Small Conflicts (mostly forgotten) with Big Consequences
Also that's a little too politard territory for this forum IMO.
Reporters were kept out of the area during the fighting which allowed the Military to control the message of the reporting.The US had intelligence failures,lack of maps for the troops on the ground,an unwillingness for different branches of the military to work together and an inability to communicate between the different arms of the military involved in the operation.The Invasion of Grenada actually showed how little the US had learned from actions like the attempted rescue of hostages from Iran.
If by "significantly delayed" you mean about a year, then I might not disagree. But what is a one year delay if the Japanese attack on the US is delayed by one year and the Russian victory over the Germans is delayed by a year? In relative terms, it is no delay at all.
But I am going to suggest that you have no good reason to suggest a much longer delay. The US was not originally motivated to get the bomb by the war with Japan. It started the program to acquire the bomb before that war began. Rather they were motivated by wanting to get the bomb before anybody else did, and they knew the British and Canadians would get the bomb eventually, (probably between 1947 and 1949), they suspected the Russians were working on a project, and they were worried that the Germans would develop one too. So research was going to proceed whether the US was at war or not, and at a pace necessary to be first by a comfortable margin.
Furthermore, you seem to think that the formal beginning of a state of war acted like a giant off/on switch for the project: without war nothing much would happen; with war everything would happen at the fastest possible pace. That's not quite accurate. America was already deeply involved in the European war, short of providing ground troops. Their involvement in the bomb project began before they formally entered the war. Once they did enter the war the priority of the project was not formally increased until July of 1944, and even then it wasn't given the highest priority ranking.
Hitler committed to an attack on Russian in fall of 1940. So if he were to delay Barbarossa, he would have had to have known more than a year before Pearl Harbor that Pearl Harbor wasn't going to happen but that a Japanese attack on Russia was going take place in - what, late summer 1941 or spring of 1942? At that point not even the Japanese knew they were going to attack the US and not Russia. (well they probably knew they were not going to attack Russia, but the scenario we are discussing assumes they do attack.)
If the Japanese do attack, they almost certainly won't do so in late fall, winter, or early spring. So any attack that is an alternative to attacking the US and Britain would probably come no sooner than May 1942. If you suggest that the Germans would wait until after Russia had diverted resources away from the west to deal with the Japanese attack, you're really talking about a German delay until May 1943. I can't see that happening. Hitler needed Russian resources to make up for what the British blockade was denying him.
Russia finished being aggressive in Poland in October 1939, in Finland in March 1940, and the Baltic States in June 1940. To have any effect on these events the Japanese would have had to attack the Soviet Union in force two and a half years before Pearl Harbor. Not going to happen... because they had already tried and failed. There was an undeclared border war between Japan and Russia on the Manchurian frontier between 1932 and 1939, ending in a decisive Soviet victory in 1939 at the Battle of Khalkhin Gol in September of 1939 (now there's a topic for this thread!). After that, the only realistic possibility for a Japanese attack on the SU would be after an attack by Germany. So an attack on the SU instead of the US is a possibility, but only after the German attack in spring of 1941.
We've already covered that. A Japanese attack coming after the German attack would not have diverted enough forces to allow the Germans to take Moscow. There was no opportunity in fall 1941 for the Germans to take "more of the resources". Russia had no need to appease the Germans more because they had already defeated the Japanese threat. One might even conclude that the victory over the Japanese in 1939 encouraged them to move against Finland and the Baltic states. (It came too late to have influenced the decision on Poland.)
Germany would never have developed the Bomb as fast as Britain and Canada acting without the US. Germany was hamstrung by a lack of access to vital materials and to key scientists. Britain had access to the largest amount of Uranium in the world and could produce ample supplies of heavy water. Canada was the second country in the world to bring a nuclear reactor online, doing so in 1945. What the British and Canadians lacked was the industrial infrastructure for refining the uranium to weapons grade as fast as the Americans managed, and that is what would have caused the 2-4 years delay in acquiring a deployable bomb if they had to go without a US project.
The Russians did confiscate German research and German scientists, but by then the Allies already had the Bomb. While the US might have been a bit slower if they hadn't been actually at war, once they realized in 1941 the problem and the possibility of a race , they always intended to be first.
