Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
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Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
Not really significant differences though. Percentage of people who think they should act is 2% apart.
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A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
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A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
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My LPs
Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
I'm sure Germans understand the idea of mutual defense. I'm also sure that, if NATO were magically annulled and an identical treaty proposed, no one would join.
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Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
The last time people thought that way, France ended up occupied and most of Europe ended up flattened. It was the total lack of serious response to Hitler's early re-armament and land grabs that convinced the German people that they could actually go to extremes and try to conquer Europe without facing meaningful opposition.Purple wrote:My guess is that a lot of these people simply don't want to get involved in a war over countries they don't much care about. Like, what does a person in Britain or France have to gain by going to war with a nuclear superpower in order to protect say one of the Baltic countries? Last time Europe went that way France ended up occupied and most of Europe ended up flattened. Better leave the Russians well enough alone as long as they don't come after anything you actually care about.Channel72 wrote:How does that follow? Yeah the US has been stomping around being a dick, mostly - but this is about potential Russian aggression in Eastern Europe, which has pretty much nothing to do with US misadventures in the Mideast.
That's the reasoning. Or at least my best guess at it.
The US approached numerous countries separately about Iraq, and did not invoke Article 5 to compel any European nation to assist them. Some countries supported the US in Afghanistan while explicitly opposing them diplomatically on Iraq, including Germany. Meanwhile, the civil liberties issues in Europe were the responsibility of individual European governments who could equally well have chosen to act differently.Welf wrote:Maybe it has to do with pattern recognition? The US already invoked article 5 back in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks, it was confirmed a few weeks later and has been in charge ever since. Germany and other European countries provided troops and material for the Afghanistan invasion like a good ally would do. And within 1 year the defence alliance was turned into an offensive alliance against the completely unrelated Iraq and used to permanently diminish civil rights. People learn from these things.
What, do they miss the Stasi?Plus there is the east/west divide within Germany; west Germans show similar opinions as other western Europeans, while east Germans are more sceptic of NATO and more positive about Putin.
[shakes head sadly]
This is very understandable. But as you say, an alliance isn't worth much without a commitment to mutual defense. It's worth even less when it involves a large chunk of the population saying "we want to refuse to help with mutual defense, but believe that others will step in to mutually-defend us."Zaune wrote:Maybe we've just gone three-quarters of a century without an all out, no quarter, continent-spanning war that kills millions of people and don't want to ruin it now? Especially when there's a non-negligible risk of WMDs getting thrown around.
So honestly, if that is the preferred position in a given country, they really should elect leaders who will come out and say "go ahead, take over the country between you and us, see if we care." And scrap the alliance because obviously collective security is not needed.
Actually, France or Britain (or the US) could do something rather significant: threaten to launch nuclear attacks on Russian formations that cross a defined line inside Poland.Channel72 wrote:The reality is that if Putin blatantly invades some country like Poland or whatever, there's little anyone could really do about it other than bitch a lot in front of the UN, plus more economic sanctions blah blah.
Could the Russians threaten to use nuclear weapons in exchange? Yes, clearly- but that could very easily lead to a strategic nuclear exchange in which millions or tens of millions of Russians die, one that the Putin regime is unlikely to survive even if they aren't killed by a submarine-launched ballistic missile.
The argument is that this is just not worth it for Russia- they have no incentive to even take the risk of such a situation emerging, because to the Russians, nothing they could possibly gain in Poland is worth having a quarter of Russia burned up in a single day. Therefore, if the Russians know this is a serious possibility, they will not invade in the first place.
Which is exactly how NATO was supposed to work, and NATO was basically invented as a framework by which the nuclear NATO states could guarantee nuclear retaliation against any Russian attempt to invade the non-nuclear NATO states. Everything else was originally secondary to that goal.
This is probably actually true, except that as far as I can tell Russia is busily trying to absorb and regain control over places like this through diplomatic means, rather than trying a war that would be costly even if it were an easy victory.Anyway, Putin should take a cue from the US and invade countries that nobody cares about, like Kazakhstan or something. Nobody would give a shit and no NATO problems would ensue, plus he takes back one more piece of the former USSR, so everyone wins! (Except Kazakhstan.)
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Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
The US attacked and fully occupied nations which aren't even its neighbors and have never ever been its neighbors, installing puppet regimes.Channel72 wrote:Still, Russia is being demonstrably belligerent with it's neighbors.
Very much so. In fact, attacking smaller non-nuclear nations is perfectly possible without any consequences if you are a nuclear power and UNSC member. It would block any UN-sanctioned action, no matter what happens, and it would also mean you yourself will not get attacked (nuclear deterrent). This is why the US, Russia and in the immediate post-WWII past nations like France and Britain have been quite brazen in their warmaking.Channel72 wrote:Anyway, Putin should take a cue from the US and invade countries that nobody cares about, like Kazakhstan or something. Nobody would give a shit and no NATO problems would ensue, plus he takes back one more piece of the former USSR, so everyone wins! (Except Kazakhstan.)
Actually, had Britain and France ignored Poland, it could've been very likely that the Nazi Reich would only try to expand eastwards, and most of Western Europe would be spared from destruction. It is well-known that Hitler was no big fan of the war with Britain. He admired the thing.Simon_Jester wrote:The last time people thought that way, France ended up occupied and most of Europe ended up flattened.
