Military Docterine

Countries prepared their military for war in their own way.  Some focused on their infantry, and others focused on machine power like tanks and airplanes.  In some cases they had their infantry work with their machine power.  Depending on their tactics each country had their advantages.  Especially in the beginning of the war, their tactics helped determine how successful they were.  My question would be how much did each country look at their opponents tactics to help improve their own?  

The new doctrine

Our tolerance for ambitious dictators is substantially lower than it was pre WWII. Hitler invaded Poland, and several other countries, and still the United States did not enter the war. I suppose we didn't see Germany as much of a threat to us specifically, and we did not want to become entangled in another European war. It took a direct military attack from Japan to bring us in to the war. Now lets skip ahead about 50 years. Saddam Hussein has just invaded Kuwait. Saddam is no threat to us, nor is he a threat to our European allies. It's debatable whether or not he was capable of or even wanted to become a threat to Israel. But in this instance, we did not wait. We (and a substantial coalition) responded, and pushed Saddam back in to Iraq. Obviously, we have had other dealings with Saddam since the first Iraq war. This despite the fact that (some would argue this point) he still posed no threat to the United States or its allies. Even since then, while there is still work to be done in Iraq, there have been rumblings of a possible war with Iran, and to a much lesser extent, North Korea.

Is this, in a way, Hitler's doing? Is it because of him that that our new doctrine focuses on "fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here" and pre-emptive strikes?

Political will

Interestingly, pre-1941 a lot of Americans were isolationist in their views and some outright supported Germany's actions to re-establish herself. One reason the US might not have been interested in a "rush to war" was because the US population as a whole lacked the political will to become involved with a conflict overseas.

Appeasement

It was mentioned in class on Monday that after Italy attacked and annexed Ethiopia, that it was the first moment of appeasement. The British didn't do anything and so the French didn't do anything.

What were the reasons that the Britsh didn't take action? Were they waiting on a sanction from the League, and if so, who was responsible for following through with any action to carry out whatever the League said?

Canceled Class Clarification

Clarification: No one is being penalized for not attending class on Wed. I checked the inclement weather hotline at 6AM before driving to Lawrence. Classes were not canceled at that time. I simply think the students who suffered through my lecture, when they didn't have to, should receive that portion of their attendance credit. If classes are officially canceled, for any reason, no one will lose credit. I do not encourage you to come to campus. They cancel classes for a reason, after all.

The Battle of Britain

I thought this was interesting because at a time when people believed Hitler to be continuously involved in spearheading the war effort, he decided to go on vacation.  He visited Paris, toured WW I battlefields, and picnicked along the Rhine.  It is obvious that he believed that England, and for that matter Europe, was his.  As a person who not only admired himself, but also saw himself as an admired and exalted leader and hero of the people, he no doubt believed he and his German forces were unstoppable.  The OKW, too, said that the final victory over Great Britain was just a matter of time.  However, without Hitler at the command, military planning in Germany was almost non-existent.  It is apparent after reading this that that his commanders did not have the drive or the ability to knock Great Britain out of the war.  In this chapter, it is interesting to note that it was stated that the Luftwaffe intelligence failed to keep the German operational commanders apprised of the difficult tasks the military would confront when attacking Great Britain.  It is almost like lack of communication between the high commanders resulted in Germany destroying its own defenses.

British lack of mechaniziation

With England being an important military and political power in the world, why did they not take this opportunity to improve their weapons and arms after WWI? Yes, they controlled areas such as Ethiopia that did not have current weapons but they should've realized that only one armored division was not capable enough of protecting their country. If the British had been able to better protect themselves in 1939 when Hitler was beginning to take over Europe, do you think he could've been stopped sooner or was it just inevitable?