Churchill, Hitler, and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World

"Churchill, Hitler and "The Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World (Kindle Edition)"

What we have here is an anti-Bush book masquerading as an anti-Churchill book. Buchanan spends almost the entire book destroying Winston Churchill's reputation, yet concedes that he was a great war leader. He blames Churchill for losing the Empire, yet winning the war. But Neville Chamberlain lost the Empire because he was neither a war leader nor a statesmen of any value whatsoever.

What made Chamberlain so bad was his indecisiveness. First he tries to appease Hitler, then he reverses course and goes to war with him. This vacillation was fatal. Churchill was right about Munich. At that point, Hitler could be beaten. But Buchanan disputes this. Hitler's own generals would not have supported a three front war with the Czechs, French and British, and the Russians forming the three fronts. No way Hitler survives this. Chamberlain gave away the store in hopes of containing Hitler, but it fell apart. Humiliated, he tries to bluff Hitler and fails again. Chamberlain failed to stop Hitler and gives up on appeasement when that was all that was left to him. Total failure.

At least Churchill saved England itself. Without England, there could be no empire. Chamberlain failed on both accounts. Churchill rescues England, but by then it was too late to save the Empire.

What makes this book really bad is that Buchanan devotes the end of it to compare Bush with Churchill. Bush's steadfastness with Iraq becomes a liability, not an asset. Bush admires Churchill's steadfastness, and that is his great fault, according to Buchanan. Buchanan is just flat wrong on that one.

For all the World War Two history buffs who have ever pondered such questions as 'Why the British Army was not annihilated at Dunkirk' or 'Why the Germans never built much of a Navy'... here is a book that provides extremely plausible explanations for these puzzles. Pat Buchanan's writing is lively, clear and smooth-flowing. He works from the most certain facts about the outcome of World War Two: That Great Britain lost her empire and became a small, second-rate island nation; that millions of innocent people died in the maelstrom; and that the Communists came to rule Central and Eastern Europe in a brutal fashion that impoverished these unfortunate nations for decades. From these incontestable facts Pat Buchanan sifts history to see if it was all so necessary or unavoidable. His conclusion is that it was not unavoidable; and that the biggest blunderers were British leaders and most specifically Winston Churchill. Buchanan postulates that perhaps it would have been better to allow Hitler to continue expanding into eastern Europe (allowing Poland to fall) where it would have eventually been inevitable that a German-Russian regional war would have ensued - but not the massive War that instead engulfed the world. His exposition is that Communism would have been destroyed by this war and the Cold War averted. Buchanan also provides substantial evidence that these eastward movements represent Germany's true aim: To become the singular power of Eastern and Central Europe - and that world domination was not Hitler's true goal. This book's claims may be considered audacious and controversial by some, but the author has done his homework in backing them up. Pat Buchanan has provided an epochal book on the subject - this is a magnificent piece of work that will most likely generate study and debate for a long time.

I've read more than a few of Pat Buchanan's books. Some are interesting, many are what I call "a pamphlet stretched out to hundreds of pages". This one is a compelling read.

This is probably one of the best books Mr. Buchanan has written. His extensive research backs up a conclusion that Great Britain, and the US, may have been better off not having gone to war with Germany twice. Poor alliances and promises sucked them into these conflicts, essentially bankrupting England.

Through the lens of history we can see that Germany didn't threaten any vital interest of either the British Empire or the United states. His research is pretty convincing that in both wars Germany had no desire, at least when they started, of tangling with England. Nor did they have the resources to threaten much of England's Empire. Maybe it would have been prudent to keep the powder dry, so to speak, and tool up the military in case war was necessary. Even the dullest student of history can conclude that both the US and England were ill prepared to go to war. Twice.

The book leaves you with some compelling questions. What would have happened between Stalin and Hitler had Britain and the US not declared war? In retrospect, ponder the decades of having to deal with the USSR.

He ties things up in the end, applying lessons from both great wars to todays time. How many times do we commit the military when no US interest is at stake. Was Kosovo worth it? how about Somalia? Do we commit the military to Georgia because ethic Russians want to be part of Russia? The parallels to Poland pre WW2 are interesting. Were those alliances with France and Poland worth the cost of the British Empire?

This book ranks up there with some of the best historical analysis I've read.

Patrick Buchanan and I come from very different parts of the political spectrum. I was surprised to find his theories well thought out, well supported, and generally convincing.

My favorite quote from the book: ". . . [P]reventive war is 'like committing suicide out of fear of death.'"

Buchanan's main point is that although Britain was on the winning side in both WWI and WWII, these victories were Pyrrhic. Britain's empire and its dominant place in the world were destroyed. Britain could have avoided involvement in both these wars, and the world might well have turned out better. In both wars, Britain entangled itself in a conflict in which it had no direct interest. Particularly crucial was Britain's guarantee of the borders of Poland against Nazi aggression. This essentially turned over the decision of whether or not Britain should go to war to other nations, to Britain's ultimate detriment.

Buchanan does not spend a lot of time discussing the implications of all this. In my opinion, it is quite clear that the U.S. is in serious danger of going down a similar path of arrogance leading to ultimate destruction. We would be wise to seriously rethink our national policy of guaranteeing the borders of other countries. This is quite obvious in relation to the Vietnam war, but the U.S. is still making the same mistakes elsewhere. In the meantime, the United States itself is experiencing serious declines in its financial system and quality of life.

I would call Buchanan's "Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War" a don't-miss book.

Readers expecting bust-`em-in-the-chops Buchanan stuff will be surprised. Either way you view what the "chops" part implies, the author does not serve up what most people expected, considering his usual expressed views. The title should have been the giveaway that this book was going to be unusual. One "expects" Mr. Buchanan to take a dim view of President Franklin Roosevelt (he does), a critical view of Adolph Hitler (he does), but of Winston Churchill? Prime Minister put-up-yer-dukes Churchill? Scorn indeed is what serves up on the man, backed with an exhausting amount of historical logic. Gracious, how much more entertaining can a writer be! But wait - Mr. Buchanan also in the last parts of "Unnecessary War" talk about his dislike of the Iraq War, and even about our lack of national interest in places like (how lucky can your timing get!), Georgia and Poland.

If the word "isolationist" can still be used, clearly Patrick Buchanan qualifies as a medium-strength isolationist as written in "The Unnecessary War." Somewhere, about two-thirds through the book, Buchanan's main point shines through: the United States would have been far better off today NOT being lead into WWII by Winston Churchill. Rather we should have let the major totalitarian giants smash themselves into exhaustion and eventual destruction against each other. Though this point of view is not shared by many, the theme running through all this might be the unintended downstream consequences of our continual tendency to "help" everyone else in the world. Starting his story before WWI, the author spends much time building his case for the above conclusion.

The most notable weakness of "The Unnecessary War" has to be the confusing cause-and-effect reasoning Buchanan uses. Too often one reads about a particular person as being the fault of some bad event in history, only to find out that the event turned out to be benign or salutary. Same person, same event. The astute reader should be able to pick out this sort of thing as it comes along. The adventure of reading this contrarian-style history is worth picking up a copy, and takes about two weeks to go through. Don't believe all those reviewers who call "The Unnecessary War" boring!