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Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
You can drive a tank from Russia across most of Europe, while you'd have to sealift it in from the US first. Hence, European governments might be more antsy about Russia acting up than about the US acting up.K. A. Pital wrote:The US attacked and fully occupied nations which aren't even its neighbors and have never ever been its neighbors, installing puppet regimes.Channel72 wrote:Still, Russia is being demonstrably belligerent with it's neighbors.
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Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
Hitler was very keen on avenging the Versailles Treaty, down to forcing the official surrender of France to take place in the same train car that the Germans had to sign their surrender in. Even with his avowed hatred of Communism and delusions of Britain joining in on his Eastern crusade, a free France wasn't in his best interest. The French could open a two front war(which they kinda did with the Sitzkrieg) and should France had actually went to war rather than moping, they could have torn into Germany, at the very least putting a painful thorn in Hitler's plans. Realistically, France had greater conventional forces than Germany had, though it was weak in airpower and communications, with better armored and gunned tanks, and heavier infantry, IIRC.K. A. Pital wrote:Actually, had Britain and France ignored Poland, it could've been very likely that the Nazi Reich would only try to expand eastwards, and most of Western Europe would be spared from destruction. It is well-known that Hitler was no big fan of the war with Britain. He admired the thing.Simon_Jester wrote:The last time people thought that way, France ended up occupied and most of Europe ended up flattened.
Taking out France was needed to sate Hitler's ego, and to prevent France from marching into Germany and putting a damper Hitler's ambitions.
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Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
I wonder how much of that was simply a reaction to the French going to war against him. I mean, here are these ancestral enemies who defeated them in WW1. And now they tried to do it again! That's just disrespectful, you know?orbitingpluto wrote:Hitler was very keen on avenging the Versailles Treaty, down to forcing the official surrender of France to take place in the same train car that the Germans had to sign their surrender in.
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Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
And if people had thought that way 30 years earlier, there would be neither a WWI nor a WWII.Simon_Jester wrote:The last time people thought that way, France ended up occupied and most of Europe ended up flattened. It was the total lack of serious response to Hitler's early re-armament and land grabs that convinced the German people that they could actually go to extremes and try to conquer Europe without facing meaningful opposition.
Just because the US failed at turning the NATO into their tool doesn't mean they didn't try. Also, the limitation of civil liberties is usual done by parties sympathizing with the USA and/or under pressure of the USA. So this is very relevant if one should go out and sight their wars.Simon_Jester wrote:The US approached numerous countries separately about Iraq, and did not invoke Article 5 to compel any European nation to assist them. Some countries supported the US in Afghanistan while explicitly opposing them diplomatically on Iraq, including Germany. Meanwhile, the civil liberties issues in Europe were the responsibility of individual European governments who could equally well have chosen to act differently.Welf wrote:Maybe it has to do with pattern recognition? The US already invoked article 5 back in 2001 after the 9/11 attacks, it was confirmed a few weeks later and has been in charge ever since. Germany and other European countries provided troops and material for the Afghanistan invasion like a good ally would do. And within 1 year the defence alliance was turned into an offensive alliance against the completely unrelated Iraq and used to permanently diminish civil rights. People learn from these things.
No; that is why they object heavily to total surveillance and torture camps.Simon_Jester wrote:What, do they miss the Stasi?Plus there is the east/west divide within Germany; west Germans show similar opinions as other western Europeans, while east Germans are more sceptic of NATO and more positive about Putin.
[shakes head sadly]
Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
Not really. If France stays neutral when Hitler invades Poland, a true war with France never materializes for the following reasons:orbitingpluto wrote:Hitler was very keen on avenging the Versailles Treaty, down to forcing the official surrender of France to take place in the same train car that the Germans had to sign their surrender in. Even with his avowed hatred of Communism and delusions of Britain joining in on his Eastern crusade, a free France wasn't in his best interest. The French could open a two front war(which they kinda did with the Sitzkrieg) and should France had actually went to war rather than moping, they could have torn into Germany, at the very least putting a painful thorn in Hitler's plans. Realistically, France had greater conventional forces than Germany had, though it was weak in airpower and communications, with better armored and gunned tanks, and heavier infantry, IIRC.K. A. Pital wrote:Actually, had Britain and France ignored Poland, it could've been very likely that the Nazi Reich would only try to expand eastwards, and most of Western Europe would be spared from destruction. It is well-known that Hitler was no big fan of the war with Britain. He admired the thing.Simon_Jester wrote:The last time people thought that way, France ended up occupied and most of Europe ended up flattened.
Taking out France was needed to sate Hitler's ego, and to prevent France from marching into Germany and putting a damper Hitler's ambitions.
1. It would have involved Britain and Hitler was a major Anglophile.
2. Hitler would have waged war in the east first. Assuming he wins that one - not a given, but without lend lease the Soviets lose way more and their forces have a real chance of collapsing, this means any war would probably take place no sooner than 1945.
3. By that time, the Maginot Line is now built up all the way including the Belgian border and France now has finished enough mobile reserve forces that any breakthrough would be quickly cordoned off.
