World War II without the USA

Leinad

To add to what Darkling said.

a) Japan - might go south but why? If the US is so isolationist it is unlikely to be nudging Britain and the Dutch to oppose the Japanese in China, or if they are they would be avoided. They can get all they want by purchasing and are heavily committed in China. They might go for Russia but if they do are likely to be really hammered. Also that would mean also fighting Britain at the same time, attacking in both directions. If not done in late 41/early 42 this becomes increasingly difficult.

b) The big loss for the allies without the US is probably the aid to Russia. Most specially food and trucks. At lower levels for the latter but Britain and the dominions could probably supply a lot of those. Set up a couple of large factories in India and you could have the basis for a big and successful industry. [Cheap but skilled labour, rubber from Malaya, oil from Persia and Iraq. All the basic requirements are there]. Russia will not get as many trucks and other resources, which will make its offensives after Kursk weaker but probably still overwhelming.

c) I agree with Darkling over the nuclear options. That was the basis for my hints in the last paragraph of my previous post. It would probably have taken longer but with just a little look in terms of the right choices not much more.

d) Whatever happens the allies have one huge advantage, in that the Germans have Hitler. Coupled with the general incompetence and corruption of the Nazi system the Germans faced serious problems.

e) Britain loses a lot of resources in the shorter term by the US not being out of the war. However the destructive impact of US Lend-Lease terms would not apply. Also in this scenario, with no Pacific war, we have the resources tied down by that and the rich resources, most noticeably Malaysia, with its rubber and tin.

There were also options for avoiding a good bit of waste of resources in Britain. With a need to cut back and make choices a lot of those could be avoided and the greater commitment to winning the war means they are probably more likely to be made in Britain rather than Germany.

Steve
 
Out goes Britain.Goodbye democracy.

Even if the USA had simply elected an isolationist government that did not sign pacts with the axis, Britain would have been forced out of the war soon after the elections.

The reason is that Churchill's decision to fight on against the Nazis won support because of his assertion that the USA would become involved at some point in the war and that he was the man who could help bring this about.

The prospect of this involvement being removed, coupled with the fact that Britain's gold and dollar reserves were greatly diminished by the autumn of 1940 would simply be too much to bear. Churchill would have been forced out and a compromise peace with Germany reached. Beyond this, the chances are that the democracies would have grown weaker as the years passed, with Britain -and its democratic institutions- suffering the most due to its proximity to a Europe controlled by the Nazis or the Soviets.

A bleak world.
 
Darkling said:
At the end of the day the US and Canada only got something as limited as NAFTA and there is no explicable reason for them to get an EU type relationships during WW2 other than you seem to like the idea.

While I would agree that such a development may not happen within a few months, I still see possibilities for a development in this direction. It appears to me that your dislike of the idea is more of a reason to refuse to accept the possibility. Don't forget that at one time, the British and French even discussed a union - far more unrealistic, but still considered possible by *both* its leaders...

Darkling said:
No need to join the axis, they could have seized the Arabian peninsula as well as fighting with Britain, however since you concede that this is unlikely it is a dead end of discussion anyway

I suppose the US grabing the area by force and fighting on the same side as the British would be pretty unlike. As a possible stepping stone to get the US into a more active role in the old world, it might still be a possibility which is not a dead end.

Darkling said:
You don’t take over control of New York just because you happen to own Fifth Avenue, your idea was that the US would buy enough land to make a takeover a fiat accompli which means they buy everything.

Again implausible.

Obviously you don't like to think about what the economic might of the US might lead to if it's not used to support a lend-lease agreement, as you don't really go into what I'm saying. I'm pretty sure a comparable amount would have been used abroad, one way or another, if only on a private base. It might even be more advantageous for the US. There are also lots of mines, oil fields, harbors, and other worthy places to buy, lots of countries, counties, cities, and the likes to take control over (think of Iceland, just with some more British colonies), and so on.

Darkling said:
Most places didn’t have Lords, they had Indian Princes and African chiefs, the British could theoretically depose an Indian prince and make him an American but it just wouldn’t be worth the hassle and I can’t see why an American would want it anyway.

As for being an African chieftain, it would be something of a step down to live in a mud hut.

There are not only mud huts in Africa - and some idealists might even like the idea to try to turn a vilage of them into a prospering town. Not to mention all the little isolated isles, harbours, cities, micronations and so on in British hands. Also, a simple step like adding a new "layer of middle management" might be completely sufficient to open up a lot of posts for local and foreign lords to take in larger colonies.

Darkling said:
No it had a hand full of Russian fur traders and a bunch of Indians.

However you said that “Once whole places belong to Americans, I'm sure that would affect nationality in the long run. Similar to Alaska.”

Which means you are saying Alaska became American because America brought up land in the area, it didn’t it was a transfer of the domain from one sovereignty to another.

A better example of what you are trying to put forward would be Hawaii.

Afaik, the domain transfer was accepted by the US much later than the actual deal. From this pov, it was a normal land sale which turned more or less automatically into a domain transfer after some time - exactly my point.

Darkling said:
No it wouldn’t, the British fleet as it stood in 1940 was more than enough to beat the Germans and would be for some time even if the Germans started a massive build up program.

That is only partly true - the German fleet was no match. But the u-boats were still able to sink lots of British ships, forcing Britain into a ruinous boat building frenzy. And they would have gotten ever stronger. Without the pretty generous delivery of American boats, used mainly for sub hunting, the losses would have been far higher (even if mainly among civilian and transport vessels) - probably even more than Britain would be able to replace.

Darkling said:
They would have had to down scale their purchases but they continued to buy American goods outside of lend lease for the entire war.

That's besides the point. Prices would skyrocket if there were a 50% chance for any transport to sink - each journey - or if there was simply not enough transport capacity left.

Darkling said:
Again, no it wasn’t, Commonwealth forces were responsible for the bulk of the U-Boats destroyed and it was British technology and tactics which was vital to defeating the U-boats.

The Germans didn’t really get close to starving Britain out, for example 1939-1941, the British fleet increased by 3 million tons enough to cover half the loses of 1942 (most of which was US – the second happy time so that figure would be less in this timeline).

1942 was the largest amount of shipping loses in the war manly because US shipping was introduced without escorts (shipping loses had actually fallen 1940 to 1941), once Britain introduce something as simple as a searchlight in June 1942 allied shipping losses were reduced by 2/3.

Britain and friends can win the battle of the Atlantic (one could argue they already had done by August 1941) and even if they can’t they will be able to ensure the Germans don’t.

We're talking about a prolonged war with ever increasing German u-boat production. Also, you apparently missed the fact (afaik) that the tide only shifted in the favor of Britain after a delivery of a large fleet of u-boat hunting boats. While I do accept that Britain might be able to win this battle, I believe it would have been far more costly to Britain without the help.

Darkling said:
What I don’t understand is how you can think Germany can invade/ starve Britain when you have already stated in this thread “All in all, I'd say that Britain, China, and Russia together would be enough to beat Germany, Italy, and Japan, though narrowly.”

As I said, I just believe it would have been much more narrow.

Darkling said:
As I have pointed out you are a little off on your history f the battle of the Atlantic, US entry was massive net loss, it drove allied loses to an all time high (more than twice as high as any other year).

This "net loss" probably mainly means the sinking of lots of ships close to the US, mainly occupied with transport in the area. It doesn't affect shipping to Britain very much, it might even have helped to divert some of the losses from that route to other places. Just imagine similar losses around Britain - or, as the US was pretty bad in protecting their ships at that time, half of those.

Darkling said:
As for lack of preparation even if that was factor I see no reason why it wouldn’t also be a factor in this scenario.

In 1944, with the Germans war production much less hampered and much fewer losses on the German side, the lack of preparation wouldn't be that much of a factor anymore.

Darkling said:
Except the Americans didn’t lower their own trade barrier (which were already higher than the UK’s), so it was good for the US exporters but not good for the UK’s.

How can a trade barrier be higher than making sure there's a monopoly for British traders? Afaik, everyone exported to the US after the war - I don't believe there were any special rules to keep the British out. While the British may have had to liberalize more than the US, it was probably an advantage in the long term - even for the British - as world economic growth usually profits from getting rid of monopolys. Having a strong position because of unfair trading practices, and harming the own sphere of influence in the process by disrupting the development of the colonies, sure isn't useful for anything in the long run.

Darkling said:
No, Britain was prevented from exporting anything similar to anything available from lend lease, if Britain imported spam they were prohibited from exporting pork products, if Britain imported military jeeps they were prohibited from exporting cars.

That does make sense imo - everything else would mean that the US gives products to Britain for free while Britain sells them at a 100% profit. As Britain wasn't forced to accept those products, they sure chose mainly products they didn't have enough to export anyways. I suppose exports weren't harmed that much by the measure - if not, that would be gross incompetence by the British government. I'm also sure the limits were lifted right after stopping the imports.

Darkling said:
The measures were designed to cripple Britain economically not to prevent weapon sales to tin pot dictators (something which the US has never had much of a problem with anyway).

But hey don’t believe me, ask US secretary of state (at the time) Acheson what US policy was, that policy according to Acheson was “envisioning a victory where both enemies and allies were prostrate - enemies by military action, allies by bankruptcy”.

The US would be stupid not to use the opprtunity to stop the rather primitive trade practices of Britain. And its also OK for a country to try to strengthen their own position. Don't forget that there were wars between the US and Britain. But I also believe the US caused more good than bad if the Commonwealth is viewed as a whole. The question is only whether this was more the lower limit of where Britain was to end up (much poorer). Britain might well have fared even worse.

Darkling said:
That is because you aren’t listening to what I am saying, the US will not be able to use (as Sec state Hull put it) “American aid as a knife to open that oyster shell, the (British) Empire”.

What's the worth of a British Empire in ruins? What's the worth of a British Empire growing much less than the rest of the world thanks to outdated trading practices? What's the worth of a British Empire being an easy target for Soviet interventions? Opening that "oyster shell" was probably the best possible thing to do for the Commonwealth, probably even for Britain. Countries like Germany or Russia might otherwise have grown more powerful than the whole Commonwealth together. A stroong US probably also helped a lot to contain the Soviets.

