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This article mentions that had the US not entered World War I the likelihood of World War II happening was much lower. I'd like to propose the idea that World

by coltonv 10y ago

This article mentions that had the US not entered World War I the likelihood of World War II happening was much lower. I'd like to propose the idea that World War II, in all it's horrificness, saved us from much worse. In a rather bizarre and twisted sense, we may be very very lucky that WWII happened and that it happened at the exact time that it did: happening late enough that we saw how awful modern total war is, but not so late that we would have the weapons to truly eradicate ourselves.

tbirrell 10y ago
Unfortunately, I think you mean it was "recent enough" we were able to see how awful it was. Which means that if we give it a couple more generations to fade out of (some) living memory, we open up ourselves to another conflict, this time with the ability to eradicate ourselves. Which then raises the question, had WWII not happened, would we have gotten nuclear weapons when we did? And would the next "awful" conflict have been apocalyptically so. WWII ultimately jumpstarted so much of the scientific advancements we have made in the last 70 years that it is impossible to say that we would have been able to eradicate ourselves without a modern total war. IDK. I'm not disagreeing, just thinking aloud. You make an interesting point. And certainly one that is fun to hypothesize about.
- nostrademons 10y ago
  We likely would not have gotten nuclear weapons when we did, but they would probably have happened by the 50s and 60s, as would rocketry. There was already research on nuclear fission happening in the 1930s (in Germany, of all places), and people had already speculated on its use as a weapon. The German nuclear weapons program had already begun when Germany invaded Poland. WW2 massively accelerated this research and let researchers get away with things they wouldn't otherwise have been able to do (like building a nuclear reactor under the bleachers of Stagg Field in Chicago). Given the scientific progress made in the 30s, though, it's likely that it would've happened anyway by the late 1950s. Interestingly, if WW2 had not happened, it's very likely Germany would've been the first country with nuclear weapons, and hence the world superpower now. Most of the original researchers on nuclear fission were German, and many of the key scientists on the Manhattan project emigrated from Germany or Nazi-controlled countries. The key uranium mines of the 1930s were in the Belgian Congo, and the ore that was eventually used for the Manhattan Project was sitting on the docks in Belgium when the Nazis invaded.
gozur88 10y ago
The effort to develop nuclear weapons was ruinously expensive. I doubt we would have undertaken it in peacetime, so we may not have seen nuclear weapons until the early 1960s if not for the war. We almost certainly would have been at war with the Soviets before that.
- astrodust 10y ago
  It was expensive, but not ruinously expensive. As pointed out recently, the Norden bombsight program cost nearly half as much and people don't think of that as ruinously expensive. The US interstate highway program cost vastly more as well. Russia developed nuclear weapons in peace-time as well, if you consider the cold war peaceful. South Africa also produced some nuclear capability despite not being at war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#Nuclear_weapons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_ma... Naturally a country rich in uranium would be tempted to see what applications there were.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    > the Norden bombsight program cost nearly half as much That's very difficult to believe.
    - astrodust 10y ago
      Research and development, manufacturing, training, it ended up being fantastically expensive. Remember, this was a highly capable analog computer that had to operate in a difficult environment and even included a self-destruct feature. http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/the-norden-bombsight-accurate-beyond-belief/ http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/the-norden-bombs... > ...the cost of the entire program came to more than $1 billion.
      - 24gttghh 10y ago
        So the Norden cost $1B (~$12-14B now), the Atom bomb cost $2B (~$25-27B now), and the F-35 today is ~$150B over budget. How's that strike you?
cjf4 10y ago
>This article mentions that had the US not entered World War I the likelihood of World War II happening was much lower. This would have likely resulted in leaving Germany in a dominant European position. Over the course of modern history, the worst thing for European stability has been a dominant continental power. WWII stemming from a humiliated Germany might not have happened, but it's difficult to say that a imposing, bellicose, and likely-equipped-with-a-bomb Germany would be a much better outcome.
idreyn 10y ago
It would be interesting to see an analysis of how WMD technology would develop in the absence of a major conflict. It did take a Manhattan Project to get the atom bomb, after all. It's also a mind-bending exercise to try imagining the remainder of the 20th century without WWII.