4. Nazi Germany would not be able to focus on the French anyway, as they would exhaust significant manpower and resources in exterminating the Slavic people or - if they stay saner this time - consolidating their hold over the newly gained territories (Baltics, Ukraine, Belorussia and Ukraine).
5. In the long run, Belorussia and Ukraine will have to be given autonomy anyway.
Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
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A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
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My LPs
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A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
------------
My LPs
Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
Yeah, I understand that. In a way, NATO is nothing but a formalized manifestation of the MAD doctrine. But, to be a bit self-serving and callous for a moment... is Poland really worth anyone threatening the continued existence of human civilization? MAD doctrine assures that two nuclear superpowers are held in check, but it doesn't necessarily create a stable global situation. We survived things like the Cuban Missile Crisis, but the Cold War only lasted about 40 years really, and it was only really intense for a decade or so under Khrushchev and then again under Reagan/Thatcher vs. Brezhnev/Andropov. So MAD doctrine "worked" for like, let's say 20 years at most. But something like NATO only exacerbates the situation, because it only expands the set of things that can happen to trigger nuclear tensions. On the plus side, at least in theory, it's supposed to make Russia think twice about messing with a (non-nuclear) NATO member, just like the Warsaw Pact (at least in theory) was supposed to make the US/UK think twice about messing with a (non-nuclear) Warsaw Pact member. But again... um, to be completely self-serving, I really don't think fighting over Poland (with all due respect to the people who live there) is necessarily worth a potential global apocalypse. NATO probably made a lot more sense when the idea of "containment", i.e. containing the spread of Communism, was seriously considered very important in the West.Simon_Jester wrote:Actually, France or Britain (or the US) could do something rather significant: threaten to launch nuclear attacks on Russian formations that cross a defined line inside Poland.Channel72 wrote:The reality is that if Putin blatantly invades some country like Poland or whatever, there's little anyone could really do about it other than bitch a lot in front of the UN, plus more economic sanctions blah blah.
Could the Russians threaten to use nuclear weapons in exchange? Yes, clearly- but that could very easily lead to a strategic nuclear exchange in which millions or tens of millions of Russians die, one that the Putin regime is unlikely to survive even if they aren't killed by a submarine-launched ballistic missile.
The argument is that this is just not worth it for Russia- they have no incentive to even take the risk of such a situation emerging, because to the Russians, nothing they could possibly gain in Poland is worth having a quarter of Russia burned up in a single day. Therefore, if the Russians know this is a serious possibility, they will not invade in the first place.
Which is exactly how NATO was supposed to work, and NATO was basically invented as a framework by which the nuclear NATO states could guarantee nuclear retaliation against any Russian attempt to invade the non-nuclear NATO states. Everything else was originally secondary to that goal.
And WW2 analogies are interesting, but really don't work very well because they don't fit in the nuclear age. I mean, if Hitler had nuclear weapons the whole thing would have been a totally different game.
Plus, the Russian annexation of Kazakhstan would be great for Americans, because that way we don't need to remember where it is on a map anymore.Simon Jester wrote:This is probably actually true, except that as far as I can tell Russia is busily trying to absorb and regain control over places like this through diplomatic means, rather than trying a war that would be costly even if it were an easy victory.Channel72 wrote:Anyway, Putin should take a cue from the US and invade countries that nobody cares about, like Kazakhstan or something. Nobody would give a shit and no NATO problems would ensue, plus he takes back one more piece of the former USSR, so everyone wins! (Except Kazakhstan.)
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Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
France really didn't do much offensively though- French troops were forbidden to do anything to provoke a shooting war. It was the threat of the French military being loosed to actually go to war that was why the Germans had to respond, Hitler's need for vengeance being kinda unimportant compared to the idea of French troops marching into Germany or French and British bombers dropping warloads on German cities.Purple wrote:I wonder how much of that was simply a reaction to the French going to war against him. I mean, here are these ancestral enemies who defeated them in WW1. And now they tried to do it again! That's just disrespectful, you know?orbitingpluto wrote:Hitler was very keen on avenging the Versailles Treaty, down to forcing the official surrender of France to take place in the same train car that the Germans had to sign their surrender in.
Tying this back into the topic, I do know part of the reason the Phoney War/Sitzkrieg happend was due to the widespread belief(arguably justified) that the escalations prior of the Great War lead to the widespread destruction, and at the time it was hoped that holding back might prevent another great war. We now know there was little chance that Hitler would back down, and that hesitating for eight months actually helped the asshole.
In a larger sense, WWI and WWII are pretty good examples of mutual defense treaties in action- WWI being escalations in response to escalations all the way up to world war, and WWII being the case where a failure to go tit for tat emboldened and supported the war aims of Germany. NATO and the Warsaw Pact might be examples of better executed mutual defense treaties(in that there was a lack of war for the most part), but I'm not sure how to argue that right now.
Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
Poland has some of the largest Nato land forces in Europe, and not going to war over a Russian invasion of Poland would invalidate the existence of Nato because it shows Nato's inability to fulfill its core function of keeping Russia within its borders. Of course, avoiding a nuclear war might be worth the implosion of Nato to the US/UK/France but all non nuclear Nato members would be officially on their own from that point.Channel72 wrote:Simon_Jester wrote: Yeah, I understand that. In a way, NATO is nothing but a formalized manifestation of the MAD doctrine. But, to be a bit self-serving and callous for a moment... is Poland really worth anyone threatening the continued existence of human civilization? MAD doctrine assures that two nuclear superpowers are held in check, but it doesn't necessarily create a stable global situation.
