@seboomafou, hear me out though...

First, the manpower issue. You seem to be forgetting that many of the nations which Hitler conquered required little or no garrison to hold. This is because local leaders actively collaborated with the Nazis. It may be hard for us to believe, but Nazis were smart and selective about who they favored and co-opted versus which ones they mercilessly destroyed.

Also, you seem to be forgetting that Hitler successfully waged a two-front (if not three-front, counting North Africa) war for most of WWII. Assuming Britain could have been defeated in the home islands and North Africa, that would have taken care of two fronts. Then Hitler could have poured all his energies into defeating the USSR, and probably could have pulled it off. Only then would Hitler consider the next logical step of invading North America. Assuming America stayed neutral the whole time (or possibly busy with Japan), then why would Hitler rush the issue?

@pangloss, in that case, I'd say it was simply the flip-side of what I was saying before. Rather than a collective triumph of the allies, we would have collective failure. And the share of blame would be spread among the soldiers of all the multiple countries that failed to stop Hitler.

But the highest share of blame of all would go to the feckless political leaders of all those would-be allies who allowed such a disastrous defeat to occur, when different policies would have produced victory.

Just some points: Hitler would not have invaded The United States of America because in his view we were his misguided Aryan cousins who would someday "see the light" and join him. Had the US not have joined in against him and he held on a while( I don't think he could have won), he would've kept on asking us to join him. There is a tiny chance we would have done it. Not everyone in the US wanted to declare war. Pearl Harbor was the event that made the US throw down. But still, had Japan not bombed Pearl Harbor, there was a chance we would not have joined the allies and the war may have gone on a while. Also, knowledge of the death camps got us in. Please correct me if I'm wrong on these points.

As far as ISIS/ISIL, thanks pangloss for telling me what they stand for. There simply aren't enough simple facts shared on the news. And yes, if somehow Hitler had gained influence in the US, our freedoms would have disappeared. This is certain.

Smokey Gem, I agree with you on the fact that others did make sacrifices for us, including members of my own family.

@Amwidkle. Sure, I'll entertain this thought experiment.

To your manpower claims: Hitler had a hard time dealing with the resistance forces even with collaborators helping him. Pockets of well-organised resistance existed throughout his territorial gains and struck with terror and guerrilla tactics incredibly effective at causing chaos against larger forces. This is also the reason the Soviet Union lost to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and why America lost against the Communist Vietnamese forces under Ho Chi Minh in the 1960s. And why it took Coalition forces 10 years to leave Afghanistan/Iraq largely the same. With the obvious exception of course that now we are dealing with another enemy, ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.

The German war machine was good at quickly taking territory from conventional forces. Even after a state is defeated and its armies are stood down, the vast majority of its regular forces join resistance efforts, and he would have been plagued for decades with holding territorial gains and struggling against these righteous freedom fighters (a large part in Allied liberation efforts being successful, as you well know, were of course these brave pockets of clever resistance).

Hitler was successful, arguably, in Europe and Northern Africa, because this is where his most intelligent and brilliant strategists were stationed. You seem to be forgetting that he then went off the deep end and removed Field Marshall Rommel from his leadership of the Afrikakorps. And countless other errors and mismanagement throughout theatres is what caused many of his high command to begin to question him. Unfortunate for them, as their heads would begin to roll.

On the point of the Russian front. He poured a ridiculous amount of forces and resources, and was able to actually push the Russians as far east as Leningrad, where in that infamous seige he was able to do great damage to the Reds. Yet, this plays directly into that Russian strategy. You will recall that the way in which the Russian Imperial forces defeated Napoleon was by constantly retreating eastward- they could do so indefinitely and would have done so to the Germans- and burning everything so the Germans would be unable to resupply locally.

