Some cheeky folks over in Britain have put together an interesting video, "A World Without America" which is currently the #2 political video on YouTube. Its garnered over 3,000 comments in three days, as well as 20+ video replies.

Here are two separate links:

A World Without America @ Stage6

A World Without America @ YouTube

Questions for Debate:

1} Do you think this is a fairly accurate (yeah so what if Stalin was dead in '53) portrayal?

2} What would you add to "A World Without America"?

For those of us who cannot view videos, is there a transcript or description of this somewhere?

No transcript to my knowledge. For a description, starting at the sites that produced it would be a good idea.

http://www.18doughtystreet.com/on_demand/165

http://britainandamerica.typepad.com/

Thanks!

I can link to the first one, and actually watch the advertisement. In a nutshell, for others with limited video capacity, the message is that a world without the United States would be a much worst world.

1} Do you think this is a fairly accurate (yeah so what if Stalin was dead in '53) portrayal?

For the most part, yes. America has contributed an immense amount to the well-being and freedom of the planet. However, when you play "what if" games like this, you have to go a step deeper.

Why is there no America?

If the New World simply doesn't exist, history would be vastly different. I suspect that Africa and Asia would have been even more exploited by Europe than they were in real life, simply because there would be no American continent to which they could turn their attention. The planet would be a poorer place indeed, due to the loss of the immense resources of the two continents.

If the New World remains unexploitated by the Old World (difficult to imagine), I suppose you would have some sort of powerful Native American nations arise; sort of a super-Aztec or super-Incan nation. Depending on how much interaction there is between the two hemispheres, you might have a fairly undeveloped civilization or a fairly developed civilization. For fun, let's suppose there's a great deal of trade and cultural exchange between the two. The inhabitants of the New World might still be devastated by Old World diseases, which is a very bad thing, but perhaps things might not have been so bad if this happens after medical science has advanced somewhat. In such a case, you might have a Native American nation not terribly dissimilar to a European nation, and vice versa. Sounds like a win-win situation.

If the United States just vanishes in, say, 1946 (which seems to be something like the universe postulated by this advertisement), you do indeed have a Europe dominated by the Soviet Union. It's tougher to say what happens in Asia, without American influence in Japan. Japan dominated by China? Perhaps. You certainly have less wealth creation, less scientific development, fewer medical advances. With no major rivals, the Soviet Union would probably turn its attentions to these matters. It would do very poorly, of course, at wealth creation, but it might do a decent job at the others (if Stalin allows for a certain degree of free inquiry in the sciences; don't forget Lysenko.) Space travel might be fairly advanced. All of this ceases, of course, when the Soviet Union and its client states collapse from the inherent weaknesses of communism. (Not quite as fast as when they have to waste money in an arms race, but eventually.)

2} What would you add to "A World Without America"?

OK, enough with alternate history games, as fun as they might be. The real point of this advertisement is that America is, in general, good for the world. Sure. I have no problem with that. For the sake of completeness, I might add a few, relatively minor, points. (I am assuming, unlike the advertisement, which dwelt largely on historical issues, that the United States and its cultural influence disappear today.)

Without America, the "Intelligent Design" movement would be extraordinarily weak indeed. Although scientific research would be much weaker -- the USA has an enormous resource of productive scientists -- the overall scientific literacy of the prosperous nations of the world would be higher.

Without America, the planet would have a less homogenous culture. (I.e., the McDonaldization of the world.)

Without America, fundamentalist Christianity would be much weaker. Liberal Christianity is stronger. The other religions of the world stay about the same.

Without America, the free world would be remarkable for its support of feminism and gay rights. (The unfree world would, of course, be just as oppressive as it is now.)

Without America, the economies of the world would be a little less corporationist. Some would lean a little more right, to be more of a "free market," and some would lean a little more to the left, to be more of a "social democracy."

Without America, the United Kingdom would be the home of Rock and Roll.

Without America, Australia and New Zealand would have the most spectacular natural beauty on the planet.

Without America, the world's resources would be consumed at an appreciably lower rate.

Without America, Bollywood would dominate the movie and television industry.

Without America, China is the world's only superpower.

The bottom line, of course, is that the loss of the United States would be a bad thing, mostly.

Ah but you forget one critical thing. Without America, Canada would control the entire continent of North America (maybe a bit more to Mexico), everuone in the world would play hockey and Canada would invade Middle eastern nations when they threatened to upset the canadian economic control of the world markets by switching from 5% beer to crappy 3 or 4% European beer.

Oh, what a wonderful world...

