Morse:

Earlier this month we discussed the subject of "appeasement".  You can do a search of the board using the small form above the messages.  In that topic we discussed why appeasement happened and the different interpretations of it.

I think that WW II was unavoidable both in Europe and in Asia.  WW I was a resolution of conflicts that had started going back to the 19th century (and perhaps earlier than that).  Germans wanted to have an empire of their own much like France and England had.  The problem was tht the world had already been "divided" among the superpowers.  For Germany this meant that the only part of the world that they could potentially conquer was Eastern Europe.

In WW I Germany fought against Russia and nearly defeated it until the Czar fell from power and the new Communist government (under Lenin) surrendered and declared peace with Germany.  At the time Germany took control of several areas under the Czar's control.  For example, the Ukraine, Finland, etc.  However, Germany was no able to effectively control those lands and eventually lost them as the German economy sank into a deep recession in the 1920s.

When Hitler came to power he was determined to destroy what he called the "jew bolsheviks".  Hitler went on to incite antisemitism, hatred of the Roma (what we call Gypsies) and hatred of Slavs.  At the same time Stalin despised Hitler's fascism and how Hitler moved in to use the state to solidify the power of German capilatist monopolies.  The conflict between Stalin and Hitler was unavoidable.  They both knew it and signed their non-aggression pact to buy time before going to war.

Western superpowers knew this, and they "appeased" Hitler and gave him control of Poland and Czechoslovakia.  Their hope being that Hitler would attack the Soviet Union and in that way find the "living space" that the Third Reich wanted.  They probably thought that if Hitler was busy destroying the Soviet Union, he would stay away from France and England.  The superpowers hated the Soviet Union too, so appeasement was favorable to them.  This gave Hitler the impetus he needed to attack the Soviet Union and at the same time build his army to attack France and England.

On the Eastern front Japan had invaded China, Korea, Vietnam and other parts of Asia.  The Communist parties in those countries were determined to drive out the Japanese and these communist parties had the support of the Soviet Union.  The Japanese also hated the Soviet Union and were determined to build their empire by invading the Soviet Union from the East.  They also saw the opening of the hostilities between Germany and the Soviet Union as an opportunity to "divide and conquer" the Soviet Union by attacking in two fronts.  The Communist parties in occupied Asian countries declared war on Japan too and that meant that the conflict spread itself over all of eastern Asia.

Western superpowers were willing to tolerate attacks on the Soviet Union because they hated communists.  However, they were not willing to tolerate attacks against themselves.  When Hitler decided to invade France and Japan bombed Pearl Harbour, the conflict became truly a world war, and it was unavoidable because both Germany and Japan were determined to build their empires.