Will the British trigger WWIII ?

[wendigo100]

That's the least of your worries shaun - they (powers that be in Russia) are certainly not grateful and crave for time when it was USSR. For this they sell nuclear and other tech to Iran, Siria, North Korea. And given all this Britain allows them to buy football clubs here.

Somehow I don't think our Russian football club owners are party to helping Iran!

[AtW]

Somehow I don't think our Russian football club owners are party to helping Iran!

They are - Russian officials in theory are not allowed to have foreign bank accounts, real estate etc, so these rich guys who get permission to take lots of money outside of Russia act as public fronts, but in reality a big chunk of their cash is actually reserved for their true masters who in theory can't have it.

Therefore - UK should start applying money-laundering act to any Russian who has got more than £1 mln of assets, starting with the owner of this well known football club and working downwards. This really should be operation of Europe + USA. Let those scumbags buy real estate in Iran if they like it so much.

[AlfredJPruffock]

Germany actually did concerntrate almost all resources there and they almost won - they really missed out by a month, and I think if Britain agreed peace with Germany in 1940 then Germany would have won war in USSR.

So in my view Russians should be grateful that the British were very stubborn and refused to make peace with Hitler after Dunkirk and later in the war when you could if you wanted. Naturally I think Britain is very lucky to have someone like Churchill here.

If you examine the Soviet millitary capablity and tactics prior to WW2 they were all offensive under the assumption they would be attacking (or liberating as the Soviets would have it) Western capitalist countries altough their dismal failure during the Finnish campaign gave hope to the Nazis that they wer vulnerable - the purge fo the Soviet Officer class had weakened their millitary capablities.

During the invasion of the Soviet Union the Nazis made formidable progress in overcoming the Soviet army as they had little in the way of an effective doctrine for self defence.

As Hitler said - One good kick of the barn-door and the whole rotten buidling will fall in.

Some may balk at this - but had Hitler not launched Operation Barbossa then the Soviets would and could have occupied much of Europe.

Finally the cowardly act of the betryal of Poland to Stalin after the war still makes me cringe today - Roosevelt wanted to appease Stalin at Yalta and over-rode Churchill's concerns for Poland - remember we entered the war followin the Nazi-Soviet occpation of Poland - an error which doomed much of Eastern Europe to the tyranny of Communmisn for 50 years - I would have taken General Pattons lead by wanting to drive the Tanks from Berlin to Moscow.

[M_B]

Because communists were following doctrine of the International Revolution - they were planning for war. You need to look at frenzy of military activities by Stalin just before the war in 1939 and before it hit him in 1941, particularly you need to pay attention to configuration of Soviet army immediately prior to German invasion - it was secretly deployed in configuration that is typical for suprise attack rather than defence. Read this book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icebreaker_(Suvorov) It is not perfect and has got minor issues, but I agree with the general idea of the author (GRU defector to UK), it finally started making sense a lot of very strange things that Soviet historians never bothered to explain, but they make perfect sense from point of view of invasion of Europe being prepared.



Mussolini did not want to go to war because he did not think Germany can easily beat France, remember that at the time French and British armies were pretty much everything and Germany was supposed to be disarmed, noone apart from top generals in Germany really knew true state of affairs, so Mussolini was not keen, but obviously as soon as he seen that Germany is actually winning he joined in! He definately did not like Hitler - even though politically he had no choice. I think big influence on real foreign policy was made by Ciano, the foreign minister who paid for this later with his life.

sasguru mentions Chamberlein - indeed he followed policy of appeasement and this is normally the main point that Soviets point to claiming that it is the British that guilty in war. But who back then could know just how fking crazy Hitler was? Sure there were signs, but previous recent WW1 gave big incentive to try to avoid new war. I think even if Hitler did not get Checkoslovakia then he would still start war - it was just matter of time, and if he had more time he'd achieve bigger scientific breakthroughs, perhaps even atom bomb before he started war. Though it has to be said that I am not confident that it would have been Stalin who'd start the war either in 1941 or 1942 at the latest. In this case Hitler would have found himself fighting for freedom of Europe, crazy thought isn't it?

But Germany was at war at that time. Stalin may well have decided to attack Germany after the war had started as he probably thought two fronts would be more than Germany could handle and the Germans were sending aid to the Finns. It doesn't however prove that Stalin wanted to go to war with Germany if everyone had been at peace, particularly as the British and French would have come in on the side of the Germans and the Japanese were testing their border defences in the East. The Russians also didn't really start gearing up for a total war economy until 41, well after the start of the conflict.