It depends how far back we go. Of course, if you take out one component of any scenario, you effect the whole. If our founding fathers had lost the war they would have been executed as traitors, and the world would look a lot different. If the Europeans didn’t bring smallpox over that killed the indigenous population, we wouldn’t likely be here today. So many potential outcomes. I’ll just start with WWII. If the US disappeared off the map in 1939….

Starting with Asia, Japan would look a lot different today. It would have been swallowed up by the Soviet empire. Next, China would have taken over the Korean peninsula. No Taiwan. They'd have taken over Hong Kong long before the turnover, so that place would look a lot different now as well.

There would have been no UN intervention expelling the Soviets from Iran shortly after WWII, so they would have stayed. On the bright side, that likely would have squelched the future Islamic Revolution. Iraq was Soviet sympathetic, so those governments would have probably merged.

No Berlin air drops, so via starvation en masse, the German population would look quite a bit different today. No Monroe Doctrine to rebuild Europe, either…. I believe that, presuming the world was still around, it would be Marx versus Mohammad today. Maybe Islam would have been eradicated or perhaps Christianity and Islam would have come together to combat the all- consumming Soviet Ideology. Consider that the Soviets likely would have taken over Afghanistan so there would be no Taliban. Hard to say…Interesting topic, BD.

1} Do you think this is a fairly accurate portrayal?

Nope.

Frankly its a load of bollocks because why is there no America? According to the map graphic the Continental USA is just simply not there so I assume its safe to go from the idea that there never was an America in this alternative reality.

This means, all the European-would-be-American-settlers heading west would have colonised Canada and founded their new nation there instead. That this alternative 'Unted States of Canada' would have been a lot colder and less viable as an economic power in the world and would never have had the impact of the USA. As the European empires waxed and waned, their dominance would never have been threatened by a growing power in the west.

With no 'American revolution' to provide a role model, the French revolutions might have taken a very different course and the whole wave of social revolutions that swept Europe, culminating in the Communist revolution of Russia might possibly never have happened, or happened in a very different way.

The wealth generated by the budding USA would have been missing. There would have been no Slave Triangle including the UK for example and Spain could have maintained its dominant economic position in Europe without harrassment from English pirates sponsored by Queen Elizabeth I.

The gradual build up of science and technology coupled with the growing notion of 'society' would have led inevitably to the implosion of the Europea powers, but without America to provide wealth and commerce then South America and Africa would have played a far greater part in the First World War. Brazil and Argentina would emerge as stronger more economically viable nations as more Europeans would have feld there to make their new homes and taken their learning and skills with them. The brain drain would have happaned anyway as Europe inevitably collapsed into chaos follwing the collapse of empire and since Canada is cold and remote, then South America would have been more attractive. Spanish would probably be the worlds most spoken language.

Marx would probably have still written his communist manifesto, but whether or not it would have caught on is any bodies guess.

By 2007 the world would be divded into various blocks of power. Technology would be the same as it is today. People invent and build regardless of where they are living. Note the Nazi's and the Communists never lacked for brilliant inventions. Capitalism would still be what it is. Japan (no Commodore Perry) would be a political backwater dominated by a China (probably run by much the same people, just without the unconvincing veneer of communist iconography).

Europe would be a mess of smaller country's with their imperial remains hanging in the background, bickering and squabbling. Several would have invented nuclear weapons no doubt. I doubt the seocnd world war would have happened. Hitler might never have come to power at all. There would have been no Jewish Holocaust and Israel would never have happened.

Islam would be exactly as it is today but its extremist fringe would be concentrating on Muslim nations. Oil would be important but there would be no single default currency, just a mess of buyers all out bidding each other. The global market would be more volatile since no super powers would have arisen until recently and these would like as not be Brazil, China and India with Brazil playing the 'Euro-centric' role that America plays today.

Denmark would probably be an armed camp to keep the Swedes and Germans at bay, that is if we had survived the nineteenth century intact at all.

1} Do you think this is a fairly accurate (yeah so what if Stalin was dead in '53) portrayal?

Yep, a lot of very good things have come out of this experiment in freedom within a republic. Speculation is always open to interpretation though. Had there never been an America, would Hitler have gotten the atomic bomb? He was looking for it, but had Stalin stomped Nazi Germany and conquered it into the USSR, what would have been the Russian stimulus to seek an atomic bomb?

2} What would you add to "A World Without America"?

Got a kick out of the hairstyle changes. I suppose those would have gone the way they did without an America, considering the British rock invasion. I might add that if you use chaos math on this model what-if, the whole shebang would turn out unrecognizable. What if Spain had not collected all that S. American gold? Could Britannia have continued to rule the waves? And without a Civil War, would iron-clad ships ever have been thought up? How's about surgical medicine?