Hitler also assumed he would take them in a few short months, and thats when the vast majority of his forces died of exposure. Try surviving a Russian winter in uniforms meant for summer invasions. Oh, and no food because your supplies are effectively cut off from having extended your lines too far. So even assuming that Hitler could have dedicated more forces to the Russian offensive, given that Napoleon was unable to achieve victory with a force entirely dedicated (and hitherto, a force of unbelievable size) to the objective, I think we can say he would have faced the same results. And take into consideration as well that he was not tolerant of Generals that did not bring him immediate results. That constant shuffle in command results in miscommunication and chaos on the front lines. This then results in winter coats and reinforcements arriving to divisions that have been dead and frozen for weeks. While the Russians continue to do what they do best, which is not die in the winters and survive.

So the war in Russia is not a war of victory but a war of survival and attrition against an enemy that cannot be hit by shells.

Hitler simply would not have had the ability to supply an invasion force and a holding force at the same time. Even if he were able to cross the atlantic semi-successfully, they would have been left stranded in an unfriendly continent with no assurance of supply. He was already struggling to feed the armies in Europe!

"Also, knowledge of the death camps got us in."

You asked to be corrected. ;) The Holocaust didn't really get going until several years after the outbreak of war in Europe. Only the top allied brass had any inkling as to what was going on. Even so, this knowledge did not alter Western strategy one bit. In fact, in 1944 the Western allies tragically rejected Patton's daring blitzkrieg tactics and instead settled for a slow-push strategy through France, which allowed the Battle of the Bulge to occur and prolonged the war by several months, resulting in untold needless suffering to the Holocaust victims.

Hitlers war was not only a physical battle but also an ideaological war.

ISIS do wish a reduction of our freedoms .
"
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. "

wars are fought on more than one front.

Physical battle = ISIS lose
Idealogical battle they are wiining
Forcing others to do what they want through terrorism they are winning. be that reduction of freedoms by rracting politicians to suppress radicalisation outside of .

If ISIS did only want to rule the HUGE OIL of Syria and Iraq fields that will impact on freedoms directly. considering they hate the west ..

@sseboumafou, excellent points. I'm not as convinced by this argument though:

"Pockets of well-organized resistance"

Did exist; no denying that. It's tempting to imagine WWII playing out like later conflicts, but my sense of it is that the scale of anti-Nazi resistance was nowhere near what we saw later with the conflicts in Vietnam/Afganistan/Iraq, etc. Nazis simply weren't as unpopular in Europe as our later understanding would like to believe. "Pockets of organized resistance" are exceptions that prove the rule; collaboration rather than confrontation was the prevailing ethos. However, I'm willing to grant that this spirit of collaboration broke down the further the Nazis got into the USSR. Like the examples you cited, this war took on an ideological edge for both sides and was seen as a "clash of civilizations." Maybe if the Nazi army had defeated the Soviets in the field, then a prolonged occupation of the USSR would have been unsustainable, but as that didn't happen, we'll never know for sure.

By and large WWII was a clash of conventional armies, and the tides of war hinged on pitched battles.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

Don't think that simply because you're tree in your own backyard that freedom is secure. There's a dignity but also a self-preservation that comes with spreading and guaranteeing freedom and rights for all people.

——————

Yes, it is extremely important to a great many people to honour and remember the lives of soldiers, most often the young and the poor, who have lost their lives serving to protect others in the wars and fighting that human beings continue to engage themselves in, rather than live in peace. Being aware of this ongoing tragic waste of life and simply observing, honouring and remembering those people who died, indeed anyone who died, on all sides, is not in any way about celebrating war but hoping that one day we won't have to bury our sons, daughters, fathers, but ingrain their loss and sacrifice in our hearts and finally just live in peace so that no one has to lose a loved one, which is a desire that all humanity shares.

@wjessop.. Perfect ..well said ....polite quiet applause..

Hang on. Perspective time, maybe?

Remembrance Day originated in Europe as a celebration of the armistice that ended hostilities in WWI. It's not about Americans (those 1918 Johnny-come-latelys), it's not about WWII, it's not about ISIS. So for starters, the question of whether America was ever threatened is irrelevant to the historical significance of Remembrance Day.

