Really ? That's a head scratcher from you. :(

With respect ..I belive you a very wrong,

The fact that you can be on this site voice your own view , and not "disappear" is largely due to the willingneess for others to fight for that freedom.

If you dont think a resourse rich countyr or region would be of inteest to an aggressive world power then I suggest you educate yourself.

Poeple dont usually do things that involve them killing others living in mud, and disentry , and risking their lives just for the fun..

As too the syrian conflict and afganisatn and Iraq, If they grew potatoes and did not have POWER in the form of oil..no way that there would be war..

People say Hitler could have never crossed the Atlantic; it's much too large to cross with a convoy. The same people forget that the Americans crossed the Atlantic (using a friendly Britain in order to mount the D-Day invasion).

If Hitler had succeeded in conquering Britain, then there's absolutely no reason Hitler couldn't have used Britain's colony Canada (or even a friendly Mexico seeking to reclaim the southwest United States) as staging grounds for a reverse D-Day operation.

The idea that Hitler could never have crossed the Atlantic is also thwarted by the Japanese and, then, the Americans mounting successful strategic campaigns that spanned the Pacific Ocean.

@Smokey Gem, I'm not sure I understand your mechanism. Let's say all of the soldiers for my country never fought. We pulled a Costa Rica. (I live in Canada). Would any of our enemies have landed on our soil and enslaved us? I highly doubt it.

Beyond that, I can't think of a time in the post-War era that there has ever been a military conflict in which the existence of my country has been threatened. The recent incursions into Afghanistan and Syria/Iraq don't seem to be about preserving my freedoms. In fact, just the opposite! The threat of the Islamic State has worked up my politicians into a frothy rage, and they're about ready to curb my civil liberties.

I understsnd that you feel disconnected from the events.l but acknowledging that others do not share your disconnection is a pathway to enlightenment. You do not have to agree but try very hard to understand them..

PS Im not military or nationalistic , Im a pasifist who opposes he death penalty.

@Amwidle, I might buy that Hitler could have crossed the Atlantic. My question is why *would* he? What's there to take?

If the soldiers form your country never fought you would be western state of the British empire ..

:-)

He wanted to take everything reguardless of what where or how. We did Napoleon want to conquer. Power. Power power.

Pangloss,, industry...money ....oil....steel...remember he wasnt entirely rational..

The AXIS powers were lookng at dividing the world..

Correction: Canada gained its independence from Britain in 1867. Even so, assuming Britain were defeated by the Nazis in WWII, and America stayed neutral in the conflict and kept its army tiny, the size of Bulgaria's (as it was before WWII), then it's entirely possible, even probable, that Canada would have fallen into Hitler's orbit.

@ssorenn, to my understanding, Napoleon was primarily interested in holding continental Europe. He even sold Louisiana! Power, power, power, yes--but I think both Hitler and Napoleon put priority on countries aside from Canada and the US.

@Smokey Gem, Industry, money, oil, and steel all seem like rational goals for a leader. Would you add maple syrup to the list?

While I may disagree with some of the ways in which pangloss has voiced their concerns, there are some issues with the arguments Smokey Gem has presented.

They are asking us to consider if personal, selfish freedoms are at stake, or would be put at risk, if we chose not to involve ourselves with foreign conflicts.

Considering then your defence, that resource rich areas be prepared to defend themselves from armed invasion, would take into the argument that other armed powers seek to impose their convenience and circumvent our freedoms. That's just self defence. The connection there to freedoms would be clear. Pangloss asks us to assume: In a world in which it would be unlikely for Hitler, then facing a multi-front war, to not only defeat the Russians, and allies, to then embark across the Atlantic to assault the Americas.

Assuming of course that we are discussing this from the point of view of the Americas, were any of our personal freedoms at risk when Hitler rolled out his war machine in Europe? Probably not. Things would look differently now, certainly, as is any revisionist's wet dream. But your personal freedoms in the Americas are unlikely to be affected by a conflict not in the area in which your personal freedoms exercise themselves.

If you're arguing that we should have a collective responsibility as humanity to protect each other's freedoms, that is a different argument altogether that requires more thorough examination.

Because then many western-led conflicts where claims of defense of freedoms were heralded should be reexamined as invasions and transgressions on others' freedoms.

Why would Hitler cross the Atlantic? Better question: why not? At this point in WWII, he would have already conquered Poland, France, Britain, most of the rest of Europe, and probably be winning in the east against the USSR. Crossing the Atlantic to establish control over North America would have been entirely consistent with his pattern of annexing minor nations. And with an army about the size of Bulgaria's, that's just what a neutral U.S. would have been.

@Amwidkle, Why wouldn't he? Well, it's a resource-intensive task that puts a large number of his soldiers at risk for dubious gain. It's hard work to oversee an empire, you know.

But let's say you're correct and Hitler would have attempted to annex us. Would this necessarily have resulted in the collapse of my freedoms?

@Amwidkle, another follow-up question: if part of your counterfactual involves soldiers from other countries not doing their jobs properly, to what extent can we credit my country's soldiers with successfully protecting my freedoms?

