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The Burma Campaign consumed a fair amount of troops (British, Japanese and some US/China). But was it worth it? It is obvious that Japan needed to secure the flanks; hence Thailand (Siam in those days) had to be invested. It is also clear that a threat from Chinese forces had to be balanced...

All, Not sure if this is too recent history or not, but here goes: The electoral system might be considered as antiquated and has surely put the spotlight on 'democracy' in a US context. Let us look at the 1960 election where the (first?) major discussion came up - Nixon vs JFK. Due to...

All, We have probably looked at this before, but here goes ..... Churchill really wanted to see USN being sent to Singapore. Of course it would then entail ground troops as well. That Singapore was a political decision rather than a military one is now clear. King was not so interested. If...

All, The Japanese strategy was never to 'defeat' US. That all agreed was not possible, at least in the 1941 time frame. The entire strategy was built on hitting US Pacific Fleet enough to not interfere while gobbling up the areas Japan really wanted to get: Philippines, Dutch East India...

All, Rommel was not too keen on invading Malta as he saw that as a diversion of his forces> Further he claimed that by going full speed on Egypt with what he had, he could take Egypt up to Cairo in one big dash. Malta could (according to Rommel) be sufficiently suppressed to ensure that he had...

Stalin was very interested in getting the big loan that was hinted at in 1945. USSR was a wasteland and rebuilding with only internal resources was not so easy. Werth is also saying that although Stalin would face resistance, he would have been able to get acceptance through. However, the...

Wiki says: Operation Pike was the code-name for a strategic bombing plan, overseen by Air Commodore John Slessor, against the Soviet Union by the Anglo-French alliance. British military planning against the Soviet Union occurred during the first two years of the Second World War, when, despite...

Stuxnet was (in all likelihood) a word designed and written by US and Israel, initially targeting the Iranian nuclear aspirations. Sophisticated in the extreme, it targeted the PLC control software in Siemens mainframes, resulting in the Iranian centrifuges spinning themselves to death (20%...

All, We probably have bashed this one to death a few times, but … here goes: If we look at the objectives for Case Blue, these were after all rational: Knock out the oil supply to Soviet. If we look at it in a holistic way, all the other issues do come to the fore: 1) Stalingrad must be...

All, We read a lot about instances that will lead to a war, as though nothing can stop it. Some instances may be where the interests of nations involved are so fundamentally at odds that a compromise cannot be found. Some might be based on national ‘pride’, ego of the leaders, etc etc. In...

All, This is not really a what-if - but I hope that someone has got some info. … and this is out of pure curiosity. Who were the Japanese officials during the surrender ceremonies (all of them!) - and what did they do afterwards? We have a rather exact account of German officials - and also...

All, It seems as though all decisions - on all sides - were ill-informed. It seems hard to popint at something going right and was actually planned. 1) Could anyone else but MacArthur have been appointed? Was it totally impossible to overlook him? after all, he was in 70's 2) Was it possible...

All, Still reading Montefiore's 'The Romanovs'. Rasputin's influence was indeed grating on the rest of the 'family' and by extension the nobility and the country. Apparently, there was a move to unseat 'Nicky' by capturing the Royal train, crown Alexei and get rid of the empress Alexandra. A...

All, I am busy reading Montefiore's 'The Romanovs'. Very interesting. Also the Hibbert's 'The destruction of Lord Raglan'. It is all fascinating although I do know very little about this part of British-Russian conflict. All of that said, it comes across as though the Russians had plenty of...

All, Reading the book “the Pacific War Companion” Richard B. Frank has a section on ‘Ending the Pacific War” it seems to be a good question to ask. These are pointers from the book: Based on the book, it claims that radio intercepts (and decoding I presume) revealed that Japanese forces were...

Busy reading Barbara Tuchman’s “The Zimmermann Telegram”. According to Tuchman, there were a few troublespots in the Americas. Germany was trying their level best to entice Mexico into a full-blown war with US. The Mexican president (at tat time – sort of) was Carranza, who was surely...

All, This is really just a little thing for fun. We often talk about the watershed - the moment 'everyone' realizes a serious change. The change may still years to materialize in a concrete fashion, but the watershed has determined the outcome. There will of course always be some within the...

All, Was it possible to avoid the German invasion of USSR? It is not a matter of making massive changes in the likes of Stalin dying, Hitler dying or anything massive. A few pointers: · It is correct that Mein Kampf described the need for lebensraum and that could only be on the...

All, Always been impressed with the US fixation on nuclear propulsion. This one is from the mid-50's: TV-8 was a Chrysler proposal and was to be a medium-tank, powered by nuclear power. The technical challenges were massive and it was obvious why it got cancelled after all. But..... What If...

All, Something has always puzzled me: The Carter presidency. He might have been a more moral character than some other presidents? After all, he was (I read) a reasonable good business man, growing his peanut farms. Surely advocate of civil rights and anti-segregation. Camp David, National...