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2017-09-02 -Short Attention Span Theater-

Preemptive Strikes and Preventive Wars: A Historian's Perspective

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Posted by Besoeker 2017-09-02 03:03|| || Front Page|| [4 views ] Top

#1 And the French move to throw the Germans out of the Rhineland in 1936 prevented WW II. Oh. Wait.
Point is, you never know what a particular move prevented since, logically, whatever it was didn't have a chance to happen.
So you can't tell the difference between having prevented it and it was never going to happen. And, historically, they usually look pretty sordid. No matter what they prevent, which, as I say, didn't happen and nobody knows what it might have been.

Posted by Richard Aubrey 2017-09-02 08:26|| 2017-09-02 08:26|| Front Page Top

#2 On other hand, humans have a penchant and willingness to engage in human sacrifice (of others) rather than dirtying their own hands in prevention of greater harm. Think of it as chemotherapy for cancer. It's harmful to the body, but to do otherwise faces a certain terminal outcome.

Posted by Procopius2k 2017-09-02 09:47|| 2017-09-02 09:47|| Front Page Top

#3 If you have not, A War Like No Other is Hanson's book concerning the Peloponnesian War(s). Hanson takes a long, complicated subject and makes it readable. I read it after getting about two chapters into The Tides of War, Steven Pressfield, in order to understand Pressfield's work. Recommend both.

Posted by swksvolFF 2017-09-02 12:29|| 2017-09-02 12:29|| Front Page Top

#4 War is human sacrifice (of others).

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2017-09-02 12:40|| 2017-09-02 12:40|| Front Page Top

#5 See "HUBRIS" by Alistair Horne for military plans that overreached.

Posted by borgboy 2017-09-02 13:22|| 2017-09-02 13:22|| Front Page Top

#6 My dear old Dad taught me that one can never tell how deep a puddle was from the top. Then he'd say, "Sometimes you gotta cross the water anyway."

Posted by Skidmark 2017-09-02 14:46|| 2017-09-02 14:46|| Front Page Top

#7 The problem with preventative action is that sometimes you get what you thought you wanted.
It's difficult to tell what a good path is, especially with respect to the future.

Posted by ed in texas 2017-09-02 15:59|| 2017-09-02 15:59|| Front Page Top

#8 War is human sacrifice (of others).

Had the Western allies stood with the Czechs rather than abandoning them, the Germans would have faced a hard nut to crack in the mountains and a force up to their level. A lot of Czech tanks rolled through France in '40. Karma. How deep do you want to sacrifice?

Posted by Procopius2k 2017-09-02 16:33|| 2017-09-02 16:33|| Front Page Top

#9 wrt 1938: See "wishful thinking" Ditto the Oxford Union debate of 1933.

Posted by Richard Aubrey 2017-09-02 18:27|| 2017-09-02 18:27|| Front Page Top

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