Gautam wrote:
> If Britain and France had put their armies in Czechoslovakia in 1939,
does
> anyone think Hitler would have invaded?
If Britain and France hadn't dealt with Germany so harshly after WWI
would Hitler have ever come into power?
Doug
An interesting counterfactual. My answer is, probably yes, because they
_weren't_ that harsh to Germany - not as harsh as they certainly could have
been, and certainly very gentle compared to the settlement that Germany
(for example) imposed on Russia in 1918. Like Henry Kissinger, I would
suggest that the British and French mistake was to choose the middle path -
they either should have been _very_ generous, and reintegrated Germany into
the system immediately (as with France in 1815) or very harsh, and split
Germany up into many states too small to be a threat to anyone.
All of which, however, is irrelevant to our current dilemma. Saddam
Hussein is in power in Iraq. Assad is in power in Syria. Radical Islam
does have great power in most of the Middle East. The Taliban were in
power in Afghanistan. Now they're not. Perhaps there's a lesson in that,
and how it was achieved. Not with foreign aide. _After we win_ we should
be generous. That is in the best American tradition. But first we have to
win.
Gautam