Now, to the extent that Americans can appropriate Remembrance Day to say something about American soldiers who died to protect America...well, the most direct expression of that hasn't really occurred since 1900 or so, though one could probably make a better argument for the Pacific theater of WWII counting than the European theater, what with Pearl Harbor. (On the other hand, Germany did declare war on the US before we declared war on them.) On the still more tangential question of protecting American freedoms, we have to go back to the Civil War for a direct example.

But this is a fairly limited definition of protecting America. To take a mundane-seeming contemporary example, much of the practical benefit America enjoys from its modern-day military derives from the Navy's protection of international shipping lanes. It's difficult to overstate the importance of reliable trade routes to the global economy. Protecting American allies and American economic ties is not the same thing as protecting American soil, but it protects America nonetheless.

Or consider the counterfactual: if America had had no military, would its citizens' freedoms have been equally protected? This is not entirely rhetorical, but I do believe one answer is better-supported than the other.

Stepping back from the extremely specific point that was made the focus of discussion, one might say there are other possible justifications for military action besides protecting one's own interests and freedoms. Hitler might not have crossed the Atlantic; do we then let Hitler consume Europe, because our own soil is not threatened? Do we presently believe that, in the service of making sure the US military is only focused on defending American freedom, we should withdraw to our borders and let the rest of the world figure out who's going to fill the power vacuum?

For that matter, do we perhaps have other reasons to remember the troops? Like, say, tens of thousands of homeless vets who need and deserve assistance whether or not you would classify their prior activities as 'protecting American freedoms'?

This is not to offer uncritical support to the military. The US has done many useless things with its military, and many more things that were incredibly fucked up. But it's still in many ways a remarkable institution that deserves our respect and remembrance.

Touching on some other conversations...
-ISIS may have a regional name, but read their propaganda; their ambitions are rather greater.
-ISIS cannot directly remove your legal freedoms, but they could e.g. pose a practical threat to your freedom to assemble at a diner, or a football game, or an opera--never mind what the US might do to its own freedoms, what it has already done to its own freedoms, in the face of terror threats.
-Hitler dreamed of global hegemony, and had designs to attack North America, but neither he nor anyone else deemed invasion and conquest practical. Of course, it's more likely than not he would still have lost WWII if America had never actually entered the European theater, but merely continued its economic assistance to Germany's foes.

The key word there is "originated".

Remembrance is for all conflict, all lives lost. That's the official view of the UK government and the Ministry of Defence.

For sure. It's just another nail in the coffin of the idea that we should evaluate Remembrance Day based on anyone's evaluation of whether Hitler could have invaded America.

Should we not be asking what did those soldiers do the fighting for?

Rather than what could have happened (which most of the soldiers didn't know) what they thought, why they scarificed their lives, who motivated them.

Were they aware of the holocaust? Probably no, most soldiers were appalled by it when they heard; but it was only known at the end of the war when the camps were being liberated.

Did they fight because it was a way out of poverty? Doubtless most of them wouldn't have fought unless you paid them. So that is a pretty big factor.

What other reasons did they fight and die for?
Propoganda from the elites who wanted to spread their power and influence. I mean that is a given, no matter the war, it has been uncommon for centuries for the leaders to actually go out onto the battlefield. Napoleon did, Hitler and Churchill did not. Stalin and FDR did not. They sent men to die in their wars.

Often young men, more often than not poor men.

It is true that during the era of the napoleonic wars an upper class man could buy an officer position, and win riches in war, in the form of booty stolen from their victims; And this is how the Duke of Wellington won his wealth (in India before he fought the French) But it was also considered a problem for the army, that many upper class officers weren't in their position for merit, they had simply bought their positions...

So this stopped being a thing; not that i support it, as poor men still died to make rich men wealthier.