One of the ugly facts of life is that great innovations come from warfare. Without major wars going on, the technology doesn't move ahead very rapidly. But I imagine the tensions in a world without America would be sufficient, possibly slower, but humanity would eventually arrive.

I'd like to see the US climb back up to being the tech leader it once was. IBM's trying that with a four-processor chip 15mm to a side (which is small). They're in bed with SUN and MS, HP too. But, all this has been done before with mainframes. It's the same tech, just miniaturized.

Well, it's time for my usual alternative energy rant. It I just give it a number, it'll save time and space, so I'll call it number . . . 42.

I beg to differ. Without the US intervention (aka Lend-Lease to shore up both the UK and USSR), Germany would have defeated the Soviets, and then the UK. (Unlike the WW2 era Soviets, the Germans had both the industrial capability and the technological know-how to build invasion fleets, they just hadn't done so yet....) Japan would have had a free rein in East Asia and, more importantly Manchuria. The Soviet troops that slowed the Germans down just enough came from staring across a hot border with the Japanese. Without having to confront the "Sleeping Giant", Japan would have had a field day, and the Eastern Front (from the European perspective) would not have recieved the oh so critical reinforcements. The fact that the "War Party" was dominated by the Imperial ARMY only lends credence to this scenario. Finally, the Soviets, at least until the mid 1960s, would have been completely incapable of putting to sea a navy that could challenge the IJN. (They tried that in 1905, didna work out to well for them.)

Move America's disappearance out to 1945 and your scenario is much more plausible, in fact, the Soviets would likely dominate the entire world, although its not impossible that the New World would be, as Vermillion noted, under Canadian domination in a struggle against the Reds. (in 1945, Canada had the third largest navy in the world.)

Given that the point of the ad is to get Brits and others to think about the things that America has contributed to the world, the "why" is irrelavent, save for alternate history buffs. (I'm one.)

As a general principle, I'm extremely skeptical of this notion. While the Nazi's and Commies had some brilliant inventions, they were almost exclusively in the realm of "defense technology." Regimes that stifle freedom also stifle creativity, because creativity is destabilizing. This is one of the challenges that has always faced China.

The Swedes? Didn't they give up their warlike ways during the 18th and 19th centuries?

I didn't really notice the hairstyles, but I did notice the suitcoats!

America is still the tech leader. We just don't trumpet it as much, since we're no longer locked in an ideological struggle with the "scientific" Communists. If anything, its Europe that's been losing tech ground, as the Asians (Japan primarily, with Korea and the Little Tigers doing some as well) have been upgrading their tech prowess. Another aspect of the tech is that we disseminate much of our technology much quicker than we used to. This isn't to say that the Europeans are slouches in the tech arena, just that, especially in medical technologies, they're behind us.


2} What would you add to "A World Without America"?
No Moon Landing, no Velcro, no Pet Rock, no Happy Face, no cell phones, no Happy Meal. The genre of Science Fiction would be a shadow of itself, as, like westerns, its primarily an American genre. The British SF is a somewhat different beast, much as British humour is different than American humour. This isn't to say that there isn't a great British SF, Arthur C. Clarke is likely the best known, although Orwell's 1984 is SF, not usually treated as such, but rather as literature Perhaps its due to translation difficulties, or perhaps its simply that outside of the Anglosphere and Japan, science fiction has little appeal, but I very rarely see any SF originating in other languages.

And, of course, no Internet. Without Al Gore, who'd invent it? Okay, more accurately, without ARPANET...

Bikerdad

I think the why is important because it establishes the foundation for the idea. If the USA simply disapeared in 1939, then I think world history would have been seriously influenced as to why the USA had disapeared. What happened to it? An entire nation simply vanishes and the world carries on regardless? Not very convincing, and if I may be so obtuse, hardly the point made by the video either, for as I pointed out, the map of the world shows the USA is simply not there. Ergo it never was. Ergo there was never a USA.

The complete non existence of the USA is a pretty big deal if we're talking about alternative history. I'd say that the entire twentieth century as we know it could not have happened if the USA was simply not there. The long reaching chain reactions would have changed everything, every where. Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin would never have come to power because the historical mechanics that allowed them to rise to power would not have taken place.


