Why our Generals Were More Successful in World War II 

+Tors Hammer No thanks i have no need for paranoid delusions or crypto fascist bullshit.

+Tors Hammer What a tarrydiddle!

Genghis gFunk and he literally made a list and checked it twice! He knows which generals were naughty and who were nice!

Santa flew a B17 and dropped bombs on all the bad little girls and boys

HE DOESN’T KNOW SHIT! He has never been to war, and he mentions nothing about Patton, who without we might have lost, if nothing else we would have taken one hell of a beating. Nothing but shit coming out of his mouth.

Finally of all the comments this one is on point. Here have an upvote.

i know right. here you get a good lecture about an important topic and 90% of the people commenting are mouth-breathing morons.

i know right. here you get a good lecture about an important topic and 90% of the people commenting are mouth-breathing morons.

I also served and I disagree. Government legislation has our military services fighting with both hands behind their backs with all the legislation so every is scared of repercussions. Every order goes down the chain and punishment will go up to whoever gave the order so it becomes a CYA situation.

Andrew Moody We do. His name is Gwynn Dwyer. He teaches at Sandhurst.

You kids are funny keep listening to these people who make a career off of other people's dime

@@tuckhorse YEAH. HE’S A REAL MAGGOT. PATTON DID MORE TO WIN THAT WAR THAN ALL THOSE IDIOTS PUT TOGETHER. I had a great uncle who was a tank commander under general George S Patton. I’ll bet on everything I hold dear that I know more about that war than he does.

I beg to differ. By this logic ww2 US generals should feel no motivation to take risk. After all, why risk one's career when victory is assured through sheer materiel? Yet the generals and admirals are frequently relieved as Rick shared as they are held accountable for their performance all the way from the top - by Marshall. Good generalship has a force multiplier effect which we shouldn't too quickly discount as secondary. Take for e.g. Battle of Midway. Bad Japanese admiralship driven by their bushido sense of honor led the last carrier to take unaffordable risk leading to its loss as well. The Kido Butai may be fearsome but its capability is nullified to zero as a consequence of the Admiral's decision.

@@joshh3304 At a slight tangent consider the report of eminent historian and military analyst BH Liddel Hart, whose careful analysis of the Wehmacht's battle perfomance though the whole of WW2 revealed some interesting data. His research revealed that whether the Germans were attacking of defending, whether on foreign soil or on home soile, they always achieved a 50% higher kill rate than their adversary. The Russians in the East simply ignored the causal;ty rate and pushed on regardless. The Western Allies were more cautious, but towards the end there was greater incentive for the Germans to surrender to the approaching Americans than the advancing Russians, which would also have undermined their resistance which would have been greater had not the Russians pressed them so hard in the East.

@@richardduplessis1090 I just realise your earlier comment was 6 years ago. Thanks for taking time to read mine and to also reply :)

@@joshh3304 My pleasure, - you raised a valid point.

Department of defence - as in defending the caravans of drugs coming from over there :)

Sigourney Fotheringham Yeah that's what I said.

"nukes were off the table" ya think.

He's referring to American victories

@carmine paola Didn't the English beat the combined German and Italian armies at Northern Africa?

@carmine paola Even with superior numbers, any force can be repelled without good leadership. The British at the start and mid points of the war had bad army commanders and their tactics had not evolved like the Germans had. Much like the Germans fighting and winning against the combine British/French armies and the much bigger Soviet armies.

Well, there is the fact that congress hasn't constitutionally declared war since WW2. Every "war" since then has been a conflict. This could have nothing to do with it however, but I also like to mention this everywhere I can because the thousands of men and women who died in the middle east weren't fighting a war, and that's really dumb.

USS INDIANAPOLIS Captain did not want to leave port with out a escort forced to go after the delivery of A BOMB. USS INDIANAPOLIS sunk hundreds died. Captain blamed court martial unjustified committed SUICIDE later on in life. Example of not so great leader ship by USA Generals and Admirals during WW2.

