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Losing My Religion
No, I’m not turning away from my faith in Jesus, which began when I reached the ripe old age of 36, back in early 2004. The religion that I’m losing is the American religion that might be called “We Won The War.”
This may be a troubling post for some of you. I’m pretty confident that I would have found it very troubling and offensive, myself, about five to ten years ago. I’d appreciate a critique of these thoughts.
So, back to “We Won The War.” I take this phrase from a 2018 book by Peter Hitchens called The Phoney Victory. I highly recommend it. Peter Hitchens is the younger brother of the famous atheist Christopher Hitchens. Like his brother, Peter was a Marxist in his youth, of the Trotskyite variety, but unlike his brother, Peter ultimately turned to conservatism and Christianity. He has an interesting story, told in more detail in another book, The Rage Against God.
Peter Hitchens writes about the British version of this religion or mythology, “We Won The War.” It comes complete with a Savior, Winston Churchill, and an antichrist, Adolph Hitler. Looking back, it seems that I was raised in this religion. Interestingly, for me, even the American version identified Churchill, rather than FDR, as the Savior. In my case, I was such a big fan of Churchill that I read and re-read his Memoirs of the Second World War, his book about WWI (The World Crisis), and his History of the English-Speaking Peoples.
Today, I’m inclined to view Churchill as a brilliant propagandist. This has led me to question many of the WWI and WWII narratives that Churchill promoted.
I think that the narrative starts with the idea of German guilt for WWI, which I now view as quite misplaced. The work of recent WWI historians like Michael Neiberg and Christopher Clark has been particularly significant for me on this issue. (Both have excellent lectures available on YouTube, if you’re interested.) My current view is that Russia is principally to blame for the expansion of the war, which otherwise would have been a localized Balkan conflict between Austria and Serbia. The Austrians mobilized first, against Serbia, and then the Russians mobilized against both Austria and Germany.
It may seem strange that Germany responded to Russian mobilization by attacking France, but this was strategically understandable, as Russia and France were allied against Germany. Technically, as far as anyone knew, the Russo-French alliance was defensive only, so France was not obligated to join in Russia’s war against Germany. But: (1) Germany had no way to know whether there was a secret agreement, and (2) in any event, it would have been very risky for France to allow Russia to face the Germans and Austrians alone, as a Russian defeat would leave France vulnerable.
So, in August 1914, the Germans launched a massive assault on France, hoping to drive France out of the war. The Germans succeeded with this strategy in 1870 and 1940, but not in 1914.
Britain’s entry into the war is also questionable. If I remember correctly, Niall Ferguson wrote a book (The Pity of War) placing blame for WWI on the British, for intervening unnecessarily. I don’t place the bulk of the blame on Britain, but I do agree that British involvement further expanded the conflict, and probably made it more difficult to settle. It also led to dubious British actions like the starvation blockade of Germany, an action generally considered to be something akin to a war crime at the time.
The US entry into the war was odd, though the Germans didn’t help themselves with the absurd Zimmerman Telegram. (The Zimmerman Telegram, for those not familiar with this particular historical tidbit, was a telegram from Germany to Mexico seeking an alliance against the US, and offering Mexico recovery of US territory in the southwest taken by the US in the 1840s.)
Wilson campaigned in 1916 on his success in keeping us out of the war, then plunged us into the war in 1917, and compounded the problem with his unrealistic ideas about the shape of a post-WWI Europe.
The Russians, of course, collapsed into an eventual Communist revolution, and lost huge territories in the east to Germany. Germany, though, was defeated in the west, in large part due to the pressure of the British starvation blockade, and also due to the US entry into the war. I think that there is some justice in the German claim that they were misled into a cease-fire based on some fairly mild terms (or rhetoric) offered by Wilson, while the actual Treaty of Versailles was more punitive than the Germans had some right to expect.
