Date Posted:18:55:48 03/04/08 Tue Author: Paul_G Author Host/IP: c-68-63-84-11.hsd1.de.comcast.net / 68.63.84.11 Subject: I think it would. In reply to:
Barry
's message, "World War" on 16:08:46 03/02/08 Sun
What the World Wars basically did was blow Europe to smithereens. Twice. I mean, it's unimaginable how Europe collectively has come back from that kind of unprecedented destruction to be even as powerful as it is.
Without this, none of the uprisings against European powers that happened in the 20th century would have been successful. After all, we had the same uprisings in the Victorian era and they got crushed. But after the world wars, we no longer had the strength to act with the necessary force to check those things (could you imagine how the Suez Crisis would have worked out, if it happened in 1880?).
If we stayed neutral, Germany would have won World War I by 1916, and seemed more interested in developing a consolidated empire than something with overseas colonies. I think some sort of compromise would have been reached with Germany, though I do believe we'd have had some kind of conflict with Japan later on.
We'd probably have something like Germany, Britain, the USA and Japan being the major powers today instead of what we have now. Pretty much the same state of affairs we'd have if we'd called it quits after the Blitzkreig in WWII.