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Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
Thanas wrote:Not really. If France stays neutral when Hitler invades Poland, a true war with France never materializes for the following reasons:orbitingpluto wrote: Taking out France was needed to sate Hitler's ego, and to prevent France from marching into Germany and putting a damper Hitler's ambitions.
1. It would have involved Britain and Hitler was a major Anglophile.
2. Hitler would have waged war in the east first. Assuming he wins that one - not a given, but without lend lease the Soviets lose way more and their forces have a real chance of collapsing, this means any war would probably take place no sooner than 1945.
3. By that time, the Maginot Line is now built up all the way including the Belgian border and France now has finished enough mobile reserve forces that any breakthrough would be quickly cordoned off.
4. Nazi Germany would not be able to focus on the French anyway, as they would exhaust significant manpower and resources in exterminating the Slavic people or - if they stay saner this time - consolidating their hold over the newly gained territories (Baltics, Ukraine, Belorussia and Ukraine).
5. In the long run, Belorussia and Ukraine will have to be given autonomy anyway.
For France to stay neutral during and after the German invasion, there would have had to been no Franco-Polish Alliance, which was formed back in 1921. Seeing how this alliance was supposed to guarantee a two-front war should Germany rearm, I don't see how France could have not formed this alliance with Poland, or a similar one with some other country east of Germany; it was too damn important to French military strategy for them not to try.
Also, I'm unsure the fact Hitler was an Anglophile is really all that important- while his attempt to invade the British Isles was half-hearted at best, he did consent to sinking British ships at sea and bombing British cities. The Brits were late comers to the Franco-Polish military alliance anyway, so it's a bit beyond me what they might do in a alternate timeline like the one you proposed.
Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
orbitingpluto wrote:Thanas wrote:Not really. If France stays neutral when Hitler invades Poland, a true war with France never materializes for the following reasons:orbitingpluto wrote: Taking out France was needed to sate Hitler's ego, and to prevent France from marching into Germany and putting a damper Hitler's ambitions.
1. It would have involved Britain and Hitler was a major Anglophile.
2. Hitler would have waged war in the east first. Assuming he wins that one - not a given, but without lend lease the Soviets lose way more and their forces have a real chance of collapsing, this means any war would probably take place no sooner than 1945.
3. By that time, the Maginot Line is now built up all the way including the Belgian border and France now has finished enough mobile reserve forces that any breakthrough would be quickly cordoned off.
4. Nazi Germany would not be able to focus on the French anyway, as they would exhaust significant manpower and resources in exterminating the Slavic people or - if they stay saner this time - consolidating their hold over the newly gained territories (Baltics, Ukraine, Belorussia and Ukraine).
5. In the long run, Belorussia and Ukraine will have to be given autonomy anyway.
For France to stay neutral during and after the German invasion, there would have had to been no Franco-Polish Alliance, which was formed back in 1921.[7quote]
Yes. But this was the premise under which the following was discussed. Anything else is immaterial.
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A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
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My LPs
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A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
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My LPs
Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
I don't think this is a uniquely German issue. As Thanas and I previously discussed we have a race going on between the Canadians and the Germans over who can strip their military of essential personnel and equipment the quickest. I'm of course of the opinion that raiding our museums for spare parts trumps Germany's raiding of retirement homes for recruits, though at this point the race is too close to call and either of us could win
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Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
Your premise is silly though. That France wouldn't try to diplomatically contain Germany via the threat of a two-front war ignores historical precedent going back to before the WWI. Sure, we know France didn't actually make good on the threat, but France in 1930s onward was a different country than the France in 1920s, when they were top dog and aiming to cement a some sort of lasting German impotence. If you want to stick with your premise, go ahead, but I'm going to bow out on discussing it.Thanas wrote: Yes. But this was the premise under which the following was discussed. Anything else is immaterial.
Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
Oh for fucks sake. Let us look at the context of the comment that started this chain:orbitingpluto wrote:Your premise is silly though.Thanas wrote: Yes. But this was the premise under which the following was discussed. Anything else is immaterial.
I hope this becomes clearer and I hope you realise now that it was not "my premise" or anything silly like that.orbitingpluto wrote:Hitler was very keen on avenging the Versailles Treaty, down to forcing the official surrender of France to take place in the same train car that the Germans had to sign their surrender in. Even with his avowed hatred of Communism and delusions of Britain joining in on his Eastern crusade, a free France wasn't in his best interest. The French could open a two front war(which they kinda did with the Sitzkrieg) and should France had actually went to war rather than moping, they could have torn into Germany, at the very least putting a painful thorn in Hitler's plans. Realistically, France had greater conventional forces than Germany had, though it was weak in airpower and communications, with better armored and gunned tanks, and heavier infantry, IIRC.K. A. Pital wrote:Actually, had Britain and France ignored Poland, it could've been very likely that the Nazi Reich would only try to expand eastwards, and most of Western Europe would be spared from destruction. It is well-known that Hitler was no big fan of the war with Britain. He admired the thing.Simon_Jester wrote:The last time people thought that way, France ended up occupied and most of Europe ended up flattened.
