History doesn’t provide answers to hypotheticals
That’s why they’re asking people and not reading a history book.
Most countries would be socialist.
The world would be far more Socialized.
Well the troubles would have continued. So there that.
Ooh I think you need to read more about history. For once, CIA wouldn’t need to support drug dealers to finance its operations in Central America. Guess where those drugs were being consumed?
What?
the cia admitted to starting the cocaine epidemic so that they can use the money to fund rebel fighters to keep central american countries weak and dependent on the united states.
I probably should have capitalised The Troubles shouldn’t I
The “It’s a Small World” ride at Disneyland.
The US projects its own interests worldwide but those often overlap with the interests of other as well.
For example, the US often stipulates intellectual property and worker rights in it’s trade deals. The US actively protects shipping lanes. The US actively negotiates visa-free entry for American passport holders to other countries. The US invests in the economies of foreign countries to stimulate trade opportunities. The US controls the SWIFT banking network which makes it so that we don’t need to send gold bullion or pallets of cash to buy things from other countries, and participating in the system requires member countries to have certain controls in place that attempt to block bad actors. The US, through it’s embassies and ambassadors, deploys it ideology to foreign governments, and makes deals that allow foreigners to invest in the USA and Americans to open businesses in foreign countries.
The US actively shuns and makes life difficult for menace dictatorships on the global stage by creating trade exclusions.
There have been coups since the beginning of time and always will be, as it’s human nature. Many citizens of other countries have no belief that the future of their country belongs to them after decades or centuries of dictatorships or kingdoms. On the whole, history shows that kingdoms rise and fall for many reasons and the people sometimes benefit and sometimes suffer for it.
Obviously it’s a highly complex topic, but if the US wasn’t doing these things, then Russia or China would be, or there would be more powerful regional factions, which could reduce the size of the world in terms of travel and trade options for many.
Whether the US is the right one to be in control of this at this point in history is a matter of intense debate among some, but it could absolutely be worse than it is now.
The issue comes down to imperialism imo.
Western societies have an imperialist belief that we should be at the head of the table when it comes to the world order, politics, and having a say about what happens outside of our borders.
This is ingrained in all of us from a very young age by design. They’ve been doing it for millennia, and it’s been working pretty well, so no need to change tactics.
It’s also why non-western nation-states aren’t as involved directly in the politics of other nations. It’s not really a part of their ethos as a culture.
You’ve got a good point there but limiting it just to the west shows your lack of understanding about world politics. The imperialist approach is present in many parts of the world and throughout old and recent history. Besides the west, Russia (warning: propagandists incoming) is doing that with neighboring countries and in Africa, just like China and other African countries are doing that too in Africa. Rwanda in Congo for example. China to Hong Kong and Taiwan. Japan and their massacres during WWII. Morocco in the Sahara region. Israel in Palestine, and vice versa Hamas to Israel. In Islamic countries: sunnies vs sjiets (or however it’s written).
So your point of view is a bit too brainwashed around the west I’m afraid. Lots of governments trying to subjugate other countries for wealth and power benefits.
That’s a fair critique.
Removed by mod
Well, like Cuba without the embargo.
Didn’t realize I was on .ml till I saw this
You and me both. WTF is rule 1 in this context even?
It really depends on how far back you want to look.
If the US was to suddenly stop projecting its interests internationally, then as others have mentioned, then likely the world work become somewhat more socialized. European countries would probably step up and try to keep China in check, but without the US contributing to these efforts, it would cause a significant strain on their military resources.
If the US was to take an isolationist policy 100 years ago, then there is a good chance that WW2 would have been won by the Axis. The Allied forces likely would have put up a good fight, but I’m not sure they would have emerged victorious against the combined Axis forces. The war in the Pacific would have raged on much longer, and without nuclear weapons, there would have been an extreme loss of life invading Japan. At the very least, WW2 would have lasted much much longer than it did. Depending on the outcome, plenty of countries might currently be speaking German and debating if they should tear down 80-year-old statues of Hitler.
