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>What else could we have done? We could have engaged with the Japanese in the Pacific and let Europe duke it out and weaken themselves to nothing. Then rolled

>What else could we have done? We could have engaged with the Japanese in the Pacific and let Europe duke it out and weaken themselves to nothing. Then rolled into Europe with tanks and taken over the whole world? Seriously. I'm not a historian, but I'm pretty sure we could have taken a very different route in WWII. If we really lacked morality, why didn't we just take over the World after WWII, or force the countries we helped out into terrible economic deals like China is doing in Africa. The Marshall plan was charitable.

nine_zeros 7y ago
The America of WW2 was very different from America of today. Today, America is the thug that everyone wants to replace.
Bendingo 7y ago
> why didn't we just take over the World after WWII Both the UK [1] and US [2] developed plans to do just that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable? [2] https://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-pentagon-estimated-204-atomic-bombs-could-destroy-the-soviets-2014-10 https://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-pentagon-estimated-20...
wayoutthere 7y ago
> If we really lacked morality, why didn't we just take over the World after WWII, or force the countries we helped out into terrible economic deals like China is doing in Africa. We didn't do both of those? That's news to me, because I thought that's what the Cold War was about. We just learned from Europe's colonial failures and allowed the countries to remain nominally politically autonomous while being economically bound to the US. The only thing that stopped us was the USSR, and it really only delayed the eventual US takeover by about 40 years. > The Marshall plan was charitable. It absolutely was not. It was designed to prevent nationalism from taking hold by making economic conditions in the defeated nations tolerable to the populace and to make those countries economically dependent on the US. It also led to former global powers Germany and Japan becoming proxy states of the US -- they are still occupied by US forces today. But it wasn't about charity by any means, it was a response to the lesson we learned from WWI that if you leave the losers destitute, resentment and nationalism follow.

nine_zeros 7y ago

The America of WW2 was very different from America of today. Today, America is the thug that everyone wants to replace.

Bendingo 7y ago

> why didn't we just take over the World after WWII Both the UK [1] and US [2] developed plans to do just that. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Unthinkable? [2] https://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-pentagon-estimated-204-atomic-bombs-could-destroy-the-soviets-2014-10 https://www.businessinsider.com.au/the-pentagon-estimated-20...

wayoutthere 7y ago

> If we really lacked morality, why didn't we just take over the World after WWII, or force the countries we helped out into terrible economic deals like China is doing in Africa. We didn't do both of those? That's news to me, because I thought that's what the Cold War was about. We just learned from Europe's colonial failures and allowed the countries to remain nominally politically autonomous while being economically bound to the US. The only thing that stopped us was the USSR, and it really only delayed the eventual US takeover by about 40 years. > The Marshall plan was charitable. It absolutely was not. It was designed to prevent nationalism from taking hold by making economic conditions in the defeated nations tolerable to the populace and to make those countries economically dependent on the US. It also led to former global powers Germany and Japan becoming proxy states of the US -- they are still occupied by US forces today. But it wasn't about charity by any means, it was a response to the lesson we learned from WWI that if you leave the losers destitute, resentment and nationalism follow.