Should the Allies have taken over the defeated Axis?
Would that even have been feasible?
As examples. The US would have taken Japan, England and Russia could have split Germany, throw the French Italy to be nice, etc...
Just something that came to mind while i was at a parent teacher conference yesterday, zoning out and looking at a world map.
Italy was on our side by that point you know...
I'm not sure what you mean by 'taken over'- they were occupied for many years with ultimate decisions coming down to the allied powers.
If you mean, in the long-term, continued to impose power and government on them like Russia actually did, then I think history bears out that what the western allies did was smarter. West Germany ended up as a major liberal western democracy on the good guy's side, whilst the failure of the Soviet East German state as its people rose against it (peacefully) was one of the major triggers ofg the Soviet collapse.
Re: Should the Allies have taken over the defeated Axis?
Originally posted by riv6672
Would that even have been feasible?As examples. The US would have taken Japan, England and Russia could have split Germany, throw the French Italy to be nice, etc...
Just something that came to mind while i was at a parent teacher conference yesterday, zoning out and looking at a world map.
World War 2 was the end of the geopolitical practice of victorious powers partitioning the territory of their defeated enemies. There have only been a few cases since where a country has attempted to annex another's territory, the most notable ones being the Falklands Invasion by Argentina (failed), the invasion of Kuwait by Iraq (failed), and the annexation of Crimea by Russia (successful, for now). But in those cases, there's always the perception that the territory belongs in some way to the aggressor, however flimsy the claim might be. In the hypotheticals you bring up, there'd have been no pretext for annexing former Axis territories.
Originally posted by Ushgarak
Italy was on our side by that point you know...I'm not sure what you mean by 'taken over'- they were occupied for many years with ultimate decisions coming down to the allied powers.
If you mean, in the long-term, continued to impose power and government on them like Russia actually did, then I think history bears out that what the western allies did was smarter. West Germany ended up as a major liberal western democracy on the good guy's side, whilst the failure of the Soviet East German state as its people rose against it (peacefully) was one of the major triggers ofg the Soviet collapse.
Hungary was forced to give some of its territory to Romania and Czechoslovakia, of course this was under Russian rule. I know there were plans for Germany to hand over some of its land to the Netherlands, Belgium and France but those plans never materialized. Those lands would've comprised the Ruhrgebiet, I wonder how West-Germany would've recovered from the war if it weren't for the industry there.
Originally posted by jinXed by JaNxUS economy was helped by the war; when the war ended the US had plenty of money and a fast growing economy.
both, the short and long answers are no because USA didn't have the money or resources to do so. If USA had tried to take over a conquered country they would have had to work it out with the other allied countries.