Darkling said:
Unlikely and quite a departure from what you were saying earlier.

True in both points. Still not completely impossible with all those Butterflies :D .
 

The Sandman

Banned
Are these Alien Space Butterflies? Because there seem to be a few major problems with the idea that the Allies are not utterly screwed as the result of a neutral USA.

Let's start with Asia. The fact of the matter is that the Chinese were utterly incapable of defeating the Japanese; indeed, the Japanese launched an offensive in 1944, even as we were eviscerating their economy and logistics, that destroyed the best troops the KMT had. While the partisan warfare would be incredible, the Japanese would have pretty much all of China that mattered by the end of this war.

Also, the Japanese would go north in this situation. They have the spare troops, the USSR looks ripe for the plucking in autumn of 1941, the army wants some payback for 1938-39, and the Japanese high command weren't exactly rational. While the Soviets will maul them, the divisions used to do so will be unavailable in European Russia. This would be a bad thing.

The idea of the British launching the offensives you propose is also ludicrous, as they simply didn't have the manpower, or the airpower, to do it. Fight the Germans to a standstill? Yes. Destroy the ineffectively supplied and relatively small force in North Africa? Yes, although harder without American units to help close the trap. Launch an invasion into the teeth of a German defense, without having the air superiority necessary to immobilize the Heer and wreck its logistical train? Not a chance in hell.

The Soviets are also very boned, as they now have to produce all of the things we provided through Lend-Lease. The electronics gear, the trucks, the high-octane fuel necessary for avgas, and other such things would pose enough of a problem. The crippling factor, however, is likely to be food. Remember, the most productive agricultural regions were overrun by the Germans in 1941, leaving our aid somewhat important in so far as preventing the civilian population from starving.

Finally, what makes you think that we wouldn't leave Britain in an even worse situation than in OTL? After all, a neutral USA doesn't really care if Britain falls, or is forced into an accomodation with the Germans. We would therefore squeeze the British much harder, with more immediate payment demanded for our goods in the form of trade subservience, technology transfer, and so on. Think of the Soviet deal with Republican Spain regarding the Spanish treasury, and you'll about have what we'd do to Britain in this scenario.

Oh, and in 1941, we probably could care less about taking Arabia. Plenty of oil still in the Western Hemisphere at that point, after all.
 
The Sandman said:
Are these Alien Space Butterflies? Because there seem to be a few major problems with the idea that the Allies are not utterly screwed as the result of a neutral USA.

Its know as logic and studying the facts. It would be more difficult for the allies but given their greater resources they would still have the edge if they avoided defeat in the initial Nazi thrusts.

Let's start with Asia. The fact of the matter is that the Chinese were utterly incapable of defeating the Japanese; indeed, the Japanese launched an offensive in 1944, even as we were eviscerating their economy and logistics, that destroyed the best troops the KMT had. While the partisan warfare would be incredible, the Japanese would have pretty much all of China that mattered by the end of this war.

The Chinese were incapable of defeating the Japanese due to their infighting and corruption. However that is not the point. It is whether the Japanese were able to conquer China. They were able to overrun it but could they actually hold it for any length of time. The reason the Japanese strike to the south was with very small forces was because the vast majority of their forces were already tied up in China or in Manchuria watching the Soviets.

Also, the Japanese would go north in this situation. They have the spare troops, the USSR looks ripe for the plucking in autumn of 1941, the army wants some payback for 1938-39, and the Japanese high command weren't exactly rational. While the Soviets will maul them, the divisions used to do so will be unavailable in European Russia. This would be a bad thing.

They might look north. As you say they weren't very intelligent. However how much would they actually take off the Soviets. The Soviets had already stripped their forces in the east to a bare minimum but their qualitative edge and the vast distances would have meant relatively little material losses for the Soviets. The big difference in such a scenario in OTL would be the cutting of Lend-Lease but in this TL with an isolationist US that isn't there to be cut.

The idea of the British launching the offensives you propose is also ludicrous, as they simply didn't have the manpower, or the airpower, to do it. Fight the Germans to a standstill? Yes. Destroy the ineffectively supplied and relatively small force in North Africa? Yes, although harder without American units to help close the trap. Launch an invasion into the teeth of a German defense, without having the air superiority necessary to immobilize the Heer and wreck its logistical train? Not a chance in hell.

I suggest you check the history of WWII. Britain supplied the bulk of the allied forces for the European war up until D-Day. I doubt if Britain would have tried to invade N France until shortly prior to a German collapse. However the defeat of the German forces in N Africa, including the relatively large reinforcements that occurred in Nov 42 were by overwhelmingly British/Commonwealth forces. The invasion of Italy would have been more difficult, presuming the Germans make the same effort to defend it, but still within British limits. Don’t forget that even if Japan does join the war by an attack on Russia its far less likely to successfully attack the British positions in SEA and hence their resources will be available.

The Soviets are also very boned, as they now have to produce all of the things we provided through Lend-Lease. The electronics gear, the trucks, the high-octane fuel necessary for avgas, and other such things would pose enough of a problem. The crippling factor, however, is likely to be food. Remember, the most productive agricultural regions were overrun by the Germans in 1941, leaving our aid somewhat important in so far as preventing the civilian population from starving.

I agree that advanced electronics and high octane fuel would have been problems but it could get by on less. Ditto with lorries and food as that could be supplied, in slightly less numbers admittedly by Britain. Given the huge advantages the Soviets had in resources and production they would have been able to fight on provided they could get through 41 without markedly greater losses. [Depends exactly on when the POD departure occurs and how the various powers respond to it].

Finally, what makes you think that we wouldn't leave Britain in an even worse situation than in OTL? After all, a neutral USA doesn't really care if Britain falls, or is forced into an accommodation with the Germans. We would therefore squeeze the British much harder, with more immediate payment demanded for our goods in the form of trade subservience, technology transfer, and so on. Think of the Soviet deal with Republican Spain regarding the Spanish treasury, and you'll about have what we'd do to Britain in this scenario.

You could only squeeze Britain so much historically because Churchill was so romantically attached to his mothers country. If that route is not open because of an openly hostile US then the obvious tactic is to cut the cloth accordingly and not buy anything like as much from the US. What you did get was trade subservience and Britain would have been far better not accepting this. [As well as the rest of the world probably]

A stupid US doesn't really care if Britain falls or is forced into an accommodation with Germany. Correction, make that a REALLY, REALLY stupid US. If Germany dominated Britain, and hence most of its empire and also virtually all of Europe including much of Russia then the US also loses a lot.

Oh, and in 1941, we probably could care less about taking Arabia. Plenty of oil still in the Western Hemisphere at that point, after all.

That is accurate, although the US was doing its best to get its hands on as much as possible. This of course would be a really lost cause if Britain was defeated.

Steve
 
In OTL, with Lend-Lease and US involvment in the war and Japan not invading the Soviet Union and Operation Torch and so on, Stalin was still debating a possible arrangement with Hitler until January of 1943.

No US involvment AND no US aid/support? Stalin is happy to get his deal involving the surrender of the Baltic States, Byelarus and one-third of the Ukraine.

Great Britain then has no choice but to sue for peace.
 
jolo said:
While I would agree that such a development may not happen within a few months, I still see possibilities for a development in this direction. It appears to me that your dislike of the idea is more of a reason to refuse to accept the possibility. Don't forget that at one time, the British and French even discussed a union - far more unrealistic, but still considered possible by *both* its leaders...

Churchill, prone to flamboyant gestures, made such a suggestion. Not sure if any French leaders actually took it seriously. Have read that this could have made matters worse as it distracted attention from more realistic attempts to encourage France to fight on. Wouldn’t be at all surprised if at least some French decision makes thought it was an attempt to annex the French empire.

I suppose the US grabing the area by force and fighting on the same side as the British would be pretty unlike. As a possible stepping stone to get the US into a more active role in the old world, it might still be a possibility which is not a dead end.

An isolationist US is sending forces half way around the world, into the middle of a war zone, to attack a small independent state? I can understand why Darkling thinks its unlikely. Not to mention where the US would be getting its supplies from and basing forces for the attack?

Obviously you don't like to think about what the economic might of the US might lead to if it's not used to support a lend-lease agreement, as you don't really go into what I'm saying. I'm pretty sure a comparable amount would have been used abroad, one way or another, if only on a private base. It might even be more advantageous for the US. There are also lots of mines, oil fields, harbors, and other worthy places to buy, lots of countries, counties, cities, and the likes to take control over (think of Iceland, just with some more British colonies), and so on.

Again we’re got the contradiction of an isolationist US intervening across the world. Also who would the US by those assets from when the bulk of the world is largely tied up in conflict. What private investor would by assets that might be damaged, destroyed or seized by a combatant when his government is committed to neutrality?

There are not only mud huts in Africa - and some idealists might even like the idea to try to turn a vilage of them into a prospering town. Not to mention all the little isolated isles, harbours, cities, micronations and so on in British hands. Also, a simple step like adding a new "layer of middle management" might be completely sufficient to open up a lot of posts for local and foreign lords to take in larger colonies.

I don’t think we’re talking about idealists here. Nor do I think that another layer of bureaucrats, with little knowledge of the cultures they will be taking over, will be that successful at ‘improving’ the status of the natives. Even if they could be bothered.

That is only partly true - the German fleet was no match. But the u-boats were still able to sink lots of British ships, forcing Britain into a ruinous boat building frenzy. And they would have gotten ever stronger. Without the pretty generous delivery of American boats, used mainly for sub hunting, the losses would have been far higher (even if mainly among civilian and transport vessels) - probably even more than Britain would be able to replace.

You need to read up on the history of the Battle of the Atlantic. The US did build a lot of escort vessels but most of them only came in after the U-boats were defeated. The worst allied losses were in US waters because the latter was unwilling to accept advice – or assistance from the British.

That's besides the point. Prices would skyrocket if there were a 50% chance for any transport to sink - each journey - or if there was simply not enough transport capacity left.

If there was a 50% chance of a sinking then things would collapse. However the Germans never got anywhere near this ration.