Agreed that the African and Italian campaigns provided much needed experience. In a delayed entry, the US would have started out in Italy, or perhaps the Balkans, which would have been a more active theatre for the West if Overlord was delayed due to a later US arrival.
No way the UK was going to sue for peace. They had no need to. They were winning the battle of the Atlantic and survived the blitz. Worst case for them is that delayed US entry allowed the Germans to make a better showing of developing the Type XXI U-boat. In that case, the supply situation might start to get hairy until the Soviets win.
They had no need to divert forces east. They already had a large enough army in Mongolia and eastern Siberia that had already defeated the Japanese. This is what they diverted west. A Japanese attack in summer 1941 would have delayed the westward transfer of some of these troops, but only enough to limit the Soviet winter counteroffensive.
Hi Everyone:
There's an almost war that I believe had significant consequences.
After the US Civil War ended, there was an emperor, Maximillian, that many entities, including the US wanted out of Mexico. Quoting from Wikipedia:
Anyway, in 1866 Napoleon III withdrew his troops from Mexico and Maximillian's government soon collapsed and he was executed.
Best wishes,
Mason
There's an almost war that I believe had significant consequences.
After the US Civil War ended, there was an emperor, Maximillian, that many entities, including the US wanted out of Mexico. Quoting from Wikipedia:
After the end of the American Civil War, the US government used increasing diplomatic pressure to persuade Napoleon III to end French support of Maximilian and to withdraw French troops from Mexico. Washington began supplying partisans of Juárez and his ally Porfirio Díaz by "losing" arms depots for them at El Paso del Norte at the Mexican border. The prospect of a US invasion to reinstate Juárez caused a large number of Maximilian's loyal adherents to abandon the cause and leave the capital.
Best wishes,
Mason
What were the big consequences? I'm hardly a Latin American expert, but my understanding is Maximillian's empire was a crude and short-lived attempt at reviving traditional European colonialism. Were the consequences that it was never really tried again? Because by this point, most European nations lacked the relative power to feasibly do this, or fared better through economic relations with Latin America, or both.
What makes you think V2's would be enough to make Britain sue for peace? The RAF could, and did, drop more explosives in a single night than all the V2's launched during the entire war. Also, the V2's were a huge drain on German resources.
My analysis applies whether the US enters the war late, or never enters at all, because their primary motivation is the same in either case, and has nothing to do with being at war. I agree with your first conclusion, but suggest it is immaterial because there is no delay relative to other significant events, and I reject your second conclusion because there is no evidence to support the notion that Germany retained the capability to produce a Bomb as fast as the British and Canadians working without the US, or as fast as the Soviets, let alone as fast as the US would have proceeded even if they were not at war.
You quoted the following but don't seem to have considered what it actually says, because it directly addresses the issue of what happens if the US stays out of the war, and their motivation in that case:
But I am going to suggest that you have no good reason to suggest a much longer delay. The US was not originally motivated to get the bomb by the war with Japan. It started the program to acquire the bomb before that war began. Rather they were motivated by wanting to get the bomb before anybody else did, and they knew the British and Canadians would get the bomb eventually, (probably between 1947 and 1949), they suspected the Russians were working on a project, and they were worried that the Germans would develop one too. So research was going to proceed whether the US was at war or not, and at a pace necessary to be first by a comfortable margin.
Meh, it could be two years, it could be six months. But it's on the order of magnitude of a year, because they would want to be sure to beat the Brits if they went ahead separately, and AFAIK they didn't have a clear idea of what progress the Soviets were making. And even if the US wasn't at war, what you suggest - the Nazis getting the bomb first - would have been, in the minds of the US leadership, the worst possible outcome, so they would have worked hard to make sure it didn't happen.
Yes, the idea is that Hitler would have to coordinate with the Japanese. And for the sake of the discussion we can assume that the Japanese have the motive to attack Russia and not the US. So they use land forces out of China as well as their navy directly on Russia in the east.
