Was World War II pointless?
asks Peter Hitchens. I was looking forward to this article when I saw the headline, but soon in he mentions Patrick Buchanan, and the heart sinks. Also I think there's some dodgy facts - Churchill's anti-semitic article (about which Hitchens expresses doubt) was to some extent dealt with here, and whilst it is true the Soviet Union did a lot of fighting in WWII, I don't think you can say the UK did 'most' of it compared with the USA.Hitchens conclusion is that we fought the war against Germany, but Germany now dominates us through the EU, the Empire is gone, and the US has 'supplanted us forever'. This critique isn't that new, as wasn't it John Charmley's argument in 'End of Glory'? To some extent also it is slightly outdated, to the extent Germany ever 'dominated' the EU (with France, presumably) it does so less today, and the UK's relative economic strength vis-a-vis it is the highest since 1990.
But of course British's global power has been declining almost ever year since 1945, a process that has accelerated in the last decade. But that seems to me an inevitable consequence of having only 60m people in a world of more than 6bn, one which unless the Empire was maintained, was always going to be the case at some point. And the Empire was never going to be maintained - it was dying before World War II after all.
Labels: World War II
posted by Matthew @ 4/20/2008 09:30:00 PM
Comments: 0
