaked party like the Nazis.

The US did have a compelling interest in entering world war 2. The Soviets would likely have worn down the reich and would have been able to able to keep moving through Western Europe extending itself from the Pacific to the Atlantic leaving perhaps only Iceland , the UK and maybe the Iberian peninsula free of their control.

This would have devastated US markets in Europe.

Also by declaring war on the US, Hitler proved how abysmal a military commander he was. The tripartite pact only applied if the US were the aggressor against Japan.

 

[Peter King]

German GDP 1938 - 351 billion

American GDP 1938 - 1.132 trillion, almost 4 times the size

And America had 75% of the world's oil production at that time.

WWII was a struggle of GDPs.

Nope, that is incorrect, WW2 was not a struggle of GDP's, it was a struggle of 2 differing world views.

And that the German GDP was so low had everything to do with the first world war.

 

[swing_voter]

Nope, that is incorrect, WW2 was not a struggle of GDP's, it was a struggle of 2 differing world views.

And that the German GDP was so low had everything to do with the first world war.

No, that's incorrect.

It was a struggle of economies, GDPs.

Many say Hitler lost because of oil.

We had the oil.


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[Peter King]

No, that's incorrect.

It was a struggle of economies, GDPs.

Many say Hitler lost because of oil.

We had the oil.


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But your scenario was 1936, the midst of the US depression, the boom of Germany with their autobahn and their volkswagen's, etc. It was the boom of German engineering and production. When the Germans had access to oil, basic necessities.

You might have had the oil but 7 years earlier your entire economy collapsed. You also mentioned 1938 with a bigger US GDP, but Germany was going through a boom in employment and standard of living, in 1938 the GDP in the US went down 3.3% and unemployment rose to 19%.

Even with oil, how do you think a society where 1/5 was unemployed would have spent millions upon millions of dollars on developing medium tanks and attack airplanes in the age of peace and poverty?

Hitler knew he did not have oil, that is why he went for Romania where the oilfields were and the Soviet Union for it's fertile fields and their raw material and oil.

In the end Hitler did loose the war because of lack of oil and steel and all the other things needed to fuel their weapons programs. But till the very end Germany was more inventive than the allies were and if Germany had been able to hold on to Romania and taken the Soviet Union, well then he would have been impossible to stop.

If he had had the SU's vast resources the invading troops of the allies would have been butchered on the beaches because Hitler would have had enough tanks, weapons and troops to defend any US attack. Their V2 would have been able to shoot London and even the ships at the shore. Their new Messerschmitt ME262, if been able to produce in good enough numbers would have wiped out US/Allied bombers and fighters.

In 1936 the US would not have been able to stop Germany, in 1938/39 the German army was so superior that even a 100,000 US troops would not have changed the beginning of the war or stopped Hitler.

 

[swing_voter]

But your scenario was 1936, the midst of the US depression, the boom of Germany with their autobahn and their volkswagen's, etc. It was the boom of German engineering and production. When the Germans had access to oil, basic necessities.

You might have had the oil but 7 years earlier your entire economy collapsed. You also mentioned 1938 with a bigger US GDP, but Germany was going through a boom in employment and standard of living, in 1938 the GDP in the US went down 3.3% and unemployment rose to 19%.

Even with oil, how do you think a society where 1/5 was unemployed would have spent millions upon millions of dollars on developing medium tanks and attack airplanes in the age of peace and poverty?

Hitler knew he did not have oil, that is why he went for Romania where the oilfields were and the Soviet Union for it's fertile fields and their raw material and oil.

In the end Hitler did loose the war because of lack of oil and steel and all the other things needed to fuel their weapons programs. But till the very end Germany was more inventive than the allies were and if Germany had been able to hold on to Romania and taken the Soviet Union, well then he would have been impossible to stop.

If he had had the SU's vast resources the invading troops of the allies would have been butchered on the beaches because Hitler would have had enough tanks, weapons and troops to defend any US attack. Their V2 would have been able to shoot London and even the ships at the shore. Their new Messerschmitt ME262, if been able to produce in good enough numbers would have wiped out US/Allied bombers and fighters.

In 1936 the US would not have been able to stop Germany, in 1938/39 the German army was so superior that even a 100,000 US troops would not have changed the beginning of the war or stopped Hitler.

The American depression was largely over. America is very resilient as you've seen several times over your lifetime.

Again, the American economy was 3 to 4 times bigger than the German economy.

It was a war of economies.


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[Manc Skipper]

The point I'm making is that today we're the "world's policeman" and we have the state of the art equipment and we're in everyone's business.

I'm saying if we were that way in 1935, we could've stopped WWII.

Isolationism is dangerous in a dangerous world. And we were very isolationist in 1935.

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Look around. Do you see peace breaking out everywhere?

 

[Peter King]

The American depression was largely over. America is very resilient as you've seen several times over your lifetime.

Again, the American economy was 3 to 4 times bigger than the German economy.

It was a war of economies.


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I beg your pardon? In 1938 the unemployment in the US was 19%. If you call that the depression was largely over well then I do not know what a bad economy would be. And the drought ended in 1939.

And again, there would be nothing a few tens of thousands US troops could have done anything about the Germans reclaiming their land the French and English took from them in Versailles. And they could have even done less about the invasion of Poland. Between the might of the Red Army and the German forces those tens of thousands US soldiers would have been massacred.

 

[ataraxia]

This only works if everyone is isolationist and in that scenario nobody bothers going to war ever.

Yes. The isolationist mindset is very similar to the libertarian mindset: the tacit but firm assumption that everyone will behave if left free and alone; or if they don’t, vigilante justice is good enough to take care of the problem.

That’s not how the world works.

 

[ataraxia]

Look around. Do you see peace breaking out everywhere?

Well, yeah- kinda.

“ Hard though it may be to believe, there has been a long-term, very significant decline in all kinds of violence around the world.

In his most recent book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Harvard evolutionary psychologist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker, enforces this conclusion with a battery of statistic evidence.”

Redirect Notice

www.google.com

Study settles the score on whether the modern world is less violent

A study by mathematicians has used new techniques to address the long-running debate over whether battle deaths have been declining globally since the end of the Second World War.

www.sciencedaily.com

 

[j brown's body]

Actually, America could have prevented World War II by staying in the Versailles treaty after World War I, and acting as referee between the European countries. When Germany was crying uncle under the weight of it were reparations, the French refused to show any mercy, and kept pummeling them into the ground. It was humiliating, not to mention economically devastating. That was what led to World War II. If they had a fair referee, this may have been mitigated.

We were never in the Versaille Treaty. The senate rejected it.

 

[ataraxia]

We were never in the Versaille Treaty. The senate rejected it.

I know. I think that was a very big mistake and the big setup for WWII. Europe could have really used an active, impartial third party referee like the US after WWI to keep it stable.

But that’s the isolationist mindset for ya- The idea that if you just leave everyone alone, they will leave you alone as well and their problems are not your problems. It doesn’t work that way, and never has. The world has been becoming a big global village where everyone is becoming highly inter-dependent, and everybody is in everybody else’s business. This trend is even greater today. To deny it, or continue to operate under other assumptions is foolish and dangerous.