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Trump, Bannon and the Coming Crisis
(02-11-2017, 01:53 PM)freivolk Wrote:
(02-11-2017, 12:45 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: I agree that it isn't the focus of the Tea Party or Donald Trump.  I was simply pointing out that the issues that previously helped generate turnout for the Republicans have largely been lost.
The "Culture Wars" have largely been won by the left.
I admit the cultural shift of the last decades can´t be totally reversed. Still it seems to me, that 1T tends to be more social conservative then 3T/4T. And much of the winning of the left dependet on theSupreme Court, which could be soon gone lost, if Trump appointes in the next 4-8 years 3-5 new judges. I think its actally a way the "Culture War" could end. The Right has a highly symbolic success (repeal of Roe vs. Wade), declares victory and walks away.

A restrictive set of social norms need not be from the right.
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Quote:WW I did have high taxes (73%) as a special measure. 


And kept by the incoming administration?  Just tossing ideas out there.

Quote:Yes, and that depression would itself be an important crisis event, and dealing with it  would be part of the 4T.  And if Trump (who apparently didn't solve the problem is we have a depression) can start three a 12 year Republican era, then so can Gabbard. So we would have 2028-2040 included in the 4T.  I see no reason to start a 4T in 2008.  Better might be 2024, when the ill-fated Pence (Hoover) comes in.  I cannot see any scenario in which Trump is successful and 2008 is the 4T start.  I don't think it will ever make sense to add Obama era as an organic addition to a later Trump-Pence era in which all the 4T stuff happens.  Obama and Trump are like oil and water, they don't mix.

Depends on how lasting it is.  Remember that a lot of the modern social reforms in Britain occurred immediately after WWII, under Clement Attlee.  Even the end of WWII in the US had a stiff, but brief, drop in output.

Hoover was part of the last 4T.  Obama presided over the most dramatic plunge in Democratic political control in modern history.  It may have happened over two terms instead of one, but it still happened.

Starting a 4T in 2024 under this scenario would be dumb.  You're trying to shoehorn the outcome into the mold followed by the previous 4T.

Quote:Don’t the Chinese have more US investments than the US has Chinese investments?  Hasn’t the US  run trade deficits with China for a long time?  Trade imbalances in one direction have to be offset by investment imbalances in the other, otherwise the yuan would soar in value, making Chinese imports uncompetitive. Surely China must have more investments here than we there.

This is an odd question.  You should be well aware that China accumulated several trillion dollars of the most liquid US asset available, US Treasuries.  They have since been selling them to prevent a precipitous decline in their currency, and are down to a little over $1 trillion.  A breakdown in trade between the two would obviate the need for this process.  They are already struggling to compete on price terms with newly industrializing countries in SE Asia/Bangladesh.
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(02-11-2017, 04:55 PM)Mikebert Wrote:
(02-11-2017, 04:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: World War II was a much larger war for the USA than any of the others, and truly existential. If the USA had lost that war, it would have eventually been conquered by the Axis.

No.  The US was stronger than Germany.  Also Germany was losing by the time the US entered the war.
The war turned shortly after the USA entered, but not before. The momentum shifted at Midway (June 1942), Al Alemain (Oct 1942) and Stalingrad (winter 1942-43). Even then, victory was a long way away. The USA lost many more soldiers in WWII than in any other war except the Civil War. Far more than Vietnam or WWI or Korea.

Quote:  Britain was a lot more powerful then than now.  She was well on her way to retaking North Africa for the Allies when the US joined the war effort. By invading the USSR Germany was (now) engaged in a vast country with more manpower.  Stalin's industrialization policy in the 1930's had yielded results.  Stalingrad (Aug 1942 to Feb 1943 ) is considered by some as a turning point in the war in Europe and that was achieved before the US had accomplished anything on the continent.

But it had joined the war, and started fighting on key fronts.

Quote:Had the US remained neutral, Hitler would still have been defeated, it would have taken longer, but he would still lose. The forces arrayed against him were too great and he was no Napoleon.

That can't be proven. The Axis was on its way to victory in 1942. It was an existential threat, since a defeat was possible, even if less-likely than a victory; and the results of defeat would have been the end of civilization. It had to be fought relentlessly until total victory, because otherwise the Axis would have revived and continued to be a threat to us and all humanity.

