The Unnecessary War

Political pundit Patrick J. Buchanan put forth his divergent view that World War II was an unnecessary battle which the British Empire and the West would have done well to avoid in "Churchill, Hitler, and the Unecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World."

Buchanan has long been branded an isolationist, xenophobic, and lots of other things, but his account of WWII here is well researched.

The thesis Buchanan puts forth in the 400 page book is simple: Hitler was geared towards the East, not the West, and therefore allowing Hitler to battle against Stalin would have ground the two powers down at the expense of each other, leaving the West to fill the power vacuum created.

Wait, you say. Hitler was evil and had to be stopped. He murdered innocent Jews. His aggression in France and Norway as well as Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland and later attacking Russia needed to be halted. Buchanan provides a detailed chronology, starting with events which lead to the first world war which provide some rationale to support his view. Obviously, stopping Hitler was a moral victory and the allied soldiers of WWII are to be regarded as nothing short of heroes. That's not the question Buchanan is asking. He's questioning what the West gained from our actions. Britain declared war on Germany as a response to German aggression in Poland, and France followed suit. Only then did Germany look west and overrun France, quelling opposition to the west took priority so that Hitler could again look to the East and conquer Russia.

So what would have happened if Britain had held back? Poland would not have been aided. But following WWII, they were handed over to Soviet rule, arguably worse for the Poles. By that narrow definition of the aims of the war, Britain did not accomplish its goal of securing Polish sovereignty.

But what of the Jews that Hitler killed? This is indeed a valid rationale for fighting WWII, but it wasn't the reason Britain and France declared war. Stalin also did his share of cleansing, so giving half of Europe to him following the war made life difficult for many, both Jews and Christians alike.

Do I agree with Buchanan's assessment? I don't know. Moreover, it doesn't change the past what I think about what Britain should or should not have done 70 years ago. Buchanan's postscript pertains to the future: America is going down the slope of the British Empire, working for democracy on a global scale. Rather than fighting wars in far away lands, we ought to focus on enriching our homeland (read: its the economy, stupid). A country which looks after the interests of others over our own soon finds itself weakened, just as the United Kingdom has become following their 'protection of Poland.'