Taking out France was needed to sate Hitler's ego, and to prevent France from marching into Germany and putting a damper Hitler's ambitions.
Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
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A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
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My LPs
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A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
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My LPs
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Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
Goddamn, I can be dense. Sorry for that Thanas.
Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
In any case, this is all somewhat academic, because the geopolitical landscape today is pretty far removed from what it was in 1939. Or 1951 for that matter.
Are any European governments making serious contingency plans for countering hostile action by the increasingly authoritarian, possibly expansionist and not-particularly-democratic state to our west, for example?
Are any European governments making serious contingency plans for countering hostile action by the increasingly authoritarian, possibly expansionist and not-particularly-democratic state to our west, for example?
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Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
Jokes on you, everything over there's in metric.Mr Bean wrote:*Edit
That does also count the fact that we helped you build a good 90% of what is in Germany today so we have exact military plans to the inch of where everything is.
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Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
Which state are you referring to? And if its America, please keep in mind that whatever America's faults, it still has two major parties and a bunch of pathetic ones, elections that, despite the efforts of Republicans, most people are able to vote in, a constitution that protects a wide range of rights, and a Supreme Court that is still at least somewhat willing to protect the rights of citizens. Also, it does not share a border with Europe in the way Russia does. And most pertinently from the point of view of a European government considering its security, it is not an enemy of Europe. It is, in fact, NATO's and hence much of Europe's most powerful ally. To treat America as anything approaching an equivalent threat to Europe as Russia is preposterous.Zaune wrote:In any case, this is all somewhat academic, because the geopolitical landscape today is pretty far removed from what it was in 1939. Or 1951 for that matter.
Are any European governments making serious contingency plans for countering hostile action by the increasingly authoritarian, possibly expansionist and not-particularly-democratic state to our west, for example?
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Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
Hitler would have been under considerable pressure to at least fight France over Alsace-Lorraine, I suspect. Moreover, leaving a heavily armed (and rearming) rival in his rear while taking on the USSR would have been a very dangerous move for him.K. A. Pital wrote:Actually, had Britain and France ignored Poland, it could've been very likely that the Nazi Reich would only try to expand eastwards, and most of Western Europe would be spared from destruction. It is well-known that Hitler was no big fan of the war with Britain. He admired the thing.Simon_Jester wrote:The last time people thought that way, France ended up occupied and most of Europe ended up flattened.
Without being able to read Hitler's mind in advance, I think the Allies might reasonably expect that Hitler would aggressively push west after securing his positions in Poland, even if the Western Allies had done nothing to encourage Poland.
It's possible that Hitler would not have done so in reality, but only because Hitler was in many ways a lunatic and made a lot of strategic decisions with the potential to backfire horribly.
Hitler was planning for war with France before the war actually happened.Purple wrote:I wonder how much of that was simply a reaction to the French going to war against him. I mean, here are these ancestral enemies who defeated them in WW1. And now they tried to do it again! That's just disrespectful, you know?
Modern nations, and semi-competent modern national leaders, do not go to war on a whim. It takes too much planning and material preparation to fight effectively.
The key difference was that in July 1914, the heavily armed nations were prepared to go to war over any small breach of the peace. In 1939, the heavily armed nations actively desired not to go to war over a small breach of the peace... but had a limited willingness to sit around doing nothing while an aggressive rival snapped up minor nations one by one in an attempt to build an empire.Welf wrote:And if people had thought that way 30 years earlier, there would be neither a WWI nor a WWII.Simon_Jester wrote:The last time people thought that way, France ended up occupied and most of Europe ended up flattened. It was the total lack of serious response to Hitler's early re-armament and land grabs that convinced the German people that they could actually go to extremes and try to conquer Europe without facing meaningful opposition.
If you say "fine, we will tolerate your aggression against small nation A because it's better than war," the experience of the last few centuries strongly suggests that the aggression will not stop there. Instead, it is very likely to escalate and grow, overtaking not only small nation A, but B, C, and D besides, and maybe even Z.
The ability to resolve one's political problems through armed force is a powerful drug, and people who get success and rewards from using it generally don't stop using it.
In this case, no one is proposing that various countries fight the US's wars. The US doesn't even have any wars right now, at least no wars it seems interested in having foreigners help it to fight.Just because the US failed at turning the NATO into their tool doesn't mean they didn't try. Also, the limitation of civil liberties is usual done by parties sympathizing with the USA and/or under pressure of the USA. So this is very relevant if one should go out and sight their wars.
The main concern is, should anyone fight Poland's war, if Poland is invaded? Or the Baltic states? If the answer is "no," that will have implications for the future of Europe.
Insofar as Putin does not do these things, it is because he lacks either the capacity or the need- not the willingness.No; that is why they object heavily to total surveillance and torture camps.Simon_Jester wrote:What, do they miss the Stasi?Plus there is the east/west divide within Germany; west Germans show similar opinions as other western Europeans, while east Germans are more sceptic of NATO and more positive about Putin.
[shakes head sadly]
I honestly think an East German would have to be out of their minds to say "we want the Russians back."
To borrow a phrase by way of analogy:Channel72 wrote:Yeah, I understand that. In a way, NATO is nothing but a formalized manifestation of the MAD doctrine. But, to be a bit self-serving and callous for a moment... is Poland really worth anyone threatening the continued existence of human civilization?