The Depression and New Deal turned out to be only temporary turning points, since we are now back where we were in the 1920s. The Depression and World War Two were one event, since the one created the conditions for the other.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
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It is clear that we have been in Crisis since 2008. Bush caused it, as I said he would here. Obama tried to deal with it, but because young people don't vote, his party lost ground. Now, Trump himself IS the crisis personified. Everything he says and does is a crisis, and an affront to all values. THAT's a crisis, baby! Trump is an existential threat, and the movement to remove him and replace his party is well and truly launched. That is our "crisis war," in effect, to be pursued until total victory.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
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(02-11-2017, 07:08 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: They have since been selling them to prevent a precipitous decline in their currency, and are down to a little over $1 trillion.  A breakdown in trade between the two would obviate the need for this process.  They are already struggling to compete on price terms with newly industrializing countries in SE Asia/Bangladesh.
This is confusing. If they are struggling to compete on price terms they would *want* a decline in their currency.
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I read a bit about it.  China and Japan have sold a small part of their dollar reserves likely for the same reason the stock market went up, they anticipate US stimulus by the Trump administration (strong economies are bad for bonds).  Also there are buying yuan to strengthen their currency, for reasons that are not clear to me--probably something political.

But these are short term issues.  The point I am making is our trade deficit has resulted in the export of trillions of US dollars to China.  These dollars have to be spent in order to recover their value.  The fact that there is a trade deficit means these dollars are not being spent on US goods and services.  The place you can spend dollars and get something for them is in the US,  And if they aren't buying dollars then they must be buying assets.  Assets include a lot of things besides government bonds: stocks, corporate bonds, real estate.

http://www.policonomics.com/net-capital-outflow/
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(02-10-2017, 04:48 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Which raises the question of what THIS 4T will be about.  Lot of people here will answer this or that, but I want to see is what organized coalition puts forth a problem and then presents a response.

Thoughts?

The problem with forging an organized coalition right now is the political polarization, getting a coalition is going to mean that somebody's sacred cow is going to get gored. On my side of the aisle the major sacred cows that might have to get gored if the Dems are to build dominant coalition are dogmatic absolutism when it comes to the right to abortion, the deference given to illegal immigrants, support for gun control, and too much coddling of "fuck AmeriKKKa" anti-patriotic sentiments.
#MakeTheDemocratsGreatAgain
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(02-14-2017, 05:00 PM)Odin Wrote:
(02-10-2017, 04:48 PM)SomeGuy Wrote: Which raises the question of what THIS 4T will be about.  Lot of people here will answer this or that, but I want to see is what organized coalition puts forth a problem and then presents a response.

Thoughts?

The problem with forging an organized coalition right now is the political polarization, getting a coalition is going to mean that somebody's sacred cow is going to get gored. On my side of the aisle the major sacred cows that might have to get gored if the Dems are to build dominant coalition are dogmatic absolutism when it comes to the right to abortion, the deference given to illegal immigrants, support for gun control, and too much coddling of "fuck AmeriKKKa" anti-patriotic sentiments.

Pretty much agreed with the above. The only other thing is race-baiting. It's just fine to have a position that supports that no individual regardless of non relevant attributes deserves a fair shake. That's what something like "justice under the law" means.  Individual justice isn't near of a flashpoint as "group justice".
---Value Added Cool
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(02-11-2017, 08:40 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(02-11-2017, 04:55 PM)Mikebert Wrote:
(02-11-2017, 04:13 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: World War II was a much larger war for the USA than any of the others, and truly existential. If the USA had lost that war, it would have eventually been conquered by the Axis.

No.  The US was stronger than Germany.  Also Germany was losing by the time the US entered the war.
The war turned shortly after the USA entered, but not before. The momentum shifted at Midway (June 1942), Al Alemain (Oct 1942) and Stalingrad (winter 1942-43). Even then, victory was a long way away. The USA lost many more soldiers in WWII than in any other war except the Civil War. Far more than Vietnam or WWI or Korea.

Quote:  Britain was a lot more powerful then than now.  She was well on her way to retaking North Africa for the Allies when the US joined the war effort. By invading the USSR Germany was (now) engaged in a vast country with more manpower.  Stalin's industrialization policy in the 1930's had yielded results.  Stalingrad (Aug 1942 to Feb 1943 ) is considered by some as a turning point in the war in Europe and that was achieved before the US had accomplished anything on the continent.

But it had joined the war, and started fighting on key fronts.

Quote:Had the US remained neutral, Hitler would still have been defeated, it would have taken longer, but he would still lose. The forces arrayed against him were too great and he was no Napoleon.