A bomb ended Japan's " boshido code" warrior ways. The leadership failed the Japaness people and the 2 A bombs could hace been prevented. Leaderships needs to know when it's game over and play NICE ! WW2 was HELL and cruel were the Japaness and so HELL came to find the DEVIL, peace.

Manny Boy p

First it did not start with World War II, U.S. Generals. It started in 1774, over the decades the Armed Forces if you will, built a house, And In addition we built the Military Academy's and military classes and of coarse there were wars, then they took these wars apart, what went right and more importantly what went wrong. It soon became apparent that leadership skills , take charge, Commanding presence,

I was surprised too. Ricks speaks very highly of Marshall so it had to be a slip of the tongue.

Tjecktjeck He means relative to more recent US wars

relative to us wars after not relative to german generals

It doesn't matter. For example in Korea & Vietnam US armed forces was less effective because they were matched against heavily underdeveloped but well motivated forces in a harsh landscape. On the otherhand Germany was totally destroyed and outnumbered by the time US set their foot in EU. I am far from a wehrmacht fan, but it would be strange if US generals wouldn't be effective at that time, given all the advantages they had and the type of War it was.

@@Tjecktjeck I like reading with you kids right a lot of entertainment value here. But take time to do some more research if you want to get serious

@Wind Rose Pacific theatre was mainly about naval operations and american admirals did a good job indeed. As for japanese land forces, they were only threat to chinese peasants and small colonial units. They lost every major land battle to US and Soviets smashed their Kwantung army in less than 4 weeks.

PATTON WAS THE BEST! I had a great uncle who was a tank commander under him. Learned a lot more about that war from my great uncles who fought in it than I did from the history books. This guy is a maggot. I think we all know what this dog shit who is talking is.

@@bjlecorno8468 You sound SO trustworthy...

wayneyd2 Yes, victory by consensus in action evolves inevitably with improving communication. When they can communicate, they will. Sure mediocrity prevails over risk taking's outcome variability necessarily. Genius is neither encouraged nor tolerated. As a for instance, a pheromone, 1/4th gram of healthy adult male facial skin surface lipid, the grease on an officer's face, cures feelings of jihad, ADHD, heroin addiction, and sexual perversions. All that is needed is to wipe the pheromone onto chewing gum in a three day collection span to insure sufficient quantity. The collection and oral administration is easier than brewing tea, so losses are taken unnecessarily from suicide/PTSD/ADHD of troops. Sadly, this great idea was defeated by the "confederacy of dunces" unable and unwilling to learn a few simple lessons in biology. Exocrinology the Science of Love, Amazon.

@@TogetherinParis what?

@@chairforcegamer3571 I'm just saying success is relative. Our present-day generals are allowing our troops to die when the cure for ptsd and suicide is on the generals' noses, literally. All they need to do is wipe the clear, odorless, colorless, tasteless pheromone usually passed in kissing onto chewing gum or some other food vehicle, then blow off the volatiles (which are "emotionally dangerous"), then give the pheromone-laced vehicle to the disturbed troops to cure them instantly.

@@TogetherinParis where can I learn more about this?

As a Brit I have to take issue with your view that Slim was the "finest allied commander". This is patently false and there many reasons why but instead I will say the it was Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov who was instrumental in defeating the Axis Armies that deserves the accolade as the finest allied commander.

Zukhov had the numbers, It's Slim for me

David Colley, Zhukov was a very competent general. His understanding of strategy and tactics as well as logistics was solid, but his methods at times was suspect. Soviet losses were horrendous during many battles simply because they were many and expendable. Slim was good general but my favourite British general was Auchinleck. The Auk demoted by Churchill, was the one who took the wind out of Rommel's saails during the first battle of el alimein.

