Actually he did have provocation, he demanded that the poles give up the Danzig Corridor or face attack.
After intense diplomatic negotiations, he surprise attacked at like 4 in the morning.
Wars are triggered by many things: territory, resources, trade, religion, regional history.
the provoction was to gain ground. my point is the poles could have let him have it or face war
the poles should have let him have it it was german anyways although not all of czechoslovakia
my point. if they let him have it there would be no war. but they didnt let him have it. they stood up to Germany and a war started cause of that
The most apt and succint reason I have ever heard to this question is.
“War is the continuation of politics.”
No Im sorry but you guys are complicating things. The act of invading and aggressing is caused by power and politics. But war is caused by the reaction of people standing up for what they believe in whether it’s the fact that they want power or that they don’t want oppression.
No Im sorry but you guys are complicating things. The act of invading and aggressing is caused by power and politics. But war is caused by the reaction of people standing up for what they believe in whether it’s the fact that they want power or that they don’t want oppression.
Its a bit of a case of the chicken and the egg. On the one hand you could say if the political situation didnt deteriorate to the point of war there wouldnt of been a war in the first place, but then by the same token you could use your argument that if people just ignored acts of agression against their nation there wouldnt be a war. It also begs the question how does one start a war? is not the invasion itself an act of war and is it not a given that at least a minority will oppose it?
There would of been a war whether Hitler got the Danzig corridor or not, he was in a precarious situation when it came to Germanys position in Europe politically and militarily and with 2 of the great powers in the USSR and France breathing down his neck and with the British empire ready to maintain the status quo in the event of a war it was bound to happen sooner or later. There we also have another cause of a war, tangled webs of alliances forcing countries and leaders into actions they may not of otherwise taken (much like the whole beginning of WW1)
Yes all factors come into play. I suppose this is one of those discussions that cant be solved. There are to many posibilities.
I think, Ryan, that your debate with the other guy got hung up on the question of how one defines war. You seemed to be arguing with him that a war is only a war if the two sides are shooting at each other, and your argument seems based on the premise that an invader will only start shooting if the country being invaded resists the invasion.
I think your analysis was inspired by the fact that Hitler managed to acquire a number of territoires “without firing a shot” prior to the invasion of Poland. Technically, it’s correct that the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and the rest of Czechoslovakia were not “wars” – but I think that’s an overly simple way of looking at it. For one thing, those annexations were preceded by political violence by Nazi-affiliated street thugs aimed at destabilizing those countries and/or at giving Germany an excuse to invade. The violence wasn’t a case of shots being fired by an army, but it was still violence.
I would further argue that what we’re discussing here is not so much war as the broader concept of armed aggression. Sending military forces across a country’s border to indimidate it into surrendering, without either side shooting at each other, may not be a shooting war, but it’s still armed aggression, in the same way that armed robbery is still armed robbery even if the robber doesn’t pull the trigger of his gun. I dont think its at all a situation in which the attack only becomes seen as something “worse” if the country (or person) being attacked resists, and I would oppose taking that line of reasoning to its next logical step, which would be to put the blame for the war on the victim rather than on the aggressor.
I would also point out that, when countries are invaded (especially without a declaration of war), the aggressor doesn`t always just walk in peacefully and refrain from firing unless the victim resists. The aggressor often goes in shooting – look at Pearl Harbor – and thereby makes it a shooting war unilaterally.
The concept of defeating an enemy without firing a shot is an old one, dating back at least to the Chinese military theorist Sun Tze, who stated that the supreme skill of generalship was to ensure that the enemy was beaten before the fighting even started. Its certainly the ideal way to defeat an enemy whose territory you want to conquer -- but ultimately, its still aggression backed by the threat of military force, even if no actual fighting is involved.
I see what your saying. But still Im talking about war. Not violence. If America was invaded and we fight back then were standing up for ourselves. Its simple but does make sense. Remember I look at things in a simplified view.
I’m trying to figure out the nature of the larger question that’s behind the specific argument you’re making. You’re saying, basically, that wars are not caused by invaders but rather are caused when the people whose country has been invaded decide to fight back. Leaving aside the question of whether that’s correct or not, the thing I’m wondering is: what is the larger point which this argument is trying to make? Is it just a matter of semantics, a purely abstract debate over how the concept of war is defined? Or is it expressing a viewpoint about what policies a country should follow if it finds itself in such a situation? A viewpoint which could, for example, run like this:
Proposition A: Wars are caused when invaded countries defend themselves against the aggressor.
Proposition B: Wars are bad things.
Conclusion C: Avoiding war is a good thing, so invaded countries should not defend themselves when they are invaded.
War is more than one Nation attacking another. War has always existed with Man… long before there were complex Nation States.
The reasons are endless. In effect you were both right, but the question and the answer go far beyond those two triggers.
Yes I think we’ve established that. :mrgreen:
The most apt and succint reason I have ever heard to this question is.
“War is the continuation of politics.”
Clausewitz
ask a veteran…i did…he said MONEY MONEY MONEY (speaks in french)
MONEY and POWER….
First of all guys thats from a soldiers opinion. Certain wars do start cause of that. Look at Vietnam.
How do wars start ?
France start them.
France startet the Napoleonic Wars.
France startet the Franco-Prussian war in 1871.
France startet the WW I in 1914 when she declared war on Germany.
France startet the WW II in 1939 when she declared war on Germany.
France startet the Vietnam war when she denied to liberate the vietnamese people.
The Algerie war in 1964
etc etc
This list is long
Yes Razor as usual you are right.