That can't be proven. The Axis was on its way to victory in 1942. It was an existential threat, since a defeat was possible, even if less-likely than a victory; and the results of defeat would have been the end of civilization. It had to be fought relentlessly until total victory, because otherwise the Axis would have revived and continued to be a threat to us and all humanity.

The Depression and New Deal turned out to be only temporary turning points, since we are now back where we were in the 1920s. The Depression and World War Two were one event, since the one created the conditions for the other.

-- gotta agree with Eric here. In the 1940s the Germans had the cutting edge tecnology (which is why we wanted it) jets, Von Braun's rockets, some thing called die Glocke, to name a few off the top of my head. The  Germans lost bcuz they didn't have enough time to fully develop that stuff.  If it would have taken longer,  then how much longer? Long enough to perfect all that technology & win the war?
Heart my 2 yr old Niece/yr old Nephew 2020 Heart
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The Axis lost the war because of

(1) American and British soldiers were more likely to survive their wounds and return to battle due to penicillin that the Axis powers did not have.

(2) British mastery of cryptography (Enigma) that allowed them to respond to just about any German maneuver and exploit any temporary weaknesses that the Germans had in battle.

(3) Axis brutality, including atrocities. The Nazis and Japanese militarists never had real peace in any occupied country, facing dangerous partisan movements against them everywhere. The British and Americans had no such problem even in Italy, a recent enemy of the United States and Britain.

(4) The Americans had huge amounts of productivity safe from air raids. Vehicles, munitions, weapons, and foodstuffs might have risked attack at sea

(5) The Americans and British had more complete control of their economies, putting an end to practically all luxury production very quickly. Germany and Japan operated what is best called 'racketeer economies'.  

(6) The Allies were much better than the Axis powers at propaganda. The Jews who dominated American radio and cinema (they really did back then) could put propaganda even into such a cinematic masterpiece as Casablanca. Those Jews had everything to lose, and they knew it. They wanted any ethnic and religious divides rendered harmless, and they could change the message quickly -- for example, as the Allies took over Italy. Wartime Japanese and Nazi propaganda films were so ham-handed that the Allies could change the narration slightly and do some montage, and make them exceedingly offensive.

(7) The Americans, British, and Soviets had the good Jewish scientists and engineers. The Nazis murdered or expelled people who could have been very useful to a non-racist German war machine as entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers, physicians, and attorneys.

(8) Axis espionage was utterly incompetent even in avoiding capture. The British quickly caught  all German spies and gave them the choice to cooperate or die... and most chose to live. Hitler was convinced that the Cross-Channel assault would beat the Pas de Calais, exactly as his spies were telling him, instead of at Normandy. The Allies did everything possible to create and exploit that belief. In contrast, the Third Reich was riddled with Allied agents even in the Gestapo.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist  but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.


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(02-15-2017, 03:07 AM)pbrower2a Wrote: The Axis lost the war because of

(1) American and British soldiers were more likely to survive their wounds and return to battle due to penicillin that the Axis powers did not have.

(2) British mastery of cryptography (Enigma) that allowed them to respond to just about any German maneuver and exploit any temporary weaknesses that the Germans had in battle.

(3) Axis brutality, including atrocities. The Nazis and Japanese militarists never had real peace in any occupied country, facing dangerous partisan movements against them everywhere. The British and Americans had no such problem even in Italy, a recent enemy of the United States and Britain.

(4) The Americans had huge amounts of productivity safe from air raids. Vehicles, munitions, weapons, and foodstuffs might have risked attack at sea

(5) The Americans and British had more complete control of their economies, putting an end to practically all luxury production very quickly. Germany and Japan operated what is best called 'racketeer economies'.  

(6) The Allies were much better than the Axis powers at propaganda. The Jews who dominated American radio and cinema (they really did back then) could put propaganda even into such a cinematic masterpiece as Casablanca. Those Jews had everything to lose, and they knew it. They wanted any ethnic and religious divides rendered harmless, and they could change the message quickly -- for example, as the Allies took over Italy. Wartime Japanese and Nazi propaganda films were so ham-handed that the Allies could change the narration slightly and do some montage, and make them exceedingly offensive.    

(7) The Americans, British, and Soviets had the good Jewish scientists and engineers. The Nazis murdered or expelled people who could have been very useful to a non-racist German war machine as entrepreneurs, scientists, engineers, physicians, and attorneys.