My Great Uncle, sadly no longer with us served under both Auk in Egypt, and Uncle Bill in India and Burma. He admired both Generals, but for him it was always Uncle Bill Slim as being the finest general in the British Army. It was the care and thoughtfulness he bestowed on the troops that served under him that stood out as an absolute. Also he took on the Japanese at their own game and defeated them, gave the nod for Wingate and his Chindit expeditions when nearly every other top ranking general labelled Wingate as a dangerous maverick. All this was achieved with an army that was almost an after thought when compared to those that fought in the campaigns of Europe, N. Africa, and the Pacific. Simply the best quote on leadership I have read: "I tell you, as officers, that you will not eat, sleep, smoke, sit down, or lie down until your soldiers have had a chance to do these things. If you hold to this, they will follow you to the ends of the earth. If you do not, I will break you in front of your regiments!" - Field Marshal Sir William Slim

Slim was a wonderfull General

The problem was that General George Marshall would pick friends and old associates who's main qualifications for higher command were personal loyalty to him rather then millitary expertise. He would put personal friends like Dwight Eisenhower, Omar Bradley, Mark Clark and Bedal Smith all of which did not see combat during the First World War into the top posts in the European Theater Of Operations and he would micromanage there actions and decisions which caused an atmospher were they were reluctant to change there battle plans to meet changing situations on the battlefield. This almost caused a huge disaster during the Anzio campaign and it also allowed 100,000 German troops to escape from Normandy at the Battle of The Falaise Pocket in which Patton commanding the US Third Army wanted to advance to the town of Falaise and cut off and trap Models German forces, but Omar Bradley his superior refused to allow him to close the trap because it was not part of Eisenhower's grand strategy for the Normandy campaign and Bradley was worried that if it failed he would incur the wrath of Ike who in turn would be dressed down by Marshall. The best American Generals in the European Theater in my opinion were at the Division and Corps command level, not the army or Theater command level. Men like Lucian Truscott who commanded the Third Infantry Division in Sicily and Southern France or Matthew Ridgeway who commanded the 82nd Airborne Division or Lightning Joe Collins who commanded an Armored Corps during the allied race to the Siegfried Line. And Patton was the only real decent field army commander like you said. It should also be said that the British had the same problem as well. Montgomery was a good war planner but a slow implementer of his plans and Harold Alexander was for the most part an empty suit. To me the best allied commanders during the war were in the Asia Pacific Theater, mainly because the US and British governments were so obsessed with defeating Germany that they largley ignored the war against Japan and this gave more freedom of action to allied commanders in that theater who knew the situation better. US General Douglas MacArthur was abel to defeat a larger Japanese force in New Guinea and during the reconquest of the Phillipines and British General William Slim defeated a Japanese force nearly three times his size in Burma using an Army mostly made up of Indian conscripts. Also on the Eastern Front Soviet Marshal Zhukov managed to stop the German advance on Moscow with a grand counteroffensive in one of the few battles of the eastern front in which the Soviets were outnumbered by the Germans. In my personal view the best allied commanders of the war were 1.Zhukov, USSR 2.MacArthur, USA 3.Slim, UK 4.Patton, USA 5.Montgomery, UK And the best Axis commanders 1.Manstein, Germany 2.Yamashita, Japan 3.Mannerheim, Finland 4.Gudarian, Germany 5.Rommel, Germany

Steve Cochrane Interesting. Never heard that before.

Patton wa not overly agressive or anything he fits perfecktly to Marshals profile of officers. he had a unique personalitie and tolerated no slackery of any kinde but was never a glass cannon. he is what MacArthur always inspired to be.

Reichsfuehrer Nivea Creme The Americans did not have to gamble. If a tricky battle was ahead they could hold back and reinforce. They had far more men and materials. Then they would move forwards like a rolling steamroller. Less men were killed this way.

Steve Cochrane "2. MacArthur, USA" Are you serious. He was an egotistical buffoon.