The worst part, though, was the collapse of the imperial system in eastern Europe, which had been pretty stable for about a century (aside from the catastrophe of WWI, of course). The victorious Western Allies declared the principle of the “self-determination of peoples,” and carved a variety of small, largely defenseless nations out of the former territories of the Austrian, Russian, and German empires. (Less from the Germans than the others, though it did include that Danzig corridor that so annoyed them later.)
Worse still, once the principle of “self-determination” was established, the Germans would naturally expect this to apply to them, as well. Austria sought to unite with Germany, an action that the Western Allies would not allow, and there were significant German minorities in Czechoslovakia and Poland. This set the stage for Hitler’s actions in the years preceding WWII.
Hitler is often portrayed as a madman. I don’t see any madness in his plan. It was ruthless. He accurately perceived a problem faced by the German nation: inadequate natural resources, especially farmland and oil. He targeted Ukraine and the Caucasus as the regions that could satisfy these requirements. Conveniently, these areas were ruled by the horrid Soviets, so Hitler might have expected relatively little objection from the West.
Not so, as it turned out, though the British and French were slow to react to Hitler’s initial moves. I think that the legitimate German grievances relating to the post-WWI borders of the newly-created Poland and Czechoslovakia explains much of this British and French reticence to act, through the Munich Conference in 1938.
The fate of Czechoslovakia is more complex than it is typically portrayed (though to his credit, Churchill does point out the connivance of Poland). After the agreed German annexation of the Sudetenland, both Poland and Hungary took chunks out of Czechoslovakia, and then Slovakia declared independence. Hitler then moved into the power vacuum in the rump Czech state, and ended up forming alliances with Slovakia and Hungary.
I have come to view the British guarantee to Poland, shortly in advance of the German invasion in 1939, as a bizarre action. Hitchens makes this point, at length, in The Phoney Victory. The British and French had no practical way to defend Poland, and it’s hard to see why they thought that it was very important. Poland had been partitioned between the Germans, Russians, and Austrians for about a century before WWI. Poland was in the path of Hitler’s planned invasion of the Soviet Union, which was hardly a secret after the publication of Mein Kampf.
So why was Britain — and especially Churchill — so keen to defend Poland? It drew them into a disastrous war, which resulted in British bankruptcy and the loss of the Empire. What was the point? To defend Stalin? Stalin, by the way, ended up as the major victor of WWII.
Many of Hitler’s outrages seem to have flowed from this British decision. The French joined the British, but my impression is that the British were leading the way. I don’t see any reason for Hitler to have invaded Denmark, or Norway, or the Low Countries, or France, absent the foolish guarantee to Poland and the Anglo-French declarations of war on Germany. (It appears that Hitler invaded Denmark and Norway to forestall British efforts to cut off Swedish iron shipments via Norway’s coastal waters, which led the British to commit an act of war by mining the territorial waters of then-neutral Norway.)
Hitchens reports something that I don’t recall reading or hearing before, about the American attitude toward Britain at the start of WWII. Apparently, we were quite annoyed at the British for having defaulted on their WWI debt. We agreed to supply Britain and France in their war with Hitler’s Germany, but demanded cash payment — and gold — right up until a de facto bankruptcy hearing for the British Empire before our Secretary of the Treasury. Confident that the British had paid us all that they could, we then adopted Lend-Lease and started supplying arms and war material to Germany’s enemies.
For free.
Gee, I wonder why Hitler ended up being annoyed at us?
Then there’s Japan’s war in China. Japan was bogged down in a land war in China for years, and we were making good money on the consequent trade, especially in oil. But for some reason, FDR decided that we couldn’t stand for Japan to rule part of China. You know, much the way that we were then ruling the Philippines. So FDR embargoed oil sales (and other exports) to Japan, an action that would cripple the Japanese war effort.