I seriously disagree. Creativity is not hampered by a lack of freedom, but rather is encouraged by it and this is why most creative people are creative in their youth when social and economic constraints provoke the development of creative thoughts. I know this for a fact for I am such a person and my education and life are testament to it. As an art student I was witness to many other students, all like me, in economic difficulties and with a decided lack of opportunities. This focused my mind on those opportunities I did have and as a consequence I was far and away more creative in my early twenties than I am now in my mid thirties.

History indicates that art students are not the only people thus aided by constraint towards greater creativity. The Soviet Union, with far less freedom or funding managed to conceive, design and build the worlds first fully operational ICBM and this despite the wealth of material and technical information the US Military appropriated from post war Germany and despite the leading lights of Germany's rocket pioneers being taken to the USA. As a further point to consider; the Soviet design teams were virtual prisoners compared to their American counter parts.

When Sergei Korolev sent his 'Little nr. 7' into orbit carrying Sputnik 1, he had managed, on a pitiful budget and with limited personal freedom, to design a rocket that turned out to be so many times more powerful than America's first satelite bearing vehicle (the Vanguard) that its payload capacity was half a ton, (as opposed to Vanguards 9kg).

And it gets even more poigniant because the brain child of the US space programme was Werner von Braun, a German scientist and rocket pioneer who did all his most creative work when he was working for the Nazi's (who at one point had him under arrest). Even von Braun's most famous rocket, the mighty Saturn V was merely a creative extrapolation of the A-12, a vehicle designed under highly restrictive Nazi authority.

But wait, there's more! The United States, with all its commercial power and civil freedoms could have been the first into space, beating even the Nazi's (the A4/V2 rocket reached an altitude of 189km) but they weren't, because why not?

In July of 1914, Robert Goddard (a very creative American) took out his first patents on multi staged, liquid fuelled rockets. Goddard, who is now named as a 'Father of Modern Rocketry' was decades ahead of Von Braun, Korolev and Oberth and had he received encouragement and serious backing then the USA would have been the foremost space power on the planet prior to the second world war. But this never happened, most probably because there was no need felt for rocketry by a complacent American public. Goddard even published his theories in a book (which was subsequently studied well and hard in Germany) but for all his creativity he was largely ignored by his fellow country men.

This teaches us that freedom cares little for creativity, but tyranny will always find a way to abuse it. When reading of rocketry the lesson for me has always been clear as crystal. All the pioneers were gifted men, but those who succeeded were those who were forced to do so by their situation and the needs pressed upon them by others. When left to their own devices, as was Goddard, all the creativity you could ever wish for was left spent and ignored by a rich and indifferent society.

The USA today has a very different approach towards such things as inovative and technological creativity, that is true, but this has been forced upon the USA by exterior pressure. The USA did not choose to become what it has. Had it not been for the Nazi's and the Communists, then there would probably be no American flag on the moon today. This brings me to your other point regarding civilian contra military innovation. I don't think you can seperate the two at all.

It was the military necessity to expand control of technology that led to where the USA is now and the cost of that expansion was largely paid for by Europe. Some of the most important technological developments in the employ of the USA, such as the cavity magnetron, were European inventions that were 'drained' into the USA to establish miltary superiority and eventually what Eisenhower called the 'military industrial complex'. Today that 'entity' is probably the most secretive and restrictive on the planet and yet its purpose is to create and manufacture innovative technology. The cavity magnetron was given to the USA in order to assist in developing superior military technology but its far reaching technological impact has been equally as profound in civilian life.

Again the lesson is, creativity thrives best in adverse conditions. Had the Second World War not provided impetus then the British would probably have developed the cavity magnetron (and so many other important inventions) themselves. A lot of Europe's technological knowledge would have remained in Europe and quite possibly been as ignored as Goddard's inventions were.



Yeah, right.


Now your just being rude!

Where as American style sci fi is very characteristic, the genre is not specific to one particular nation. If there were no USA, I'd agree that there would be less sci fi, but on the whole I'd say that the loss would hardly be a significantly intellectual one for the vast (overwhelming) bulk of American sci fi is recycled rubbish and you have to wade through an awful lot of 'trekkish dross' to find the few nuggets of silver that is the likes of Asimov, Dick and Niven.

By comparison, British sci fi is far less in quantity but much more in quality and the non English language stuff is often equal in merit but neglected regardless.


edited to add missing words

No, that is not the case. By the time lend-lease started delivering reasonable supplies of anything, the Soviets had already blunted the attack on Moscow in 1941, and at that point it was certain the Germans would lose it was just a case of how long. Lend lease's main gift to the Soviets was trucks, the Deuca and a half in fact, which allowed far more mobility in Soviet counter-attacks. But The USSR did not need the help of the US to defeat the Soviets they did it on their own. US intervention in the west and lend lease just made it faster.