Marx and Chomsky both look at systems analysis, to gain an understanding of the power structures. And both give a view of the world which is rather unpopular in the propoganda or the powerful - because it undermines their power.

So I will forgive you for falling for their propoganda. That is one worldview, and i reject it, but there are many valid ways to look at the world. I think understanding how to fight ISIS requires understanding their worldview.

'If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles' - as Sun Tzu said. We need to look at ourselves and understand why and how we are fighting, and look at ISIS and understand what they are fighting for...

Sorry wrong thread. You can look at Remberance a number of ways. You can see it a s a Patriotic celebration of country and victory. Or you can see it as a propoganda piece for the wealth elite who won their freedom by having other men die for them. In both the US and USSR, in Nazi Germany and the United Kingdom.

France in world war 2 doesn't fall into this category, they mostly fought an unpaid war of liberation against the Germans, what we would call terrorism today, asymmetric warfare. And there is always more justification for fighting a defensive war on your own territory.

Though the anarchist point of view would reject the notion of territory. (moving away from the Marxist view, which reduces everything to class) They would say even these wars of territory are invalid. They are based on protecting the land owning class who oppress everyone else.

Now-a-days owning land usually* requires (lets say in the US) debt to banks, so the banks are managing to make money off of land they don't own. Our economics has developed a bit - our means of ownership have changed, but property is still used to exploit those without it. As you can see from the fallout of 2008.

I think we should see these as threats to our freedom, far more so than ISIS (though i agree we must oppose them). But nobody in the media can put this view forth, because they would never have gotten their jobs if they didn't agree with the status quo; meida corporations are some of the biggest capitalist endeavours, or part of larger empires, simply because controlling the flow of informaiton is vital (in a society where violence can't be used to shut people up - and i largely applaud the US and EU for being such societies... this is a freedom I am glad to have, spouting my views on Webdip is a social good in my view, and i am entirely biased in that opinion ;) )

*Those americans who own their own land and don't have bank debt are still using a model of wealth from the last century. I believe banks are moving to absorb all land anywhere, so they can maximize the profits.

People join the military for the adventure, for personal development, and for a career where you can look back and say you did your bit for your country. No one joins expecting to die, but no one joins without knowing it's a risk.

So in a very real sense the answer is yes. They died doing a job in which they knew death was possible, and part of their motivation for fighting was to make the world of their families and countrymen a better place.

Naturally, if you asked them if they were willing to sacrifice themselves for pangloss they'd invite you to fornicate in a nonspecific direction. But wouldn't we all?

"No one joins expecting to die, but no one joins without knowing it's a risk."

Well many join knowing there is no war on but the army will put them through college (at least in the US) and then a war starts and the risk they are taking becomes much greater...

But that aside. What are the motives of states for going to war? Are these men seen as expendable resources which can and will be renewed? Are there more important non-renewable resource which can be caputred?

Is national security a thing which includes economic superiority? (for example, does the NSA engage in industrial espionage against competitor states to give the US an ecomonic advantage - in the name of 'national security') And if this is true (for which you can pretty much refer to interviews with Edward Snowden if you want to get a bit of insight) Do states also declare war for economic reasons? Sacrificing a renewable resource to gain economic advantage (for those wealth individuals who didn't need the military to send them to college)

@ Ora

No, let's not put that aside. It is perhaps true that an Irish serviceman can expect a career of little actual risk (which is probably why so many choose to join the British army instead), but that can certainly not be said of Brits or Yanks. To claim that any could join up oblivious to the dangers is an insult to their intelligence. It is rare over the years that we find ourselves not fighting anyone.

I think historically, soldiers fighting for our freedoms is an accurate thing to say for many wars. The War for Independence, the Civil War, World War II, and some others. Other wars, not so much. World War I was never going to come to our shores (maybe off the coast, of course), and the recent handful of wars in no way are to protect American rights. Vietnam... politically motivated (although it could be argued that at the time, because of the Domino Theory, they believed it was to protect our rights). Gulf War was to protect Kuwait. Afghanistan is to root out terrorists. Iraq... oil? Not really sure.