I don’t recall reading or hearing an analysis of the response that FDR’s administration expected from the Japanese. It should have been pretty obvious that the Japanese would need an alternative source of oil, conveniently available to them in the Dutch East Indies and British Malaya, which were virtually defenseless at the time. (The Dutch had been conquered by the Germans, and the British had their hands full fighting the Germans and the Italians.) A Japanese attack toward the East Indies, though, would open the Japanese flank to American forces in the Philippines, a risky move for the Japanese. So it seems, to me, that it should have been no surprise for the Japanese to conclude that the least-bad of their options was an attack on the US. This was provoked by FDR, in violation of the principle of free trade declared by FDR himself in the Atlantic Charter, just a few months earlier in August 1941.
Further, what was the uniting factor behind our eventual Axis opponents, Germany, Italy, and Japan? They were part of the Anti-Comintern Pact, an alliance specifically aimed at the tyrannical and potentially expansionist Soviet Union. Why would Britain — or the US — want to take the Soviet side in such a conflict?
I’ve rambled for quite a while here. This is all pretty complicated, I think, and I’ve barely scratched the surface of the events leading to the two catastrophic wars of the 20th Century.
The story that we’re taught, though, is very simple. Hitler was a madman and a monster, launching wars of “aggression.” So was Mussolini, in a smaller and more contemptible way. Why, Mussolini had the temerity to conquer Ethiopia, outraging the British and the French. That’s right, the British and the French, who between them ruled just about all of the rest of Africa at the time. Let’s not forget Japan, portrayed as a Yellow Menace that was somehow going to be invading California soon, and which supposedly attacked us for absolutely no reason.
It is interesting to see people objecting to Putin’s potentially cutting off supplies of oil and gas to Europe, a tactic apparently considered perfectly fine when we did it to Japan in 1941.
They were evil, we were good. The brave British, especially, were good, led by the indomitable Savior Churchill. You know, the Churchill who imposed the starvation blockade on the Germans in WWI. The Churchill whose failed Dardanelles campaign aimed at the massive naval bombardment of the Turkish civilian population of Istanbul. The Churchill who illegally mined those Norwegian territorial waters, then expressed outrage at the German invasion that this triggered. The Churchill who presided over the deliberate terror-bombing of women and children in German cities.
I’m not claiming that the Axis were a bunch of great guys. They did terrible things. So did our side, which included Stalin’s Evil Empire. War is hell.
There’s no changing the past. We might be able to learn a lesson, and the lesson that I’ve come to learn is the wisdom of our Founders, who cautioned against involvement in foreign wars. They are costly in blood and treasure. We often have little understanding of the cultures and nations involved, but are inclined to want to force our ways on them. Perhaps worst of all, if we take sides and help one side win — the Soviets in WWII, for example — we might find out that they are just about as bad as the side that we opposed.
Moreover, the policy of “unconditional surrender” adopted in WWII eliminated three major checks on Soviet expansionism, placing the burden of the Cold War on us. In hindsight, this seems like a bad decision.
It is impossible to be certain of the outcome of various alternative choices. If Britain had not guaranteed Poland, what would have happened? If we had not supplied Britain and the Soviets, or had not embargoed Japan, what would have happened?
My impression is that the general answer is something like: Germany and Japan would have conquered the world, and would have come after us. Something like the premise of the Amazon series The Man in the High Tower.
I’ve come to doubt that this is true, and even to view it as a bit paranoid. There are precious few examples of successful conquest of this type. Most of the time, a conqueror becomes bogged down pacifying the territory it has occupied, and the occupation ends up being a drain on resources, not an addition. This was true of the Soviet occupation of eastern Europe and Afghanistan. It was true of our own occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. It was true of Napoleon’s various conquests.
I’d be curious to hear from those of you who disagree with this. I used to disagree with my present view, quite strongly. Maybe some of you could address two issues:
- Part of the motivation for America’s 20th Century policy seems to be the promotion of “liberal democracy.” Do you even like this? The location of the most obvious success of this policy is Western Europe. Do you like the EU? Do you like its policies? Do you like its culture, its focus on the Rainbow agenda, its undermining of traditional faith and culture, its crusade against Climate Change, its bureaucratic Leftism?