We're talking about a prolonged war with ever increasing German u-boat production. Also, you apparently missed the fact (afaik) that the tide only shifted in the favor of Britain after a delivery of a large fleet of u-boat hunting boats. While I do accept that Britain might be able to win this battle, I believe it would have been far more costly to Britain without the help.

As I said above that is wrong. Britain would probably have won the U-boat war by early-mid 42, presuming the US neutral zone, without US entry. Without US resources keeping on top of them later would have been more difficult and costly but not impossible by any means. Especially if better use of resources were made by Britain.

As I said, I just believe it would have been much more narrow.

This "net loss" probably mainly means the sinking of lots of ships close to the US, mainly occupied with transport in the area. It doesn't affect shipping to Britain very much, it might even have helped to divert some of the losses from that route to other places. Just imagine similar losses around Britain - or, as the US was pretty bad in protecting their ships at that time, half of those.

Wrong! The net loss included large numbers of British and allied ships, which had often been escorted across the Atlantic only to be sunk unguarded in US coastal waters. Sometimes with loads of goods that Britain had paid for and lost because of the lack of protection. At the time the British merchant marine, even without those ships from allies, was still larger than that of the US. The Germans were unable to do anything like that in British waters because the ships were escorted there! That was the entire point of the problem.


How can a trade barrier be higher than making sure there's a monopoly for British traders? Afaik, everyone exported to the US after the war - I don't believe there were any special rules to keep the British out. While the British may have had to liberalize more than the US, it was probably an advantage in the long term - even for the British - as world economic growth usually profits from getting rid of monopolys. Having a strong position because of unfair trading practices, and harming the own sphere of influence in the process by disrupting the development of the colonies, sure isn't useful for anything in the long run.

Where do you get this idea from! It was the US that was the hyper-protectionist power. Even after Britain abandont free-trade in 1913 their import duties were far less than those of the US. We are talking about during the war, not after it. The US did eventually move to limited free trade but by then Britain, after 5 years of Lend-Lease had very little capacity left.

That does make sense imo - everything else would mean that the US gives products to Britain for free while Britain sells them at a 100% profit. As Britain wasn't forced to accept those products, they sure chose mainly products they didn't have enough to export anyways. I suppose exports weren't harmed that much by the measure - if not, that would be gross incompetence by the British government. I'm also sure the limits were lifted right after stopping the imports.

Try reading Darklings post. The US didn’t give anything to Britain for free. Payment was delaid but it was still paid for. Furthermore we are taking about banning British exports over wide ranges of products, not re-exporting US imports. Also there were restrictions on British investment on things like new machinery.

The US would be stupid not to use the opprtunity to stop the rather primitive trade practices of Britain. And its also OK for a country to try to strengthen their own position. Don't forget that there were wars between the US and Britain. But I also believe the US caused more good than bad if the Commonwealth is viewed as a whole. The question is only whether this was more the lower limit of where Britain was to end up (much poorer). Britain might well have fared even worse.

Again your facts are totally wrong. Unless your saying free trade is inefficient, a point I would agree on in a protectionist world. There was one war between Britain and the US in 1812. What has that to do with anything? By weakening Britain the US made its own position worse in the post-war world because it had to do more. It’s the problem of a power that is grossly ignorant of basic ideas of diplomacy and alliance.


What's the worth of a British Empire in ruins? What's the worth of a British Empire growing much less than the rest of the world thanks to outdated trading practices? What's the worth of a British Empire being an easy target for Soviet interventions? Opening that "oyster shell" was probably the best possible thing to do for the Commonwealth, probably even for Britain. Countries like Germany or Russia might otherwise have grown more powerful than the whole Commonwealth together. A stroong US probably also helped a lot to contain the Soviets.

The empire was largely reduced to ruins because of the combination of the war and the short-sighted US policies. [Along I will be the 1st to admit, serious mistakes in UK policies. Including as we’re discussing here letting the US get away with economic murder]. This made it an easier target for Soviet intervention. The only real oyster shell was the US which, despite a huge home market and highly efficient industry continued to hide behind huge tariff walls.

Jolo You need to read up on the history of the period, including pre-war as you are way, way off on some of the basic facts.

Steve
 
Grimm Reaper said:
In OTL, with Lend-Lease and US involvment in the war and Japan not invading the Soviet Union and Operation Torch and so on, Stalin was still debating a possible arrangement with Hitler until January of 1943.

No US involvment AND no US aid/support? Stalin is happy to get his deal involving the surrender of the Baltic States, Byelarus and one-third of the Ukraine.

Great Britain then has no choice but to sue for peace.

Grimm

That would be accurate except for one thing. Stalin wouldn't get any such terms. Also it were those sort of terms he was offering in the early days after the German attack. In spring 43, from what I remember reading, he was prepared to accept the 1914 borders whereas Hitler, as far as he was concerned to make terms at all was basically proposing the current front line. Unless you suggest a major increase in Hitler's logic level you have no hope of a negotiated peace.

Steve
 
jolo said:
It appears to me that your dislike of the idea is more of a reason to refuse to accept the possibility.

Funny I was thinking you like of the idea was causing you to bring up such a left field idea with no support for it (as it was scaled down from US buys Canada).

I personally don’t mind what Canada gets up to (and certainly not Canada in an ATL) but I just see no reason to assume it would happen.

Don't forget that at one time, the British and French even discussed a union - far more unrealistic, but still considered possible by *both* its leaders...

Churchill chucked it out there to get the French to not quit, it wasn’t really given serious consideration.

I suppose the US grabing the area by force and fighting on the same side as the British would be pretty unlike. As a possible stepping stone to get the US into a more active role in the old world, it might still be a possibility which is not a dead end.

The US invading Mexico is a possibility but it isn’t one that springs from the POD.

Obviously you don't like to think about what the economic might of the US might lead to if it's not used to support a lend-lease agreement, as you don't really go into what I'm saying. I'm pretty sure a comparable amount would have been used abroad, one way or another, if only on a private base. It might even be more advantageous for the US. There are also lots of mines, oil fields, harbors, and other worthy places to buy, lots of countries, counties, cities, and the likes to take control over (think of Iceland, just with some more British colonies), and so on.

Again – why?

The US could have gone about buying up parts of the world in the roaring twenties but they didn’t, they could have done it after the war but they didn’t.

You haven’t addressed this fundamental point – why does a US even less interested in the outside world than OTL take actions it didn’t consider in OTL, why do they choose to annex Arabia, why do they try to buy up the British Empire?

You seem to be looking for a way to make this POD benefit the US and rather bizarre ones at that.

There are not only mud huts in Africa - and some idealists might even like the idea to try to turn a vilage of them into a prospering town. Not to mention all the little isolated isles, harbours, cities, micronations and so on in British hands. Also, a simple step like adding a new "layer of middle management" might be completely sufficient to open up a lot of posts for local and foreign lords to take in larger colonies.

Then where these idealists in OTL?

You are just assuming something like this must happen without justifying how it happens or why it happens.

Afaik, the domain transfer was accepted by the US much later than the actual deal. From this pov, it was a normal land sale which turned more or less automatically into a domain transfer after some time - exactly my point.

Incorrect, the US signed a treaty with Russia whereby in exchange for $7 million the Russians would hand over their claims on the territory to the US.

There was an official handover ceremony where the Russian flag was lowered and the US flag raised.

That is only partly true - the German fleet was no match. But the u-boats were still able to sink lots of British ships, forcing Britain into a ruinous boat building frenzy. And they would have gotten ever stronger.

No, they wouldn’t the tonnage the U-boats were sinking was declining before the Americans entered the war.

Once the Royal navy adopted tactics and technology to defeat the U-boats their days were numbered, it was only the US wandering in oblivious to what was going on which caused a resurgence of the U-boats in 1942.

Without the pretty generous delivery of American boats, used mainly for sub hunting, the losses would have been far higher (even if mainly among civilian and transport vessels) - probably even more than Britain would be able to replace.

This ignores the historical fact that tonnage sunk was declining and that the RN was winning the battle of the Atlantic before US entry.

That's besides the point.

No, it isn’t.

My response was to your statement that “Afaik, the British were about to loose their ability to pay for the shipment of the ressources they needed before the Americans assisted them.”

Thus the continued British ability to continue to buy goods and move them after US entry proves this is incorrect.

Prices would skyrocket if there were a 50% chance for any transport to sink - each journey - or if there was simply not enough transport capacity left.


And that 50% figure is coming from where?


We're talking about a prolonged war with ever increasing German u-boat production.

That isn’t the issue, once the British had mastered the necessary tactics and technology they had force multipliers that the Germans couldn’t overcome without fielding enough U-boats to destroy the bulk of the escort fleet in a stand up action.

Also, you apparently missed the fact (afaik) that the tide only shifted in the favor of Britain after a delivery of a large fleet of u-boat hunting boats.

The supply of 50 obsolete destroyers (ww1 vintage) in a much weaker form of the sort of deal you think this isolationists US will be making.

As for these ships being vital, the British were fielding (or were under construction) 236 Destroyers, 89 cruisers (which could be sued for convoying) and 54 escort and patrol vessels. At the start of the War

During the war the British built 277 destroyers, 35 cruisers and a fair amount of converted ships specifically for escort duties.

I don’t think those destroyers can be considered crucial (which is why many were given to the Canadians, the Norwegians and even the Soviets), a few more Britsih ships will be sunk (but considering British ships sure a net gain over 39-41 but such a degree that they could have covered twice the loses for 1941 and still come away on par with what they had in 1939.

While I do accept that Britain might be able to win this battle, I believe it would have been far more costly to Britain without the help.

Of course it will be more costly to the British, I don’t recall saying otherwise.

As I said, I just believe it would have been much more narrow.

It would have been more costly but I don’t think the result is in doubt.

This "net loss" probably mainly means the sinking of lots of ships close to the US, mainly occupied with transport in the area. It doesn't affect shipping to Britain very much, it might even have helped to divert some of the losses from that route to other places. Just imagine similar losses around Britain - or, as the US was pretty bad in protecting their ships at that time, half of those.

The Germans would have never gotten away with it on Britain’s doorstep, the British were pros in ASW by this point.

