Part of the problem that the US Navy ran into when it went to war was that – like many military forces before or since – it had to learn some things for itself before it believed them. The British had over two years of experience fighting the Battle of the Atlantic at that point, but the Americans didn’t feel that they needed any advice from them on the matter. It didn’t help that Admiral Ernest J. King was an Anglophobe, in addition to having a generally abrasive personality. (His wife reputedly once said: “Ernie is the most even-tempered man I’ve ever met. He’s always in a foul mood.”) As a result, the Americans made mistakes in their early ASW methods of operations which could have been avoided. In fairness, the US Army had similar learning-curve problems in North Africa, notably at Kasserine Pass if I remember correctly.
Was WWII necessary?
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Well?
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If the last answer had simply been “Yes” or “Hell yes!”, I would have voted for it because that’s what I think the correct short answer is to the short question “Was WWII necessary?” and because this answer operates on the same level as the other answer options (“No”, “Hell no”, and “maybe”). However, the extra stuff at the end of the last answer (“including Pelelieu, Phillipines, Okinawa, Dresden, and the nukes! ALL NECESSARY!”) alters the meaning of the original question and turns it into two questions: Was WWII necessary and was it necessary to fight it exactly in the way in which it was fought historically? I’d say the answer to the first question is yes and the answer to the second question is no.
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@CWO:
If the last answer had simply been “Yes” or “Hell yes!”, I would have voted for it because that’s what I think the correct short answer is to the short question “Was WWII necessary?” and because this answer operates on the same level as the other answer options (“No”, “Hell no”, and “maybe”). However, the extra stuff at the end of the last answer (“including Pelelieu, Phillipines, Okinawa, Dresden, and the nukes! ALL NECESSARY!”) alters the meaning of the original question and turns it into two questions: Was WWII necessary and was it necessary to fight it exactly in the way in which it was fought historically? I’d say the answer to the first question is yes and the answer to the second question is no.
I agree with that
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Necessary of whom to fight? The Allies? The Axis?
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One way of determining whether Western democratic intervention in WWII was necessary is to compare a hypothetical “What if they hadn’t intervened?” postwar map against the postwar map which actually pertained.
Even if the Western democracies hadn’t intervened, war would still have taken place. The Chinese and Japanese would have fought each other in China, and Germany and the Soviet Union would still have gone to war.
Had the Western democracies chosen not to involve themselves or participate, France and Britain would have retained their independence. Everything east of France would have been owned by some combination of Axis nations and the Soviet Union.
In the east, the Chinese would eventually have thrown Japan out of their country. (Though it might have been necessary for them to have gotten their civil war sorted out before that happened.) The real question in the Pacific theater is whether Japan would have attempted to grab British, French, or Dutch colonies in the Pacific theater. Had such an effort been made and had it been successful, Japan would have ended the war with more colonial territory; and the European nations with less. The question would then have become: would Japan have been able to maintain control over its possessions over the long run? Or would those colonies have eventually achieved independence? (As they eventually did under European colonial rule.)
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Gargantua - I can imagine you chuckling as you omitted the option Marc and others would vote for!
Nevertheless, I agree with Marc and vote Yes! But not that all those individual actions were necessary.
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My answer is NO!
It was not neccessary, but the people want it!
All the problems could have been solved, but the people stirred it up so that another war was uninevitable.
The Germans never had a need for more Lebensraum, that was A.H’s dream.
The russians never had a need of spreading communism, but Stalin felt the need for it.
The americans never wanted a war but Rosewelt thought it would be better for America to expand the outerim territorys.
Everybody else was just soaked in in this filthy war and joined a side as nation they thought would win.
Are you really hot for war?
Do you think a war today like ww2 would solve all the issues?
Is a war neccessary?No…
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