- Part of the motivation for America’s 20th-century policy seems to be a sense of pride for being defenders of, well, something. The people that we like, it seems. The French, and the Jews, and the Ukrainians (at the moment). The Taiwanese. Some of the Afghans and Iraqis, perhaps.
My new view of things still troubles me a bit, as it makes me far less inclined to think favorably of our country. My old religion, “We Won The War,” was comforting in some ways. It made me feel good about myself, and about America. I just don’t buy it anymore.
Published in General
low bar?
“British Empire – better than the Holocaust” is not so persuasive.
The thing is the British could do good during WWII and still do evil in their empire, before, during and after. They were both the good guys and the bad guys – even at the same time.
I don’t disagree with you on this. Countries can do both good and bad at the same time. History is messy.
I think on balance the world is better for Britain and America existing and being superpowers than it would have been otherwise.
WWII is what I am talking about.
You could start with Alfred Thayer Mahan, Historian and American Naval officer who wrote The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660–1783 in 1890, and became well-known in Europe. His dictum, whatever power rules the sea also ruled the world,” was important to Germany’s naval expansion.
On the other hand, Halford Mackinder, a British Geographer, countered with his Heartland theory, “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World Island; Who rules the World Island commands the World.” This convinced those writing the Treaty of Versailles that Eastern Europe was the route to the Heartland and required a number of buffer states between Germany and Russia.
I listened to it a few months ago. I probably should get a text copy for reference.
Yes.
I think your analysis demonstrates that if one omits certain pieces of historical evidence, one can reach radically incorrect conclusions, as I think Jerry has done here.
It’s a bit like when Barack Obama blamed the United States for overthrowing Iran’s democracy in 1953 in a CIA backed toppling of Mossadegh, the democratically elected leader of Iran, because the United States and Great Britain didn’t like Mossadegh’s nationalization of Iran’s oil resources.
Like Jerry’s analysis in the original post, there are a few kernels of truth in the story of how Iran’s democracy got transformed into a cruel dictatorship by the imperialist United States (and United Kingdom).
But having read “The Last Shah: American, Iran and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty,” by Ray Takeyh, I now understand how a few kernels of truth were woven into a false narrative.
[Iran was a monarchy, not a democracy. Mossadegh wasn’t elected by the people of Iran because Iran wasn’t a democracy. The Shah of Iran announced the removal of Mossadegh as Prime Minister of Iran, which was a power that the Shah of Iran had under the monarchy. Mossedegh’s popularity among Iranians was probably low at the time of his removal due to the collapse of the Iranian economy as a result of the United Kingdom’s hardball economic tactics against Iran, due to Mossedegh’s refusal to renew an oil deal with the UK.]
Similarly, many on the Left have defended the Castro regime in Cuba saying that if only the US hadn’t been so right wing and imperialisitc, Castro, a “Jeffersonian Democrat,” would not have been driven into the Soviet camp.
Of course, there is no way to test out these counterfactuals. But Hitler’s Nazi Germany did invade a lot of countries, didn’t it?
Jerry doesn’t say, “The Devil Made Him Do It.” But seems to imply that the United States, Great Britain and France made him do it.
By what mechanism did he achieve his post, in that case?
How much willing suspense of disbelief can you reasonably demand of people from other countries? I can see why you might invest in it, but why should they?
The monarch, the Shah of Iran, would determine who the Prime Minister would be, based on consultation with the members of the Iranian parliament, who weren’t elected by popular vote. The Iranian parliament consisted of “important members of the Iranian community,” such as business leaders, religious leaders.
Take a look at North Korea and South Korea. The country has a representative government, South Korea, is the country that was supported by the United States, whereas North Korea, the country supported by the Soviet Union, is a dictatorship.
In Vietnam, the United States lost and the communists conquered South Vietnam and as a results all of Vietnam remains a dictatorship.