It's not really hard to see how he might have thought that before Dieppe. There is an interview with Lord Louis Mountbatten in the outstanding "The World at War," documentary series, about the lessons learned from the failed Dieppe raid, perhaps the most important of which was that you would need to capture a major port in order to bring in the amount of supplies necessary to support your beachhead and not get thrown back into the sea, _but_ that the defenses around such ports were so formidable that it simply wasn't possible to capture one without subjecting it to such a heavy bombardment, meant to destroy those defenses, that you also ended up destroying the very facilities you needed to capture. This is why the British invented the Mulberry harbors. Prior to Dieppe, Marshall was simply one of many generals who didn't appreciate just how hard it was going to be to take a port and sustain a beachhead, and probably thought we could build up sufficient force to do it by 1943, which brings me to the next point... Donald Nelson, director of priorities of the United States Office of Production Management, learned from the people working for him that the initial production goals set were infeasible, even for an industrial juggernaut like the U.S. -- a 200 division army and a rapid build up that _would_ have gotten us enough of a build up potentially to have enough force for a cross-Channel invasion by the beginning of July1943. Toward the end of 1942, Nelson, with the support of the White House, was finally able to persuade Marshall and the rest of the army that they would have to settle for the more attainable goal of a 90 division army, and a build up that would be completed by early June of 1944; almost a full year later than what Marshall and the army wanted. Marshall wasn't an economist or industrialist, and I think he can be forgiven for not realizing that between the need to allocate a lot of our industrial output toward the navy and air force, and the need to avoid complete disruption of the civilian economy, the original goal of expanding the army to 200 division size by mid-1943 wasn't realistic, and a more achievable 90 division army would still not be available until the next year. If it had been possible to give Marshall the huge army he wanted by 1943, a cross Channel invasion probably _would_ have been feasible by then, but economic reality meant that wasn't possible, so the invasion took longer.

@@Hibernicus1968 Thanks for your assessment. I agree with everything you say. Marshall never really explained his change of mind. But the 90 Division Gamble you spell out is just what occurred. The Americans are often criticized by the Russians for not doing more of the fighting sooner. But Nelson was absolutely correct. If you take more men out of the factories you reduce war production and at the name time increase the need for supplies and equipment., meaning there would have been less Lend Lease for the Brits and Soviets. My assessment is that Marshall's initial concept is based on his World War I experience. Within a year of declaring war in 1917, the Americans went into combat in France in 1918. And America was even less prepared for World War I than for World War II. He at first assumed that this could be replicated. Dieppe as you say may well have been a factor. Torch was another factor. Also, American war production did not really ramp up until 1943. The few Shermans built in 1942 went to the British and not the Americans. Torch which Marshall opposed was also eye-opening. One historian (Andrew Roberts) believes his push was a bargaining ploy with the British who were not anxious to come to grips with the Germans in France. I am not sure to what extent Marshall entirely changed his mind about 1943, but the realities on the ground dictated postponement until 943. The Germans did not surrender in Tunisia until May 1943. And by then there was no way to move the men and equipment to Britain in time for cross Channel invasion in 1943. As it was, Eisenhower did not receive the landing boats he needed until just before the June 1944 invasion. I see it as the efficient if stormy workings of the war-winning Anglo-American alliance. The Americans in 1942-43 were not fully aware of the potential of the German military. The British with all too much experience were. And the British as a result were too timid in 1944. Thus the British prevented disastrous early action and the Americans insisted on action when it was finally possible.

