What could Germany & the central powers have done to win WW1?

Not invade through Belgium and get the Brits involved directly to defend Belgian neutrality.
Play more defensively against France, they were thirsty for revenge and would have suffered greatly in a war of attrition well learning the way ww1 worked.
Knock Russia out of the war as early as possible to remove that front.
Ottomans need to get their shit together and learn how to fight a war.

FPBP

The Belgian neutrality was a pretext
Britain was alligned with France since even before the war and would have intervened regardless

If Germany hadnt invaded through Belgium, the only difference is that the trench war would have taken place on German soil instead of French one

This
Pre war Germany was pretty much the powerhouse of Europe culturally and economically
Starting the war was retarded as fuck

Yes but if the British and French invade Germany it makes them look worse it would have definitely gotten them more sympathy in neutral nations like the United States, considering the German army had an awful time with saboteurs and armed civilians in Belgium to the point where they started basically executing whole towns it would have been better for them to stay out and have a small more easily defended front with France so they can focus on fighting Russia.

Germany didn't start the war, Austria did, because their fucking royalty was assassinated. Germany became the primary problem in the peace agreements because France and Britain were scared of a powerful Germany and wanted to weaken them to the point where they could never wage war again. The Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires both collapsed, so over all Germany got the worst of the peace deals which is why they were forced to agree to take all blame and repay for the war.

Step 1: invade through Belgium
Step 2: keep the submarines in port
Step 3: Let Austria Hungary get fucked
Step 4: kill the Russians
Step 5: use the rest the army to defeat France
Step 6: ask Britain for a peace treaty
Step 7(optional): crush the revolts in Austria Hungary or grant the minorities satelite states
Step 8: pray the rise of fascism/communism in the defeated countries doesn't start WW2 in twenty years

If the United States didn't show up with loads of material and fresh men, Germany would've won in this scenerio

You massively underestimate the French revaunchism in this scenario I think.

not live in a world where the russians were allied with the serbs, the french with the russians, the british with belgium, italy allied with AH and Germany sorta maybe, nationalistic honor to maintain, land hungry austrohungarians, and serbian nationalists in the balkans

>the british with belgium
The Brittish were not allied with Belgium, they had a treaty signed by France, England, Germany, Austro-Hungaria, and I think Russia guaranteeing Belgian independence.
That is why the Belgians did not allow any British or french troops into their borders until the Germans started invading, they did not want to be accused of violating their own neutrality or provoking the Germans to war with them.

I'm going off the assumption France would have surrendered immediately after the Fall of Paris c. October 1918

>Yes but if the British and French invade Germany it makes them look worse

Not really
Germany would still have been the country to both declare war and invade first
The rest is just the course of the war

France was out for blood over Alsace-Lorraine.
Germany does not need to declare war on France, and in my suggestion it was for Germany to wait and let the French do the initial invasions, as they are more costly anyways, and the border is not very big between the two, Germany would need to make sure to keep Alsace-Lorraine safe from total French control to avoid having it be brought up as something the french control at the end of war.

This, If they could refrained from allowing all out submarine warfare and not gotten the US involved, they would have won. The US really didn't see much combat until the Germans punched through French and British lines and were about to march on Paris.

elecvted jitler 2 be presiden befor start so thatn hews could die easy and win stalingra because u have 2 push forward your pawns before sinkingninto deep and once u havve king in check mate u justnpush harfer and pop cherryu stinkinn jhews cant even hold a gold boulion instead they hide attuc becayse too scaterd too fuern for offfice bang bang gas attack zzzzzzzzzzp humming bnird bomb BOOmooom hahahahaha got ya damn brits got bomed in their own homes hahah babys ingas masks the kews could not even fight hitler so ww1 should have elceged ghilter to iofffciem earlier so thayt could have won ww2 balkan poweder keg BOOEEOEOOOM over. gg faggotsas

>Germany does not need to declare war on France, and in my suggestion it was for Germany to wait and let the French do the initial invasions

There are very few chances this would have happened
France feared Germany (rightfully so, they didn't even have half the manpower Germany had), and didn't want the war
They even went as far as removing all their troops several kms away from the border to avoid "provoking" Germany in hope to avoid the war
Germany really dun goofed when it attacked them

In that case, there is no way Germany could have won. Remember most of France's important raw resources were behind the Germany trench line. If Germany did not conduct the Schlieffen Plan, French industrial output potentially doubles from real life output. Britain didn't care about Belgium and was in the war to topple the Germany before it could have seriously challenged the empire at sea. There's no way Germany could have fought Britain, Russia, and a fully operational France at the same time

Not really. The French guaranteed Russia during the meeting in St. Petersburg that they would support them in a war between Germany and Russia. They also made it pretty clear in their correspondence with German diplomats during the July Crisis that they wouldn't stay neutral.

>where they started basically executing whole towns
The death toll for the occupation of Belgium was less than a couple thousand civilians IIRC and that's over the duration of 4 years

It always amazes me that war propaganda has such a strong influence on pop history. It's even worse for WW2 with people arguing how mighty the Wehrmacht was when in reality they used horse carriages for logistics and were surprised they were winning

Not send Zimmerman Telegram.