Similarly, the bay of pigs invasion of Cuba failed and as a result Cuba remains a dictatorship while most of the rest of Latin America has representative governments.
During the Cold War, West Germany, supported by the United States, had a representative government while East Germany, controlled by the Soviet Union, had a dicatatorship.
Just look at the facts and you will see it.
One of the main problems I have with this interpretation of history is that it reads like hard-core left wing academic.
Hitler’s actions weren’t caused by Britain or the US. While the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles likely created conditions in Germany that Hitler exploited, it didn’t cause his rise. Nor did France or Britain cause Germany to invade France during WWI. Germany chose to do that for strategic reasons, but no one made them go through Belgium to do it.
WWI was a stupid, complicated war. But the Allies were not the aggressors. WWII was absolutely a fight between good and evil. For all our faults, there can be no doubt as to the evil of the Nazis or Imperial Japan.
The only thing we should regret is that we liberated half of Europe only to allow the Soviets to enslave the other half. That was a mistake in peacetime, but we absolutely won those wars and they were wars worth fighting.
Not to mention the German sinking of the passenger vessel Lusitania.
https://iranicaonline.org/articles/elections
How many representative governments has the US overthrown?
Think the Dirty War in South America.
??
How many non-representative governments has the US supported?
Start with Saudi, the UAE…
In how many countries has the US toppled an inconvenient regime with no concern about what follows for the inhabitants?
Think Libya.
Where to even place Indonesia in 1965?
It seems to me that the driver is a will to power rather than concern for democracy, but ??
Most of the nations of Central and South America have representative governments.
Cuba is an outlier among those and that is the result of the US Bay of Pigs invasion failing.
I found both the OP and the comments fascinating. The origins of WWI and WWII are extremely complex. It is so difficult in hindsight to see the world situations through the eyes of the countries’ leaders. Maybe not so much difficult as impossible.
As humans, we have to boil down the results in heuristics. There are too many facts, known and unknown, to do otherwise. No country’s actions were models of perfection. No country’s leader was blessed with omnipotence.
My heuristics on WWII:
–Germany murdered millions of its own innocent citizens. Bad. Very bad.
–Japan attacked the United States. Bad. Provoked? Maybe. Japan’s only option was military? I don’t think so.
–The Soviet Union-German alliance was doomed to failure. The national socialist Hitler hated the international socialist Soviet Union because the international socialist had (and still have) a long term plan for a one world socialist government. A pox on both their houses.
The decisions of the US leaders should be viewed from their perspective at the time, not only of the facts on the ground, but also how the people (voters) felt about the facts as they received them through the media. An almost impossible task, because we don’t have a full picture of when was known to them. Being politicians, of course, I tend to assume a certain level of incompetence. (The “competence” that possessed by politicians is primarily the ability to get elected, not the ability to govern.) I have an open mind on those decisions, given my low opinion politicians generally.
The Iranian parliament was not abolished or even modified when Mossadegh was removed from the position of Prime Minister in August 1953.
The reality is that the Monarch had the power to remove Prime Ministers. Once the Shah removed Mossadegh from the position of Prime Minister, Mossadegh’s rule was illegal.
Many powerful Iranian elites wanted Mossadegh out of power because they believed his hardline attitude towards the UK regarding oil was ruining the country.
The only way to get rid of a Prime Minister was for the Shah to remove him. At first the Shah was reluctant. But he was later persuaded to remove Mossadegh.
So, the story that many on the academic Left have sold is historically inaccurate, or at least leaves out important details.
IIR my history correctly, most of the nations of Western Europe were already “liberal democracies” at the beginning on the 20th Century. To be sure, there were varying degrees of this; one could argue that the Kaiser had much more influence on this government than Edward did on his. The U.S. had little to do with that. Those governments were mostly restored after WWII.
As for the EU, that too grew out of Europe itself (i.e., the Common Market, etc.) and was not a project or policy of the U.S. We didn’t necessarily oppose it, and might have had some good things to say about it, but the EU itself was a creation of the Europeans.