In 1944, with the Germans war production much less hampered and much fewer losses on the German side, the lack of preparation wouldn't be that much of a factor anymore.

Except that the tide had already turned by late 1941, the British were winning.

The Germans having preparations for 1944 (preparations seems the wrong word considering they had been fighting for 5 years already) is pointless because the British have had 5 years to create new tactics, new technologies and new ships.

How can a trade barrier be higher than making sure there's a monopoly for British traders? Afaik, everyone exported to the US after the war - I don't believe there were any special rules to keep the British out.

The British didn’t have a monopoly on their colonies, even before the war both Japan and the US were taking up a considerable portion of the Indian market.

While the British may have had to liberalize more than the US, it was probably an advantage in the long term - even for the British - as world economic growth usually profits from getting rid of monopolys.

Which is why Britain being the free trade giant of the 19th century lost out to protectionist powers such as Germany and the US.

Low trade barriers are a good ting if everybody plays.

Having a strong position because of unfair trading practices, and harming the own sphere of influence in the process by disrupting the development of the colonies, sure isn't useful for anything in the long run.

The British had unfair trade practices for less than a decade; the US had had them for over a century by this point and it was the US increasing it tariff barriers to ridiculous levels which caused the great depression (and thus the fall of Weimar and… well we know where that leads).

That does make sense imo - everything else would mean that the US gives products to Britain for free while Britain sells them at a 100% profit.

They weren’t free, Britain had to settle up after the war and it wasn’t about Britain passing on American goods Britain was prohibited from exporting similar goods such as they had always exported.

As Britain wasn't forced to accept those products, they sure chose mainly products they didn't have enough to export anyways.

Similar products, how similar being at the discretion of the US inspectors of Britain who were operating under an official policy designed to bankrupt Britain.

I suppose exports weren't harmed that much by the measure

You suppose wrongly, since the US openly admited it was designed to cripple Britain it seems odd to believe it wasn’t.

Let me put it to you this way, if lend lease wasn’t harming British exports why did the US curtail British attempts to buy outside of lend lease (thus without the strings), there was obviously some advantage in it.

- if not, that would be gross incompetence by the British government.
No, it was a burning desire to end one of the worst regime sin the history of man, that was our single goal and other concerns such as crippling our supposed allies weren’t held by Britain.

I'm also sure the limits were lifted right after stopping the imports.

By which point US exports had already replaced British exports, because the British were forced to lower barriers and stop exporting the US took the markets and a British economy crippled by wartime couldn’t recapture them.

The US accomplished what they set out to do all to well, in fact they began to realise that they had grossly miscalculated and Britain paid for that miscalculation with bread rationing continuing into the fifties.

The US would be stupid not to use the opprtunity to stop the rather primitive trade practices of Britain.

You mean the US would be stupid not to take advantage of an ally and cripple them when they were weakened.

Maybe they would be but they shouldn’t pretend to be true allies.

Britain’s trade practices were not primitive, exactly how much do you know about the comparative trading habits of Britain and the US?

And its also OK for a country to try to strengthen their own position. Don't forget that there were wars between the US and Britain.

Yeah, almost a century and a half before.

That is a rather silly jingoistic attempt to justify the US’s actions.

But hey I’m all for that idea, I’m sure Canada would never agree to you early NAFTA idea because of the war of 1812.

But I also believe the US caused more good than bad if the Commonwealth is viewed as a whole. The question is only whether this was more the lower limit of where Britain was to end up (much poorer). Britain might well have fared even worse.

I very much doubt it.

What's the worth of a British Empire in ruins? What's the worth of a British Empire growing much less than the rest of the world thanks to outdated trading practices?

Let’s see these outdated trading practices please.

Be honest now, are you just supposing that they must exist because otherwise the US would have been in the wrong and that just doesn’t make sense?


What's the worth of a British Empire being an easy target for Soviet interventions?

Which of course didn’t happen in OTL.

Opening that "oyster shell" was probably the best possible thing to do for the Commonwealth, probably even for Britain.

It would have been the best thing for the US to do as well but they didn’t reciprocate.

Countries like Germany or Russia might otherwise have grown more powerful than the whole Commonwealth together. A stroong US probably also helped a lot to contain the Soviets.

Yes it did but that doesn’t seem to be all that relevant.

True in both points. Still not completely impossible with all those Butterflies :D .

Well nothing is impossible given enough time and butterflies but we could just as easily say that Hitler sitting in DC drawing up plays for the extermination of the “mongrel” (in his words) Americans as they are sent of to the camps.
 
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stevep said:
Churchill, prone to flamboyant gestures, made such a suggestion. Not sure if any French leaders actually took it seriously. Have read that this could have made matters worse as it distracted attention from more realistic attempts to encourage France to fight on. Wouldn’t be at all surprised if at least some French decision makes thought it was an attempt to annex the French empire.

Afaik, understandable popular dislike in France was the reason the idea was abandoned. I even read once somewhere that the British forces moving out of continental Europe was connected to that - who knows, maybe they could actually have delayed the Germans enough for the French to get their act together and some British reinforcements to arrive. Thus the British might actually have given the French the choice between "Good save the Queen" and "Heil Hitler", as you point out.

stevep said:
An isolationist US is sending forces half way around the world, into the middle of a war zone, to attack a small independent state? I can understand why Darkling thinks its unlikely. Not to mention where the US would be getting its supplies from and basing forces for the attack?

Not attacking - just taking over the British possessions there and maybe an annexation of the desert inbetween - at that time, there was basically nothing there, except some thousand nomads and a few minor towns, afaik.

stevep said:
Again we’re got the contradiction of an isolationist US intervening across the world.

Isolationist or not, getting ressources at a bargain is always interesting, and getting or keeping a potential enemy away from them is so, too. But I admit it's not the most likely turn of events, which is why I put more emphasis on private initiative.

stevep said:
Also who would the US by those assets from when the bulk of the world is largely tied up in conflict. What private investor would by assets that might be damaged, destroyed or seized by a combatant when his government is committed to neutrality?

Perfect time for a bargain. Any investor who believes that the US will enter the war and win whenever one side starts seizing their possessions should be interested - if the market is there. I doubt there weren't any US overseas investments at the time.

stevep said:
I don’t think we’re talking about idealists here. Nor do I think that another layer of bureaucrats, with little knowledge of the cultures they will be taking over, will be that successful at ‘improving’ the status of the natives. Even if they could be bothered.

I'm talking about idealists who want to see how they could improve the lot of poor people if they were at the helm. Peace Corp, just more elitist and less peaceful. Should attract quite a few wannabe revolutionaries, missionaries, or the likes with rich parents. But I admit other interests might also bother.

The problem with added bureacracy and little competence might be helped if there is some kind of quality management - from advising the "new lords" properly, to shifting competencies from one level to another according to success (measured even in popularity, if that works).

stevep said:
You need to read up on the history of the Battle of the Atlantic. The US did build a lot of escort vessels but most of them only came in after the U-boats were defeated. The worst allied losses were in US waters because the latter was unwilling to accept advice – or assistance from the British.

This: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroyers_for_Bases_Agreement was before the uboat war was won, even before lend-lease, but definitely not really isolationist already. Afaik, it was vital for Britain. While it was "normal" trade, there were more such deliveries after lend lease started, probably of similar importance.

stevep said:
If there was a 50% chance of a sinking then things would collapse. However the Germans never got anywhere near this ration.

I believe you. But I believe they could have managed that - ships are pretty difficult to hide.

stevep said:
As I said above that is wrong. Britain would probably have won the U-boat war by early-mid 42, presuming the US neutral zone, without US entry. Without US resources keeping on top of them later would have been more difficult and costly but not impossible by any means. Especially if better use of resources were made by Britain.

Then why was Britain willing to give up all this territory for the above deal about a few outdated ships?

stevep said:
Wrong! The net loss included large numbers of British and allied ships, which had often been escorted across the Atlantic only to be sunk unguarded in US coastal waters. Sometimes with loads of goods that Britain had paid for and lost because of the lack of protection. At the time the British merchant marine, even without those ships from allies, was still larger than that of the US.

I'll not contest that as I don't really know.

stevep said:
The Germans were unable to do anything like that in British waters because the ships were escorted there! That was the entire point of the problem.

They did pretty much of that anyways. And all those long range subs running around Britain should hit something.

stevep said:
Where do you get this idea from! It was the US that was the hyper-protectionist power. Even after Britain abandont free-trade in 1913 their import duties were far less than those of the US. We are talking about during the war, not after it. The US did eventually move to limited free trade but by then Britain, after 5 years of Lend-Lease had very little capacity left.

I admit protectionism in the US after the world economic crisis was damaging. But so was Britain monopolyzing on the ressources and markets of the British colonies. From the American pov, the former was just self protection without really bothering anyone else, while the latter was suppression of peoples (besides harming American export chances). I can understand why they pushed that matter. Germany, after the war, btw., had nearly no capacity left. And was also technologically far behind.

stevep said:
Try reading Darklings post. The US didn’t give anything to Britain for free. Payment was delaid but it was still paid for. Furthermore we are taking about banning British exports over wide ranges of products, not re-exporting US imports. Also there were restrictions on British investment on things like new machinery.

Wiki says something else: "Unlike the loans of World War I, the transfers were gifts that were not to be repaid". I would also consider things that actually were returned after the war as gifts, because they probably had hardly any of the original value after being used in the war.

stevep said:
Again your facts are totally wrong. Unless your saying free trade is inefficient, a point I would agree on in a protectionist world. There was one war between Britain and the US in 1812. What has that to do with anything? By weakening Britain the US made its own position worse in the post-war world because it had to do more. It’s the problem of a power that is grossly ignorant of basic ideas of diplomacy and alliance.

I don't consider the British policy of buying ressources from and supplying goods to their colonies, with lots of protection to make sure it stays that way, a model of free trade. As was said before, the US *did* have some markets to open.

I also don't believe the US damaged their position when they didn't lift their subsidies to levels which would have preserved the Empire. I don't think winning the cold war and becoming the worlds only super power would have been that much easier or sooner with more British help.