"Horse thieves are hanged not for stealing a horse, but so that horses will not be stolen."
Throughout human history prior to the atomic bomb, there has never been any long period when people decided to "study war no more," to refrain from trying to conquer or rob their neighbors. Humans are very good at inventing justifications for why a neighbor's land is actually our land. For why the other person's "intolerable" insults can only be repaid in blood. For why we are the ones defending ourselves, even when we're screaming and chasing someone and waving a knife at them. It's unfortunate but it's a reality about how we function as an intelligent species.
Until we find a way to make humans more enlightened on a reliable basis- and the evidence suggests that this hasn't happened yet- then the only reliable known means of stopping people from using violence as a tool against each other is the threat of overwhelming force. That it does not matter if you think that today, this time, in this special case, you are justified in using force... because your force will be met with superior force, regardless of why you thought you were justified.
Just as the presence of the state's ability to punish murders with overwhelming force tends to result in a lower murder rate, it really does seem that the threat of nuclear retaliation against aggression actually lowers the rate of wars.
And if this threat of retaliation were not in play, I would argue that nuclear wars would happen anyway, because the technology to make the bombs cannot be suppressed, and they would almost certainly be used by powerful states trying to either win a war of aggression cheaply, or because a powerful state finally decided it had to intervene in an already-ongoing war of aggression.
Basically, as long as nuclear arsenals exist, using them to secure the safety of countries that lack nuclear weapons is a fairly responsible and safe use of them. It reduces the risk of aggression, and it does not increase the risk of a misunderstanding, because there is no way to "accidentally" invade your neighbor with an army of soldiers. Either you have, or you haven't, and if you aren't deliberately doing so, nobody will act as though you have done so.
If his rivals had them too, yes- and I suspect it would have been a much less violent game. Because if you take even a ruthless conqueror like Hitler and say "is it worth accepting the wrecking of your precious master race, as the price you pay for wrecking the fighting power of the Slavs you hate?" the odds are pretty good the ruthless conqueror will say "uh... now that you mention it, no."And WW2 analogies are interesting, but really don't work very well because they don't fit in the nuclear age. I mean, if Hitler had nuclear weapons the whole thing would have been a totally different game.
Moreover, this would create an untenable defensive position even for the nuclear NATO powers. France has nuclear weapons- but if the Russians are potentially free to conquer Poland without fear of retaliation, and then to, say, reduce Germany to a protectorate, then the French would have to worry about Russian troops encamped on the Rhine.blowfish wrote:Poland has some of the largest Nato land forces in Europe, and not going to war over a Russian invasion of Poland would invalidate the existence of Nato because it shows Nato's inability to fulfill its core function of keeping Russia within its borders. Of course, avoiding a nuclear war might be worth the implosion of Nato to the US/UK/France but all non nuclear Nato members would be officially on their own from that point.
This would make it much easier for the Russians to (for instance) launch precision conventional attacks to cripple the French nuclear arsenal. The only deterrent France would have is its nuclear missile submarines, and it doesn't have very many of those. If they cannot count on their air force, or on enough time to get anchored submarines out to sea in the event of a crisis, a few lucky torpedo shots or a well placed saboteur might theoretically remove all the means France would have of using nuclear weapons to retaliate against a Russian invasion.
If by this you mean the US, frankly the US has a long history of not invading Europe unless invited in by Europeans who want help sorting out the problems created by other Europeans. When the US plays the imperialist game, its expansionism has generally been directed at impoverished backwaters less likely to fight back, and which are not the ancestral homelands of the US's dominant racial group.Zaune wrote:Are any European governments making serious contingency plans for countering hostile action by the increasingly authoritarian, possibly expansionist and not-particularly-democratic state to our west, for example?
Thus, while the US can be a threat to Europe in a number of ways, military invasion is not, realistically, one of them. Russia, on the other hand, is already proving itself willing to use its military to regain control of land that it believes rightfully belongs to it, and there are several places along the former Soviet frontier where European nations do NOT want Russia thinking "this land belongs to us, we should recover it by force."
So that's more of a concern.
This space dedicated to Vasily Arkhipov
Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
Keep in mind that the largest left party in Germany is largely composed of the former ruling party of East Germany. The Linke has been in the past a vigorous defender of the Stasi (no wonder, they were until last week led by a lawyer who was famous for selling out his clients against the Stasi and informing on regime critics) and has always been very close to Putin - even defending the attack on Ukraine.Simon_Jester wrote:Insofar as Putin does not do these things, it is because he lacks either the capacity or the need- not the willingness.No; that is why they object heavily to total surveillance and torture camps.Simon_Jester wrote:What, do they miss the Stasi?
[shakes head sadly]
I honestly think an East German would have to be out of their minds to say "we want the Russians back."
Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
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A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
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My LPs
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A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient, to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is 'survival as what'? A country isn't a rock. It's not an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for. It's what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! - Chief Judge Haywood
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My LPs
Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
Hmm... but again, how do you really know any of this? What you're saying is intuitive, I grant, but human intuition is often wrong about these things. Again, the Cold War itself is not really sufficient evidence, because as I said, it was only a period of about 40 years, and nuclear tensions were only really high for a small subset of those 40 years.Simon Jester wrote:To borrow a phrase by way of analogy:
"Horse thieves are hanged not for stealing a horse, but so that horses will not be stolen."