(8) Axis espionage was utterly incompetent even in avoiding capture. The British quickly caught  all German spies and gave them the choice to cooperate or die... and most chose to live. Hitler was convinced that the Cross-Channel assault would beat the Pas de Calais, exactly as his spies were telling him, instead of at Normandy. The Allies did everything possible to create and exploit that belief. In contrast, the Third Reich was riddled with Allied agents even in the Gestapo.

-- yeah but the alternate universe in question is the one where we sat out WW2. So you can eliminate 4, 5, & @ least part of 6. Hollywood may or may not have been churning out propaganda flicks, but Patton charging up the ltalian boot would not have happened.  The ltalian military would of continued fighting on that front, allowing the Germans to continue to put their resources into the Eastern Front. Perhaps Stalin would ultimately prevail, or perhaps the 2 countries would agree to a ceasefire & go back to their non-aggression pact after Stalin got a taste of perfected German technology.   The point here is a matter of time. Would the war have stretched out long enough for the Germans to have had the time to perfect their cutting edge weapons.

Re:1- if we had sat out the war there would of been no soldiers to get wounded & receive penicillin to begin with
Btw, sulpha drugs were developed in Germany so they had those

 Re: 3- the longer the war went on the more partisians & other ppl would have been slaughtered, enableing the Germans to tighten their iron fists around Europe. Would there have been a D-day to liberate Europe if Eisenhower wasn't in charge of the war planning it (D-day was his baby) & ordering its execution? Maybe, but not in 1944, if ever.

Re:7- maybe, but they weren't working on the kinds of stuff the German scientists were working on. For instance, we had prop planes, the Germans had jets. And had we sat out the war, Einstein, et al would not have been working on the Bomb, which is what won the war for us. Ps,  after the war we got around 200 of those German scientists to work for us courtesy Operation Paperclip

I'll concede 2 & 8, but again, it's about time. If we had sat out WW2 would the Germans have had the time to perfect & deploy their cutting edge weaponry
Heart my 2 yr old Niece/yr old Nephew 2020 Heart
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I had a realization today about Trump, he's a sort of fun-house mirror bizarro Nixon. It's as if in this 4T we are revisiting themes and symbols that had been lying dormant since the 2T and are suddenly erupting again. Black militancy, the Democratic Party tearing itself apart, a Republican running on "law and order", etc...
#MakeTheDemocratsGreatAgain
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(02-15-2017, 08:29 PM)Odin Wrote: I had a realization today about Trump, he's a sort of fun-house mirror bizarro Nixon. It's as if in this 4T we are revisiting themes and symbols that had been lying dormant since the 2T and are suddenly erupting again. Black militancy, the Democratic Party tearing itself apart, a Republican running on "law and order", etc...

This is something of the nature of the 4T, IMO, it is the culmination of the forces set in motion during the previous 2T.  Labor militancy, the Progressive movement's reform, eugenics, the emergence of the US as a Great Power involved outside its hemisphere from the Spanish-American War on, etc.  All of these things started in the 2T and reached a head in the 4T with the Great Depression/WWII.  Abolitionism and early industrialization before the Civil War followed the same pattern.

Mike did some stuff on this before.

I regret not being able to participate as fully in this conversation recently as I would like, my workload has increased dramatically (several programmers quit at work, and I am the only one left), and my spare time is spent studying for my next interview.

Oh, and roughly 80% of German casualties were suffered on the Eastern Front.  Large Communist movements existed in France, Italy, and other places in Western Europe during that period.  Had the US not intervened, the Red Army probably would have pushed through to the Channel.
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(02-16-2017, 10:41 AM)SomeGuy Wrote:
(02-15-2017, 08:29 PM)Odin Wrote: I had a realization today about Trump, he's a sort of fun-house mirror bizarro Nixon. It's as if in this 4T we are revisiting themes and symbols that had been lying dormant since the 2T and are suddenly erupting again. Black militancy, the Democratic Party tearing itself apart, a Republican running on "law and order", etc...

This is something of the nature of the 4T, IMO, it is the culmination of the forces set in motion during the previous 2T.  Labor militancy, the Progressive movement's reform, eugenics, the emergence of the US as a Great Power involved outside its hemisphere from the Spanish-American War on, etc.  All of these things started in the 2T and reached a head in the 4T with the Great Depression/WWII.  Abolitionism and early industrialization before the Civil War followed the same pattern.

Mike did some stuff on this before.

