Historical inevitability is an illusion of hindsight. Decisions are always made in the here and now. The future is always uncertain. Better policy stops threats before they become existential. But in doing so it must also stop many threats that would not have become existential in any case (who can know in advance?), and in doing so successfully it teaches many people that there are no existential threats.

Welcome to the new world, same as the old world. The way back is clear, the way ahead is foggy. It’s tempting to navigate using the rear-view mirror, and to cast blame rather than analyze alternatives.

All the examples I gave were after the war had started. Halifax was on board by then.

By that measure, Jonathan is on the right track comparing the words that drove WWII and those fueling the current war in Iraq. But why detour into the hypothetical? Historical facts provide far more substantial material that rhymes.

Britons did criticize Churchill’s track record. That hardly mattered. Nazi military aggression and the obvious existential threat galvanized the public, as did the total mobilization of all sectors of society. There was no debate about the Nazi threat because it was self-evident. No surprise then, that Britain, the free country with a free press, triumphed over the tyranny without one.

The Nazis, on the other hand, were without peer in their ability to inflame support and suppress dissent, the latter universally depicted as disloyalty. Support within Germany for the war was virtually universal and famously robust. The arrogance behind that lead directly to their defeat and utter destruction.
On trial for war crimes, Nazi Reich Marshall Hermann Goering said:

“Naturally the common people don’t want war. But after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.”

It is self-evident that Goering’s authority on human nature is suspect. His cynicism is inviting in its simplicity, but falls far short of insight. More important, American history proves him dead wrong.

Americans, in the main, do not denounce pacifists as unpatriotic, nor claim they expose the country to danger. To be sure, a vocal, well-subsidized media/think tank minority behave as Goering describes, but they have always been and remain a minority.

A solid American majority knows better than to march blindly into war. The fact that a minority sometimes gets its way temporarily within the American political system is more a measure of the general contentedness of Americans than it is of their vulnerability to martial manipulation.

On the matter of what it takes to fool the American people, I’ll take Lincoln’s view of Goering’s every time.

Well, the Halifaxites thought that the threat was not unambiguous, that a negotiated peace was a better option than continued fighting (or “quagmire” as some might have said), and in fact much of world opinion, including Hitler, was sure that Britain was going to negotiate a peace after Dunkirk. For Britain, WWII was a war of choice all along. The Charmleyites continue to argue that it was the wrong choice.

Fortunately for all of us, most British thought otherwise.

The piece is brilliant.

The fall of Singapore was a disaster with many causes — but Churchill failed to do anything to prevent it.

And politicians, rightly or wrongly, are blamed for disasters that occur on their watch.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a devotee of Churchill. His bias was for action, but the British military was not in any shape to carry the war to the Germans. The years of neglect were too big a burden to overcome quickly. But he should have tempered his dramatic ideas a little more. Fortunately, through most of the war, he had Field Marshall Alan Brooke at his side. Brooke was an excellent foil for Churchill. Churchill provided the energy and push, Brooke provided the grasp of logistical and practical reality about was actually achievable.

Churchill being thrown out in 1945 should have come as no surprise. The country wanted him as a war leader, but had no particular use for him in peacetime. The country was in the mood for a Labor government and the Beveridge Plan. We can bemoan it now, but there is no doubt the public wanted to try socialism.

I’m not sure all the losses Lex mentions can be deposited at Churchill’s feet, though, since he was Prime Minister, he must be given a share of the responsibility. The fact is Germany (and Japan) had been preparing for war for years, while Britain and the rest of Europe (and the United States) slept. It should surprise no one that, at the beginning of the war, Germany and Japan should have the better of the fight. (With the exception of Midway — the importance of which was underestimated at the time — things did not go so well for the US during 1942.) The turning point of the war with Germany (in the West) was the Second Battle of El Alamein. Churchill rightly called the British victory there the “end of the beginning.” (Stalingrad was, of course, the turning point of the war with Germany in the east.)

Bismarck Sunk: Churchill is a Failure

wel,he lost the elections right after the war, so there must have been something to that ;)

However, the fact that the threat to Britain was unambiguous, and no one else had a better idea of what to do, and no one else wanted responsibility for the war, is what kept him in power.