The British perfectioning the art of "Balance of Power" also wasn't a perfect example of diplomacy and alliance in the meaning you apperently try to convene. Or where did this person come from who invented the saying "... doesn't have eternal friends, [...] only has eternal interests"?

stevep said:
The empire was largely reduced to ruins because of the combination of the war and the short-sighted US policies. [Along I will be the 1st to admit, serious mistakes in UK policies. Including as we’re discussing here letting the US get away with economic murder]. This made it an easier target for Soviet intervention. The only real oyster shell was the US which, despite a huge home market and highly efficient industry continued to hide behind huge tariff walls.

I believe there was a pretty big net gain for Britain from the US. It appears to me Labour propaganda to me that this is apparently seen differently by a lot of young British. Probably to cover up all their extreme mistakes (mostly caused by ideological brickheadedness) after the war. But I admit US protectionism probably helped prolong and intensify the world economic crisis.

stevep said:
Jolo You need to read up on the history of the period, including pre-war as you are way, way off on some of the basic facts.

It appears to me you are wrong on more issues than I...
 
jolo said:
Wiki says something else: "Unlike the loans of World War I, the transfers were gifts that were not to be repaid". I would also consider things that actually were returned after the war as gifts, because they probably had hardly any of the original value after being used in the war.

And the Treasury trumps Wiki.

"Under a 1945 Agreement the United States Government lent the United Kingdom a total of $4,336 million (around £1,075 million at 1945 exchange rates) in war loans. These loans were taken out under two facilities: (i) a Line of Credit of $3,750 million (around £930 million at 1945 exchange rates); and (ii) a Lend-Lease loan facility of $586 million (around £145 million at 1945 exchange rates), which represented the settlement with the United States for Lend-Lease and Reciprocal Aid and for the final settlement of the financial claims of each government against the other arising out of the conduct of the Second World War."

As for things returned after the war they were Lent or Leased to Britain (see what I did there) and where not gifts.

I'll address your other points when you respond to me with exactly the same reasoning, over to you Stevep.
 
Darkling said:
Funny I was thinking you like of the idea was causing you to bring up such a left field idea with no support for it (as it was scaled down from US buys Canada).

I admit I don't know enough about Canada to know how likely a fusion with the US is, or would have been at the time. But I'm pretty sure British and American leadership could have brought the idea across in a way that would be acceptable to most Canadians. As it is, we'll probably never agree... :)

Darkling said:
I personally don’t mind what Canada gets up to (and certainly not Canada in an ATL) but I just see no reason to assume it would happen.

It's not necessary to assume it - I only see such things as possibilities.

Darkling said:
Churchill chucked it out there to get the French to not quit, it wasn’t really given serious consideration.

I'm not sure if Churchill was such a benevolent and altruist personality...

Darkling said:
The US invading Mexico is a possibility but it isn’t one that springs from the POD.

The part of the US getting some of the Arabian peninsula was probably phrased badly, as it was misunderstood not only by you. I meant the US getting the land from Britain without fighting for it, only maybe annexing some more desert around it, if there's a good opportunity - isolationist doesn't necessarily mean pacifism, and it might also be started by US civilians engaging there on their own (investment in oil fields, for instance).

Darkling said:
Again – why?

The US could have gone about buying up parts of the world in the roaring twenties but they didn’t, they could have done it after the war but they didn’t.

You haven’t addressed this fundamental point – why does a US even less interested in the outside world than OTL take actions it didn’t consider in OTL, why do they choose to annex Arabia, why do they try to buy up the British Empire?

You seem to be looking for a way to make this POD benefit the US and rather bizarre ones at that.

Are you sure they didn't buy lots of oil fields and other interesting places after the war? Also, Ford Germany was founded in the 1920s afaik - among many other American investments.

It appears to me you are closing your eyes to any development that might have harmed Britain even more than the actual TL.

Darkling said:
Then where these idealists in OTL?

You are just assuming something like this must happen without justifying how it happens or why it happens.

I'm actually drawing on real world examples - governing posts *were* sold IOTL, lots of people did move to developing countries, many of them with other ideas than (just) exploiting them, and so on.

Darkling said:
Incorrect, the US signed a treaty with Russia whereby in exchange for $7 million the Russians would hand over their claims on the territory to the US.

There was an official handover ceremony where the Russian flag was lowered and the US flag raised.

A complete mess up on my side, apparently. I don't know where I got that from...

Darkling said:
No, they wouldn’t the tonnage the U-boats were sinking was declining before the Americans entered the war.

Once the Royal navy adopted tactics and technology to defeat the U-boats their days were numbered, it was only the US wandering in oblivious to what was going on which caused a resurgence of the U-boats in 1942.

They couldn't have done that as efficiently without US boats and ships. Also, the u-boats didn't have a "resurgence", they only had an increased success rate. They would have had some successes around Britain, too, if they had been there. There were ups and downs caused by breaking codes, new technologies, and the likes - but for both sides. More of them towards Germany, if Britain would have had less ressources at hand.

Darkling said:
This ignores the historical fact that tonnage sunk was declining and that the RN was winning the battle of the Atlantic before US entry.

Still not without US help, and not without some increased success rates for Germany too, every once in a while.

Darkling said:
No, it isn’t.

My response was to your statement that “Afaik, the British were about to loose their ability to pay for the shipment of the ressources they needed before the Americans assisted them.”

Thus the continued British ability to continue to buy goods and move them after US entry proves this is incorrect.

Actually, it doesn't prove that much - only that there was some capacity left for that. It doesn't answer why that was the case.

Darkling said:
And that 50% figure is coming from where?

It's just an example of what increased sub production due to fewer destroyed sub building sites and fewer sub losses due to fewer British navy vessels and fewer technical problems on long distance journeys might have lead to.

Darkling said:
That isn’t the issue, once the British had mastered the necessary tactics and technology they had force multipliers that the Germans couldn’t overcome without fielding enough U-boats to destroy the bulk of the escort fleet in a stand up action.

The air superiority of the allies played an important role in that - and it wouldn't have been nearly as much without US help. Also, US ships sank quite a few German subs - those would probably have sunk a few ships more before sinking, otherwise.

Darkling said:
The supply of 50 obsolete destroyers (ww1 vintage) in a much weaker form of the sort of deal you think this isolationists US will be making.

As for these ships being vital, the British were fielding (or were under construction) 236 Destroyers, 89 cruisers (which could be sued for convoying) and 54 escort and patrol vessels. At the start of the War

During the war the British built 277 destroyers, 35 cruisers and a fair amount of converted ships specifically for escort duties.

I don’t think those destroyers can be considered crucial (which is why many were given to the Canadians, the Norwegians and even the Soviets), a few more Britsih ships will be sunk (but considering British ships sure a net gain over 39-41 but such a degree that they could have covered twice the loses for 1941 and still come away on par with what they had in 1939.

As faik, the 50 or so destroyers Britain kept did lower losses a lot. The ones given to Canada, Norway, and Russia were probably intended to keep Germany from attacking close to those harbours. Furthermore, ships in construction aren't really helpful at a given time. Without US help, I suppose there would have been quite some problems in some areas, thus limiting availability of other things - if only mines, torpedoes, bombs, fuel, and so on.

Darkling said:
Of course it will be more costly to the British, I don’t recall saying otherwise.

But more costly also means Britains starts with less after the war. Don't forget that Britain was still leading in lots of technologies and a few markets at the end of wwii, afaik. 20 years later, they weren't anymore. The reasons must be in the period after the war, obviously.

Darkling said:
It would have been more costly but I don’t think the result is in doubt.

With all those butterflies, the result is always in doubt if any change is assumed. But I agree with you that an Allied victory is still the most likely outcome - just with a much weaker Britain.

Darkling said:
The Germans would have never gotten away with it on Britain’s doorstep, the British were pros in ASW by this point.

They *did* get away with all this stuff up until the end of 1943 according to wiki, though at high losses. They would *definitely* have achieved more against Britain with less tavel times, less technical failures, less US hits, and so on. Though, as was pointed out, most ships sunk close to the US were probably helpful one way or the other for Britain anyways, so that the effect might be little. But there is more to consider.

Darkling said:
Except that the tide had already turned by late 1941, the British were winning.

The Germans having preparations for 1944 (preparations seems the wrong word considering they had been fighting for 5 years already) is pointless because the British have had 5 years to create new tactics, new technologies and new ships.

But the British would have had dwindling supplies, an even more ruined economy, more shortages, and so on. While the Germans would have had considerably fewer of those problems than IOTL. Consider that Britain was never able to get the subs completely under control before the war ended - even in 1945, when Germany was in shatters.

Darkling said:
The British didn’t have a monopoly on their colonies, even before the war both Japan and the US were taking up a considerable portion of the Indian market.

Still the Indians were kept from processing their own textiles by British laws, up until some time around that.

Darkling said:
Which is why Britain being the free trade giant of the 19th century lost out to protectionist powers such as Germany and the US.

Low trade barriers are a good ting if everybody plays.

I do believe market access should be similar on both sides, and I don't mind "retaliating" in kind if another country has high hurdles - but I'd allow a little bit of unevenness to keep my own industries "lean and mean" and to lead by example even if the others don't grasp that.

The US success was also pretty much in line with its human and material ressources - therefore probably unavoidable without major changes in European attitude. Germany wasn't much richer per Capita even in it's best times - today, Britain and Germany are about equal afaik. One might see an organic process of shifting wealth to where it is actually generated in such developments.

Darkling said:
The British had unfair trade practices for less than a decade; the US had had them for over a century by this point and it was the US increasing it tariff barriers to ridiculous levels which caused the great depression (and thus the fall of Weimar and… well we know where that leads).

I believe the war was inevitable - lots of Germans were demanding changed borders even before the fall of the Weimar Republic. Most conservatives still believed in "might makes right". And so on. Germany going through an intense crisis before might even have helped weakening it enough for the Allies to win.

But I agree that the US protectionism did add to the problems - a lot.

Darkling said:
They weren’t free, Britain had to settle up after the war and it wasn’t about Britain passing on American goods Britain was prohibited from exporting similar goods such as they had always exported.