I regret not being able to participate as fully in this conversation recently as I would like, my workload has increased dramatically (several programmers quit at work, and I am the only one left), and my spare time is spent studying for my next interview.

-- so when you leave there will be no programmers. Me, l'd be extracting some hefty amt of change out of that company so they won't be left high & dry. Oh wait, you wanna leave Cols dontcha. Not that l blame ya


SomeGuy Wrote:Oh, and roughly 80% of German casualties were suffered on the Eastern Front.  Large Communist movements existed in France, Italy, and other places in Western Europe during that period.  Had the US not intervened, the Red Army probably would have pushed through to the Channel.

-- so you're saying Stalin would of prevailed then. That is a possibility. When writing my rebuttal above it occurred to me that had we not intervened, WW2 would of been largely a 1 front war for the Germans. Without a D-day invasion, there would of been no Western Front, & the Germans would of only needed to deploy enough personnel in those countries to monitor the coasts. Meanwhile, the ltalians would of fought in the Meditteranean with minimal German assistance, so the Germans would of needed only to concentrate on the Eastern Front

Check out this badass shit:

http://www.historyinorbit.com/top-secret...zi-germany

-- the article states "had these inventions come just a little earlier", but you can just as easily wonder, had WW2 lasted longer..... besides the Germans were working on some of this stuff in the1930s, before WW2- Von Braun's rockets for instance. He eventually got his rockets to the Moon, had WW2 lasted long enough he surely would of gotten them to Moscow, Leningrad, & other select Russian cities, possibly causing Stalin to consider a ceasefire

Then there's these, if Hitler had only had the time:

http://whatculture.com/history/10-most-c...o-win-wwii

Of that group of weapons, only the last one was successfully deployed during WW2- by us
So yeah, l'd say our fighting in WW2 made a diffrence.....
Heart my 2 yr old Niece/yr old Nephew 2020 Heart
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(02-16-2017, 10:41 AM)SomeGuy Wrote:
(02-15-2017, 08:29 PM)Odin Wrote: I had a realization today about Trump, he's a sort of fun-house mirror bizarro Nixon. It's as if in this 4T we are revisiting themes and symbols that had been lying dormant since the 2T and are suddenly erupting again. Black militancy, the Democratic Party tearing itself apart, a Republican running on "law and order", etc...

This is something of the nature of the 4T, IMO, it is the culmination of the forces set in motion during the previous 2T.  Labor militancy, the Progressive movement's reform, eugenics, the emergence of the US as a Great Power involved outside its hemisphere from the Spanish-American War on, etc.  All of these things started in the 2T and reached a head in the 4T with the Great Depression/WWII.  Abolitionism and early industrialization before the Civil War followed the same pattern.

Mike did some stuff on this before.

I regret not being able to participate as fully in this conversation recently as I would like, my workload has increased dramatically (several programmers quit at work, and I am the only one left), and my spare time is spent studying for my next interview.

Oh, and roughly 80% of German casualties were suffered on the Eastern Front.  Large Communist movements existed in France, Italy, and other places in Western Europe during that period.  Had the US not intervened, the Red Army probably would have pushed through to the Channel.

Another 2T echo I just realized, California has Governor Moonbeam again! Big Grin
#MakeTheDemocratsGreatAgain
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Fortunately for us!
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
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(02-16-2017, 10:41 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: Oh, and roughly 80% of German casualties were suffered on the Eastern Front.  Large Communist movements existed in France, Italy, and other places in Western Europe during that period.  Had the US not intervened, the Red Army probably would have pushed through to the Channel.
I disagree.  Without the US there would have been no Western front.  Germany was not a pushover and it would have taken the USSR quite some time to defeat them one-on-one. Britain might have tried something in the Balkans, and when they got bogged down maybe settle for recovering Norway.  As the USSR rolled back the German positions at some point I think Churchill would have grown fearful of exactly what you suggest.

Hitler came to power partly because German capitalist elites preferred the Nazis to the Communists.  In the end I think Churchill would have come to the same conclusion and made peace with Hitler.  But Churchill had gambled that the Americans would get involved, in which case his side would have the preponderance of the power and the capitalist West would in the end come out on top (as they did in 1991).
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(02-17-2017, 01:31 PM)Mikebert Wrote:
(02-16-2017, 10:41 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: Oh, and roughly 80% of German casualties were suffered on the Eastern Front.  Large Communist movements existed in France, Italy, and other places in Western Europe during that period.  Had the US not intervened, the Red Army probably would have pushed through to the Channel.
I disagree.  Without the US there would have been no Western front.  Germany was not a pushover and it would have taken the USSR quite some time to defeat them one-on-one. Britain might have tried something in the Balkans, and when they got bogged down maybe settle for recovering Norway.  As the USSR rolled back the German positions at some point I think Churchill would have grown fearful of exactly what you suggest.

