Lessons Of World War Research Articles

Lessons of World War II and Strategic Planning of the Big Three (1945–1949)

The paper examines how military and political leaders of the Soviet Union, the United States and Great Britain assessed in the first post-war years and in the face of emerging bipolar world order the lessons of World War II, how the latter influenced their strategic planning and forecasts with the emergence of nuclear weapons. The author outlines the key features of this period (1945–1949), including still fresh memories of the unprecedented destruction and losses of the past war, the US ‘nuclear monopoly’, and the absence of a system for nuclear deterrence. The paper provides a systematic comparison of lessons from the past war, learnt by the Soviet, the US and British establishment, identifies similarities and differences between them. The author concludes that WWII was perceived by the political and military leaders of that time as a model of the eventual ‘great war’ in the future, which almost certainly would be ‘total’ and ‘global’ in scope and would demand both thorough preparations during the peacetime and the militarization of civil life. Indeed, the experience of WWII had greatly influenced the strategic and operational planning in the USSR, the USA and Great Britain in 1945–1949. Moscow prepared to face the potential aggression on its Western borders or in the Far East in order to avoid the mistakes of 1941. In Washington the decisionmakers acknowledged the Soviet superiority in conventional weapons and didn’t exclude the possibility that the Soviet Army could quickly establish control over the Western Europe and that the US military would have to retake it in a ‘new Operation Overlord’. The pessimistic outlook of the ‘defense of the Rhine’ was also shared in London, and the British military planned to evacuate the troops to the British Isles (‘shadow of Dunkirk’) and to focus on strategic bombing of the USSR and its allies. Even the appearance of nuclear weapons, that would dramatically alter the strategic context in the following years, played a relatively minor role in 1945–1949. The author concludes that the shadow of World War II and its lessons had a long-lasting effect on the post-war international relations.

Neutrality or Involvement? World War II and Evolution of Foreign Policy Concepts of the Nordic Countries

In the middle of the 20th century a unique subsystem of international relations emerged in the Northern Europe, which has turned it into one of the stablest and most peaceful regions during the Cold War period. Nowadays, rising international tensions bring new relevance to the history lessons of World War II, its origins and aftermaths. The paper examines the evolution of the Nordic countries’ views on the issue of neutrality from mid-1930s to the end of 1940s. The first section considers the approaches of the Scandinavian countries to the establishment of a collective security system in the region in the interwar period. In that regard, the paper focuses on the Swedish project of the Northern defense alliance, which was aimed at deepening military cooperation between the states of the region and strengthening their ability to jointly deter any aggression as the best way to guarantee their neutrality. However, this project had not been implemented, because it faced both cool reactions from the leaders of Norway and Denmark and suspicion from the leading powers. According to the author, the fundamental reason for the failure of that project was that Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland sought support and protection from different, opposing great powers. The latter circumstance had also to a large extent predetermined the fate of the Scandinavian countries during the war years, when almost all of them were in one form or another involved in the conflict. The victory of the anti-Hitler coalition both opened new opportunities and posed new challenges for the states of the region: in the emerging bipolar world they rapidly turned into the subject matter of dispute of the superpowers. In these conditions, Sweden once again put forward the idea that in order to preserve peace in the region, the Nordic countries should be able to defend their neutrality and proposed the establishment of a Scandinavian Defense Union. In the final section, the paper examines the reaction to this project of the Scandinavian countries, the Soviet Union, the United States, and Great Britain. The author shows that although this reaction was more than restrained, and the project was not implemented, Sweden’s initiatives contributed to the creation of a unique security architecture in Northern Europe, where each state of the region had its own role with the neutral Sweden serving as a balancing force.