You ask if we like the EU’s “Rainbow agenda.” Hell, I don’t like our Rainbow Agenda, nor the way tradition, faith, and culture have been eroded here, nor the climate change socialists in this country. We have our own issues to work through.
But again, the countries of Western Europe were liberal democracies (mostly) before the wars.
I guess my question to you is: do you think liberal democracies/republics are a bad thing?
Because of or inspire of?
Considef Chile.
Elected leader Salvador Allende assassinated with CI A involvement.
Years of Pinochet tyranny, backed by the US.
Then democracy again.
Why is the US responsible for democracy today but not for the Allende assassination or for the Pinochet years?
That claim doesn’t make sense.
Regarding the erosion of tradition, faith and culture and also the Rainbow agenda, I think it is reasonable to ask whether there are methods of restoring tradition, faith and culture without putting people into concentration camps and having an entire continent embroiled in a terrible war.
This is what happened in Chile.
In August 1973 the Chamber of Deputies voted 81 to 45 that Allende had violated the constitution by usurping it legislative powers, ignoring the country’s laws, and infringing on the freedom of speech. The Supreme Court condemned Allende for subordinating the judiciary to his political needs.
The Chamber of Deputies requested that the armed forces of Chile restore the laws of the land. The Chilean military obeyed this order and within 18 days General Pinochet removed Allende from office.
This all the way!! Stalin played Hitler…Churchill and Roosevelt….everybody looks to Hitler but in reality the real puppet master was Stalin.
I support free helicopter rides for Commies.
I wish I had more time to comment as this is a fascinating discussion and what makes Ricochet so awesome!!
I highly recommend reading Sean McMeekin book on Stalin and WWII as well as his history of the Russian Revolution…both excellent!!
Of course one needs to read Steven Kotkin’s mega opus on Stalin as well which argues that Stalin was a 100% Communist so wanted and worked for a world wide revolution….what better way to bring that on than war. How did his party get into power…war.
Ok, @arizonapatriot, your turn.
I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
I dislike fanatics of any stripe, so a political religion that’s founded on the premise that nothing America (or Britain) has ever done has been wrong is just as offensive to me as one that’s founded on the premise that everything America (or Britain) has ever done has been wrong. And so I often find myself navigating the treacherous waters of history trying to understand the actual truth, and sometimes coming to new conclusions as I uncover additional facts or come to understand more. But I don’t think I’ve ever had a Damascene conversion moment where I suddenly thought to myself, “The scales have fallen from my eyes, and everything I’ve ever thought about X, or Y, or Z, I now see was untrue!”
And if I ever get to the point where I find myself contemplating the idea that Hitler might have been justified in his actions, I’ll think I’ll revert to my national character and follow the advice of Elder Sophrony of Essex:
There are some historical monstrosities that cannot be explained or rationalized away.
It’s absolutely possible to think Hitler was justified in some actions and not in others. That’s kind of what you are saying in your first paragraph – no one is wholly bad or wholly good, whatever that means.
I can take a poorer view of Hitler while having sympathy for the madness of Germany at the time. Those people were suffering in unreasonable and unjustifiable ways. And I agree with Jerry that I think them bearing the brunt of the WWI fault was intensely excessive.
Such circumstances do not promote moderated responses.
I think there’s more history being buried to make Germany even a bigger part of villainy than is necessary. A lot of which I find anyone on the right unwilling to explore its veracity.
I have no issues understanding why post-Henry Tudor England was a bloody wreck without casting such a wide net that I catch every follower of the religions involved. Yet, we cannot discuss the climate of communism in Soviet Russia and Germany without acting like Hitler and assuming the aspersions are being cast on an entire group.
Yeah–but learning to trade with other countries seems a better route than invasion and killing a bunch of Jews. Maybe the average German doesn’t bear much blame, but I’m willing to be pretty hard on Hitler and his cronies. But that’s just me.