No, you're getting too bogged down in what actually happened. You have to allow for some facts to be different to pursue a "what-if" scenario. If Japan attacked Russia, then by definition some of history must have been different. They didn't actually do so for one or more reasons. The original premise in post #3 was that Japan attacks Russia in 1941. If they coordinate with Germany and Germany waits until 1941, then can Russia win? Can Germany now survive, even if Russia is not defeated?
Russia attacked Poland et al because Germany did, or at least when they did. If Germany holds off until 1941, then what?
No, you're getting too bogged down in what actually happened. You have to allow for some facts to be different to pursue a "what-if" scenario. If Japan attacked Russia, then by definition some of history must have been different. They didn't actually do so for one or more reasons. The original premise in post #3 was that Japan attacks Russia in 1941. If they coordinate with Germany and Germany waits until 1941, then can Russia win? Can Germany now survive, even if Russia is not defeated?
Russia attacked Poland et al because Germany did, or at least when they did. If Germany holds off until 1941, then what?
The notion that Hitler would delay the attack on Poland (and therefore the attack on France) until the Japanese were ready is even further removed from plausibility. While Hitler would have preferred to never have to fight the British and only felt a need to defeat the French in order to secure his rear for the attack on Russia, he was realistic enough to know that he had a limited window in which to act. In 1939 Britain and France were in the early stages of rearmament. If he waited until 1941 to attack Poland, he risked facing a much stronger military threat from his west.
Huh? Why the snotty remark? It's your opinion that the UK would not have sued for peace. I don't necessarily agree. Since overlord pushed back the launch sites out of reach the UK was spared additional attacks from the V2. But if overlord is delayed a year or more, how much additional damage can the UK withstand?
If the US isn't in the war, then the Japanese aren't fighting the British either. This frees up more Indian and Australian and New Zealand forces to fight in the Mediterranean theatre. Without US involvement, Churchill's preferred Mediterranean focus gets implemented and the British Commonwealth forces invade Italy, the Balkans, and Greece. This might keep the Communists from dominating Yugoslavia, but only their own choice could keep the Russians out of France.
An infinite number, since those V-2s cannot reach enough of Britain to significantly degrade its warmaking effort. If the Russians wiped out New York and Washington, but couldn't do anything to any other major US city, do you think the US would surrender to Russia?
It is already assumed in my earlier responses.
What were the big consequences? I'm hardly a Latin American expert, but my understanding is Maximillian's empire was a crude and short-lived attempt at reviving traditional European colonialism. Were the consequences that it was never really tried again? Because by this point, most European nations lacked the relative power to feasibly do this, or fared better through economic relations with Latin America, or both.
Read about this war in a magazine a few months ago - it did not have world wide impact but did have huge regional impact for South America and the future history of a number of its countries.
The Paraguayan War also known as the War of the Triple Alliance and in Paraguay as the "Great War" was an international military conflict in South America fought from 1864 to 1870 between Paraguay and the Triple Alliance of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay.
It caused approximately 400,000 deaths, the highest rate of fatalities related to the number of combatants of any war in modern history. It particularly devastated Paraguay, which suffered catastrophic losses in population and was forced to cede territory to Argentina and Brazil.
Wiki Link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_War
The war began in late 1864 with combat operations between Brazil and Paraguay; from 1865 onwards, Argentina and Uruguay entered, and it became the "War of the Triple Alliance."
The war has also been attributed to the after-effects of colonialism in South America, the struggle for physical power among neighboring nations over the strategic Río de la Plata region, Brazilian and Argentine meddling in internal Uruguayan politics, Solano López's efforts to help allies in Uruguay (previously defeated by Brazilians), and Solano López's presumed expansionist ambitions. Paraguay had recurring boundary disputes and tariff issues with Argentina and Brazil for many years; its aid to allies in Uruguay in the period before the war worsened its relations with those countries.
The outcome of the war was the utter defeat of Paraguay. After the Triple Alliance defeated Paraguay in conventional warfare, its people conducted a drawn-out guerrilla-style resistance that resulted in the destruction of the Paraguayan military and much of the civilian population. The guerrilla war lasted until López was killed by Brazilian forces on March 1, 1870. One estimate places total Paraguayan losses—through both war and disease—as high as 1.2 million people, or 90% of its pre-war population. [not a reliable number - my note]
A different estimate places Paraguayan deaths at approximately 300,000 people out of its 500,000 to 525,000 pre-war inhabitants. According to Steven Pinker, the war resulted in the deaths of more than 60% of the population of Paraguay, making it proportionally the most destructive war in modern times.
