re: History Buffs: What Would Have Been The Consequences If We Had Not Gotten Involved in WWII

Define "not getting involved"

Do we not enter the war, but keep supplying USSR and Britain?

Do we not enter the war, and never supply USSR and Britain?

Two very different outcomes.

The book does a better job of portraying the world. The show doesn’t showcase the new world as much as they could have.

But I don’t think the premise of either is realistic. There’s no way the Japanese would have the manpower to patrol the streets of every place they controlled much less half the US. The Nazis were portrayed as a little too competent as well.

England would have sued for peace. Russia would have been defeated with Germany having just the Eastern Front.

Glad I didn’t have to rely on American History in high school in the late ‘60s to know anything about both world wars. Teachers were indeed in a hurry to finish up the curriculum before the end of school.

Learned most about WWII from sanitized, US-centric “war movies” from the ‘50s on and from my dad who was a B-17 turret gunner, and my uncles. Also learned a whole lot more about both world wars in USMC boot camp history classes. Marine biased for sure but still eye-opening.

Became a wider WWI buff after viewing the movie “Gallipoli” about the Australian/New Zealand forces in Turkey.

All of the television documentaries and series since the ‘60s (and mostly the ‘70s) have been great learning tools about WWII. Oddly, WWI is just now coming into vogue thanks to Dunkirk, War Horse and 1917.

As for books about the two world wars, well, I’d say the people on here are light years ahead of the curve in that department. I’d be surprised if most Americans have read one full book or novel about the wars — unless they include a lot of pictures.

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I looked at a few older posts and I think we generally agree.

I think WWII has for a long time been in a lot more Popular media.

Even contemporaneously there were WWII movies when WWII was happening, and there have been ver sense.

My only Point is that people were into WWII before Brokaw’s book. Literally my only pint because otherwise I generally Agree
Most people learn about WWII outside the classroom.

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I mean obviously some people knew serious WWII history before 1998. Some people know serious WWI history, too, even though HBO has never produced a cool fiction miniseries about it. Point was about the average American adult today. What the average person knows about WWII is from Brokaw or from fictional spinoffs inspired by his work.

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By early 1942 the Japs were running wild over the British, Americans, et al in Southeast Asia. If they were dick slapping in Southeast Asia in 1942 they could have been enough of a challenge to make Stalin do things differently.

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Not really. If you look at the terrain in Southeast Asia and the Pacific islands, you’ll find for the most part it is unsuitable for large scale armored forces. Basically, for the most part it’s purely “infantry country”. Also, in Southeast Asia and the Pacific the Japanese could bring to bear their greatest assets, the Imperial Japanese Navy.

However, if you look at the area around the frontier between Mongolia & Manchuria it looks like this for the most part....



As you can see this is perfect “tank country”. This region lends itself to the mechanized style warfare the Soviets specialized in. Conversely this wide open area would put Japan at a massive disadvantage considering the makeup and doctrine held by the Japanese Army, which as I pointed out earlier was made up largely along the lines of a late WWI army where tanks were spread out among infantry formations and used as a support arm.

Reality is that Europe would have been under Russian domination. Hitler had extended himself too gar onto Russia. He would still have had his dick handed to him at Stalingrad and then Kurst. In North Africa you would have had stalemate for a while but the British would have ultimately prevailed...they had essentially decimated Rommel at El Alamein and the Italians were a non factor....the Greeks fricked them up pretty good.

In France, the Germans would have been bogged down in a war of attrition with the French resistance. We discount the power of the Russians, they were already rolling back the Nazis by D day and they were backing partisan operations in Eastern Europe.

Hitler had thought about trying to invade Great Britain but the high command had blocked. No one had successfully crossed from Europe to Britain in 900 years...the Channel protected them. Plus, if the US does not get involved, Britain would have started to marshall their colonial reserves, namely their vast Indian reserves which was discussed in 1939 despite a vigorous Indian independence movement....Jinha was amenable to the idea and Nehru would have come along...only Japan getting involved in Malaysia and Burma prevented a full scale mobilization to Europe as had happened in WWII .

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You are massively overestimating the impact of Brokaw’s book.

That book was written for the same reasons this country has always focused on WWII vs WWI. It was much easier to understand and therefore much easier to sell the story to consumers for a profit. You’ve said as much in this thread.

You’ve got it backwards. People don’t know more about WWII because of Brokaw’s book. Instead, Brokaw wrote the book because people knew more about WWII. It was simply an easier story to sell.

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This is a reasonable perspective. I just disagree with it, based on my own observation. Chicken/egg scenario.

Point really wasn't even about Brokaw’s book, but all the films and miniseries that came after and got everyone so geeked up about it. Which OP literally acknowledged.

OP: "I don't know that much about WWI."

Me: "Because HBO never dramatized WWI."

OP: "You're actually right. I only got into WWII because of Band of Brothers."

Everyone else: "Nuh uh! Remember high school?"

here's a What If for you...WW2 in Europe does not end at the Battle of Berlin. Stalin decides to teach the impudent Americans a lesson and crosses the Elbe after some incident.

There was a series of books written by Harry Turtledove, alternate history author about just such an encounter where the US ends up nuking the massed tank armies of the Soviets and winning that way.

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It really is

I recently listened to about 20-25 hours worth of Dan Carlin Hardcore History on WWI and had no idea how little I knew or understood, and I think this goes for the vast majority of people.

It was so damn tragic at every turn, truly horrifying

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It was an accidental war in a lot of ways.

But you have to realize the Europeans typically had major regional wars on a regular basis and they had been without one for almost 45 years (which at the time was the longest "quiet" period in centuries)