I'd say it's not an accurate statement that our soldiers today are fighting to protect our rights.

Fighting for freedom doesn't have to be modified to "our freedom". Other people's freedom should be important to decent, moral societies.

Do we therefore impose our freedoms on other people?

@ Gobs: I'm not sure if I would use the term "impose", but there certainly has been cases where chasing freedom has led us in to dark places.

Do remember that there are always (at least) two sides. The Russians were also trying to expand their influence at the same time as some of the examples used above. At times the US & Allies had to step in to situations, not because we couldn't wait to go to war, but to protect other "free" nations. If we would have not lifted a finger, and watched one democratic nation after another fall to communism uninhibited, what would the remaining "free" nations think of us? They certainly wouldn't look to us if they found themselves in a pickle.

I am genuinely curious about the concept of imposing a freedom. How exactly does one impose a freedom on someone who does not want it?

So Octavious, I think we can all agree that soldiers enlist and fight and die for something. That's not really my question. I want to know if that something is my freedom. The test for this isn't whether they say they do this or not, since governments have an interest in shoring up support for whatever thing they're up to with the military. The question is, if there were no soldiers dying in their capacity as members of my country's military, would I or any of the millions of other people in my country be unfree? The answer to this question isn't so black and white.

wjessop, I think the idea that national militaries fight for some nebulous notion of global freedom is questionable at best. Maybe they say that in their recruitment videos, but I think that the history of military intervention, especially in the 20th century, demonstrates something quite the opposite.

And even if all the soldiers have the noblest of intentions, do they even achieve the goal of freedom?

pangloss: I don't really think there's a way of knowing, with absolute certainty, if you'd be any less free. What I can say, without doubt, if that you do currently live in a free society. Would you be willing to risk everything you have right now to find out if it made a difference? I think (opinion) you'd find that there's a much greater chance of a worse outcome than a better one.

There are two types of free nations on this planet. Those who have militaries who ensure their freedoms, and those who rely on the militaries of others.

But are those armed forces ensuring freedoms by fighting in these foreign conflicts- and if so at what cost- or are they merely imposing national interests on the freedoms of others.

@"No, let's not put that aside. It is perhaps true that an Irish serviceman can expect a career of little actual risk (which is probably why so many choose to join the British army instead), but that can certainly not be said of Brits or Yanks. To claim that any could join up oblivious to the dangers is an insult to their intelligence."

You know what? you can just piss off. I never unsulted anyones intelligence. You are uinsulting mine by suggesting that i did.

I said the risk changes when your country goes to war. This is entirely true. I know people who were in this position. Please stop being an ass and address what i'm actually saying instead of what you want me to be saying.

" It is rare over the years that we find ourselves not fighting anyone. "

Well apart from that being an absolute indictment of war ('we have to keep fighting, because it doesn't actually solve anything...' or more likely 'We have to keep fighting, or other countries will stop being so easy to bully') How true is it?

Assuming there is a four year average service commitment. Since 1945.
There was:
Korea '50-'53
Vietnam '64-'73 ('?55-'73? some sources disagree)
Persian Gulf I '90-'91
Kosovo '99 (~3 months)
Afghanistan '01-present
Iraq '03-'11 (aka Persian Gulf II)
Syria/Iraq '14-present (aka ISIL)

You sign up in the '90s The soviet Union has collapsed, nobody is expecting a war... You signup after 9/11, sure you're expecting to war to Afghanistan or somewhere.

Still, that is 26.8 years at war, out of 70 years (since 1945) Less than 40% of the time. (unless you count more limited action in vietnam from 1955)

The UK is lower still.

Ireland, well excuse me, never been to war except against the British, but no state existed to declare that war.