Next, the Germans did not have the technology to build invasion fleets and it certainly did not have the available industry. They were completely stumped by the Channel, the best idea they could come up with was Rhine barges that would have swamped at anything above 18 inches of surf.

Thirdly, japan was going south as of August 1939, they never had any intention of going into Russia after that, nor did they maintain the troops or equipment in manchuria to make an attack. Had they changed their minds, it would have taken months to prepare and they would have had to halt their entire southern expansion. japan had the capacity to go North into Russia or South into the pacific and Indochina, but not both. They certainly could not have done it in time to coincide with the German barbarossa offensive.

Fourthly, the japanese cabinet was in fact dominated by the navy, the Army only came to predominance after the navy was disgraced at Midway.

Like many leaders Hitler was fanatical and of course not the brightest. Invasions of Russia typically lead to many failures from the cold, this was also very evident in the Nazi rush on the former U.S.S.R. Another avenue that helped Russia defeat the Germans was the fact that Nazi Germanys war machine pushed for more perfectionist equipment, that even after it was manufactured had a downtime of fine tuning before it could be put into action. Russia did not take this approach and could land equipment much more rapidly. One more aspect that can be looked at is the fact that without Japan having to fight America large chunks of Russian forces become freed up to basically flank the Nazi assault or operation.

Overall Germany spread itself thin in many ways, and eventually was collapsing conducting attacks to simply gain resources, much like Japan.

A world without America, well who knows what it would be like. I doubt seriously that humanity would be much different in regards to having soda pops, computers or a flag on the moon. I just think the structure of how society or power would be like would be drastically different, being it was different perceptions that ruled nations. I would have doubted the U.S.S.R to be as humanist or as corrupt in many angles as our world politics happen to be for one.

Without an America there wouldn't be an Imperial Japan at all since there would have been no Commodore Perry to drag the Japanese into the modern period. There would like as not be no Soviet Union either since the drain of people leaving Europe for America would have meant an entirely different political history with the millions who left being forced to either stay or move in another direction. The First World War would have been a very different conflict with a different outcome, though I doubt the Germans could have won no matter what. The Royal Navy would have maintained Britain just as it did against Napoleon. Hitler might never even have born let alone survive the First World War.

Communism would probably have started in France or Germany anyway and it would have burned out as Europe is too politically dense (the reason why the Bolsheviks chose Russia as their seeding ground in the first place or so I'm informed by James Burke) Russia would have remained an Empire.

The First global conflict would no doubt then have been against a Communist western Europe and the Forces of Empire (Britain, Russia, various smaller Europeans and the Ottomans) with the forces of Empire winning eventually but never completely stamping out the Communist ideology.

Any Second World War would no doubt be a much different conflict indeed. Brazil and Argentina uniting with the British Empire against the Eurasian Communist block to fight for Middle Eastern oil? Who knows. I can imagine the first atomic bomb being dropped on La Spezia by the Brazilians to prevent the Communist Mediterranean navy from operating against Allied shipping on the North African oil run to maintain Gibralter at all costs.

Stephen Hawking once said that the universe is such that all possibilities must exist in parrallel universes. No doubt he is off his trolley (no pun intended) but he is a way smarter man than I am so maybe he's right. If so then there are myriad possibilities and no doubt they all 'suck'.

I tend to agree here but without the US what you think would have come of the conflict between Russia and Germany. Can we agree that Europe would have stayed in German hands and that perhaps UK would have fallen eventually?

IMO Hitler would have sooner or later developed the atom bomb. Without the pressure of the US and the allies in Africa, Italy and Europe he would have had the time and resources to get the bomb ahead of anyone in the fight (with no US involved). What would have followed that would have been the destruction of Russia. If he passed the technology to Japan what would have followed there is the fall of China to Japan.

Japan and Germany (Italy as minor player if at all) would have done as they planned and carved up the world.

We are getting off topic, and even moe we are getting into the realm of wildly hypothetical. But from all evidence without the help of the US, the war would have ended just as it did but probably taken a year longer, and probably been even bloodier. There is no way Germany was going to win after Winter 1941, and no way germany was going to stay in Europe's hands after winter 1942. It was all a amtter of when. What the post-war Europe would have looked like it unknowable, my guess is roughly the same as it did except for ALL of Germany, not just the eastern bit, and very likely Austria being in the Soviet sphere of influence, as well as Greece.