Lexington73300 Patton was clown and utterly overrated. US army's verdict on Patton: XX Corps at Metz, 5-25 September 1944 On 7 September, 5th Infantry Division opened the assault on Metz, ignorant of the fact that it was attacking the most strongly fortified city in Western Europe. For a week one of its regiments was chewed to pieces among the forts west of the Moselle, which were manned by students of an officer candidate school. Even when reinforced by a combat command of the U.S. 7th Armored Division, the American attack made little progress. Incidently, this action took place on the same ground upon which two German, field armies were mauled in equally unsuccessful assaults during the 1870 Franco-Prussian War. Third Army Operations in Lorraine (The failings). From September to December, Eisenhower, Bradley, and Patton had their sights set firmly beyond the Rhine. Consequently, they underestimated the obstacles and opposition that their soldiers would have to overcome along the way. Thus, a difference in outlook arose between the higher commanders who drew large arrows on maps and the tactical units fighting for yards of muddy ground. General Patton can also be faulted for neglecting to practice economy of force. We have noted several instances in which Third Army's forces were spread out on a broad front in an attempt to be strong everywhere with the result that they were decisively strong nowhere. In retrospect, the important battle in September was XII Corps' fight around Nancy, and in November, the main effort was XX Corps' assault against Metz. And yet Patton failed to concentrate Third Army's resources in reinforcement of the corps engaged in decisive operations. Furthermore, Patton never made an attempt to punch through the German defenses with divisions in column, even though he received approval for such an operation from his superior, LTG Bradley. One rule of thumb for mechanized forces that emerged from World War II was to march dispersed but concentrate to fight. In Lorraine, Third Army fought dispersed. The Lorraine campaign taught us some lessons in combined arms warfare. The tank and the airplane, two weapons which were commonly believed to have revolutionized warfare, were an unbeatable combination during the pursuit, leading up to Lorraine. But when the enemy dug in and the weather turned bad, infantry, artillery, and engineers reemerged as the dominant arms. The critical shortage of infantry fillers demonstrated that the American high command had failed to anticipate this development. The American armored elements were not at their best in Lorraine either. Much of this can be attributed to the weather, but some of the blame must be given to the army commander for binding his armored divisions into infantry-heavy corps. Patton's reluctance to mass his armor came as a pleasant surprise to the Germans, who believed that their panzer divisions were just as useful in creating breakthroughs as they were in exploiting them. At a lower level, the combat command concept provided great tactical flexibility through decentralized control, but it also tempted Patton's corps commanders to break up the armored division and parcel it out by combat commands, a policy that further diluted Third Army's armored punch. In addition, American tank crews repeatedly paid a heavy price for a doctrinal decision made before the war that declared tanks to be offensive weapons not intended for defensive combat against other tanks. As a result of this official policy, the M-4 Sherman tanks in Lorraine were badly outgunned by German panzers that mounted superb antitank pieces. Was the Lorraine campaign an American victory? From September through November, Third Army claimed to have inflicted over 180,000 casualties on the enemy. But to capture the province of Lorraine, a problem which involved an advance of only 40 to 60 air miles, Third Army required over 3 months and suffered 50,000 casualties, approximately one-third of the total number of casualties it sustained in the entire European war. Ironically, Third Army never used Lorraine a s a springboard for an advance into Germany after all. Patton turned most of the sector over to Seventh Army during the Ardennes crisis, and when the eastward advance resumed after the Battle of the Bulge, Third Army based its operations on Luxembourg, not Lorraine. The Lorraine campaign will always remain a controversial episode in American military history. Interested parties may read the text in its entirety here: www-cgsc.army.mil/carl/resources.

Yaesu Kita Grant had the right idea. He viewed the Confederacy as rebellion, an inexcusable offense especially given its consequences. Of course if Honest Abe had handled his first campaign properly, there might have been no war at all, at least for several more years. Grant was not an ingrate, and a jurist might have obtained a loan from the condemned man some years before, yet the sentence would remain unmitigated by personal loyalties. Loyalty to the country is always the paramount duty of soldiers of all ranks.

+GNU/LINUX The contribution to the victory of "Western allies" was barely noticeable. 70-80% of soldiers and military equipment of germany and its allies (the whole of Europe) have been destroyed by the Red Army.

+GNU/LINUX Yes The Western allies won the naval war, before it even started. The main war that Germnay had was on land though...

***** There is no such threat as during ww2 so its a completely unfounded statement. Remember the US was very isolationist with basically no army before their involvement in the world wars.

Lexington73300 yeah japan thought the same way about the United States citizens before pearl harbor look what happened to them

you people are all stupid. The defining factor for a democracy like the US going to war is political support, keeping political support when taking heavy losses means having a clear mission that the people believe is worth fighting for. It also means having a clear idea as to what it will take to win, and the understanding that Victory is getting closer. That is why the US was has struggled since WW2, almost all US conflicts since WW2 have had unclear goals with out a clear understanding as to what Victory will be. clear mission and public support are critical to winning a war.

"The American strategic situation was extremely favourable to begin with. They had more industrial capacity, manpower and technological capacity than any nation to begin with. All while having an unthreatened homefront and plenty of time to plan their actions. The WW2 generals would not have done better in the other wars fought by the US, like Vietnam." you do realize that Vietnam also had "more industrial capacity, manpower and terminological capacity" with "an unthreatened homefront" basically the evidence you cite has no bearing on your argument.