Throughout human history prior to the atomic bomb, there has never been any long period when people decided to "study war no more," to refrain from trying to conquer or rob their neighbors. Humans are very good at inventing justifications for why a neighbor's land is actually our land. For why the other person's "intolerable" insults can only be repaid in blood. For why we are the ones defending ourselves, even when we're screaming and chasing someone and waving a knife at them. It's unfortunate but it's a reality about how we function as an intelligent species.
Until we find a way to make humans more enlightened on a reliable basis- and the evidence suggests that this hasn't happened yet- then the only reliable known means of stopping people from using violence as a tool against each other is the threat of overwhelming force. That it does not matter if you think that today, this time, in this special case, you are justified in using force... because your force will be met with superior force, regardless of why you thought you were justified.
Just as the presence of the state's ability to punish murders with overwhelming force tends to result in a lower murder rate, it really does seem that the threat of nuclear retaliation against aggression actually lowers the rate of wars.
And if this threat of retaliation were not in play, I would argue that nuclear wars would happen anyway, because the technology to make the bombs cannot be suppressed, and they would almost certainly be used by powerful states trying to either win a war of aggression cheaply, or because a powerful state finally decided it had to intervene in an already-ongoing war of aggression.
Basically, as long as nuclear arsenals exist, using them to secure the safety of countries that lack nuclear weapons is a fairly responsible and safe use of them. It reduces the risk of aggression, and it does not increase the risk of a misunderstanding, because there is no way to "accidentally" invade your neighbor with an army of soldiers. Either you have, or you haven't, and if you aren't deliberately doing so, nobody will act as though you have done so.
War pretty much, um... "jumped the shark" after the Manhattan Project, but MAD doctrine or atomic balancing acts only work assuming (1) everyone involved is rational, and (2) nobody makes any mistakes. There were numerous times throughout the Cold War when technological glitches gave rise to increased nuclear tensions or "close calls". Again, an organization like NATO only increases the set of things that can happen to trigger an actual ICBM launch. And again, a lot of the original inspiration behind NATO, at least as it evolved after the Korean War, was less about protecting non-nuclear countries and more about containment - containing the Communist ideology. These days, nobody really cares about containing Communism because no serious nation is really trying to spread it with any real success - even China is sort of just keeping it to their selves and slowly absorbing capitalist elements.
So the only real practical purpose of NATO (or any mutual defense treaty) is:
(1) A convenient tool for superpowers like the US to leverage in order to get other member nations on board with whatever self-serving project they're interested in at the time
(2) A way (in theory) to protect non-nuclear countries like Poland
(3) It perhaps encourages nuclear non-proliferation, so countries like Poland don't need to develop nuclear weapons to protect themselves
Number (1) is mostly a negative, and while (2) is a prima facie positive, it's unclear to me if this is worth adding yet another fulcrum point to an already delicate nuclear balancing act. As for (3), as you said, there's no long-term way to prevent the spread of atomic technology, so again it's unclear how useful this is.
But in general, your argument seems to amount to basically "MAD is the only known way to prevent wars...". Perhaps that's a simplification, but that's the distilled essence, I think, of what you're saying. But I think the jury is still out on whether MAD actually works over longer time scales, and even if it does, it still doesn't follow that we should "widen our umbrella" so that more countries become trigger points for MAD to kick in.
I also don't agree with the premise that MAD is the only way to prevent wars. The real way to prevent wars is to encourage global economic entanglement. The US and China have, for the most part, a pretty luke-warm relationship. But it's absurdly unlikely the two nations would ever go to war, since their economies are so intertwined. Chinese companies like Ali Baba are traded on US exchanges, and the US is a major consumer of Chinese products. Even if China dissolved it's entire military tomorrow, the US would have no chance of attacking it without tanking our own economy. There's a reason all conventional wars these days take place in the third world, and non-nuclear ability is only part of that reason. When you have a large economy with multiple, multi-national corporations spread about the globe, going to war often makes very little sense at all. In other words, we don't necessarily need to rely on MAD - we just need to rely on GREED : Globally Recurring Economic Entanglement and Distribution.
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Re: Germans don't get the idea of mutal defense
Thing is, so long as nuclear arsenals exist, none of these issues is removed from play by not having nuclear weapons used to guarantee the sovereignty of non-nuclear states.Channel72 wrote:War pretty much, um... "jumped the shark" after the Manhattan Project, but MAD doctrine or atomic balancing acts only work assuming (1) everyone involved is rational, and (2) nobody makes any mistakes. There were numerous times throughout the Cold War when technological glitches gave rise to increased nuclear tensions or "close calls".
If we accept that nuclear arsenals are not going away, little is lost by saying "if you move an armored brigade across the Polish border, you get one warning before we start launching nuclear missiles at it." Because it's not like tank columns can invade a country on a noticeable scale by accident.
So... you're not making an argument against security guarantees and "nuclear tripwires." You're making an argument for general nuclear disarmament. Which is a respectable position; it's just a separate position.