Hitler was never going to develop the bomb, period. He was not only years behind the US but the science being used was entirely wrong in basic calcualtions. His only source of Uranium was from Czechoslovakia and was hard to extract, and the plans for purification were using a methody that had ben discarded by the US as being totally ineffective. Even if they had managed to get a working reactor going, which was not going to happen, the plans they had drawn up fundamentally misunderstood the nature of the reaction: it was supposed to be controlled by men throwing peices of carbon into the chamber. The result would inevitably have been a meltdown and the death of every practical scientist in the field Germany had.

Add to this that there was no desire or incentive to build the Bomb, Hitler specifically rejected funding it, and incentive would have been even lower without the US and its active bomb program.


I tend to agree with Moif that japan would be a semi-industrial state similar to China, and no threat to anyone, and Russia would have defeated Germany with a bit of assistance in the west from the British.

NEVER is a long time sir. Where on earth do you get this idea? Show me please and know that you are disagreeing with Einstein who went to Roosevelt because he was afraid the Germans were developing the bomb. In documentaries I have seen Hitler refused to fund it because it would have taken (his scientists said) a year and a half – he didn’t want to wait but if he did not have the pressure from the US he might have gone for it.


Controversial new historical evidence suggests that German physicists built and tested a nuclear bomb during the Second World War. Rainer Karlsch and Mark Walker outline the findings and present a previously unpublished diagram of a German nuclear weapon
http://physicsweb.org/articles/world/18/6/3

It started as a “dirty” bomb but how long would it have been before it was refined into a real nuke? No one was close and it is ludicrous to think the Brits and the Russians were going to wrest all of Europe from the Germans. Do you believe the Brits could have pulled of the Normandy invasion alone?

In his new book, "Hitler's Bomb," Berlin historian Rainer Karlsch claims Nazi Germany almost achieved similar results with only a handful of physicists and a fraction of the budget. The author writes that German physicists and members of the military conducted three nuclear weapons tests shortly before the end of World War II, one on the German island of Ruegen in the fall of 1944 and two in the eastern German state of Thuringia in March 1945. The tests, writes Karlsch, claimed up to 700 lives.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/spiege...,346293,00.html
Imagine now that Hitler had more time and money and was not being bombed into dust by US bombers.

Einstein ghost wrote his two letters to The US government in 1939 and 1940, long before either the US or German bomb project were started. They did this based on the fact that german scientists managed to split the atom in the mid 1930s.

Hitler chose not to fund the bomb because firstly the scientists could not say for sure if a bomb was actually possible, could not estimate the price, and estimated that if it WAS possible it would take 3-4 years.

The man who stated Hitler actrually HAD the bomb has been long dismissed at a total srackpot, and his evidence completely fraudulent. None of this changes the fact that his plans were diosasterously faulty and would have killed his team and irradiated the lab and everything a kilometer downwind. It was not going to happen.

If you are trying to tell me that the GERMANS – some of the best scientists in the world to this day could not build the bomb I could not agree more. Want to back up you claim above or should you expect me to “take you word for it” !!!


Without US pressure the time and money Hitler would have had would have allowed him to develop all kinds of new weapons. He also had jet planes near the end and if the US had not spearheaded the invasion of Europe he would have used all the captured manufacturing form France to Austria to build an unstoppable army IMO.

best scientists in the world? leading scientists in some fields yes. But best in the world, you get too much of your war knowledge off late night TV. You know why the Germans never developped a 4-3ngine bomber? because their machination was not advanced enough to pull it off, they did not have the technology. I can list you a dozen other fields in which Germany lagged far behind the allies: medicine, biology, botany, etc... Germany HAD a lead in physics, until all the physicists fled the country during the 30s for the United states.

I highly recommend you read up on this topic before speaking to it any more. I suggest:
Heisenberg's War: The Secret History of the German Bomb, or Nazi Science: Myth, Truth, and the German Atomic Bomb (great quote: "The German atom bomb is like the unicorn. It never really existed." ) or any good biography of Heisenberg.

Or heck, just look it up on Wikipedia:
"Mainstream American historians have expressed skepticism towards any claims that Nazi Germany was in any way close to success at producing a true nuclear weapon, citing the copious amounts of evidence which seem to indicate the contrary."




No, not even close. He never got the captured economies working for him because German industrialists were too busy pilfering rather than expanding (Read mark harrisson, the Economics of WWII - one of the absolute bibles of the peiod, required reading for any historian of the era). Besides, the pressure was not coming from the US, it was coming from the USSR. What US pressure? The invasion of the Conyinent did not happen until 1944, when the war was all but over, and The Mediterranian was a sideshow consuming no more than a dozen divisions until late 1943. By June 1944 the USSR had shattered Army group centre and was moving into poland, the war was already over it was just a matter of when. Even after Normandy, over 85% of the Germany army was still in the east fighting the Soviets.