Hitler came to power partly because German capitalist elites preferred the Nazis to the Communists.  In the end I think Churchill would have come to the same conclusion and made peace with Hitler.  But Churchill had gambled that the Americans would get involved, in which case his side would have the preponderance of the power and the capitalist West would in the end come out on top (as they did in 1991).

Look at the production figures in Kennedy's Rise and Fall of the Great Powers again.  The USSR was outproducing Germany in all major military-industrial categories at the start of the war, and its lead would only grow.  It had more men, more oil, more steel, more of everything.  I am quite certain Churchill would have been happy to stand aside and see the two fight it out (I think I can find quotes of his to that effect if need be), but I doubt seriously he would have been willing to intervene on Hitler's behalf by the time Barbarossa got going.  By the 1940s Germany was but a middle power, and could no more have prevailed over the Russians than the Japanese could have against the US.

If you'd like a compromise scenario, sufficient resistance by Churchill (and by that point, probably the US) might have kept France and the rest of Europe in the Western column, and Stalin might have been satisfied with a neutral Germany (under different leadership, of course) as a buffer state.  See the "Stalin Note" of 1952 for possible details.  I doubt it would have changed much about the following few decades if things had panned out that way.
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(02-17-2017, 01:31 PM)Mikebert Wrote:
(02-16-2017, 10:41 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: Oh, and roughly 80% of German casualties were suffered on the Eastern Front.  Large Communist movements existed in France, Italy, and other places in Western Europe during that period.  Had the US not intervened, the Red Army probably would have pushed through to the Channel.
I disagree.  Without the US there would have been no Western front.  Germany was not a pushover and it would have taken the USSR quite some time to defeat them one-on-one. Britain might have tried something in the Balkans, and when they got bogged down maybe settle for recovering Norway.  As the USSR rolled back the German positions at some point I think Churchill would have grown fearful of exactly what you suggest.

Hitler came to power partly because German capitalist elites preferred the Nazis to the Communists.  In the end I think Churchill would have come to the same conclusion and made peace with Hitler.  But Churchill had gambled that the Americans would get involved, in which case his side would have the preponderance of the power and the capitalist West would in the end come out on top (as they did in 1991).

Good points, EXCEPT there is no such thing as making peace with Hitler.
"I close my eyes, and I can see a better day" -- Justin Bieber

Keep the spirit alive;
Eric M
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(02-17-2017, 03:29 PM)Eric the Green Wrote:
(02-17-2017, 01:31 PM)Mikebert Wrote:
(02-16-2017, 10:41 AM)SomeGuy Wrote: Oh, and roughly 80% of German casualties were suffered on the Eastern Front.  Large Communist movements existed in France, Italy, and other places in Western Europe during that period.  Had the US not intervened, the Red Army probably would have pushed through to the Channel.
I disagree.  Without the US there would have been no Western front.  Germany was not a pushover and it would have taken the USSR quite some time to defeat them one-on-one. Britain might have tried something in the Balkans, and when they got bogged down maybe settle for recovering Norway.  As the USSR rolled back the German positions at some point I think Churchill would have grown fearful of exactly what you suggest.

Hitler came to power partly because German capitalist elites preferred the Nazis to the Communists.  In the end I think Churchill would have come to the same conclusion and made peace with Hitler.  But Churchill had gambled that the Americans would get involved, in which case his side would have the preponderance of the power and the capitalist West would in the end come out on top (as they did in 1991).

Good points, EXCEPT there is no such thing as making peace with Hitler.
There wouldn't be peace for Hitler. He would still by fighting the USSR. Peace with Britain would simply mean that the Brits would stop launching ineffective assaults against Germany, allowing them to deploy their full power against Russia. Leaving a still -powerful Germany intact could have resulted in an eventual Russian-German settlement that would put the "iron curtain" (to use Churchill's simile) further East than it ended up.  Hitler would eventually die, and his empire would as well, just as did the Soviet empire.

Over the years the Russians and Germans fought, the British could absorb the French and German overseas empires into their own.
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