With more manpower and industrial capacity I meant the part of it that was actually devoted to the war effort. Point is that you had to be pretty fucking incompetent to mess up WW2 as an Allied general.

#1 - He was following Truman's direction. #2 - The well had already been poisoned. Chiang Kai-shek already felt betrayed by the US when FDR was not able to come though on promises in WWII due to resource limitations. #3 - The well had already been poisoned. All the anti-communist fervor back in the US made it impossible for Marshall to mediate anything with the communists. The US had basically been written off by both Mao and Chiang at that point. Marshall was not there to force a military solution. He was there as a diplomat, and the die had already been cast.

I think you should review Marshall's list for qualities of a good commander starting at 16:00

Read a book about Ultra...we definitely did NOT always know what they were doing. Ever hear of the Battle of the Bulge for 1 example.

@@lucasner463 that’s something that couldn’t have been avoided. The Germans maintained perfect radio silence in the weeks leading up to Herbstnebel. I’m not sure what Ultra could have done in a situation like that.

Both Marshall and Eisenhower understood that logistics was the key to winning WWII. But you still needed competent leaders to use that equipment correctly. Marshall especially, understood that too.

+Alan A A lot of Soviet hardware was built by America. Marshall Zukov himself said it would have been impossible for the USSR to defeat Germany on the eastern front without the thousands of trucks supplied by the US and built by Ford and Studabaker. And lets not forget those American and British bomber crews that flew and destroyed Germanys production facilities. Without that Albert Speer would have built enough panzars to push the Soviets passed the Ural mountains and beyond.

Steve Cochrane Those are nice assumptions but it was Soviet blood that decimated 80% of the Wehrmacht KIA. It's like saying that Wellington beat Napoleon and not his disastrous Russian Campaign.

Alan A There not assumptions if there true. Zukov stated that in his autobiography. Besides if America did not get involved in the war there would have never been a second front because the British just did not have the manpower to land an invasion force in Europe. If that were the case then the best the Soviets could hope for would be a stalemate similar to the Iraq Iran war of the 1980's.

+Steve Cochrane The second front didn't do shit, it was only brutal because American soldiers were all nublets with no experience. 9th Army was entirely dissolved and decimated, they were going to lose anyhow, the question would be is when.

+Kill me please. By September 44 the American armies in the west were mostly battle harden veterans. During the Battle of the Bulge they tied up half a million German troops that would have been used to defend East Prussia from Soviet attack. And if it wasn't important for the US and UK to establish a second front then why was Stalin bitching to Roosevelt and Churchill to establish one? You would think a guy like Stalin would prefer to have Europe all to himself after the war and establish puppet regimes in France and Italy as well as Eastern Europe.

its a question he himself asks.

Fun fact General Motors funded nazis and lobbied against joining the war.

Omar Bradley's memoirs "A General's Life," is a a memoir, it was written after Bradley died.

No it was 7th December

What is Ultra??

You asked: "Why were the civilian wartime leaders in WWII more successsful than those who ruled during Korea and Vietnam?" 1. WW2 was supported by most folks: They volunteered in droves. Vietnam (VN) had no purpose; We trade happily now - They posed no threat. Hilter posed a actual threat, whereas "winning" in VN had no meaning to Americans. We lost. Defeating Hilterism had a simple defensive meaning. People pitched in and we won. 2. In WW2 our civilian leaders saw the chance to "own" the Middle East and come out with our economy humming in a otherwise shattered world economy. If you like controlling other peoples resources and setting the economic agenda for them, we won. A "win" in Vietnam would have only a fractional similarity as in WW2, or more likely, it would have precipitated a bigger guerilla war (Chinese volunteers for instance) which we would have also lost. As an anti-imperialist war, it had majority support within the VN population. VN was a dumb idea overall regardless. You seem keen enough on war to support it even when in hindsight we know it was: un-winnable in military terms, had shaky domestic support and no defensive basis, and winning couldn't be and isn't defined for the American people, though people patriotically (reflexively) supported our govt in the beginning. WW2 involved lies that we have yet to see through. Vietnam, Iraq, El Salvador, Guatemala, Cuba, Afghanistan, etc.........involved lies that are and were easily unpacked, cept perhaps by you and guys like Thomas Ricks. People avoid giving rationals for VN. You can give the usual rationals, but Americans already know they're not true. It was all about imperialism and nothing about defense and certainly our involvement was anti-democtratic.

i'm afraid you are full of shit. or very, very young.

jlawrence You have anger, but present no ideas beyond bodily functions and guesses. Get some help.