His jet aircraft (Me 262 primarily) are one of the most hyped about and over-emphasised weapons of the war. beautiful yes, deadly, yes, but filled with design flaws, including landing gear that collapsed on landing, they went out of control in a power dive and had to have their engenes completely replaced after 20 hours in the air.

Here's a little poem, by an American poet, about what the world would be like without America



The world would undoubtedly be different if America had never existed (which seems to be the premise of the debate questions, as opposed to "America had existed and had progressed and contributed exactly as per the historical record, but suddenly dissappeared at some past point").

However, precisely how different is open to question. After all, the thinkers who inspired the ideal of America were prt of the European (specifically, the Scottish) Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th Centuries.

Without an American Revolution to inspire it, it is possible that the French Revolution would never have taken place. However, it is also possible that it would have taken place exactly as it did, or as it did, but a few years sooner or later.

It is also possible that, with nowhere safe to emigrate to, most of the British and other European victims of religious and cultural persecution who founded, developed and extended "America" the concept would have stayed where they were. It is therefore possible that the American Revlution, in substance at least, might have taken place in Britain itself, leading to a British Republican form of government. (how I wish his were the case!).

As for speculations about the outcome of the Second World War, if America didn't exist at all, then moif has it right - there probably would not have been a second world war. For this reason - the First World War would not have been clearly won or lost by either side. Instead of clear victory for the Allies over the German and Ottoman Empires, it would likely have petered out into stalemate. Germany would not have been forcibly emasculated, leaving no resentful population open to the siren song of someone like Hitler, and Britain and France would not have been in a position to carve up the former Ottoman terriories in the Middle East. The House of Saud would never have come to power, so while extremist Islam might well have arisen, it is unlikely that it would have attracted significant funding or popular support, since the Caliphate would have staggered onwards in the model of a Western monarchy, as it had done for the latter part of its existence.

Without a Hitler, Fascism would not have gained a widespread foothold and almost certainly not gained power, instead operating as a simply political movement as it has in parts of Europe all along. So there would have been no Holocaust, and no large-scale movement of Jews into Palestine, and no British mandate over the lands to hand over to them, either. In turn, there'd be no Arab-Israli conflict. There would likely be Muslim-Jewish conflict in the area, but probably in the form of Jewish Zionist terrorism against the Ottoman or post-Ottoman governments.

Also, with strong German and Austro-Hungarian Empires still in place, the Westward spread of Soviet influence may not have been possible, so there may not have been any need for a Berlin airlift or a Cuban missle crisis.

On a more positive, pro-USA note, I think moif is also right to suggest that, without a temperate part of North America to exploit (Canada is, let's face it, a bit too cold to be worth a three-month ocean crossing for late medieval explorers and their followers), the competition between European powers for wealth and resources would have focused on South America instead.

Given the relative strengths of those Empires over the time of Imperial expansion, it's entirely possible that Britain may have gained the upper hand, and that within 100 or so years, English settlers would have taken ideas from the Scottish Enlightenment, mixed in their own ideas on what government should and should not be about, and fought a war against British colonial power to establish their own democratic Republican government based on ideas of creator-endowed, self-evident liberties. (Critically, enabled by French military power.)

So we might all now be having this conversation about what would happen if the United States of America didn't exist, and the rest of the world might be exactly the same. But the national bird of the USA would be a scarlet macaw or an Andean condor instead of a bald eagle, and the Golden State, just beyond the Rockies, would be in what is now Peru, and Mark Twain would have written about a boy having adventures on the steamships and shores of the river Amazon or Plate.

Mexican immigration might still be a problem, but for the Northern border states, not the Southern ones.

Heck, there might even have been a North vs South civil war, won by the Federalist South against the States'-Rights North, with a historically useful abolition of slavery thrown in (South American plantations used slaves just as much as the North, which is why there are now so many black people in Brazil, though they have had much more racial mixing than North Americans, so we don't even have to imagine that too much, and there would likely have been little impact on British or Portuguese dominance).

Without America, then, it's true that many of the doom-and-gloom scenarios could have been in place, but some of the good things America and Americans have done would have been done by someone else. Also, many historical mistakes and missed opportunities would have been avoided (or taken advantage of).

Human nature being what it is, I find it quite unlikely that, all of us having grown up in this notional "world without America", would know or feel any differently then we do now. To coin a Rumsfeldism, we don't know what we don't know, so our parallel, non-USA world might (would) be different, and might be better or worse, but we'd have no sense whatsoever what those differences and (dis)advantages were.