[Also for anti-ballistic missile defenses; a lot of the 'misunderstanding' scenarios become a lot less of an issue when the prospect of one missile coming at you isn't a disaster because you can realistically expect to shoot it down and respond to the situation afterwards]
Yes, but the reason for NATO specifically was to provide collective defense against the overt military threat of armed Soviet forces intruding on various countries not already locked into the Warsaw Pact. The US's containment doctrine took other forms when dealing with other aspects of the desire to contain communism; NATO was specifically intended to contain communism militarily within Eastern Europe. And it serves essentially the same purpose regardless of whether the large army to its east is motivated by communism or not.Again, an organization like NATO only increases the set of things that can happen to trigger an actual ICBM launch. And again, a lot of the original inspiration behind NATO, at least as it evolved after the Korean War, was less about protecting non-nuclear countries and more about containment - containing the Communist ideology.
Except that nuclear security guarantees have worked.Number (1) is mostly a negative, and while (2) is a prima facie positive, it's unclear to me if this is worth adding yet another fulcrum point to an already delicate nuclear balancing act. As for (3), as you said, there's no long-term way to prevent the spread of atomic technology, so again it's unclear how useful this is.
No, what it comes down to is this.But in general, your argument seems to amount to basically "MAD is the only known way to prevent wars...". Perhaps that's a simplification, but that's the distilled essence, I think, of what you're saying.
Anyone can look at a non-nuclear state and think "If I am ballsy and badass enough, I can conquer them." Even when the numbers are grossly unfavorable. This has always been a reality of our world; if it weren't, Alexander would never have attacked Persia, and Hitler would never have attacked the USSR.
It is still theoretically possible to do this when looking at a nuclear state, but it is MUCH harder to do so without having completely lost one's mind, to the extent that it makes one's ability to remain in control of a large country questionable.
Both these things are realities.
Now, the problem is that the logical outcome of this is that nuclear powers exert tyranny over any nation that does not have nuclear weapons, resulting in a multipolar world of violent empires held together and secured from external interference by nuclear terror, with various nations frantically seeking nuclear weapons to preserve their own safety.
This is pretty much the kind of thing that we're trying to avoid in, say, the Middle East- with Iran having nuclear weapons to make them unattackable by their Sunni neighbors and carving out a 'Greater Iran' from the Shi'ite areas to their west, while the Saudis seek the bomb so as to avoid being susceptible to nuclear blackmail, and while the Israelis double up on their nuclear arsenal and brandish it more and more threateningly and on a shorter hair trigger. Something like that.
In such a world, the number of nuclear powers that COULD go to war with each other increases exponentially, and the number of potential 'triggers' for nuclear war increases with it. If there are ten countries all eying each other suspiciously for evidence of a nuclear attack, there are about 45 possible pairings of the two nations, and each individual one of them is about as likely to result in a violent misunderstanding that goes nuclear as the US/Soviet relationship was.
Thus, the risk of a nuclear war breaking out within the region could easily be dozens of times as high as the corresponding risk in a mere bipolar staring match like the Cold War. At that point nuclear war becomes almost inevitable as a result of nuclear proliferation.
So it becomes vital to limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons and to stop independent regional powers from seeking nuclear weapons as an equalizer if humanly possible. At least that way, the number of total nuclear-armed power blocs can be kept to a minimum, making it more possible to maintain good relations between them and make nuclear war unlikely.*
And this is where nuclear guarantees of the sovereignty of non-nuclear states really comes into its own. It's not just a mildly desirable part of limiting proliferation, it is vital to limiting proliferation, and limiting proliferation is in turn vital to the goal of preventing nuclear war.
*As in, pretty much the status quo between 1992 and 2015 throughout the world, where nuclear attacks by all the usual players were still possible but so vanishingly unlikely that no one was particularly concerned about the prospect.
People were saying (in essence) that this would work back before World War One too... Kipling poked at this idea in his 1903 poem The Peace of Dives.I also don't agree with the premise that MAD is the only way to prevent wars. The real way to prevent wars is to encourage global economic entanglement. The US and China have, for the most part, a pretty luke-warm relationship. But it's absurdly unlikely the two nations would ever go to war, since their economies are so intertwined. Chinese companies like Ali Baba are traded on US exchanges, and the US is a major consumer of Chinese products. Even if China dissolved it's entire military tomorrow, the US would have no chance of attacking it without tanking our own economy. There's a reason all conventional wars these days take place in the third world, and non-nuclear ability is only part of that reason. When you have a large economy with multiple, multi-national corporations spread about the globe, going to war often makes very little sense at all. In other words, we don't necessarily need to rely on MAD - we just need to rely on GREED : Globally Recurring Economic Entanglement and Distribution.
By itself, it does not work very well, because (again) people are great at convincing themselves to act against their economic self-interest.
It works much better when war is 'impossible' for some other reason, so that economic ties have time and space to grow into bonds of mutual amity. And so that no one worries about a war in the near future, which makes it more profitable and sensible to keep those economic ties in place rather than guardedly watching and limiting them.
But for that to happen you need, well, some other source of security, of the conviction that "we will not be invaded." Nuclear weapons are actually pretty good for providing the assurance of "we will not be invaded" unless one believes the neighbors are insane... in which case you'd have the same fear of invasion whether you had the nuclear weapons or not.
This space dedicated to Vasily Arkhipov