Wiki once more: "Unlike the loans of World War I, the transfers were gifts that were not to be repaid" - plus what I said above.

Darkling said:
Similar products, how similar being at the discretion of the US inspectors of Britain who were operating under an official policy designed to bankrupt Britain.

As I see it, there was always a possibility for Britain to get out of that - even on a product by product base, afaik. Therefore, I suppose the British let the US mainly disrupt the markets they didn't have anyways anymore.

Also, the US wasn't the country which invented the "Balance of Power" policy. And this shift of power probably only represents a part of what would have happened otherwise, because the British wouldn't let more than necessary happen in this regard.

Darkling said:
You suppose wrongly, since the US openly admited it was designed to cripple Britain it seems odd to believe it wasn’t.

Let me put it to you this way, if lend lease wasn’t harming British exports why did the US curtail British attempts to buy outside of lend lease (thus without the strings), there was obviously some advantage in it.

I agree that the US played power politics. I just say that Britain only played along to avoid an even worse fate - they could have chosen differently. I don't know about the US curtailing other British purchases - but I suppose they could only have enforced this when Britain needed to use US shipping or escorts for that. Which means the US had a legitimate point.

Darkling said:
No, it was a burning desire to end one of the worst regime sin the history of man, that was our single goal and other concerns such as crippling our supposed allies weren’t held by Britain.

Your view of Britain looks a little bit idealistic and single sided to me. At the time Britain declared war, Germany hadn't started the holocaust yet, they allowed persecuted minorities (which existed in some parts of the British Empire, too) to leave the country, there weren't nearly the purges the SU was known for at the time, and the Germans hadn't started conquering large parts of Europe yet (the Australian Hitler only united parts of Germany and parts of the former Austria-Hungary, the objective against Poland was officially only the retaking of the corridor afaik, and so on). It was mainly Balance of Power politics to limit German might and economic growth, combined with public outrage at Germany breaking treaties, attacking small countries, and ridiculing democracies, and the perception of Churchill that he could easily(!) force his will upon Germany.

I do agree with you that Hitler Germany was even worse than communist Russia. But most of that was simply not known in Britain at the time. Which leaves only the more down to earth reasons why the war started.

Darkling said:
By which point US exports had already replaced British exports, because the British were forced to lower barriers and stop exporting the US took the markets and a British economy crippled by wartime couldn’t recapture them.

Why could other countries capture those markets? Most of them had even bigger disadvantages - more limited ressources, technologically behind, Allied caps on developing high tech against former Axis countries, and so on. The reasons must obviously be somewhere else.

Darkling said:
The US accomplished what they set out to do all to well, in fact they began to realise that they had grossly miscalculated and Britain paid for that miscalculation with bread rationing continuing into the fifties.

Don't you think that such a policy of rationing everything might have been part of the problem? In the fifties, it was definitely not done out of necessity anymore. Probably more to make people believe they needed the state to help them survive.

Darkling said:
You mean the US would be stupid not to take advantage of an ally and cripple them when they were weakened.

Maybe they would be but they shouldn’t pretend to be true allies.

More advantageous deals for Britain would simply have meant subsidizing that country. It was an empire, the US a republic. Nuff said.

Darkling said:
Britain’s trade practices were not primitive, exactly how much do you know about the comparative trading habits of Britain and the US?

It's extremely primitive to keep other countries from developing just to keep a slight advantage for the British homeland by concentrating production there. It's also not really fair towards countries meant to be parts of the same empire.

Darkling said:
Yeah, almost a century and a half before.

That is a rather silly jingoistic attempt to justify the US’s actions.

But hey I’m all for that idea, I’m sure Canada would never agree to you early NAFTA idea because of the war of 1812.

I'm just saying there were still differences between those 2 countries.

Darkling said:
Let’s see these outdated trading practices please.

see above

Darkling said:
[Soviet Intervention] Which of course didn’t happen in OTL.

Got me. :)

But why do you think the Soviets couldn't pull that off with, say, the US west coast? Or with Australia? Because those states/countries weren't supressed, or at least didn't feel like being supressed (I admit that many poor countries aren't poor because of their colonial past).

Darkling said:
It would have been the best thing for the US to do as well but they didn’t reciprocate.

Afaik, they did - lots of countries get much of their foreign currency this way. Also, they didn't have that much client and colonial states where there would have been the same to consider.

Darkling said:
Yes it did but that doesn’t seem to be all that relevant.

If Britain had been weaker and the US, thanks to not "breaking that oyster shell" had also been considerably weaker, how much havoc could the SU have wrecked then? How many more poor countries would have fallen for communist propaganda had there not been at least some reforms?

Darkling said:
Well nothing is impossible given enough time and butterflies but we could just as easily say that Hitler sitting in DC drawing up plays for the extermination of the “mongrel” (in his words) Americans as they are sent of to the camps.

Maybe even such a TL exists somewhere... :p
 
Darkling said:
And the Treasury trumps Wiki.

"Under a 1945 Agreement the United States Government lent the United Kingdom a total of $4,336 million (around £1,075 million at 1945 exchange rates) in war loans. These loans were taken out under two facilities: (i) a Line of Credit of $3,750 million (around £930 million at 1945 exchange rates); and (ii) a Lend-Lease loan facility of $586 million (around £145 million at 1945 exchange rates), which represented the settlement with the United States for Lend-Lease and Reciprocal Aid and for the final settlement of the financial claims of each government against the other arising out of the conduct of the Second World War."

As for things returned after the war they were Lent or Leased to Britain (see what I did there) and where not gifts.

I'll address your other points when you respond to me with exactly the same reasoning, over to you Stevep.

One of us should correct the entry...

But don't you think that 500 million dollars is slightly less than the total value of the lend-lease agreement? It appears to correlate pretty well to the value of used equipment I mentioned earlier. Sending money instead of this stuff saves a lot of transport costs. The other part appears to be with little relation to lend-lease. Also, former Axis powers had to pay reparations instead, and they still recovered.
 
jolo said:
I admit I don't know enough about Canada to know how likely a fusion with the US is, or would have been at the time. But I'm pretty sure British and American leadership could have brought the idea across in a way that would be acceptable to most Canadians. As it is, we'll probably never agree... :)

No we won’t, just can’t see Canada being pawned off on an isolationist US who wouldn’t be interested anyway.

It's not necessary to assume it - I only see such things as possibilities.

A very long shot possibility that doesn’t really flow from the POD I could just as easily say the US would collapse into anarchy because…….

I'm not sure if Churchill was such a benevolent and altruist personality...

There isn’t anything altruistic about it, the French fighting on was in Britain’s best interests.

The part of the US getting some of the Arabian peninsula was probably phrased badly, as it was misunderstood not only by you. I meant the US getting the land from Britain without fighting for it, only maybe annexing some more desert around it, if there's a good opportunity - isolationist doesn't necessarily mean pacifism, and it might also be started by US civilians engaging there on their own (investment in oil fields, for instance).

Well I have already pointed out the problems with the UK handing over territories to the US but beyond that the Desert you are talking about annexing contains 7 million people at this point and is about 1 million miles square.

It is also home to the most scared place in Islam, good luck getting infidels walking around there.

Are you sure they didn't buy lots of oil fields and other interesting places after the war? Also, Ford Germany was founded in the 1920s afaik - among many other American investments.

Investments are not a prelude to annexation and as for those oil fields being bought you need to bring evidence to prove your point.

It appears to me you are closing your eyes to any development that might have harmed Britain even more than the actual TL.

And it appears to me you are interested in artificially expanding the US for no reason.

I'm actually drawing on real world examples - governing posts *were* sold IOTL,

Such as?
lots of people did move to developing countries, many of them with other ideas than (just) exploiting them, and so on.

And did any of these idealists attempt to buy up enough land in the country to enable a revolution?

How much land did they buy?
How many were there?

You still aren’t showing anything to support your wild ideas (which are so far – US gets Canada, US gets middle east oil, US gets Africa – you can see why I have suspicions about the common thread).

A complete mess up on my side, apparently. I don't know where I got that from...

Fair enough, are you going to revise your earlier ideas which you were basing upon the Alaska precedent?

They couldn't have done that as efficiently without US boats and ships.

Doesn’t matter, it could still be done.

Also, the u-boats didn't have a "resurgence", they only had an increased success rate.

What pray tell would you consider a resurgence?

They would have had some successes around Britain, too, if they had been there.

Only at a horrendous cost in U-boats which would have hurt them, like it or not the US was inexperienced in U-boat warfare and the allies paid for it.

There were ups and downs caused by breaking codes, new technologies, and the likes - but for both sides. More of them towards Germany, if Britain would have had less ressources at hand.

What vital resources to the U-boat campaign did the US provide?

What technological and tactic innovations?

You also ignore the fact once again that the battle of the Atlantic had already been won, U-boat loss rates were climbing and tonnage sunk was declining.

Still not without US help, and not without some increased success rates for Germany too, every once in a while.

And?

I’m not arguing that Britain is going to go off and invade Saudi Arabia or some such, I am arguing Britain was winning the battle of the Atlantic and would win the battle of the Atlantic, anything besides that is immaterial and pointless except to try and talk up the US.

Actually, it doesn't prove that much - only that there was some capacity left for that. It doesn't answer why that was the case.

That would be a separate question.

You said the British were about to lose their ability to pay, I showed they continued to pay after that point ergo you were incorrect, so it does prove everything on that point.

As for why it happened, it happened because Britain was able to accrue dollars throughout the war.

It's just an example of what increased sub production due to fewer destroyed sub building sites and fewer sub losses due to fewer British navy vessels and fewer technical problems on long distance journeys might have lead to.

Why don’t you tell me what the historical sinking rate was and then explain why you think this increase would occur, saying “it could” is no argument and is a waste of time in any factually based discussion.

Aliens “could” be living on Mars but I’m not about to go around claiming such.

The air superiority of the allies played an important role in that - and it wouldn't have been nearly as much without US help. Also, US ships sank quite a few German subs - those would probably have sunk a few ships more before sinking, otherwise.

The second happy time was also instrumental in getting Hitler to sign off on the U-boats, without that its quite possible less U-boats get built.

