re: howard backs bush for nobel peace pr
It’s not that simple, Costic.
The Allies (including the United States) claimed victory, but in reality nobody “won” the Great War (as it was called at the time) It was in fact only the first round in a European Civil War.
In effect, the American intervention tipped the scales in the Allies favour resulting in an Armistice and respite of twenty years. Harsh and humiliating reparation terms imposed on Germany guaranteed future conflict.
Without American participation a situation akin to Korea could possibly have resulted with a DMZ meandering through France and Belgium.
Without American participation in the Second World War (round two in Europe) Germany would have still been defeated but there is no doubt at all that Russian would have become the dominant European language.
Equally, without American participation in the Pacific Theatre of conflict, I would not be typing this from home in Australia on an English language keyboard.
The matter of who “wins” wars is rarely straightforward and prone to simplistic explanations, as, indeed, is the matter of who “causes” conflicts to arise in the first place.
Some, such as those between Turks and Greeks, Croats and Serbs can date back centuries. Others such as that between Arab and Jew, Sunni and Shiite, millennia.
All that can be stated with certainty is that, without the participation of the United States Armed Forces over three centuries, many conflicts would have had vastly different outcomes.