It's as daft as me saying "what would the world be like without Britain?". Chances are it would be much the same in most respects, except we'd now be typing in French or Spanish and not English (it probably would NOT be German, Russian or Japanese).

The German invasion forces were in France ready, but you don't invade until you've established air superiority over your invasion, support, and supply area[s], which didn't happen for the Germans when the RAF prevailed in the Battle of Britain.

Re the Sovs and US aid, sorry, Vermillion, but some have read up:

"In the first 1.5 years the Soviet Union was fighting for survival and would have won without lend lease, but further victories and movement to Europe would be questionable,” he [Hubert Van Tuyll] reported."

More than 15,000 planes, those trucks you mentioned, and 15 million pairs of boots [ask the Germans how much they'd have liked to have had those boots].

Re Japan, if not Perry, then why not someone else?

Re the Japanese command structure, the Japanese Navy was never in charge. The Army, or more correctly, what I will call the Tojo faction, was responsible for the preparation for war against the US [he ordered the fortifying of the Caroline and Marshall island[s] groups]. The only reason why that eventuality was pondered was simply that (1) the US didn't like what Japan was doing in China [we had our own interests in China, utterly irreconcilable with theirs], and so we had the embargo of certain essential materials, think oil, (2) the Japanese were going to need some of those essential materials to finish their war in China, think oil, (3) every table top exercise done showed that if the Japanese attacked Dutch possessions (think oil), then first the British [Malaysia], and then the US [the Philippines] would be drawn into the conflict, and (4) if you're going to war, you meet your main enemy with your main force, and so Pearl Harbor and the Philippines [the last also explains why we were so impatient with the Brits regarding that sideshow that Vermillion spoke of]. The Japanese army only agreed to go south after having the feces kicked out of it by the Russians. And to seal the deal, who was Prime Minister? General Tojo. But I will concede that the personage of Admiral Yamamoto gave the Combined Fleet increased influence over naval policy, with an assist from Admiral Nagano, who was more adminstrator than anything else [sorry, Nagano was head of the Navy General Staff]. All was otherwise being done so that the Army might win its war in China.

Re Midway, the Japanese Navy didn't exactly tell the Army what had happened until a while after [i.e., the full extent of the Navy's loss was not disclosed to the Army until some months later; sounds strange to us, but they did not have a unified command, i.e., nothing resembling a Joint Chiefs of Staff]. Re the strategy, well, the Japanese Navy preferred having another Tsushima, while the army wanted some flanking movements, i.e., north into the Aleutians and south to cut off Australia. So the Japanese Navy tried to do all three. The attack on Dutch Harbor and the invasion of Attu and Kiska was not, repeat not, a feint. Perhaps the one book by the Japanese pilots has skewed the subsequent analysis, writing it all off to luck, but it was instead trying to do all three that cost them dearly, so Shokaku and Zuikuku were involved down south in the attempt to cut off Australia [think Battle of the Coral Sea] and so did not participate at Midway, while some much smaller, but still valuable air power was diverted to the Aleutians operation, and then there was a failure to make up for losses sustained during the 6 months of Japan Rampant, thus leaving Nagumo 160+ aircraft short of what he had at Pearl Harbor. Not that a Japanese victory at Midway would have mattered, but rerun the Battle of Midway with the 160+ extra naval aircraft available to the Japanese [412 at Pearl, 248 at Midway]. And speaking of books to read:

http://mcsmith.blogs.com/general/2006/09/s...ered_sword.html

Just when we thought we knew our history...

Lastly, one more, re the cost of Iraq, Colonel Tsuji Masanobu, he who planned Singapore: "...our candid ideas at the time were that the Americans, being merchants, would not continue for long with an unprofitable war." Right idea, wrong war.

Sorry to all, it is Zuikaku and not Zuikuku [so please forgive my typo].

What would you add to "A World Without America"?

Israel will not exists.
The Saudi Royal family will not be in power.
A few Governments in SouthEast Asia will not be in power.
The middle East might be one complete state, might since GB still there.
China and India will lose a major customer.
The world's pollution problem will improve. China will take over as the number one polluter.
Rusia will take over as the number one arms dealer to the world.
Nato will disband.
The UN will seize to exists.
Canada will take over as the chief supplier of medicine.
The movie making industry will suffer a big blow.
Stem Cell research will show major improvement.

The world might see the traditional warfare since the last superpower had disappeared.

The Atlantic Ocean would be very big indeed.