As for the US sinking a few U-boats, they certainly did but if those U-boats are instead going after UK convoys then the UK will sink more U-boats.

Finally this is once again irrelevant, the U-boats sinking a few more does not equate to the Germans winning the battle of the Atlantic.


As faik, the 50 or so destroyers Britain kept did lower losses a lot.

Proof? or is that just what you hoped happened.


The ones given to Canada, Norway, and Russia were probably intended to keep Germany from attacking close to those harbours. Furthermore, ships in construction aren't really helpful at a given time.

They were under construction in 1939, they would have been available before the Town class destroyers.

Without US help, I suppose there would have been quite some problems in some areas, thus limiting availability of other things - if only mines, torpedoes, bombs, fuel, and so on.

You suppose but you are only guessing and you are making these suppositions because they support your conclusion.

You have made your conclusion and make suppositions to support that conclusion, which is the backwards way of doing things.

And again Britain was already winning the battle of the Atlatnic.

But more costly also means Britains starts with less after the war. Don't forget that Britain was still leading in lots of technologies and a few markets at the end of wwii, afaik. 20 years later, they weren't anymore. The reasons must be in the period after the war, obviously.

Wrong, the UK was leading before the war as well that the gap closed just indicates that the war had a damaging effect on British industry.

You are also creating a false dichotomy by assuming that the war even had total effect or no effect (a Black and White fallacy).


They *did* get away with all this stuff up until the end of 1943 according to wiki, though at high losses.

Quotation?

And if U-boats were being traded for ships at a disadvantageous rate them they weren’t getting away with it they were cutting their own throats.

They would *definitely* have achieved more against Britain with less tavel times, less technical failures, less US hits, and so on.

You are again wasting time, nobody is arguing Britain won’t take increased loses (whether these loses will counterbalance the loses caused by US entry could be argued) so saying they would has all the purpose of arguing that the sky is blue.

As for less technical failures etc, there is no reason they would be less that logically follows from the POD.

But the British would have had dwindling supplies, an even more ruined economy, more shortages, and so on.

10% of war spending is not a great deal to lose, especially when you probably aren’t fighting in Asia and then later in France and Italy and why will a Britain that can actually export have a worse off economy.

While the Germans would have had considerably fewer of those problems than IOTL. Consider that Britain was never able to get the subs completely under control before the war ended - even in 1945, when Germany was in shatters.

Loses were at about .3 million in 1945, that is well under control, in 1944 loses in the Pacific were about equal to those in the Atlantic.

Still the Indians were kept from processing their own textiles by British laws, up until some time around that.

The calico law was repealed in 1774, some time around that is in fact out by a factor 17.

All impediments to Indian textiles were gone by 1820, by 1850 textiles mills were running in India and by1920 tariffs were actually in place to protect Indian textiles from British imports.

The Indians had steel mills by this point (before the first world war actually).

Now since your knowledge of what exactly was going on was flawed are you going to admit your argument was flawed.

I do believe market access should be similar on both sides, and I don't mind "retaliating" in kind if another country has high hurdles - but I'd allow a little bit of unevenness to keep my own industries "lean and mean" and to lead by example even if the others don't grasp that.

Which is the exact opposite of what the US did.

The US success was also pretty much in line with its human and material ressources - therefore probably unavoidable without major changes in European attitude.

Ah the mysterious attitude again, care to define it?

I believe the war was inevitable - lots of Germans were demanding changed borders even before the fall of the Weimar Republic. Most conservatives still believed in "might makes right". And so on. Germany going through an intense crisis before might even have helped weakening it enough for the Allies to win.

I doubt they would have gone rampaging like they did, a lot of Germans weren’t exactly thrilled with another world war.

But I agree that the US protectionism did add to the problems - a lot.

Well it’s nice to see that.

Wiki once more: "Unlike the loans of World War I, the transfers were gifts that were not to be repaid" - plus what I said above.

See my post above.

As I see it, there was always a possibility for Britain to get out of that - even on a product by product base, afaik.


As far as you know?

You gave every impression earlier of the concept being completely alien to you but know you know Britain could have avoided it, please share what you know which led you to this conclusion.

Therefore, I suppose the British let the US mainly disrupt the markets they didn't have anyways anymore.

Another supposition based upon nothing other than convenience.

Also, the US wasn't the country which invented the "Balance of Power" policy. And this shift of power probably only represents a part of what would have happened otherwise, because the British wouldn't let more than necessary happen in this regard.

The British allowed it because Churchill was willing to sweat blood to defeat the Axis and the US was willing to squeeze out all the blood it could.

Without that option the British won’t have a reason to commit economic suicide.

I agree that the US played power politics. I just say that Britain only played along to avoid an even worse fate - they could have chosen differently.

That even worse fate was letting the Axis rule Europe, which would have been bad for Europe and bad for Britain’s security (although Hitler probably could have been satisfied, we were a kindred race after all).

I don't know about the US curtailing other British purchases - but I suppose they could only have enforced this when Britain needed to use US shipping or escorts for that. Which means the US had a legitimate point.

Wrong again, the US had an official policy of undermining Britain’s attempts to get dollars (initially a limit set at $300 million and after 1942 it was set at $1 billion), the US did this to keep Britain using lend lease.

During this time Britain spent most of its dollars on Tobacco, wheat, etc, important purchases the US dictated, had to be done with lend lease and they would push British exports to the US into lend lease as well to prevent the Britsih getting too many dollars.

In fact the British spent a considerable sum of money in the US on frivolous products (including all outstanding French orders, $ hundreds of million’s wasted there) in order to convince them to get involved, if there is no chance of them getting involved here then Britain will be able to save that money.

I’m sure I have said that already.

Your view of Britain looks a little bit idealistic and single sided to me.

When I suggest Britain ends up owning Finland because of the war then we can talk.

At the time Britain declared war, Germany hadn't started the holocaust yet, they allowed persecuted minorities (which existed in some parts of the British Empire, too) to leave the country, there weren't nearly the purges the SU was known for at the time, and the Germans hadn't started conquering large parts of Europe yet (the Australian Hitler

Crikey, Hitler was from down under?

I do agree with you that Hitler Germany was even worse than communist Russia. But most of that was simply not known in Britain at the time. Which leaves only the more down to earth reasons why the war started.

You are once again failing to look at what I was addressing, you said that Britain was foolish to accept lend lease if strings were attached (which leads you so suppose those strings didn’t exist) and I pointed out that Britain was focused on destroying the Nazi’s.

What started the war has nothing to do with this, although what Hitler was about was plain to see by 1941 (the Pope was certainly shouting it from the roof tops).

Why could other countries capture those markets? Most of them had even bigger disadvantages - more limited ressources, technologically behind, Allied caps on developing high tech against former Axis countries, and so on. The reasons must obviously be somewhere else.

Other countries didn’t the US did.

You can make this about evil lefties and economic mismanagement as much as you want but the fact remains that the US deliberately crippled Britain’s exporting economy.

I don’t care if Labour doused the country in petrol and set it alight afterwards it has nothing to do with what is under discussion.


Don't you think that such a policy of rationing everything might have been part of the problem? In the fifties, it was definitely not done out of necessity anymore. Probably more to make people believe they needed the state to help them survive.

It was done because Britain still didn’t have the necessary dollar reserves because the US government had deliberately undermined our efforts to get them and that policy was far more ruinous than they expected.

More advantageous deals for Britain would simply have meant subsidizing that country. It was an empire, the US a republic. Nuff said.

Ah, so you have moved on from arguing it didn’t happen to justifying it one some rather silly ideological grounds.

The Soviet Union was an Empire too, why didn’t the US try to cripple them?

Hell the US republic had some rather imperial tendencies with regard to South America, but I guess as long as you have an elected head of state and good PR everything is kosher.

It's extremely primitive to keep other countries from developing just to keep a slight advantage for the British homeland by concentrating production there. It's also not really fair towards countries meant to be parts of the same empire.

Does the United Fruit Company mean anything to you?

How about that lend lease was doing exactly what you are accusing Britain of, except to Britain.

Finally let’s see Britain repressing colonial industry, considering India had had steel mills for decades I find it a tad unlikely.

The fact that India also had the biggest university on the planet doesn’t seem to indicate that Britain was all that serious about stopping them developing.

I'm just saying there were still differences between those 2 countries.

So this is another attempt to justify the US’s actions – they weren’t American so it was ok to knife them in the back.

I don’t care whether you think it was the correct action, I don’t even care if it was morally justifiable for the US to do it, I care that they took said action and that the consequences of said action were negative and won’t be felt in this ATL.

Anything beyond that is commentary.





But why do you think the Soviets couldn't pull that off with, say, the US west coast? Or with Australia? Because those states/countries weren't supressed, or at least didn't feel like being supressed (I admit that many poor countries aren't poor because of their colonial past).

Why do you think they were able to influence Greece, Italy, independent Italy, Persia etc in that way, it wasn’t because the people were oppressed it was because the people were poor and poor people will listen to some communist agitator who comes along and tells them he will rob form eth rich and give to the poor.

Afaik, they did - lots of countries get much of their foreign currency this way. Also, they didn't have that much client and colonial states where there would have been the same to consider.

At the time, but if you can show me evidence they did reciprocate then lets see it.

If Britain had been weaker and the US, thanks to not "breaking that oyster shell" had also been considerably weaker, how much havoc could the SU have wrecked then? How many more poor countries would have fallen for communist propaganda had there not been at least some reforms?

A stronger Britain is much better for anti-communist work; let’s not forget that Britain won its battle with communism in SEA and defeated other guerrilla movements in it Empire.

Britain also stood up to Arab nationalism (which has transmuted into religious fundamentalism and come back to be our bane) at Suez and was forced to back down by the US holding a gun to the pound.