I agree with your analysis as regards Nixon and his predecessor. Nixon, for all his paranoia, possessed a fine mind and a deep understanding of geopolitics in terms of conflict. In your example politics drove the war and the capacity to wage war properly right into the ground. I would not have mired the U.S. into that war, as I believe it would be pointless in geopolitical terms as to outcome, but no president in all of those years of involvement handled the matter more intelligently. Our system of governance is such that wars are inhibited in execution and in the way that war should be fought. In my opinion wars should only be declared by Congress and then the military should be allowed to bring the war to a conclusion with expediency and by any means.

Richard Davis Nixon could not change the fact that Americans themselves did not like this war. The lies in the media were failing to change those feelings. The wars we've won had the backing of Americans themselves. You have to compare the economic - political effect of a popular war to an unpopular one. One where the whole economy is marshalled and one where the war is run independent of the people. A determined adversary cannot win against a unified US economy. A declaration of war is a part of the kind of commitment necessary to winning a tough fight. Nixon, Bush, Clinton, etc....... never marshalled the US economy because their "wars" could not be explained to anyone but the already deluded insider. In a unipolar world, with the US militarily and economically dominant (for now), Americans have scant reason to accept a "War on Terror". They are not engaged much, for or against. The strength that could be brought to bear simply isn't requested or given and the explanations for these wars are thin. We lack the means of determining if we've won or lost and clearly stated goals are absent or just abandoned. The North Vietnamese, the Taliban, and chaos ruled/rule Vietnam, Afgh. and Iraq respectively after our media and leaders declared "victory". All were US losses in classic understandings of win/lose, though the media follow the leaders like pet dogs in foreign policy matters.

What you posted is inaccurate information.

Marty Robinson, 'Inaccurate' information? According to who.

Michael Salmon, FDR's entire administration was Socialist, Communist and Zionist. The sick idiot gave half of Europe to his good friend uncle Joe. Sorry, if you don't like the truth, but don't shoot the messenger.

Michael Salmon, The list of Stalinist's and Communists exposed by the Venona Project and the Russian archives includes Harry Dexter White, Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury who designed the world bank and international monetary fund. Then there's Harry Hopkins FDR advisor, commerce secretary and key architect of 'The New Deal.' And lets not forget Henry Wallace, FDR's Vice-President from 1941 to 1944. Also, let us not forget Alger Hiss who was a key FDR advisor to FDR at Yalta. And no Michael, I don't mean Jews. I mean Zionists which was one of the main reasons for the war in the first place. Not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists are Jews. The eventual occupation of Palestine and the ethnic cleansing of millions of Palestinian families didn't just start in 1948. It was crafted before the war, during the war and after the war by FDR's administration and eventually Truman's. And you got me Michael. You see its the jack-boots I love so much. I march around listening to the Horst Wessel song giving the sanctified Roman salute to giant pictures of the Fuhrer. Then of course I sit around with my cronies and reminisce the happy days from 1933 to 1944. How long have you been such a brain washed twerp? You probably haven't read any history that isn't on the New York Times best seller list. And you certainly haven't searched in any archives.

+Don Hermiston You said FDR shouldn't have given any German territory to Stalin? FDR didn't give Stalin any German territory. Stalin conquered that territory off Hitler. Patton? Patton was a Nazi, who judged a book by it's cover. His opinion resembled those Nazis opinions pre Operation Barberossa. You say two million Germans were killed in meadow death camps? Where do you get such foolish information? You are clearly delusional. You have just denied the Holocaust also. WTF??

Montgomery was a weak and indecisive commander, but I like the rest of your list.