If the US was to take an isolationist policy 100 years ago, then there is a good chance that WW2 would have been won by the Axis. The Allied forces likely would have put up a good fight, but I’m not sure they would have emerged victorious against the combined Axis forces. The war in the Pacific would have raged on much longer, and without nuclear weapons, there would have been an extreme loss of life invading Japan. At the very least, WW2 would have lasted much much longer than it did. Depending on the outcome, plenty of countries might currently be speaking German and debating if they should tear down 80-year-old statues of Hitler.
The only people who believe this drivel are those who have only learned about WWII via Hollywood and YT videos. Go listen to an actual historian and you will not hear this fantasy. They will tell you that Germany had one foot in the grave by the time the US joined the Western front. The only ounce of truth in this statement is that the Pacific theatre would have gone on longer.
Edit: I didn’t touch on this but should have…the whole idea that a nuclear attack on Japan was necessary or even justified in any way is not only incorrect but is a racist, genocidal excuse for not one, but TWO of the most horrific acts in our entire history. You should be ashamed for propagating this tired lie.
he did mention isolationist, so… we’d also have to consider how the eastern front would have evolved without lend-lease. not a historian so perhaps consensus is the Nazis still wouldn’t have had a chance, but still
Good points. It’s difficult to find a clear answer to how important lend-lease was to the Soviet war effort. During the war, the USSR and US obviously had good things to say about the program, but the start of the Cold War soured this discussion, leading to the US overstating and the USSR understating the impact. Here’s an excerpt from a paper by a British scholar exploring the topic. Emphasis is the author’s:
It is neither possible nor fruitful to try and put a precise measure on the material value of allied aid to the Soviet war economy, if only because of the unavailability of many Soviet production data. Whatever the value of western aid, the Soviet war effort was measured in human life and suffering incomparable with material aid from outside. Further, the Soviet economy became much more of a war economy than other combatant nations. Nonetheless, it seems that the contribution made by deliveries from the USA and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Canada, played an important part at crucial times and in crucial areas. First, and above all, was a vital margin of food supplies, second was the provision of specialist or deficit products such as aluminium and copper, specialized tools, high quality steels. In this respect lend-lease supplies overcame bottlenecks. However, it must be stressed that the major impact came after the Soviet counterattack and the beginning of German retreat. Such aid directly and indirectly helped defeat the German forces, and was in such a way a substitute for a second front, but it did little to defend the USSR from the initial onslaught. Third, some of the raw materials and more especially machinery and transport equipment was of positive value to the Soviet economy after the war. For this, the tyre plant is the best but not the only example.
It is nonsense to repeat the figure of four per cent of Soviet wartime production and disingenuous to disparage western aid - a feature evident in Soviet literature and one criticized even by Khrushchev. It is nonetheless true (and this is a point repeated in some Soviet works) that Britain and the Empire received far more than the USSR from the United States. Lend-lease, in this respect, may be seen as a temporary substitute for foreign trade. Britain was a major trading nation, highly dependent on imports, especially for food and raw materials. The USSR, on the other hand, was an economy with little trade dependence whose foreign trade turnover had fallen steadily during the 1930s…
The part left off at the end compares repayment of aid sent to the British vs the Soviets. A fairly short read that will give some more context to the conclusions I shared above.
One of the main points the author makes is that lend-lease was used by the US as a stand-in for entering the war and opening a new front in 1942 as the allies (and Stalin in particular) were requesting. In this context, lend-lease was a replacement for reopening the Western front in 1942, an action that could have been far more impactful. The US provided material aid in lieu of entering the war, shifting the human burden of the war onto the other Allied forces and particularly the USSR from 1942 to least at 1944 (note that lend-lease aid extended wider and was provided from 1941-1945).
Overall, the impression I’ve gotten from sifting through academic writings on the subject is that while lend-lease certainly helped take some of the pressure off of the USSR (mainly in the form of producing food, trucks, and raw materials), it’s most likely that the result would have been the same. That said, wondering over historical what-ifs, while fun, should really be constrained to recreational musing and shouldn’t be taken seriously.
amazing comment, thanks!
Why stop at 100 years? Imagine 150 years. No US - Spain war, no US intervention in WW1. Maybe that would have meant no WW2.
And isolationism includes not helping Nazis and their allies like Texaco, Ford or IBM did?
Germany would have taken over Europe.
Lol, only if you learned history from Hollywood.
