White House 'deeply disappointed' by Europe outlawing Silicon Valley

Re: Arnaut the Clueless Re: Tantrum coming in 3, 2, 1...

"....following Stalin's paranoid purge of the Red Army in 1936, Russia could only appease Germany because it did not have the strength to do anything else..." Bollocks! Stalin had no clue as to what the Soviet forces could or couldn't do, indeed he probably had a very incorrect view given that everyone left after the purges was largely incompetent and/or too scared to tell Stalin the truth. Stalin had lowered the age of conscription, packing the Soviet Army out to 5 million by 1941, mainly poorly trained teenagers. As for doing nothing, the Soviets attacked Poland from the east in concert with the Nazis on 17th September 1939, attacked the Baltic states (as agreed with the Nazis in the Molototov-Ribbentrop Pact) and tried to conquer Finland.

"....The UK did not repulse the Luftwaffe; it just become clear that sufficient air superiority could not be maintained for an invasion...." So, in other words, the RAF did repulse the Luftwaffe. Just to make it clear, the Germans had the following goals for the Luftwaffe in order to go ahead with their half-baked invasion plan - 1, push the RAF from the coast back to bases north of London, so that the Kriegsmarine could operate in the Channel without RAF interference; 2, reduce RAF Fighter Command to the point where it could not interfere with Luftwaffe bombing in the Channel, so that they could dive-bomb the far superior Royal Navy instead of the RN sinking the Kriegsmarine; and 3, destroy British military installations in the south to prepare the area for the weak German invasion forces. The Luftwaffe failed in all three. The RAF were not driven out of their bases, they operated continually in the area for the duration of the Battle. The Luftwaffe bombers suffered such losses in daylight bombing even before the switch to targeting London that Goering was having to strip crews from training schools to try and keep the numbers up (which he failed to do), and the RN operated in the Channel throughout the Battle. The British Army was also well enough protected that they did not have to withdraw from the coast either. More to the point, the RAF was actually stronger by the end of the Battle whereas the Luftwaffe was weaker.

"....and Hitler still hoped for peace with Britain...." Hitler still hoped for a compromise with Britain as he had no actual plan for defeating the British Empire. He had cluelessly gone to war with the World's largest empire without either the military strategy or economic structure necessary to defeat it. His own generals had advised him upon waiting until at least 1942 and completely transforming the German economy to a war footing but he didn't, because he was banking on the Brits simply rolling over and giving in. When they didn't he had no option other to turn on the Soviets as he knew that Stalin's long-term plan was to let the Germans and imperial powers waste their resources fighting each other so Stalin could then invade Europe. In the end the Soviets did get half of Europe and had no intention of giving freedom to the Europeans they "liberated".

"....The whole point of the war was eventually to attack Russia to get the Ukraine, and Lebensraum for a vast German expansion eastwards." No. The Ukraine was the option Hitler thought would gain him support from the US and UK because it would be the result of his crusade against Communism. Hitler wanted to build an Aryan Empire but he knew just about all of the rest of the World had already been shared out between the powers, so invading the Communist Soviet Union to form his Aryan Empire didn't risk conflict with any of the other imperial powers or the US. Indeed, he reasoned they were likely to support him seeing as they had attacked the Bolsheviks in 1918 and had gone through their own Red Scares after WW1. The problem was Poland was sitting in the way of a direct invasion of Russia. Hitler assumed the Poles, who had fought the Bolsheviks to gain their freedom, would stand aside or assist him in attacking the Soviets. When the Poles demurred, Hitler stupidly sought an alliance with the Soviets to allow him to invade Poland, just to clear the way to the east. Poland had a mutual defence treaty with the UK and France, but Hitler made the miscalculation that that the Fwench and Brits would abandon the Poles and seek peace. He bargained on the Fwench not wanting to move beyond their expensive Maginot Line (he was right) and the British forces in Europe being too weak to do much alone against the Siegfried Line (again, he was right), but assumed they would then accept a truce and allow Hitler to turn his attention to the Soviets. The Allies rejected the offer which is why Hitler didn't actually order planning for the invasion of the Low Countries until October 1939. He then transformed it into a plan to knock France out of the war in the hope the British would "come to their senses". Even after Dunkirk, Britain stood firm. Hitler wasted weeks after Dunkirk waiting on a call from Churchill asking for peace, when he didn't get it he had to try and invade England to avoid a two-front war. In July 1940 his staff had already started planning "Operation Otto" for the invasion of Russia based on peace with the British Empire. The result was the half-baked "Operation Sealion" for the invasion of England, reliant on the Luftwaffe completing the goals listed above. When he lost the Battle of Britain he realised he had to strike at the Soviets before Stalin could attack him, regardless of further fighting with Britain.

Hitler's big mistake was attacking Poland. He could have instead routed his forces through the Ukraine from Hungary, which was already anti-Soviet and falling into the Nazi sphere in 1939. It was a harder military task but possible. An attack into the Ukraine from Hungary would have meant Poland would be an unwitting buffer between Russia and Germany and might have even been dragged into the fighting on the Axis side. Its biggest bonus would have been no conflict with the imperial powers. Hitler could even have built up his forces without the sideshow of the Italian failure in the Balkans leading to the three week delay in 1941, which actually stopped his forces capturing Moscow before the Winter of 1941. And it is highly likely the West would have tacitly approved.

So, no, Hitler didn't just want Lebensraum in Ukraine, he wanted an Aryan Empire without stepping on the toes of the other imperial powers. And Stalin was not some idle and placid victim, he was aggressively attacking his neighbours and intent on attacking Europe.

Re: AC Re: Tantrum coming in 3, 2, 1...

"The Germans won every battle they fought against the Russians...." Really? Never heard of Kursk? How about Leningrad or Stalingrad? I suggest you do a lot more reading.