Literally millions of Nazi Germans were killed, and the nature of the way war was fought meant that the most hard core Nazis were most likely to die. For example, the submarine service was populated with the most hard core Nazis because you have to trust submariners the most – you can't easily supervise what they're actually doing. And German submariners had something like a 75% fatality rate. Similarly, the teenage psychopaths who volunteered to sign up for youth battalions towards the end of the war got slaughtered. And in general, wars usually disproportionately kill the people most committed to the cause, which in this case was Nazi Germany; the people who aren't committed find ways to avoid dying, like surrendering, shirking responsibilities, etc. Finally, hundreds of thousands to possibly millions of Germans were killed in post-WW2 expulsions. Again, doing a good job of killing off hard core Nazis.
Versailles is a ridiculous argument. Germany was able to wage WW2 precisely because their economy was _not_ crushed by WWQ reparations. Their WW1 reparations were a mere 2% of German GDP, hardly anything. If WW1 reparations were actually effective, they would have never been able to afford to build a military capable of fighting WW2.
I should work out how much post-WW2 reparations cost in terms of their GDP... It's probably more... And that time around, it achieved a lasting peace.
Hyperinflation was a choice. As I said, reparations were a tiny % of GDP. Germany could have easily afforded to pay them without any hyperinflation. They chose not to. They wanted to rebuild their military – beyond treaty limits – and used inflation as one way to fund that. Indeed, hyperinflation in Germany started _during_ WW1, precisely because of military spending.
Had we had the will and military capability to impose stringent reparations on Germany after WW1, WW2 would have never happened. We didn't. We imposed token reparations and were unable to impose treaty limits on military forces.
German GDP in 1945 was about $775 billion, in 2024 dollars. WW2 reparations paid by seizures of German intellectual property _alone_ were about $174 billion. Yet that didn't lead to yet another war.
North Korea is a ridiculous example to use. They nearly collapsed in the 90's due to famine. We saved them with food aid, and look what it got us. We should have let North Korea starve, which would have likely taken down the government with it. We did the same thing with Russia in the 90's too. And again, it backfired. And yet again, we're propping up Gaza and Yemen with billions of dollars of aid, and they repay us with endless violence.
There's thousands of Israeli Jews who would be alive today if we hadn't spent years propping up Gaza with endless aid. About 2000 alone since Oct 7th (civilean + military).
It's not genocide to punish and kill people who are personally guilty of evil no matter how large their numbers are. The literally millions of Germans killed in WW2 simply wasn't genocide. Killing six million Jews was genocide; killing millions of Germans was not. Taking the wealth of millions of Jews was genocide; forcing Germany to pay trillions of dollars of reparations was not.
So? They're just criminalizing factual statements. EU countries also like to prohibit the collection of statistics on crimes committed by race, and prohibit honest discussion of the facts around that. Eg I probably could be prosecuted in the right circumstances for posting this graph and pointing out that's it's no surprise that criminality is so high amongst the US black population, as their average IQs are a fair bit less than whites and Asians:
https://image.nostr.build/b92c62185f022e6abaeea8374a2bebf475711abf1a4be63b44d0f445de1cd4cd.jpg
The EU has absurd laws that are basically fraud on the public, esp by prohibiting honest discussion around immigration.
As for the Russian population, with a double digit percentage of Russia's entire GDP going to genocidal war, going to work and paying your taxes in Russia is evil. Obviously, Russia hasn't collapsed due to nation wide strikes or tax non-payment. Quite the opposite: there's been hardly any protests and there's clearly wide public support for the invasion.
Another example of this is the fact that hundreds of thousands of Russians – quite possibly millions – have moved to occupied Ukraine. They are taking advantage of cheap/free housing made available by the fact that the Ukrainians who used to live there have been forced out and/or killed. The Russians moving in know this: it's particularly grim in places like Mariupol where the real estate agents openly advertise when they know former inhabitants are dead. Right there you have hundreds of thousands to millions of Russians who are clearly serious criminals. These scumbags need to be forced out, ideally jailed or killed. The efficient, practical, thing to do is probably to impose the death penalty for illegally entering Ukraine and hope that they leave on their own accord as territory is taken back.
Based on those facts you absolutely can say that Russians as a whole are evil. The average Russian is an evil person. That's just a factual statement.
Of course, something like a million Russians have left Russia. I know some of those people myself. But that just furthers my point. The good people have left and are no longer Russians in the sense I'm using. What remains is on average scrumbags and people too poor to leave.
The big routs didn't stop the war. The survivors, and surviving equipment, came back and fought again.
If you were right, this wouldn't have happened. Russia would have felt defeated and given up. Lots of people, including myself, hoped that would happen. But Russia and the Russian population are more persistent than that.
...which Ukraine knew. If Ukraine had thought it was enough to just encourage Russia to retreat, they would have only destroyed the front of the convoys heading to Kyiv, allowing the Russians to turn around and go home.
They didn't do that. Ukrainian forces risked their lives in appalling winter conditions to sneak into the forests around the full length of the convoys. That was how they killed Russians along the full length of the convoys, ensuring thst tens of thousands of Russians and their machines wouldn't be able to retreat to fight another day.
It was a bloodbath, and it's likely that a few thousand Ukrainians died in the process of killing tens of thousands of Russians. But it was worth risking Ukrainian lives because Russia wasn't going to give up so easily. Those men were just going to come back to kill again. Better to kill them while the odds are in your favor; Ukraine is low time preference.
Frankly, by saying we "just need some big routs" to defeat Russia, what you're actually doing is prioritizing the lives of Russians over Ukrainians. You want to see hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians risking their lives going up directly against dug-in Russian forces rather than see the supply chains to those forces cut off. It's absurd to ask Ukrainians to give up their lives so the Russian economy can be spared.
Conversely, if the Russian economy is collapsed, the supply chains feeding those dug in troops collapse with it. Killing and capturing troops that are literally starving, and out of ammo, will cost far fewer Ukrainian lives in the process.
The Gulf War opened with Iraq's civilian electricity grid being deliberately taken out. 28(!!!) power plants were taken out by 218 sorties, along with transformers and switching yards. This also took out most of their water supply and sewage filtration. The country was left without power for years.
I'm fine with that. Coalition forces didn't need to risk their lives making the fight more fair.
Just two days ago, Israel plunged much of Yemen into darkness, destroying two civilian power plants.
Again, I'm ok with that. Yemen is a valid target and there's no easy way for Israel to defeat the Houthies and stop their attacks on Israel. Crushing the economy is a decent option.
...and again, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, power plants and even water treatment plants were targeted. US forces also blew up civilian power plants, including hydroelectric dams, in North Vietnam.
It's absolutely bizarre that you don't think taking out Russia's electricity grid wouldn't "tip the balance". Every drone and missile Russia launches at Ukraine is paid for by the Russian economy. Collapse the economy, and the funding for those drones and missiles dries up.
The Russian economy runs on electricity, like any other economy. Taking out power will certainly cut economic activity.
Russia isn't spending billions taking out Ukraine's power grid just for fun....
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