@seboomafou. It depends if your discussing the philosophical POV on What is freedom and how can it be applied to a multi belief world. Or in a practicle sence where you have no capacity or right to express your own views and lifestyle without fear of retribution from the state.

On a postive note I would love to see the americams (US) play cricket..

Im from a land down under. BTW

@pangloss, you're right that invading North America would have been risky. But Hitler was a consummate gambler. Remember, this is the guy who attacked the freaking USSR, against the advice of most of his generals.

During the 1940's, North America was home to the largest population of Jews outside Europe. So carrying out his "final solution" in North America would have provided an additional motivation.

Apart from that, North America is vast and resource-rich. Assuming in this counter factual that Britain was defeated (due to lack of American support) and that America didn't beef up its military production, I think Hitler would have viewed us as low-hanging fruit. And if not Hitler, then Japan.

@Smokey Gem, let's take my freedoms as those which are granted under the Constitution. That's usually what people invoke anyway. I think someone earlier said my ability to post in this forum is a result of white people shooting other white people on the other side of the world.

@Smokey Gem. What state am I afraid of? In this case I think we have gone away from pangloss's original question: Do soldiers from my country dying in foreign conflicts secure my personal freedoms.

If I'm concerned about an oppressive state my freedoms have other issues to face.

@Pangloss . Re ; Your countrys existances have never been threatend.. The Cuban missle crisis springs to mind. POWERS fighting each other through proxies that nearly went very wrong. Also the current ISIS war. The reaction by 'western world " to Syrian refugees may create the exact responce they wish, tey seek to divide people on religous and cultural lines . Im not saying they are a valid representation of a relgion but here ablity to divde untied countries has a capacity to be of grave concern. If you had a slight fear even breifly of flying post 9/11. Or of traveling to an area you wanted to visit anywhere in the world due to others terrorist activities then for freedoms have been compromised .

@Amwidkle, sure North America is resource rich. But so resource rich that Hitler would launch a ground invasion? Were there not enough fertile lands in Europe? Also, to my recollection, Argentina was supplying everyone with grain and beef during the War, so would he really be so starved for resources?

Hitler as a gambler? Maybe, but there's still an amount of rationality in his decision making. And at least the USSR is geographically close to Germany. Canada and the US most certainly aren't.

And so what if there are a bunch of Jewish people in North America? Would he really have risked that many resources over it?

Some people waould say that is worth fighting for and dying ...Im not sure and that is a different question altoghter.

i simply respect the choice of others before me to choose that path..agrre or not ..I simply repsct it.

@Smokey Gem, to my knowledge, there were no Canadian soldiers who fought or died at any point during the Cuban missile crisis. I am willing to be corrected on this, however.

I fail to see how ISIS even remotely poses a threat to my freedom. The acronym stands for "Islamic State in Iraq and Syria" or "Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant". You will notice that "Canada" and "North America" are not present in their title.

More to the point, I think the bigger threat to my freedom is the reaction to the so-called ISIS threat. My government wants to give our spy agency "disruptive powers" and engage in more civilian monitoring and information sharing. That seems like a bigger and more immediate threat to my freedoms, and my soldiers are actively fighting for those interests.

@Amwidkle.

Hitler would have never invaded North America, because he would have never successfully completed an invasion of the USSR. The main Russian military tactic has always been throwing cannon fodder at the enemy until they drown and outrun their supply lines. Also, winter. To this day the only enemy ever capable of beating both the Russians and their winter has been the Mongols. And that was against a largely unorganized and disheveled collection of Rus principalities.

So, Hitler not only has to beat the Russians and the winter (which he didn't and they lost Barbarossa because they overextended themselves and were undersupplied), but he also has to hold it and all His other territorial gains that he has assumedly made in Europe. And we know as well from history that resistance forces are incredibly terrible to deal with. Conventional warfare simply has no adequate response to asymmetric conflict.

And on top of this Hitler needs to mobilise a trans-Atlantic fleet with enough forces to land and secure a giant continent (and hey- manifest destiny was a tough thing to accomplish in the over 100 years it took the Americans) that, as was proven, was able to mobilise millions of servicemen and women to fight a war overseas. Imagine the amount of people they would have to defend the homeland.

Hitler just simply would never have invaded the American continent.

There were not enough Germans, let alone German soldiers, to be able to fight in every theatre effectively.

@pangloss, who knows? But what's certain is that, if we take your view, then we would have been relying on Hitler to exercise self-restraint... Not a risk worth taking, in my book.

However, I completely agree with your earlier suggestion that we as Americans are indebted for our freedoms to the soldiers from other countries. Again using WWII as an example, the sacrifices of British, French, Canada, Australian, and, yes, Soviet soldiers all come to mind. Defeating the Axis powers was a group effort.

This insight is the reverse of the argument we often hear that "France owes us their freedoms." In fact, in many ways, we as Americans owe the French our freedoms, not only because of their contributions in WWII but also, importantly, their vital assistance in the American Revolution and various other points in our history.

@Amwidkle, my earlier suggestion about other soldiers was not quite in that line of reasoning. I was simply saying that since your counterfactual depends so heavily on European soldiers failing, how could my country's soldiers bear any responsibility for the outcome?