After Battle of Tannenberg, withdraw troops from Western and Eastern fronts and move them to Germany, remaining on the defensive from then on out.

Try to temporize as much as possible with America.

Just continue to defend until other sides hopefully get tired and try to end the war with some, most or all of the acquisitions from Brest-Litovsk.

Dunno about Ottomans and Austrians though.

>The only thing that led to Germany's defeat in WW1 was being fucking retarded and forcing America to get involved in the war.

Do you really think so though? There is a theory that Germany well and truly lost the war at the Somme due to the massive relative loss of veteran and experienced troops compared to the allies. One could also argue that the war was lost for Germany at the Marne in 1914 as its failure consigned the war to a static tench warfare situation, and the allies were better equipped in terms of industry and manpower to win a war of attrition. I do not think that Ludendorff's Spring offensive failed just because of America's involvement, and there are many more compelling hypotheses' as to why the central powers lost than the involvement of the U.S.

Ottomans won the Gallipoli Campaign. Russia fell. Commies took the power in 1917.In the absence of Russia if Germany could defend, ottos could go on like 2 years give or take.

The Spring offensive happened precisesly because of the American entry into the war. Germany would have had more strategic options in 1918 had the US stayed neutral. An all out attack on the West wouldn't have been necessary, the divisions from the East could be used to win the Balkan and/or Italian front for instance while staying more defensive on the West.

Not be starving.

underage b&

Not agitate America.

As soon as they brought that swinging Yankee dick their way they were doomed.

Arrest all the commie agitators, social democrats and jews the very minute the Kaiser declared war so they couldn't stir up shit and undermine moral at the homefront later on by stabbing the army in the back

Not invade through Belgium. Germany could have beaten both France and Russia. Facing also the British Empire however was too much.

Nice try Hans, but we all remember that sealed train car you used to bring Lenin back to Russia, and we all remember the Hundred Days Offensive.

I get that you wanted to go into greater depth for another user, but there is no need to be rude.

...

>and we all remember the Hundred Days Offensive
The offensive that was only possible due to the fact that fresh manpower straight from the US of A was available? I know it's meme to underplay the U.S.'s role in the war, but it was absolutely essential to the Hundred Day's Offensive.

Balkan front only existed in order to relieve the western front.
Bulgaria would have annihilated Greece if not for orders from Germany.

Absolutely wrong

There were 100K of bad trained americans troops with no tactics at the begining of the spring offensive.

It's the first and second battle of the Marne that are the turning point of war.

Just see it on Wikipedia.

No

The Hundred Days of Offensive war is due to the second battle of Marne.

The french stopped the German offensive and counter attack them with a new manner of war with limited battle. Not great engagement like before and decisive breakthrough but by little engagement.

Using the superiority of the french Air forces, Tanks and logitics lead the germans armies to be in desorder and unable to make a move.

The germans Armies are broken after the second Marne.

America was decisive as Japan in ww1.

>Absolutely wrong
Absolutely right. That desperate Spring Offensive wouldn't have happened were it not for pending American entry into the war.
See

>Focused completely on Russia first
>Not agitate USA by trying to get Mexico in
>Blitz for Paris right once Moscow was out, without hunkering down in the trenches to hold back the French and British the blitz wouldve been more effective
>Tanks

Fire Hotzendorf.

I doubt turtling would work, germany's coal and industry was too close to the french border

Win the Battle of the Frontiers somehow and actually besiege and capture Paris as originally intended

>Allies
France - competent
Britain - competent
Russia - semi-competent
US - not there long enough to know
Italy - incompetent
Serbia - semi-competent

>Centrals
Germany - competent
Austria - incompetent
Ottomans - incompetent
Bulgaria - incompetent

there was no way to win so

so you are saying germany had superior tactics, because it had the same tactics as virtually every other combatant of the war

and you are saying it had superior airplanes that led to germany owning the skies, even though the allies on the western front had achieved air superiority

and you are saying they had better small arms because they started out with far more machine guns, despite the fact that as the war progressed the allies started fielding way more of them, and germany never deployed enough squad automatic weapons and light machine guns, relying in large part on captured lewis guns

and you are saying that the germans had superior artillery (except they didn't have a better field gun) and ended the war with an extensive heavy artillery collection, even though it was the allied artillery doctrines that proved supreme and superior from 17 onwards and which basically allowed them to break into german lines at will

ok

So instead of the Spring Offensives happening and giving the Germans a semblance of a very short lived victory, Germany would simply... wait and starve to death? Because that is the only thing that awaited them had the war gone for longer. They didn't have war materiel, they didn't have manpower, they didn't have food.

>This "germany dindu nuffin, germany wuz jus bein a gud ally" meme again
Germany was dying for a war against the other colonial powers for years before WW1. They were fully aware that Austria was deliberately provoking Russia and France and they were fully capable of putting Austria back in its place and telling it to calm the fuck down but they were in on it too thinking that they could take on half of Europe and come out the better for it thanks to their ebin Schlieffen plan.

