Quote Originally Posted by AmericanPride View Post
I think that claim is too broad because the next obvious question is: did the "bad policy" determine the scope or intensity of the "inevitable conflict"? Why would WW2 be preordained and not a smaller, local conflict or a political conflict? And, relatedly, if the disarmanent and "occupation by policy" of Versailles made "conflict inevitable", why wasn't there a similar or more intense German reaction to the peace of WW2, which divided Germany in half, expelled millions of Germans from their homes, annexed historically German territory, disarmed the offensive capabilities of the country, and more or less ended Germany's independence as a great power? That peace was far more destructive to German power than the Versailles Treaty.

So, conflict in a broad, abstract sense is "inevitable" if there's no definitive time frame; but I think the real substance of the question is whether there's a relationship to the scope and intensity of conflict and the imposed policies.
Strategy by nature is broad. Strategy does not tell you who will lead the next war, what ideology they will employ, or what their ultimate battle plans or goals will be. But strategy can tell you when you are creating conditions that make future conflict inevitable. Human Nature is very predictable. Human Behavior is a wild card.

As to WWI and WWII the answer is simple and widely accepted. The German people perceived themselves to have been betrayed by their own government in WWI, and certainly not defeated by the Allies. In WWII the German people knew they were defeated. Also, because the West were so clearly the lesser of two evils, West Germans readily submitted to occupation by the West as it was so clearly the better alternative to submission to occupation by the Soviets.

We think people like us for who we are; more aptly they tolerate us for who we are not. We need to stop deluding ourselves to that reality.

We're like the little kid buying his mom some jewelry in a commercial running this holiday season. He dumps a handful of change on the counter, while behind him his dad shows the clerk his credit card. We think it is all about the coins we drop on the counter, and don't appreciate their are other forces at work that shape people's decisions.