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Stalin betrayed the Franco-Soviet Pact in 1935. Stalin gamed the world, and he did not suffer the consequences. I'm not clear on how Trotsky's policy could be more aggressive though.

You make victory in WWII seem more predetermined then it actually was.

Savings and Loan crisis in the Eighties causes economic meltdown. The US has to commit to austerity in order to fufill Western European demands.

Not really. If the Germans defeat the Soviets on the Eastern front, then they would be free to fortify Fortress Europe. It all comes down to defeating Russia.

They had a year or two worth of bunker fuel.

Well, the domino effect is forgotten. We fought the Vietnam War to avoid Communist contagion from spreading to the rest of Asia. If we lose Korea, American military morale will take a hard hit. Probably not to the same degree as after Vietnam, but it will be a hard blow. American prestige...

That's true, they also wouldn't get as much lend-lease if the Japanese blockaded Vladivostock. A quarter of lend-lease aid under American crewed and American flagged ships arrived there. The margins for victory or defeat for Russia was so small that every percent counts. One must not...

According to wikipedia: 1941: 2800 medium vehicles built 1942: 12,578 vehicles built 1943: 17,192 vehicles built 1944: 16,242 vehicles built 1945: 13,485 vehicles built ~62,000 vehicles built in total 80% of Soviet vehicles were produced between 1943 and 1945. Lend-lease FREED UP Soviet...

Don't be silly. While the Soviet armaments production far shadowed any lend lease imports of armaments, the resources for the production came from lend lease. http://sturmvogel.orbat.com/SovLendLease.html

http://sfr-21.org/trotsky.html Trotsky's world view is just as disturbing as Stalin's. Just as many Russians would probably die under Trotsky, but the state would be far more militarized and prepared for war. And he probably wouldn't purge the army, although he might purge the party...

Not really. Germany... according Overy's books, Germany was fully ready for war. There are two sides to every historical argument. Furthermore, Hitler wanted “Kanonen und Butter,” or guns and butter. If the situation in the west deteriorates, he'll be pressed to move towards a total war...

Actually as D-Day proved, it's a matter of days, if you put the resources to the task.

It's completely feasible. Many anticipated at the time the Soviet Union would last no longer then a few months during the initial invasion. If perhaps the Germans successfully cut the Russian armies off from the Caucausus in 1943 (which accounted for 50% of oil for the Soviet war machine), or...

Despite being an important historical figure, he's also pretty obscure.

...Would the French and British even be able to afford a peacetime rearmament? They barely afforded a wartime rearmament.

According to War and Economy of the Third Reich, Hitler wasn't planning for a series of blitzkrieg wars but for a ten year war of annihilation, financed by rising taxes and peacetime rationing. What if Hitler realized that British and French guarantees to Poland were genuine, or what if Hitler...

Maybe win Jutland, but after the war, go bankrupt and fall to Communist revolution?

Oddly the term "ASB" does not show up in this thread, apparently. Because he was obviously involved in a fair number of murders. It'd take... a jury... of Manson followers... to acquit Manson.

Remainder of 1943 Remainder of 1943 Europe "Compared to war, all other forms of human endeavor shrink to insignificance." - Patton Stores of men and materiel piled up on the beaches and in the storehouses of Le Havre. Nearly a quarter of all combat troops could not be transported to the...

Britain needed destroyers for submarine hunting now, without waiting for shipyard production in the US to ramp up and output destroyers. Historians disagree on what killed more Russians: Stalin's economic policies or Hitler's invasion of Russia.