I agree that Italy didn't want war while France was in the equation, but that doesn't mean they didn't want war. They were just waiting for Germany to remove the French from the Theatre as proved by Mussolini's rebuke to Churchill.

As regards the British. In retropsect they should have insisted on a withdrawal from the Rhineland when Hitler made his initial bluff move as that would have stopped Hitler in his tracks. The Soviet accusation against Britain is laughable - They could have opposed the invasion of Czechoslovakia too, but didn't. And then they proceeded to sign the fateful, war initiating agreement with Germany to split Poland whilst at the same time providing resources required by Germany to fight its initial war. Thats pretty much as guilty as you can get and they paid the price for it.

[Damp Cave]

Leave them to it

None of our business, allow other people in other countries to war. It is how the world developed and we should not deny them the same rights as us.

[AtW]

If you examine the Soviet millitary capablity and tactics prior to WW2 they were all offensive under the assumption they would be attacking (or liberating as the Soviets woul dhav it) Western capitalist countries altough their dismal failure in Finland gave hope to the Nazis that they wer vunerable.

Yup. Also one needs to look carefully at secret deployment of the Soviet Army in May-June 1941: one striking similiarity with the Germans is that the Soviets were doing almost the same - locating army close to the border, all extra ammo there, maps were drawn with the data on enemy territory rather than yours (to defend).

Let's not forget here - USSR sent "volunteers" to Spain to fight in civil war there against Franco, same did the Nazies and they halped Franco win, though he stayed neutral during the main war.

I remember reading Soviet history books in Soviet time and it was always a very odd thing to see that official doctrine of USSR was that we will fight on the enemy territory, it made very little sense and noone explained it better other than to say Stalin was idiot. But Stalin was not an idiot - he was very smart and his doctrine makes perfect sense if he was going to attack, the same way Hitler did.

Betrayal of Poland is certainly a very bad act, but I think Britain and USA did not have much choice - Soviet army at the time was very strong, even though nuclear bomb in USAs disposal would have altered the balance somewhat. Actually at the end of the war it was Truman in power, so it was possible to force Stalin maybe go back to USSR, but I suspect american soldiers did not have a desire to fight yet another war, which would be much more bloody than what they seen in Germany, so Truman and Churchill had to settle for the cold war.

[DaveB]

in tne same way as they triggered WWII..

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/200...ger_wwiii.html

Mad as a box of very mad frogs.

And I know reading the f'ing article goes against all thats holy on here, but it's actually talking about WW I not WW II.

[AtW]

It doesn't however prove that Stalin wanted to go to war with Germany if everyone had been at peace, particularly as the British and French would have come in on the side of the Germans and the Japanese were testing their border defences in the East. The Russians also didn't really start gearing up for a total war economy until 41, well after the start of the conflict.

Ideal situation for invasion of Europe from USSR would have been having European powers fight with each other just like it happened in WW1.

You are seriously mistaken saying that the Soviets were not geared for total was in 1941 - you need to look at production figures of armaments before that and what actually happened in June 1941 - secret mobilisation and deployment of forces near border in attack formation.

I agree that Italy didn't want war while France was in the equation, but that doesn't mean they didn't want war. They were just waiting for Germany to remove the French from the Theatre as proved by Mussolini's rebuke to Churchill.

You are forgetting that back then they had painful history of positional warware of WW1 when operations were very slow and it was stalemate. I am sure Mussolini was confident Hitler will get himself in another positional war and he would laugh his arse off, but as soon as it became clear that new tactics of blitzkrieg worked so well then naturally Mussolini rushed to pick some pieces for himself.

The Soviet accusation against Britain is laughable

It is, but if you talk to some of the looneys "patriots" there you will find that they say that it was Britain responsible for WW2 more than Germany itself. Insane, but this is what Soviet propaganda does to brains.

[M_B]

Finally the cowardly act of the betryal of Poland to Stalin after the war still makes me cringe today - Roosevelt wanted to appease Stalin at Yalta and over-rode Churchill's concerns for Poland - remember we entered the war followin the Nazi-Soviet occpation of Poland - an error which doomed much of Eastern Europe to the tyranny of Communmisn for 50 years - I would have taken General Pattons lead by wanting to drive the Tanks from Berlin to Moscow.

The Western nations had neither the finances nor the public support to continue the war against the Russians.

[AtW]

The Western nations had neither the finances nor the public support to continue the war against the Russians.

Indeed, world was tired from war, Russians included: at the time there was serious shortage of men to use weapons (which were plentyful), everyone really wanted to go home.