I do apologize If I'm breaking any rules, I don't expect to visit this forum again. Here goes:
Pretty much from once the war began in 1939, President Roosevelt refused to take Communism as a serious threat, inside the US or beyond. On a very personal level, he hated the Nazis and considered them to be by far the greatest foreign threat to the US. From the war's beginning to Pearl Harbor, he did everything he could as perhaps the US's most powerful president ever to oppose Germany, and to a lesser extent, Japan. While I agree with him in thinking that Japan was out of control and Pearl Harbor was unforgivable and demanded immediate action, there was, and still is little reason to believe an Axis victory in the East would have been any worse for the US than the way things actually turned out.
It is true, of course, the Germany declared war on the US after Pearl Harbor, not the other way around, but this is in response to direct and sustained US support to Germany's enemies, and the fact that it was inevitable Roosevelt would drag the US into the war in Europe eventually. War was declared so German submarines could sink US convoys to Britain and hopefully take pressure off of the non-eastern fronts. Germany also signed the Triparite Pact with Japan, essentially a an alliance between the two powers. Once again, this was mainly in response the Roosevelt's decision to support Germany's foes, and commitment to joining the war eventually. If Roosevelt had sworn neutrality, then the Triparate Pact would never been signed as a way for Germany and Japan to keep the US out of the war as long as possible. While the "Greater German Reich's" long-term goals are harder to articulate, especially after Hitler would eventually die, Germany posed no more threat to the US than the Soviet Union did in the short term.
There is no reason to believe Germany was gunning for "world domination" in the 1930s and 1940s. Had the US decided to stay neutral, Britain either stayed neutral or signed a white peace in summer 1940, and Operation Barbarossa had succeeded, then Germany would be tied up for decades with Generalplan Ost. They would not be capable of a war with the US until this process was finished, and whenever that was (1980? 1990? 2000?), there would still be little reason for the Nazis to be hostile to the US. The two countries would hardly be friendly, and I admit that from a US point of view Communism and Nazism are equally un-American and evil, but many Americans have German ancestry, and many more have Germanic ancestry. The US is a bastion of democracy, and Germany was extremely un-democratic, but Hitler had shown a surprising willingness to cooperate with democracies in the past (pre-war negotiations with Britain, Finland on the Eastern front), and he was never a crusader against democracy beyond Germany. A continental axis victory by 2000 would result in two superpowers, Germany and the US, and they would be on better terms than the US and the Soviet Union were during the Cold War.
The Soviet Union, both before 1945 and after 1945, was not so much a country as it was the headquarters of the global communist revolution. Communism had been around for about a century, had a presence in every industrialized country, and was, no doubt, interested in world revolution. This is an important difference between Nazism and Communism. Communists see every single non-communist society on earth as inherently unjust and irredeemable. More than that, they feel a duty to "liberate" the workers there. Nazis, on the other hand, have no issue with foreign injustice unless it threatens them - a lot like the US, really. There would be no Cold War, no Hot War, no proxy wars, no Korea, no Vietnam, the two superpowers would tolerate each other, by and large. With the rise of the Nazis, there was an opportunity for the West to crush the revolution absolutely and totally in the most brutal manner imaginable, and they wouldn't even have to get their hands dirty. All they had to do was allow Germany to fulfill its goals in the East, and Communism would suffer a setback from which it might never recover.
An Axis victory would have been better for the US than the outcome we got. I do not believe in the apocalypse or superweapons, and I insist that all-out nuclear war leading to the end of the world is a myth and always will be, but if the Cuban Missile Crisis did go south, it would because of President Roosevelt's inability to see communism for the threat it was.
Pretty much from once the war began in 1939, President Roosevelt refused to take Communism as a serious threat, inside the US or beyond. On a very personal level, he hated the Nazis and considered them to be by far the greatest foreign threat to the US. From the war's beginning to Pearl Harbor, he did everything he could as perhaps the US's most powerful president ever to oppose Germany, and to a lesser extent, Japan. While I agree with him in thinking that Japan was out of control and Pearl Harbor was unforgivable and demanded immediate action, there was, and still is little reason to believe an Axis victory in the East would have been any worse for the US than the way things actually turned out.
It is true, of course, the Germany declared war on the US after Pearl Harbor, not the other way around, but this is in response to direct and sustained US support to Germany's enemies, and the fact that it was inevitable Roosevelt would drag the US into the war in Europe eventually. War was declared so German submarines could sink US convoys to Britain and hopefully take pressure off of the non-eastern fronts. Germany also signed the Triparite Pact with Japan, essentially a an alliance between the two powers. Once again, this was mainly in response the Roosevelt's decision to support Germany's foes, and commitment to joining the war eventually. If Roosevelt had sworn neutrality, then the Triparate Pact would never been signed as a way for Germany and Japan to keep the US out of the war as long as possible. While the "Greater German Reich's" long-term goals are harder to articulate, especially after Hitler would eventually die, Germany posed no more threat to the US than the Soviet Union did in the short term.
There is no reason to believe Germany was gunning for "world domination" in the 1930s and 1940s. Had the US decided to stay neutral, Britain either stayed neutral or signed a white peace in summer 1940, and Operation Barbarossa had succeeded, then Germany would be tied up for decades with Generalplan Ost. They would not be capable of a war with the US until this process was finished, and whenever that was (1980? 1990? 2000?), there would still be little reason for the Nazis to be hostile to the US. The two countries would hardly be friendly, and I admit that from a US point of view Communism and Nazism are equally un-American and evil, but many Americans have German ancestry, and many more have Germanic ancestry. The US is a bastion of democracy, and Germany was extremely un-democratic, but Hitler had shown a surprising willingness to cooperate with democracies in the past (pre-war negotiations with Britain, Finland on the Eastern front), and he was never a crusader against democracy beyond Germany. A continental axis victory by 2000 would result in two superpowers, Germany and the US, and they would be on better terms than the US and the Soviet Union were during the Cold War.
The Soviet Union, both before 1945 and after 1945, was not so much a country as it was the headquarters of the global communist revolution. Communism had been around for about a century, had a presence in every industrialized country, and was, no doubt, interested in world revolution. This is an important difference between Nazism and Communism. Communists see every single non-communist society on earth as inherently unjust and irredeemable. More than that, they feel a duty to "liberate" the workers there. Nazis, on the other hand, have no issue with foreign injustice unless it threatens them - a lot like the US, really. There would be no Cold War, no Hot War, no proxy wars, no Korea, no Vietnam, the two superpowers would tolerate each other, by and large. With the rise of the Nazis, there was an opportunity for the West to crush the revolution absolutely and totally in the most brutal manner imaginable, and they wouldn't even have to get their hands dirty. All they had to do was allow Germany to fulfill its goals in the East, and Communism would suffer a setback from which it might never recover.
An Axis victory would have been better for the US than the outcome we got. I do not believe in the apocalypse or superweapons, and I insist that all-out nuclear war leading to the end of the world is a myth and always will be, but if the Cuban Missile Crisis did go south, it would because of President Roosevelt's inability to see communism for the threat it was.
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