Keava said:
... it was pretty much unavoidable. You had Joseph Stalin tranforming Russia into Soviet Union after the Bolshevik revolution, Italy led by Benito Mussolini meddling in Ethiopia which France somewhat agreed to, the Spanish Civil War which was another nationalist insurection in Europe, supported by both Italy and Germany, tension between China and Japan that led to Japan invasion ... to actually have any chance of stopping WW2 you would have stop Bolshevik revolution, Spanish civil war, unification of China, invasion of Ethiopia and make League of Nations grow some balls...
Yes! That's basically how I see it. If I might ignore for the moment how turmoil in the West was decoupled from the East, I would choose to intervene by establishing an international body much earlier. A League of Nations established sometime like 1750, based on various ideas of freedom from Voltaire, etc etc. 1750 is largely arbitrary. I simply don't see any 'good' periods with low tension anywhere thereafter for the establishment of such a body. The U.S. revolted against the benign "occupation" of Britain, revolution in France, 19th century imperialism, widespread nationalism in ... crap... 1848? [dammit, I wasn't supposed to forget that date!].
The central problem with an interventionist body is that there was no desire for such a mechanism until the aftermath of WWI was fully discerned. It is true that such a body could have mitigated the American and French revolutions, as well as multiple civil wars worldwide. However, those countries that were not savagely tearing themselves apart were JOYFULLY tearing apart other nations through imperialism, colonialism, economic advantages, etc. And since colonization had the implicit blessing (through hundreds of years) of an occasionally corrupt papacy, it would have been extremely difficult for any interventionist body to gain traction.
Everyone simply believed that "might made right" until about 1918. Then they forgot how bad the war was after about 10 years. The great remorse did not dissipate, nor did it remedy the tensions that lingered afterward. World War II was inevitable. Hitler and his Final Solution were truly unfortunate for the world, but another leader would have risen in his absence.
