What we support and defend

[Fuchs]

Which, aside from Kursk was really what?

Turning points of European WW2:

El Alamein for Commonwealth guys.
D-Day for Americans.
Stalingrad for everyone else.


The war was lost by Germany by late '41, though.
Almost nobody is going to discuss the loss of motor vehicles and quality horses in fall '41 as the final failure that made defeat inevitable, that's too complicated. Most people prefer simple battles (symptoms) as turning point markers.




Fig leaf for on-topic-ness:

The U.S. military expanded, and I see a couple main reasons for why it's not going to shrink to anything similar as envisioned 200+ years anytime soon:
(1) A childish belief that you can go to a war of choice and be better off afterwards than you would be without

(2) An exaggerated intolerance for distant phenomenons (no matter what size; only a handful distant phenomenons have the attention, and it's about the same attention no matter Red Army or a bunch of guys with fertiliser bombs)

(3) Bureaucratic self-preservation instinct

(4) Congressional corruption of the system (exploitation of budgets as a means to funnel money to the own district/state and donors)

(5) True conservatism that prefers the status quo over the experiment of not getting involved in so much (coupled with wild fantasies about the indispensability of U.S. military power)

[wm]

Turning points of European WW2:

El Alamein for Commonwealth guys.
D-Day for Americans.
Stalingrad for everyone else.


The war was lost by Germany by late '41, though.
Almost nobody is going to discuss the loss of motor vehicles and quality horses in fall '41 as the final failure that made defeat inevitable, that's too complicated. Most people prefer simple battles (symptoms) as turning point markers.

WWII was lost for all intents and purposes when Public Law 77-11, the Lend-Lease Act, was signed on 11 Mar 1941. After that, it was just a matter of time before the limited access to the natural resources need to fuel German industrial capability was swamped by the, for all practical purposes, unlimited access available to the US industrial base, which, BTW, was impervious to attack by the Axis powers. A second milestone in the path to victory was the establishment of the Persian Corridor and the deposing of the Shah in 1942 to ensure the path stayed open. The Arctic route to Murmansk/Archangel was open to attack by Germany naval forces and land-based aircraft. Even though the route Vladivostok accounted for over 50% of lendlease shipments to Russia, it was realitively open to interdiction by Japan (had Germany and Japan chosen to cooperate in the war against Russia). The route through Iran was out of the reach of both Japan and Germany.

[Steve Blair]

Fig leaf for on-topic-ness:

The U.S. military expanded, and I see a couple main reasons for why it's not going to shrink to anything similar as envisioned 200+ years anytime soon:
(1) A childish belief that you can go to a war of choice and be better off afterwards than you would be without

(2) An exaggerated intolerance for distant phenomenons (no matter what size; only a handful distant phenomenons have the attention, and it's about the same attention no matter Red Army or a bunch of guys with fertiliser bombs)

(3) Bureaucratic self-preservation instinct

(4) Congressional corruption of the system (exploitation of budgets as a means to funnel money to the own district/state and donors)

(5) True conservatism that prefers the status quo over the experiment of not getting involved in so much (coupled with wild fantasies about the indispensability of U.S. military power)

3 and 4 are the ones that are on-target.

[Ken White]

3 and 4 are the ones that are on-target.

Sadly...

[Fuchs]

Ain't it funny how you like the only two options that absolve you of responsibility for the issue?

[Ken White]

Ain't it funny how you like the only two options that absolve you of responsibility for the issue?

Neither Steve nor I said the others weren't true; they are true to one extent or another -- but 3 and 4 drive those others. Thus what we wrote is correct, it just does not address the other factors. Mostly because they didn't merit a comment IMO...

Your response to our comments is interesting because your presumption of our dismissal of your wisdom and issuing a gratuitous pejorative comment speaks volumes -- not to mention that in any event, neither he nor I are remotely responsible for any of those things.

[Fuchs]

Neither Steve nor I said the others weren't true; they are true to one extent or another -- but 3 and 4 drive those others. Thus what we wrote is correct, it just does not address the other factors. Mostly because they didn't merit a comment IMO...

Your response to our comments is interesting because your presumption of our dismissal of your wisdom and issuing a gratuitous pejorative comment speaks volumes -- not to mention that in any event, neither he nor I are remotely responsible for any of those things.

Hmm, "responsibility" was probably not the best choice of a word. How about "sharing the same defect"?


I had a couple moments lately where seemingly somewhat reasonable Americans wrote so extremely telling things that I am basically re-evaluating the idea that entire nations may have gone stupid.

SWC provided one of those moments, here.
The most obvious things, treated as wise (wo)man's valuable insights - a decade after it should have been self-evident to have those thoughts without a bloody multi-year experiment or even two.


I've become (even) more sceptical about the wisdom of people who write about national security-related topics in English. Too many of 'em have worked hard and long to erode my presumption their group's of intelligence.

[Steve Blair]

Neither Steve nor I said the others weren't true; they are true to one extent or another -- but 3 and 4 drive those others. Thus what we wrote is correct, it just does not address the other factors. Mostly because they didn't merit a comment IMO...

Your response to our comments is interesting because your presumption of our dismissal of your wisdom and issuing a gratuitous pejorative comment speaks volumes -- not to mention that in any event, neither he nor I are remotely responsible for any of those things.

Correct. The other things existed before the large standing army, so have nothing directly to do with that standing army. 3 and 4 are the root causes for the large Army in American history (which is a recent creation...as in post 1945). You've stated before, Fuchs, that you're not an American history scholar, so that might explain why you don't see the impact of 3 and 4 on the normal size of ground forces in this country or how that relates to the traditional view of the military (in terms of size and status) within American society. As for the rest of your last post...