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Comment by mantas | Hacker News Reader

Self-inflicted is a tad questionable. US played a big role in industrializing USSR. US also played a role in post-WWI peace deals which eventually lead to world war part II.

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> US also played a role in post-WWI peace deals which eventually lead to world war part II.

Woodrow Wilson's proposed peace deal didn't involve imposing harsh reparations on Germany. That was the doing of Georges Clemenceau, the prime minister of France, who was under pressure to make Germany's reparations bill as large as possible as retribution for the war.

While that is true, it is really important to add that that doesn't absolve the Germans one bit.

Indeed, though it's also true that the Germans should be held accountable for their own actions during the war, and not solely held responsible for WWI itself, which was a continent-wide effort.

why should they be? none of the so called winners are held accountable for their actions. best we can do is forget it all and move on, otherwise it will forever be a case of finger pointing.

By "the Germans" I don't mean modern-day Germans, I mean the people of the era. And indeed, nobody should get a pass for the atrocities of war, the winners included. But no, we should not "forget it all", that's the worst possible thing you could do. The war happened, it was terrible, its consequences reverberate to this day, and we should all remember how it happened and why so that we can attempt to avoid having it happen again.

There’s another important bit. Wilson policies played a big role in creating fractured Central Europe in interwar. I’m personally torn on this. On one hand, this gave my country a chance for independence. On the other hand, this made a bunch of puppets for Germany and Russia to play with. Maybe a unified buffer would have prevented WWII.

It's fine to speculate what could have been, but historically the record for regional "nation building" of this sort has been mixed at best, given the examples of former Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia.

Yep. But it was a mess either way. On the other hand, if there was some sort of Central Europe superpower building, Poland would probably have abused that. As it did anyway eventually occupying lands of 3 of its neighbors before being taken down by 4th…

In any case, some sort of Intermarium probably was the only thing that could have prevented WWII in one shape or another.

It's my understanding that it's a myth that reparations led to the economic catastrophe in interwar Germany. What's more important is that Germany financed WW1 by borrowing. (EDIT: being corrected below.)

> What's more important is that Germany financed WW1 by borrowing.

In such a situation, the reparations are the straw that broke the camel's back, and lead to an economic catastrophe.

Reparations were in the same order of magnitude as debt. In the end, it was 100-120B marks in debt vs 121B reparations (after reductions). Hard to find definitive numbers on debt as there are only estimations out there.

https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/time/id/100933.htm

Wilson policies were more about dealing with Europe after dissolution of Austrian, Russian and Ottoman empires.

Still as a French, I think we could have done better much earlier. Much much earlier. The US isnt the cause of our problems, we are. We are even the cause of the US in the first place, you know, eradicating the natives, enslaving the africans, colonizing the land.

It's ALL self-inflicted. But there was no sense of self at the time, what's new today is that Europe is starting, slowly and shakily, to see itself as a whole. At least I cannot imagine today ever wanting to murder a German more than a French. Ever.

> We are even the cause of the US in the first place

We appreciate the sweet deal on the Louisiana Purchase, but "cause of the US" is a bit much, don't you think?

I think by “we” they meant Europe, not France.

France also helped out a bit during the American Revolution

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War

(look at the combattants section)

I meant Europeans, you know, we start seeing ourselves as a whole now, I'm not just French in my mind - the US was a "European" colony, with Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and the UK completely transforming the land. Without Europe, there would be no states to unite, right ?

But ofc at the time it was very different, Europeans didn't exist per se, each country saw itself as completely different from the others.

What I meant is accusing the US to cause a problem in Europe is a tautology: we made the US in a way, so if the US come back to cause issues, well, it's ALSO our own fault. Every problem in Europe is "self" (that "self" changed with time) inflicted, it's not the Asians or the Africans causing conflicts, there is no external factor to blame, we MUST fix them our"selves".

Ironically, lots of problems in Africa or Asia were also inflicted by Europeans, they can claim an external factor, them. We really messed up a lot of the world, for reasons that are now beyond comprehension since we're raised by the people who stopped it, and it's a sin I have trouble to carry sometimes. Gladly, most alive today seem to have forgotten, forgiven or benefitted from it, doesn't make me forget those not alive today :(

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