Missed opportunities and hypocrisy leading up to WWII.

There is a very narrow view of hypocrisy going on
Why were countries of Europe in South-Esat Asia.?
The USA in The Philippines, Cuba, Central and South America.?
England in Hong Kong, Singapore, India.?
Capitalism/Colonialism/Imperialism/Democracy has always been a hypocritical excuse for conquest.
Ask yourself.....What country do you live in...what foreign armies have invaded your country in the last 100 years, what foreign countries have your countries military been in and out of in the same 100 years.?
You can justify anything.....if you want to.
There is no point of view that cannot be argued.

German and Japanese expansion of Fascism/Capitalism/Militarism should not be a shock to anybody over the age o 20.....nor should the reasons why.
It had "all" happened before, and continues in 2016.
Gott Mit Uns.....you do not even need an Army to Invade/Destabilize/Subvert a foreign country. It can all be done with State or Corporate (they are one and the same) controlled Media/Information Sources, and a public that is convinced there is an enemy out to get them, and that they have been wronged and need to retribute.
It is the bad Guy/Country of the week syndrome.
Like he said in Marry Poppins....."I feel what's to happen, has all happened before".


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zPchc2dM1M

 

???
The US wasn't "in" Cuba or Latin America to any great extent during the period in question. The plan had always been for the Philippines to become independent but granting them independence only to see them snapped up by another colonial power was not considered acceptable.

Your quote "Capitalism/Colonialism/Imperialism/Democracy has always been a hypocritical excuse for conquest" is way off the mark. Indeed I don't think I've seen the first three used as an excuse at all. Nor was either Colonialism or Imperialism particularly hypocritical either. Wrong at least by modern sensibilities but not hypocritical. Interesting that you left Socialism and Communism off your list though.

German, Soviet, and Japanese expansion or attempts at it were not really that much of a shock but it had been made pretty clear that the international community considered that unacceptable. The surprise was that they tried it in the face of what history demonstrated to be overwhelming material superiority. Indeed it has happened before and is happening now and many countries are taking stands to greater or lesser extents against it. State and Corporate are not "one in the same" by any means. They operate under different rules and different goals.

 

Why was it alright for British and American Imperialism but not German?

 

Gasp!

But, why should we involve ideology here? Things are much simpler.

Let us test some assertions

First, definition:

Hypocrisy: the behavior of people who do things that they tell other people not to do: behavior that does not agree with what someone claims to believe or feel.

Example 1: France subjugated Algeria (among many other countries) and then accuses Germany for annexation of Austria, who, by the way, wholeheartedly agreed with incorporation into the Reich.
Example 2: After Americans have deliberated France with a little help from the French Resistance, the first thing the French Army has done was to re-conquer her former "possessions" - Algeria too.


Could anyone provide us with better example of hypocrisy “leading up to WWII”?

 

I agree Tamino. France tried to take back Viet Nam by force after the war. I guess the Germans tried to subjugate already established and sovereign countries while at the same time treating their populations very inhumane... That's happened in history too by the good guys though.

 

I guess this is just OP in good old Irony Mode:

But of course, there is no vacuum among black and white but I can see just certain shades of black, not of grey as some would like to drag us into diluted, generalized truth. I deliberately avoid talking about the British Imperialism because there were other far more venomous variants like Congo of Leopold II , king of Belgium or German South-West Africa. I prefer to see British Imperialism as world wide free trade, limited to British companies only.

 

Well done.

 

Who said it was? Of course if you don't distort the meaning of the word there was no American Imperialism and the British version was for the most part pre 20th century. Both at least acknowledged that the various foreign lands under their control deserved independence if they desired it and were in the process of granting it. The Germans were rather the opposite were they not?

 

Really?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_the_British_Empire

 

Yes really as your source proves. After 1919 the size of the British Empire decreased. Furthermore amount of local control increased in the territories within the Empire. Note for instance that India was scheduled to become independent prior to the start of WWII and Canada became an independent country prior to the war. Furthermore while there were some territories placed under protection of the British after each of the World Wars these were typically not run as colonies or intended to be part of the Empire for any significant length of time.

 

That's true but the real reasons were more trivial: costs associated with maintaining vast empire were unbearable. British Empire was the largest ever during the inter-war period - a quarter of the planet was British possession.

As Overy puts it in his book "The road to War", pp 74:

"In September 1939 Britain embarked on her last great imperial war."

There is also very indicative quote in the same book on page 73:


However strong you may be, whether you are a man or a
country, there is a point beyond which your strength will not
go. It is courage and wisdom to exert that strength up to the
limit to which you may attain; it is madness and ruin if you
allow yourself to pass it.

Lord Salisbury, c. 1898

(a similar line of reasoning can befound in Tolstoys' "How Much Land Does a Man Need?")

In fact, Chamberlain has struggled in late thirties to prevent collapse of British Empire by trading other people's lands. In vain.

 

But a good part of the reason the British colonies cost so much was that they weren't being run purely for the benefit of Great Britain as a traditional colony was (although to many British colonies never were). It's also worth noting that while 1919 may have been the height the British Empire as far as land under its control by that point much of that land was actually run by local governments or at the least had considerable input from locals. The British Empire is still fairly large but only countries that want to be part of it still are. Indeed from all I've heard the people of Hong Kong would have for the most part preferred to remain part of it rather than becoming part of China.

 

lwd, that's true too. British knew how to run an Empire in a decent manner, if that word is appropriate here. But there is something else I wanted to say. In fact British government didn't give a stuff for Poland in 1939. They have just drawn a line in a sand on Polish border and they knew that Hitler would have to cross that border. Then, the war would have been justified, no further questions why. But, I ask myself: who really needed that war?

 

This is factually incorrect. The Soviet Union was NOT a "bad guy" in WWII and both Chiang and Stalin did not give Hitler a "run for his money". Both the Chinese and the Russian dictator killed their own people while Hitler murdered everyone else's. Stalin Killed more people prior to the war. As soon as the war broke out however; Hitler quickly surpassed all. In fact Germany was murdering so many people and at such high/fast pace that the German high command became concerned for their soldiers mental well being. As a result Germany became the first nation to build a machines for the sole purpose of murdering people.
The allies suffered roughly 33 million deaths in WWII of which roughly 26 million deaths came from the Soviet Union. A high price to pay for victory over evil.
As for "bad guys", that title falls on every country that fought alongside the Third Reich. Nearly a dozen European nations fall into this category.

GB and France had military alliance with Poland againsed Germany in case of an attack. Such was not the case with the Soviet Union. The Baltics along with Poland were divided up between Hitler and Stalin in order to serve as a buffer zone should a war between the two ever break out.
I like to believe that declaration of war was never declared because of common sense. Britain was unable to defeat Germany on her own let alone the Soviet Union.

IMO, what one may think of the Soviet Union after the war is one thing, during the war however; the Soviet Union was without a doubt fighting on the good side and everyone whom the Red Army liberated from the Nazis all greeted the liberating troops with flowers, hugs and kisses. This was the case from Moscow to Berlin.