Text 36352, 140 rader
Skriven 2006-08-09 07:07:26 av SHANNON TALLEY (1:275/311)
     Kommentar till en text av Ward Dossche
Ärende: Re: Frank - take a break (was CELEBRATION!)
===================================================
Hi Ward,

That is a very interesting perspective.

From a military paradigm, we did and for the most part, still view former 
USSR as a superpower.  They have most of what they had developed and 
engineered from the last 40+ years, and provided a devastating incentive, 
they could become the awakening giant from slumber.

I believe that it's possible radical Islam might make a mistake far into the 
future and nuke a Russian city, at which time this giant would become alive 
once again and dominate over such petulance.

Warmest regards,
Shannon


>>> It was a great deterant to the Russkies who would
>>> have taken all of urope had they not seen the power of the bomb. Of all
>>> the people in charge back then, Truman, the little man with the cigar,
>>> McArthur, secretary Stimsen, etc, - Eisenhower was the only one who
>>> didn't want us to use that weapon.
>
>> I wonder what this world would be like "today" if those bombs had never
>> been dropped. Would Russia still be a super power? Would we have become
>> the superpower the U.S. is today? Sounds like the making of a good 
>> movie...
>> <g>
>
> The shortsighted source from which Roy was cut-and-pasting seems to be
> uninformed that at the time of the dropping of the bombs the cold-war had
> already started, we just didn't call it "cold war" yet.
>
> There was already a full-scale US, French and British armed-machine in 
> Europe
> which, although not formally with borders and such, had already been 
> cut-up in
> spheres of influence by the conference of Yalta.
>
> Russia attempting to grab the rest of Europe would have resulted in a much
> fiercer war than WW2 had ever been and probably would have led to the
> destruction of animal-life as we now it today. Including the human 
> species.
> Stalin did not die a day too soon ...
>
> As for Japan and how would it have fared without atomic bombs ... There 
> was a
> shortage of everything except Japanese. The army had been beaten, the navy 
> had
> been beaten, the air force had been beaten.
>
> There was no reason whatsoever to invade the Japanese main islands. On its 
> own
> Japan could not survive, it had always relied on colonies or occupied
> territories to provide it with necessary resources obtained if not by 
> trade,
> then by violence.
>
> By shutting-off all trade with the Japanese main islands, the country 
> would be
> hungered into submission in 6 to 12 months maximum. No need to risk 
> millions of
> American and Japanese lives just to obtain a document of surrender.
>
> The military influence in the White House, and the sentiment of the time 
> then,
> did not cater for that strategy and most likely without the bomb the 
> generals
> would have had their "the bloodiest battle of all history" they would have
> liked. A battle of which I'm not certain it could be won.
>
> Japan has never been beaten on its own soil, 1945 was no exception.
>
> But why was it paramount for the US to achieve a quick victory? Because 
> its
> leadership already knew the enemy was not Japan but Russia. By not 
> invading
> Japan they left the option open for Russia to grab it, and we know the 
> Stalin
> had little scruples about a million more or less of his own countrymen.
>
> So forcing Japan into submission was more of a thing to confine Russia 
> than
> ultimately winning a war which had already been won.
>
> As for Russia, it has never been a super power because it neglected the 
> most
> important resource it ever had ... its people.
>
> A super power is more than just a big military capable to strike anywhere. 
> One
> must also be an economic power to support that military system, without 
> the
> former the latter will collapse.
>
> Because the Soviet economy eventually was unable to keep financing the 
> military
> machine, the latter collapsed as a demise of the former and communism was 
> a
> goner.
>
> Russians in later years have stated that life under Communism was better.
> Perhaps it was, but the model could not perpetuate itself because there 
> was no
> circle of trade, with an incentive to keep it going ... such as making a 
> profit
> and keeping it. You cannot keep on subventioning your losses, eventually 
> the
> system will collapse and ultimately it did.
>
> Under Communism life would have turned equally hard for the Russians 
> because
> the shortages would have been there anyway.
>
> The USSR never was a super-power. For a while it just had a big military.
> That's all.
>
> During WW2 the American war machine went into gear, the industry 
> transformed
> itself overnight to a war-industry, men volunteered for the army, women
> volunteered for work in industry, the population as a whole voluntary 
> accepted
> the heavy shortages there were because it is often forgotton American 
> citizens
> suffered equally at home with everything rationed or just plain 
> unavailable.
>
> The key-word is "voluntary", that is why it worked, not because there were
> party-commissars to keep the population threatened.
>
> Take care,
>
> \%/@rd
>
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> (2:292/854) 

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