Choices: analysis and decision-making frameworks

World War II Choices

Reexamining history

Weinberg framed the argument of his book beautifully. World War II was very much a war that was based on choices and what can go horribly right or wrong when those choices are made on the global scale. Germany should have been neutered and put in control after the first World War. To a certain degree, they were, but Hitler was able to remobilize and regroup Germany despite the best intentions and somewhat effective actions of the Allies and other stakeholder countries that were involved.

As far as choices, countries on the other side like Germany, Italy and Japan had their own nefarious options and France, Great Britain and Russia had their own. Russia was a special case because they were actually allied with Germany at one point and then switched sides. That being said, it is generally agreed the pact to divide Poland was never truly taken seriously and that it was just a matter of time before the two countries went to war anyway. The agreement in 1939 to divide Poland was apparently just delaying the inevitable (1).

Britain is also an example of a country whose choices changed dramatically over the development of the war and what led up to it. Their dithering and placation of Hitler prior to the war was disastrous and, in retrospect, an insanely stupid decision. The ensuing choices and inherent leadership saved the day.

A choice of Japan that seems to be foolish in modern times was the decision of Japan to intentionally bring the United States into the war. It was widely assumed, at least by some, that the United States would become involved eventually and reasonable people can argue what would have happened had Japan not attacked Pearl Harbor. However, since they did and since the resulting events are quite clear up to and including the atomic bombs being dropped on Hiroshama and Nagasaki, the choices the Hirohito made had vast and deadly consequences. Despite the victory that the United States attained as a result, it is a subject of much debate as to whether Truman truly had to make the choice that he did. The generally accepted reasoning behind that bombing is that thousands of United States troops would have died in a protracted war and a clear message had to be sent. Regardless of how one assesses the issue, the fallout, no pun intended, from Japan's choice was massive.