It took decades for Paraguay to recover from the chaos and demographic imbalance. In Brazil, the war helped bring about the end of slavery, moved the military into a key role in the public sphere, and caused a ruinous increase of public debt, which took a decade to pay off, seriously reducing the country's growth. It has been argued that the war played a key role in the consolidation of Argentina as a nation-state.That country became South America's wealthiest nation, and one of the wealthiest in the world, by the early 20th century [See a recent Economist article on how Argentina wasted away since- my note] It was the last time that Brazil and Argentina took such an interventionist role in Uruguay's internal politics.
************************************************
The Paraguayan War also known as the War of the Triple Alliance and in Paraguay as the "Great War" was an international military conflict in South America fought from 1864 to 1870 between Paraguay and the Triple Alliance of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay.
It caused approximately 400,000 deaths, the highest rate of fatalities related to the number of combatants of any war in modern history. It particularly devastated Paraguay, which suffered catastrophic losses in population and was forced to cede territory to Argentina and Brazil.
Wiki Link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraguayan_War
The war began in late 1864 with combat operations between Brazil and Paraguay; from 1865 onwards, Argentina and Uruguay entered, and it became the "War of the Triple Alliance."
The war has also been attributed to the after-effects of colonialism in South America, the struggle for physical power among neighboring nations over the strategic Río de la Plata region, Brazilian and Argentine meddling in internal Uruguayan politics, Solano López's efforts to help allies in Uruguay (previously defeated by Brazilians), and Solano López's presumed expansionist ambitions. Paraguay had recurring boundary disputes and tariff issues with Argentina and Brazil for many years; its aid to allies in Uruguay in the period before the war worsened its relations with those countries.
The outcome of the war was the utter defeat of Paraguay. After the Triple Alliance defeated Paraguay in conventional warfare, its people conducted a drawn-out guerrilla-style resistance that resulted in the destruction of the Paraguayan military and much of the civilian population. The guerrilla war lasted until López was killed by Brazilian forces on March 1, 1870. One estimate places total Paraguayan losses—through both war and disease—as high as 1.2 million people, or 90% of its pre-war population. [not a reliable number - my note]
A different estimate places Paraguayan deaths at approximately 300,000 people out of its 500,000 to 525,000 pre-war inhabitants. According to Steven Pinker, the war resulted in the deaths of more than 60% of the population of Paraguay, making it proportionally the most destructive war in modern times.
It took decades for Paraguay to recover from the chaos and demographic imbalance. In Brazil, the war helped bring about the end of slavery, moved the military into a key role in the public sphere, and caused a ruinous increase of public debt, which took a decade to pay off, seriously reducing the country's growth. It has been argued that the war played a key role in the consolidation of Argentina as a nation-state.That country became South America's wealthiest nation, and one of the wealthiest in the world, by the early 20th century [See a recent Economist article on how Argentina wasted away since- my note] It was the last time that Brazil and Argentina took such an interventionist role in Uruguay's internal politics.
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What were the big consequences? I'm hardly a Latin American expert, but my understanding is Maximillian's empire was a crude and short-lived attempt at reviving traditional European colonialism. Were the consequences that it was never really tried again? Because by this point, most European nations lacked the relative power to feasibly do this, or fared better through economic relations with Latin America, or both.
I probably know less about Latin America than you do. Again from Wikipedia:
One of Maximilian's first acts as Emperor was to restrict working hours and abolish child labour. He cancelled all debts for peasants over 10 pesos, restored communal property and forbade all forms of corporal punishment. He also broke the monopoly of the Hacienda stores and decreed that henceforth peons could no longer be bought and sold for the price of their debt.
To the dismay of his conservative allies, Maximilian upheld several liberal policies proposed by the Juárez administration – such as land reforms, religious freedom, and extending the right to vote beyond the landholding class
Best wishes,
Mason
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