Maybe even such a TL exists somewhere... :p

Yes but I’m not going to argue it is likely.
 
jolo said:
Afaik, understandable popular dislike in France was the reason the idea was abandoned. I even read once somewhere that the British forces moving out of continental Europe was connected to that - who knows, maybe they could actually have delayed the Germans enough for the French to get their act together and some British reinforcements to arrive. Thus the British might actually have given the French the choice between "Good save the Queen" and "Heil Hitler", as you point out.
British forces were moving out of France because their position was hopeless, as was that of the French forces also being withdrawn from the Dunkirk pocket. Other British forces were still entering France. Try a web search on the 51st Highland Div. That was a highly dubious tactic but Churchill was very much a romantic [unfortunately] and tended to make gestures like that.

Not attacking - just taking over the British possessions there and maybe an annexation of the desert inbetween - at that time, there was basically nothing there, except some thousand nomads and a few minor towns, afaik.
The bulk of this territory was an independent state. The rest were British protectorates, with the exception I believe of Aden. Are you suggesting we should have sold those people and their lands to the US? [Even if an isolationist US is interested in establishing new colonies in the region.

Perfect time for a bargain. Any investor who believes that the US will enter the war and win whenever one side starts seizing their possessions should be interested - if the market is there. I doubt there weren't any US overseas investments at the time.
Why should they think the US will join the war if their assets are seized or damaged in conflict? They didn’t historically. [The German bombing of Britain almost certainly destroyed US assets. British and US bombing of US owned firms, including ones using slave labour occurred during the war. Some of the companies even tried to claim damages for it from the allied governments].

I'm talking about idealists who want to see how they could improve the lot of poor people if they were at the helm. Peace Corp, just more elitist and less peaceful. Should attract quite a few wannabe revolutionaries, missionaries, or the likes with rich parents. But I admit other interests might also bother.
I thought you were talking about getting even more loot out of Britain and its empire than the US did historically. Also a little intrigued about the concept of an elitist and less peaceful Peace Corp. Presumably to stamp down on any locals who want to object to what US business does to their country. I will second Darklings suggestion you read up on the UFC.

The problem with added bureacracy and little competence might be helped if there is some kind of quality management - from advising the "new lords" properly, to shifting competencies from one level to another according to success (measured even in popularity, if that works).
My honest opinion of that, is Ugh! That sort of management speak suggests why you have so totally failing to understand what people are saying to you.


This: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Destroyers_for_Bases_Agreement was before the uboat war was won, even before lend-lease, but definitely not really isolationist already. Afaik, it was vital for Britain. While it was "normal" trade, there were more such deliveries after lend lease started, probably of similar importance.
It was useful but not vital.


I believe you. But I believe they could have managed that - ships are pretty difficult to hide.
Actually one of the big advantages of convoys, even with little or no escorts, is that they greatly reduce the losses to subs, simply because ships are very difficult to find in the open ocean, especially from a low platform such as a submarine. Even without the often atrocious weather conditions in the N Atlantic. To be blunt, the fact you made that statement shows you know very little about the Battle of the Atlantic.


Then why was Britain willing to give up all this territory for the above deal about a few outdated ships?
What territory? Britain gave up 50 year leases on a series of bases. Churchill wanted the 50 elderly boats but even more he wanted to establish links between the US and UK. That’s why he insisted that while some basing rights were traded for the boats Britain gave others for free.

I'll not contest that as I don't really know.
Its all fairly easy to find out if you do a little reading up on the subject.

They did pretty much of that anyways. And all those long range subs running around Britain should hit something.
Why? Coastal waters, with air cover and good escorts are highly dangerous for submarines. Why do you think the U-boats attacked convoys in deep ocean, despite the difficulty of finding them? Because it was too costly to do so in protected coastal waters. If Germany had committed all its U-boats to the approaches to the main British west coast ports it would have done some damage, for the limited time the U-boat forces lasted.

I admit protectionism in the US after the world economic crisis was damaging. But so was Britain monopolyzing on the ressources and markets of the British colonies. From the American pov, the former was just self protection without really bothering anyone else, while the latter was suppression of peoples (besides harming American export chances). I can understand why they pushed that matter. Germany, after the war, btw., had nearly no capacity left. And was also technologically far behind.
Darkling has pointed out you are factually inaccurate here. If your last reference is to the rapid recovery of Germany after WWII [I’m guessing] then don’t forget Germany had substantial financial aid from the US under the Marshall Plan, plus the economic boost of large allied forces being based there, plus they didn’t have large military commitments for 10-15 years. A better educational system and a more interventionist government also helped as did their geographical location.


Wiki says something else: "Unlike the loans of World War I, the transfers were gifts that were not to be repaid". I would also consider things that actually were returned after the war as gifts, because they probably had hardly any of the original value after being used in the war.
Darkling has replied to this. I would comment that I have read of L-L equipment being destroyed, if I remember rightly with the agreement of some US officials because under those circumstances, as opposed to it being returned, Britain wouldn’t have to pay for it.

I don't consider the British policy of buying ressources from and supplying goods to their colonies, with lots of protection to make sure it stays that way, a model of free trade. As was said before, the US *did* have some markets to open.
As stated repeatedly Britain was far less protectionist than the US, or just about any other major power.

I also don't believe the US damaged their position when they didn't lift their subsidies to levels which would have preserved the Empire. I don't think winning the cold war and becoming the worlds only super power would have been that much easier or sooner with more British help.
What subsidies? It was very much in the US interest to keep Britain fighting Hitler. Also, as made clear, with some good references from Darkling, it was more a question of how much looting the US would do. Winning the cold war would have been easier if you had had richer and more powerful allies. Becoming the world’s only superpower is a totally different target. It presumes you don’t give a damn about anybody else and are preparede to screw them into the ground.

The British perfectioning the art of "Balance of Power" also wasn't a perfect example of diplomacy and alliance in the meaning you apperently try to convene. Or where did this person come from who invented the saying "... doesn't have eternal friends, [...] only has eternal interests"?
The basis of the balance of power is that you don’t destroy power. You preserve your position by preventing any single power from becoming too powerful. A s history shows that is disastrous for everybody. The US aim, as stated by a couple of Darklings quotes from US figures, and apparently backed by you, is to become the only player in town. Basically to have the same aim as Hitler or Stalin but have other people do the fighting.

I believe there was a pretty big net gain for Britain from the US. It appears to me Labour propaganda to me that this is apparently seen differently by a lot of young British. Probably to cover up all their extreme mistakes (mostly caused by ideological brickheadedness) after the war. But I admit US protectionism probably helped prolong and intensify the world economic crisis.
What net gains? Britain was virtually totally impoverished, as much by our ‘allies’ as our enemies. The empire was already on its way out because of various changes, including the access to education and western ideas provided by Britain to the populations of the colonies. I wish I was young but not as much as I wish more people in Britain and elsewhere knew history better.

It appears to me you are wrong on more issues than I...
Darkling and myself have provided arguments and in cases quotes and figures. You seem to rely on a couple of quotes from Wiki and what I sometimes call the god delusion – ‘I wish therefore it is’. Its not enough to want something to be the case.
 
I don't think that what is suggested here is possible.

Without going into a lot of detail, I just don't think it would be possible for a country like The United States Of America to have stayed out of WWII. I think we would have been attacked like with Pearl Harbor in OTL, or whatever, but something would have forced us to get into the war. I don't think a country with the size, economic standing, military standing, our overall position in the world, the nature or personality of The USA as a nation, even as those things were in the early 1940's, I don't think a country like that could avoid getting into WWII. I think down inside a lot of Americans knew we would have to get into the war, even people who were against us getting in, knew for quite some time before Pearl Harbor that we would have to get into the war before it was over.
 
Sad to say, it falls down on one thing: Japan "going south" without attacking Pearl. IJN was positive U.S. would go to Britain's aid if Brit colonies were invaded; this put P.I. directly astride SLOCs south; this meant attacking Pearl was mandatory; this, unless Hitler has an attack of the sanes,:p means the U.S. is in the war. Now, whether IJN truly believed this, or just argued it to avoid losing its share of the Japanese military budget, or to try & get IJA to realize how crazy the whole idea was, I don't know, but unless you can butterfly that one, you get U.S. involvement no matter what.
Empire and the Indian army was always quite loyal (although problems began to creep in as more Indian officers did).
Yeah, the Indians knew they'd get independence when the war ended, they just had to wait.
Also linked to this is that the UK might very well be the leading technological power, they won’t have traded away a great many secrets to the US for more or less nothing in return and the US won’t have had its own technological fields boosted by war expenditure (the US economy might still be in a slow recovery form the depression without the US government war spending and the corresponding boom in consumer spending and college attendance which was borne out of the war).
Very possible on all counts. Except, at least part of why Britain went to the U.S. was lack of manufacturing capacity. Would she've gone to Canada, Oz, NZ, SAf, & India, instead? And sooner, given an avowedly isolationist USG? I picture Lancs, Mossies, Spits, Merlins, & (maybe) Valentines being built in all but India (not sure the industrial base there was strong enough), maybe even something like Sentinel in '40. (A T-34-like model, because these countries can't make complex curved parts, so they have to use straight plates?) I can also see a TTL DUKW built in them all
The other upside is that the commonwealth may very well hang together more firmly seeing that they only have each other.
Absolutely. I wonder if Winston might ask for more help from deGaulle, & try & persuade him to make French colonies into a Commonwealth of sorts (a fav suggestion of mine:p), even getting Quebecois recruits (no Canadian draft crisis? no FLQ? too many ASBs?:D)...
 
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australia

It would be a bad idea for Japan to invade Australia. Their logistics were stretched pretty thin as it was and though they had a pretty good navy/airforce the Imperial Army was pretty backward. Most of the British colonies that they defeated were either poorly defended or had antiquated defense plans. Australia was a lot more territory to cover/control.

That and the Aussies would likely have put up a more spirited resistance for several reasons. They were defending their homeland rather than a colony, they had forewarning and would have learned a lot from the loss of Singapore, and the Aussie's were notoriously tenacious when they were dug in.

Admittedly I am ignorant of the law against allowing conscripts on home soil. I am certain after seeing how Japan treats conquered territories. There were British present during the Nanking massacre.

As for everything else, seems like it is pretty well debated by others on this forum. I don't have any direct sources but I have read that many European historians believed the Nazi's were too ambitious in their aims and would have likely been defeated even if the US hadn't intervened.
 
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