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Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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Had Germany or Japan invented the nuclear bomb first Americans would be speaking something other than English. I'm not sure about 1812 because while American sovereignty was threatened Britain had most of the same rights for it's citizens anyway. We would have split off sometime later like Canada or Australia.
Had Germany or Japan invented the nuclear bomb first Americans would be speaking something other than English. I'm not sure about 1812 because while American sovereignty was threatened Britain had most of the same rights for it's citizens anyway. We would have split off sometime later like Canada or Australia.
Germany was years away from a nuclear weapon in 1945, for a variety of reasons - mostly, because they didn't try very hard. But even had they tried, it would have meant an enormous shifting of resources away from other defense needs, which would have only hastened their defeat by conventional means before they could deploy a nuclear device. And speaking of deploying one -- how would they deliver it? They had no bombers heavy enough. The V-2 had nowhere close to the capacity of deploying early nuclear weapons. There's another program they'd have to start, just to be able to drop one, that would siphon still more resources away from other critical defense needs. And they'd have to do all of this while being bombed. It took the combined industrial might of the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada until the summer of 1945 to produce a bomb, all the while working in North America, safe from enemy air raids. And even if you wave a magic wand and give Germany nuclear weapons B-29s or Lancasters or some other means of delivering them -- the U.S. would still be out of range.
And Japan's atomic bomb program was far behind Germany's meager attempts, and in any case would have faced all the same obstacles.
The U.S. was only marginally more at risk from a Germany or Japanese nuke as it was from a Hungarian or Mexican nuke.
PS - the whole 'we wouldn't be speaking English' is equally silly. They're not speaking Japanese in Korea, despite decades of Japanese occupation. Even in the Baltic states, which were annexed by the USSR and saw attempts made to stamp out indigenous culture, their languages predominate. And the Soviets had a whole lot more might and means than Germany or Japan, and the Baltics are tiny compared to the United States.
If you let the threat come to our soil then we already lost........WW 1, WW 2 and the Cold War were a threat to us. The war against Extreme Islam is a threat to us.
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The war against terrorism is a much greater threat than the Cold War. Why? Because the former has resulted in: gov't spying/eavesdropping on its own citizens; censorship of the media, especially in the Bush era, but it can be done at any time now, with the excuse that national security requires it; the Presidential declaration that "If you're not for us, you're against us", which can be extended to ordinary citizens who may be unco-operative or may dissent regarding how national security issues should be handled. The whole idea that we now face enemies within (potential cells) as well as without is very dangerous, and is a radical game-changer for issues of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and so on. It's all rather Stalinesque. This is how totalitarianism began in the USSR.
Last edited by Ruth4Truth; 09-19-2016 at 02:39 PM..
The U.S. high school textbook version of that war was so incredibly distorted when I was in school that it was really nothing but a BS lie. The war was interesting in many respects, not the least the number of times the Canadians repulsed U.S. incursions. And the fact that by this time most of Ontario's settlers were post-Revolutionary War immigrants who had not been Loyalists, but merely came for the good land deals. (Among them my grt grt grandfather and his brother.) The government was very nervous about their potential for disloyalty in this war, but it was entirely unfounded. The American settlers remained overwhelmingly loyal to their new country, and those few who felt otherwise quietly packed themselves up and headed south for awhile. The performance of the Canadian citizen's militias in this war has one of the legends of Canadian history.
And the oh-so-terrible burning of the U.S. capital was a payback for a previous American attack on York (Toronto) in which the government buildings there had been burned. So it was a case of what goes around comes around.
The main U.S. issue we were taught was the impressment of U.S. seamen into the British navy, but the reality was more complicated.
Interestin'---Just a note here..The burning of the US capital was basically an accident...the British led a large 'spoiling' party ashore and through a series of American blunders and British persistence made it to DC.
Interestin'---Just a note here..The burning of the US capital was basically an accident...the British led a large 'spoiling' party ashore and through a series of American blunders and British persistence made it to DC.
There was no intent to 'avenge' York-(Toronto).
This is incorrect.
British orders were specifically to 'destroy' and 'lay waste' to towns for the stated reason of 'retaliation' and 'retributory justice'.
Rear Admiral George Cockburn specifically suggested Washington as one of the targets, and this was then so ordered by Vice Admiral Cochrane.
Quote:
The British Governor-General of Canada, Sir George Prevost, became distraught with anger over the treatment of his civilians and ordered Admiral Alexander Cochrane – now Commander-in-Chief of the North American station of the British military to exact retribution. Cochrane, in turn, on 18 July 1814 issued a proclamation ordering his subordinates to punish America for its transgressions:
"...It appears that the American troops in Upper Canada have committed the most wanton and unjustifiable outrages on the unoffending inhabitants, by burning their mills and houses, and by a general Devastation of private property. And whereas, his Excellency [Prevost] has requested that in order to deter the enemy from the repetition of similar outrages I would assist in inflicting measures of
retaliation.
You [British navel commanders] are hereby required and directed to destroy, and lay waste such towns and districts upon the coast as you may find assailable. You will hold strictly in view the conduct of the American army, towards his majesty’s unoffending subjects, (and you will spare merely the lives of the unarmed inhabitants of the United States). For only by carrying this retributory justice into the country of our enemy can we hope to make him sensible of the impolicy, as well as the inhumanity of the system he has adopted.
You will take every opportunity of explaining to the people, how much I lament the necessity of following the rigorous example of the commanders of the American forces."
The war against terrorism is a much greater threat than the Cold War. Why? Because the former has resulted in: gov't spying/eavesdropping on its own citizens; censorship of the media, especially in the Bush era, but it can be done at any time now, with the excuse that national security requires it; the Presidential declaration that "If you're not for us, you're against us", which can be extended to ordinary citizens who may be unco-operative or may dissent regarding how national security issues should be handled. The whole idea that we now face enemies within (potential cells) as well as without is very dangerous, and is a radical game-changer for issues of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and so on. It's all rather Stalinesque. This is how totalitarianism began in the USSR.
what? especially in the Bush era? taking a swipe at Bush. Like our government never tried to censor the media and press during wars .....go study the Civil War and what Lincoln did, how about FDR during WW 2, talk about censoring and propaganda.
our media has come a long ways and in my opinion part of the problem in many cases.
in today's era with 24/7 news and internet and the constitution is hard to censor the media without nobody knowing about it and not going to the courts.
There is a fine line between free press and national security.
As I said.... a large spoiling party...set loose in the rear to wreak havoc and snarl supply and communication lines--I thank you for correcting me on the motives--at least as per some...rergarding some sort of 'revenge' for the burning of York(Toronto)--The listing of DC was probably more of a 'wish list' sort of thing--as there was no way to predict the series of American blunders that allowed the British to burn DC..IMHO.
Just the usual depredations of war..deplored when the other guy does it..lauded when you do it.
Really great responses. Gave me a lot to think about. Here's a question I have: Even had the Axis powers won in WWII do you think even then our freedom would be any more at stake? Could you see a German/Italian/Japanese/others trying to actually invade America?
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