by coltonv 10y ago

tbirrell 10y ago

Unfortunately, I think you mean it was "recent enough" we were able to see how awful it was. Which means that if we give it a couple more generations to fade out of (some) living memory, we open up ourselves to another conflict, this time with the ability to eradicate ourselves. Which then raises the question, had WWII not happened, would we have gotten nuclear weapons when we did? And would the next "awful" conflict have been apocalyptically so. WWII ultimately jumpstarted so much of the scientific advancements we have made in the last 70 years that it is impossible to say that we would have been able to eradicate ourselves without a modern total war. IDK. I'm not disagreeing, just thinking aloud. You make an interesting point. And certainly one that is fun to hypothesize about.

nostrademons 10y ago
We likely would not have gotten nuclear weapons when we did, but they would probably have happened by the 50s and 60s, as would rocketry. There was already research on nuclear fission happening in the 1930s (in Germany, of all places), and people had already speculated on its use as a weapon. The German nuclear weapons program had already begun when Germany invaded Poland. WW2 massively accelerated this research and let researchers get away with things they wouldn't otherwise have been able to do (like building a nuclear reactor under the bleachers of Stagg Field in Chicago). Given the scientific progress made in the 30s, though, it's likely that it would've happened anyway by the late 1950s. Interestingly, if WW2 had not happened, it's very likely Germany would've been the first country with nuclear weapons, and hence the world superpower now. Most of the original researchers on nuclear fission were German, and many of the key scientists on the Manhattan project emigrated from Germany or Nazi-controlled countries. The key uranium mines of the 1930s were in the Belgian Congo, and the ore that was eventually used for the Manhattan Project was sitting on the docks in Belgium when the Nazis invaded.

gozur88 10y ago

The effort to develop nuclear weapons was ruinously expensive. I doubt we would have undertaken it in peacetime, so we may not have seen nuclear weapons until the early 1960s if not for the war. We almost certainly would have been at war with the Soviets before that.

astrodust 10y ago
It was expensive, but not ruinously expensive. As pointed out recently, the Norden bombsight program cost nearly half as much and people don't think of that as ruinously expensive. The US interstate highway program cost vastly more as well. Russia developed nuclear weapons in peace-time as well, if you consider the cold war peaceful. South Africa also produced some nuclear capability despite not being at war: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_mass_destruction#Nuclear_weapons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africa_and_weapons_of_ma... Naturally a country rich in uranium would be tempted to see what applications there were.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  > the Norden bombsight program cost nearly half as much That's very difficult to believe.
  - astrodust 10y ago
    Research and development, manufacturing, training, it ended up being fantastically expensive. Remember, this was a highly capable analog computer that had to operate in a difficult environment and even included a self-destruct feature. http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/the-norden-bombsight-accurate-beyond-belief/ http://warfarehistorynetwork.com/daily/wwii/the-norden-bombs... > ...the cost of the entire program came to more than $1 billion.
    - 24gttghh 10y ago
      So the Norden cost $1B (~$12-14B now), the Atom bomb cost $2B (~$25-27B now), and the F-35 today is ~$150B over budget. How's that strike you?

cjf4 10y ago

>This article mentions that had the US not entered World War I the likelihood of World War II happening was much lower. This would have likely resulted in leaving Germany in a dominant European position. Over the course of modern history, the worst thing for European stability has been a dominant continental power. WWII stemming from a humiliated Germany might not have happened, but it's difficult to say that a imposing, bellicose, and likely-equipped-with-a-bomb Germany would be a much better outcome.

idreyn 10y ago

It would be interesting to see an analysis of how WMD technology would develop in the absence of a major conflict. It did take a Manhattan Project to get the atom bomb, after all. It's also a mind-bending exercise to try imagining the remainder of the 20th century without WWII.