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There are more and less liberal countries. Modern day Denmark and Iceland are more liberal. Post-WWII USA was less liberal, it's gotten more liberal since then. But the US then and now was supposedly fighting for peace, freedom, human rights, defending the international order, enforcing the will of the UN... It's strategic moves were outwardly justified by liberal ideas. Some liberalism crept into the US's actual operations and strategy. That's the problem, why such a strong country has struggled against such weak opponents.
Well FDR couldn't because he was best buddies with Stalin. But the Germans by late 1944 weren't stupid. They knew they were losing. It was FDR's demand for unconditional surrender that kept them fighting. That was what glued them to Hitler. That and the Morgenthau plan was grist for Goebells' mills. He could fairly reasonably say that it was a war of annihilation, that any German who opposed Hitler in this darkest hour was betraying the fatherland. And so they fought on. The Germans were sending out peace feelers to the UK in 1940, they were trying to negotiate the whole war and especially towards the end.
Both errors are of the same fundamental type. Britain and France weren't reading the situation correctly and working to advance their interests. They abandoned the Czechs, failed to ally Germany or Russia. Allying Hitler in the late 1930s wouldn't have been such a bad idea, all things considered. Allying with Russia was another option. Almost anything would've been better than what they actually did, which was appease Hitler when he was weak, declare war on him when he was strong (but not actually attack when he was distracted in Poland), while spurning Russia and Italy.
The US didn't read the situation in 1944-5. They could've allied with Hitler against the Russians, or negotiated with German generals for a post-Hitler Germany. There was a lot of plotting going on in the German General Staff in 1944-45! Why let the Russians get so far into Europe? Why keep assisting them with lend-lease? Why not try to undermine them now that they were the primary danger, now Germany was out of the running? FDR genuinely believed in the United Nations, in this liberal utopia of peace and joy that Stalin could help achieve. That was the problem.
Absolutely, but these had some kind of reasoning behind them. Hitler knew Stalin was a major threat, he was perilously close to Germany's main oil supplier in Romania. They were ideological enemies and Hitler wanted their land. Hitler thought the Red Army was much smaller than it was, that's just an intelligence failure. Based on what he knew at the time, invading Russia was a good idea.
The US was fighting an undeclared war in the Atlantic and providing significant aid to Britain. Roosevelt was known to be a Germanophobe, it was pretty obvious the US was militarizing and would soon come after Germany. Declaring war would let them sink more convoys while the US was less prepared. They were not aware of how quickly the US would be able to train and field a large force, the Germans thought it would take them several years more to be seriously effective. There were costs and benefits, it's not a massive blunder.
Stalin thought Hitler wouldn't invade so soon, that the British were trying to lure them into war with false intelligence. That's a reasonable perspective. There's also the idea that Russia was preparing for an invasion of Germany, they had stationed huge forces on the border that Germany swiftly destroyed in Barbarossa. The Soviets were making light wheeled armored vehicles that would be pretty poor at defending Russia but useful for good German roads. The Germans crowed about capturing huge ammunition stockpiles on the border and German phrasebooks. This is revisionist history that has been contested but is fairly persuasive IMO.
Imagine if Stalin or Hitler had the upper hand against a disarmed, demilitarized Allies. Do you think either of them would let the Allies rearm and annex several small European states? They'd never make errors of that type. There are errors of faulty intelligence and miscalculating short term gains vs long term harms. But then there are errors of not knowing what you're doing, of living in a liberal fantasy land.
About the only example I can think of illiberal politicians messing up in such a ludicrous way was when the Khwarizmis killed the Mongol ambassador.
Main goal of unconditional surrender policy was to avoid the botched end of WWI, avoid situation where the enemy will try for the third time. Allies were interested in victory, not negotiation and were beyond caring about German feelings.
It was successful, Germany hadn't waged any wars for 70+ years and isn't going to in the foreseable future.
LOL. Aside of political impossibility, why would you want to do it? Why keep around the Nazis (who were anything but "reliable allies"), when you can rebuild the country from point zero as you wish.
Again, you cannot deny it was succesful. West Germany was far more useful to US/NATO than any Nazi or "reformed Nazi" state would even going to be.
West Germany served as a hypothetical meatshield against the Soviet Union. I'm talking about making it an actual meatshield against the Soviet Union. Note that nothing stops a US with a nuclear monopoly then turning on Germany again after its purpose is served.
"Oh you helped us beat the Russians? Well we're now going to reorganize your country anyway!"
If so, then it was a silly idea. They could simply decide to enforce the treaty they sign. How precisely you get to a treaty doesn't matter so much as whether its enforced or not. Furthermore, the balance of power was against Germany after WW2, you can't think that West Germany or modern Germany would be in a position to wage any offensive wars.
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