USSR in World War II

The article offers an overview of modern historical data on the origins, causes of World War II, the decisive role of the USSR in its victorious end, and also records the main results and lessons of World War II.Hitler's Germany was the main cause of World War II. Nazism, racial theory, mixed with far-reaching geopolitical designs, became the combustible mixture that ignited the fire of glob­al conflict. The war with the Soviet Union was planned to be waged with particular cruelty.The preconditions for the outbreak of World War II were the humiliating provisions of the Versailles Peace Treaty for the German people, as well as the attitude of the "Western de­mocracies" to Russia after 1917 and the Soviet Union as an outcast of world development. Great Britain, France, the United States chose for themselves a policy of ignoring Moscow's interests, they were more likely to cooperate with Hitler's Germany than with Soviet Russia. It was the "Munich Agreement" that became the point of no return to the beginning of the Second World War. Under these conditions, for the USSR, its own security and the conclusion of a non-aggression pact with Germany began to come to the fore, defining the "spheres of interests" of the parties in order to limit the advance of German troops towards the Soviet borders in the event of German aggression against Poland. The non-aggression pact gave the USSR just under two years to rebuild the army and consolidate its defensive potential and pushed the Soviet borders hundreds of kilometers westward. The signing of the Pact was preceded by the failure in August 1939 of the negotiations between the military mis­sions of Britain, France and the USSR, although Moscow took the Anglo-French-Soviet nego­tiations with all seriousness.The huge losses of the USSR in the summer of 1941 are explained by the following circum­stances: before the war, a large-scale modernization of the Red Army was launched, a gradu­ate of a military school did not have sufficient experience in managing an entrusted unit by June 22, 1941; the Red Army was going to bleed the enemy in border battles, stop it with short counterattacks by covering units, carry out defensive operations, and then strike a de­cisive blow into the depths of the enemy's territory, so the importance of a multi-echeloned long-term defense in 1941 was underestimated by the command of the Red Army and it was not ready for it; significant groupings of the Western Special Military District were drawn into potential salients, which was used by the Germans at the initial stage of the war; Stalin's fear of provoking Hitler to start a war led to slowness in making the most urgent and necessary decisions to bring troops to combat readiness.The Allies delayed the opening of the second front for an unreasonably long time. They, of course, achieved outstanding success in the landing operation in France, however, the en­emy's losses in only one Soviet strategic operation in the summer of 1944 ("Bagration") are not inferior, and even exceed, the enemy’s losses on the second front. One of the goals of "Bagration" was to help the Allies.Soviet soldiers liberated Europe at the cost of their lives. At the same time, Moscow could not afford to re-establish a cordon sanitaire around its borders after the war, so that anti- Soviet forces would come to power in the border states. The United States and Great Britain took all measures available to them to quickly remove from the governments of Italy, France and other Western states all the left-wing forces that in 1944-1945 had a serious impact on the politics of their countries.

The Narrator Frederic’s Lessons of World War I: Alliances and Joint Actions in A Farewell to Arms

The Narrator Frederic’s Lessons of World War I: Alliances and Joint Actions in <i>A Farewell to Arms</i>

The War to End All Wars? Lessons of World War I Revisited

The War to End All Wars? Lessons of World War I Revisited

Imagining war: French and British military doctrine between the wars

This text employs a cultural approach to take issue with the conventional wisdom that military organizations inherently prefer offensive doctrines. It argues instead that a military's culture affects its choices between offensive and defensive military doctrines. Drawing on organizational theory, it demonstrates that military organizations differ in their worldview and the proper conduct of their mission. It is this organizational culture that shapes how the military responds to such constraints as terms of conscription set by civilian policy-makers. In detailed case studies, the author examines doctrinal developments in France and Britain during the interwar period. She tests her argument against two of the most powerful alternative explanations and illustrates that neither the functional needs of military organizations nor the structural demands of the international system can explain doctrinal choice. She also reveals as a myth the argument that the lessons of World War One explain the defensive doctrines on World War Two.

Strategic Bombing—The Lessons of World War II and the American Experience in Vietnam

Strategic Bombing—The Lessons of World War II and the American Experience in Vietnam

The Plan of the Armed Services for Universal Military Training

time. by our friends and Allies, who held off the enemy while we generated the decisive power to determine the issue. If there is another world conflict, the enemy who hopes to bring us to defeat can be counted on to have read the lessons of World War I and World War II. Outstanding among those lessons will be: Strike the determining factor first, destroy the United States' warmaking power, and prevent her from building up a war machine behind a protective screen of other fighting nations. That the United States is the logical No. 1 target in any large next conflict is so clear it must be assumed that our future enemies, whoever they may be, will attack us vigorously at the outset. We would be foolish indeed, with the development of weapons and the diminution of spaces, if we again assumed that we will have a measurable period of time in which to prepare while other nations hold the line. The evolution of war has been towards multiplicity of means and complexity of methods. A modern fighting machine cannot spring from the earth. It has to be built and men must be trained to run it. Trained men and fighting machines must be ready to take the field at the shortest possible time in a conflict which we should expect will descend upon us with sudden fury. Hence the factor of time must dominate every calculation in our national defense. It is this time factor that prompts the War and Navy Departments to recommend that the postwar military organization must rest, inter alia, upon a system of universal military training whereby the youth of the nation will constitute a reservoir of trained military manpower from which a balanced force can be speedily mobilized in the event of an emergency to meet any threat to our national security. This paper is confined to a consideration of the recommended military training program as such and does not purport to discuss in detail the pros and cons of the system.

Lessons of World War I

Lessons of World War I