If you're interested in this sort of thing, definitely look up "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace," or at the very least go read a summary. Also fascinating stuff.
Basically, PWFPP's argument is that Nazi Germany would've been very weak and able to overthrow easily by resisting the Nazi conquest of Czechoslovakia - the Czech army was a decent fighting force, and with allied support could've dismantled Nazi Germany right there.
France and England do nothing there, but then declare war on Germany after Germany and the Soviet Union sign a peace treaty and jointly invade and divide Poland, and then inexplicably France and England don't attack. That was the stupidest possible way to declare war. You could've backed the Czechs, but declaring war without an invasion while giving Hitler nine months to plan and let him have first strike/blitzkrieg against France? Totally stupid.
The Western front of WWII was gravely mismanaged until Winston Churchill took over in England. Like, ridiculously so. They had quite a few opportunities to smash Hitler before he became a problem. When they finally did declare war, they just kind of skirmished a little while letting him build and prepare more, and letting him determine the time and place of battle (they overran the totally ineffective Maginot Line in one spot, spread quickly, and conquered France in three days).
Anyway, I do buy that theory. Germany wasn't so strong when they invaded Czech, and the Czechs are strong, tough, proud people. Declare war there and WWII basically doesn't happen. As an added bonus, the Soviet Union couldn't have absorbed Poland, East Germany, and the Baltics as a result. Man oh man WWII was grossly mismanaged in the start of it...
Well sure... with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight and everything.
that was the historical point of WWII - it was a product of one world view and resulted in the other
>Declare war there and WWII basically doesn't happen.
yep. The post-WWII world would do just that. UN, NATO and Warsaw Pact. 68' Czech invasion. Vietnam war to prevent spread of communism. Iraq and Afghanistan to, supposedly, prevent spread of terrorism. While i don't agree with these wars (or especially with how they've been conducted), we can't not notice this is a system preventing another war like WWII, though not WWIII, in action.
The WW-III would be a different beast. It will be product of the current world view, ie. of conflict between the view and the critical problems. The obvious conflict is between complete state sovereignty principle of international law and global, transnational, problems of human rights and environment, especially global warming. These problems can not be resolved through voluntary ratification and obeying of treaties by 180+ states. Thus global enforcement is in order.
This is easily explained. There was at the time no possible way to coerce the deeply traumatized French and English to attack. When Daladier and Chamberlain came back from Munich in 1938, they were cheered by the crowd in Paris; Daladier told Chamberlain "ils sont contents, les cons" (they're happy, these morons). He was perfectly aware that the vast majority of englishmen - and even more frenchmen, were so deeply against any form of war after WWI that the concept of a preemptive strike was simply unthinkable.