Irish army has been deployed to - according to one source i've found every year since 1958 : "This unbroken service since 1958 has come with a price. To date, eighty five Defence Forces personnel have lost their lives in the service of peace, forty seven of them serving with the UN in Lebanon." (and always under UN mandate, possibly except in recent years under EU/NATO command)
That is
Congo '60-'64
Cyrpus and Sinai '64-'81
Lebanon '78-'01
Iran and Iraq '88-'91
Somalia '93-?
Eritrea '01-?
East Timor '99-?
Liberia '03-'07
Chad '07-'10
Syria '13-present

Now you might claim that peacekeeping deployments are much safer than war. And you might be right. But 85 peacekeeper casualties vs the US's ~87053 in the same period? I'm willing to bet the US armed forces are about 1000 times larger than the Irish armed forces... So that is about equivalent. (1.4 million US armed forces, Ireland ~9,000 - so i'm off by a factor of ten, but more than half of those US casualties were during the Vietnam war at which point the number of US service persons peaked at about 3.5 million)

So, yeah, it is a little safer to be in the Irish military, but that doesn't mean it is safe.

"Fighting for freedom doesn't have to be modified to "our freedom". Other people's freedom should be important to decent, moral societies. " - i coudl agree with that, and you probably note from the above that i'm proud of the Irish militaries history of protecting other people's freedom, under the auspices of peace-keeping NOT war-mongering.

And before anyone bemonas this, if you can claim the US has never (since 1945, say) engaged in war-mongering with a straight face. I'll be rather unimpressed with you level of knowledge/understanding.

"At times the US & Allies had to step in to situations, not because we couldn't wait to go to war, but to protect other "free" nations."

You mean, to protect US interests and allies, right? because a) it's not always about 'free' nations - lest we forget US support for Saudi Arabia and b) Sometimes it doesn't even matter, because 'contagion' means one demonstration could be copied by others, so EVEN if you don't have an economic interest in stopping a country from opposing US interests, you have a political interest in preventing the demonstration from influencing others. Ref: South America and Vietnam.

" If we would have not lifted a finger, and watched one democratic nation after another fall to communism uninhibited, what would the remaining "free" nations think of us?"

Also, the US had communists and socialists and social justice warriors. They were active political parties in the '60s during and a part of the civil rights movement.

Martin Luther King Jnr., is remembered for civil rights, but when he was asassinated, what was he doing in Memphis?

"King traveled to Memphis, Tennessee, in support of striking African American city sanitation workers. The workers had staged a walkout on February 11, 1968, to protest unequal wages and working conditions imposed by then-mayor Henry Loeb"

Fighting for workers rights.

Political assassinations in the US, by government forces are not unknown. The FBI investigated this murder "The Federal Bureau of Investigation was assigned the lead to investigate King's death. J. Edgar Hoover, who had previously made efforts to undermine King's reputation, told Johnson that his agency would attempt to find the culprit(s)."

Now, why were the doing the job or undermining King's reputation in the first place? That isn't law enforcement work, is it?

All or this, I merely mention because you seem to think America is free.

Yet certain political parties are monitored and attacked by law enforcement. This is a funny kind of freedom. The kind you might expect in China under it's one party policy. I do recommend you look into it.

"So Octavious, I think we can all agree that soldiers enlist and fight and die for something. That's not really my question. I want to know if that something is my freedom. The test for this isn't whether they say they do this or not, since governments have an interest in shoring up support for whatever thing they're up to with the military."

I'm not sure i agree with your conclusion.

What soldiers say is their justification, it may be parroting what the government has told them, or it may not. But regardless, if the intention behind sending them to war is NOT infact your freedom - or your security* for that matter - then what they beleive they are fighting for, and what they are actually fighting for may be at odds.

I'm sure you can find some bitter vets who believed at the time in what they were fighting for, but have had their eyes opened since.

*And there is a rather strong arguement that most US military engagements have actually been harmful to your security, not the other way around.