>Russia - semi-competent
>Italy - incompetent
>Bulgaria - incompetent
>US - not there long enough to know
You have no idea what you're talking about do you?

What, will you also execute your entire fucking navy?

According to Stokesbury, submarine warfare had brought Britain almost to her knees, and she was even closer to collapse than in WWII. Had Germany stayed the course, Britain would have been forced to sue for peace - though I can't say what, if any, effect this would have had on the French. When the Germans decided to allow unrestricted submarine warfare to attempt to finish Britain off, they were consciously provoking the US. It's worth noting that this was a highly contentious decision within Germany.
This guy is correct, anyone who says the Germans weren't tactically superior has literally never seen a WWI history book. And the Russians stumbled on infiltration/disruption tactics almost by accident, immediately abandoned them for the remainder of the war. The Germans made it consistent tactical doctrine.
This guy is retarded, as he entirely neglects the morale (somewhat important) and financial (100% vital) implications of the US entering the war. Upon declaring war, the United States immediately lent $9,500,000,000 (1917 dollars) to her new allies. This influx of credit is what kept Britain afloat long enough for the mounting tide of American manpower to tell. Not that the British blockade of Germany wasn't also effective; it simply wasn't effective enough to prevent Britain from collapsing before Germany.

At least ONE intelligent decision would've been enough.

>Not that the British blockade of Germany wasn't also effective; it simply wasn't effective enough to prevent Britain from collapsing before Germany.
you wanna know how I know you know nothing about the war

The other huge role the U.S. played was changing the strategic initiative.

Before the U.S. entered, the Germans were free to pursue offensives at their leisure. They were occupying enemy territory. A stalemate inherently favored them.

With the entry of the US into the war, that was not the cases. Actual American contribution was very limited, but theoretical American involvement was basically limitless. The U.S. Army was seriously planning to deploy Armored Divisions, entire divisions in 1920.

This forced the Germans to act. They had to knock out France before the Americans could arrive in large numbers, and this changed all of their strategic considerations from that point on.

That's a nice source you've cited, I'd love to learn more.

the same as yours actually! good eye

>According to Stokesbury

Ah, I see your interest has waned now that your utter lack of substance is revealed.

>US doesn't give a shit about the blockade of Germany
>US gets mad about submarines attempting to blockade Britain
?

Wrong

The counter attack is possible because of the second battle Marne. French had in 1918 the number of vehicle required that lacked in 1914 for pushing back the German.

I'am not retarded,I'am just saying the truth about the reason of the Victory in 1918 because I don't base my judgement on Spielberg's movie but on book.

And the book clearly show, by fact how the French had always been superior to all allied and how French found a new way of fighting in 1918.

Germans put all their armies in the Western front, beat the ass of British and French resisted and counter attacked putting German in the same dangerous situation of september 1914.

After this point, the french has a mechanized army with superior tank and planes against a Germany army that still used train to move.

Then the limited offensive won the game under the French commandment.

Don't be mad Anglo, French did most of the work and you cannot stand this. French was the first army in 1919...

And USA had a very low importance in WW1 :)

>Italy
>competent

All of these answers, but no one has a suggestion for beating the French right away in 1914? What did they need to do differently to say, win the 1st Marne or capture Paris?

Britain had the largest army in the world at the end of WW1. Without British aid both Russia and France would have fallen. The British Empire is what made the difference in WW1.

>And USA had a very low importance in WW1 :)
Way to contradict my post without addressing any of my points. And I don't even know what movie you're referring to.
People malign the Schlieffen plan, and it may well have failed in any case, but what Germany did in 1914 was not the Schlieffen plan. Schlieffen envisioned a wide wheel through the lowcountries, not stopping for anything and putting the vast majority of its weight into the right-hand flank. He assumed, correctly, that the French would launch an offensive into Alsace-Lorraine - due both to the French penchant for the offensive and the emotional value of regaining lost territory. As they did so, they would be assisting the Germans encircle them. The plan was nothing if not ambitious, and it's likely the French would have mobilized faster than Schlieffen calculated anyway. Schlieffen devoted his life to the plan, and his dying words (literally) were 'keep the right wing strong'. Apparently von Moltke wasn't interested, because he continually drew forces off the right flank to engage the French, precisely what Schlieffen hoped to avoid. He also opted to not violate Dutch neutrality and squeeze his communications and reserves through Belgium. I'm not familiar enough with the specifics of Marne to say, have to look into it more.

The way wars end is always decided before they are ever started. With the political situation Germany set up for itself, victory was impossible. No matter what tactical military miracles Germany could have pulled off, it wouldn't have mattered (as shown in WW2). If somebody says Germany could have easily won WW1 if they only did x, they are lying.

The problem was Wilhelm abandoning Bismark's strategy of preventing a Franco-Russian alliance at all costs, and being so thirsty for war he was basically suicidal. Instead of allying Austria-Hungry, they might have been better off engineering a civil war and annexing the Austrian lands. AH was so garbage is doesn't even count as an ally.

>LE INVASION OF BELGIUM

Stop.

The allieds themselves had already planned to march through belgium in their own war plans. Just because Germany did it first doesn't make it evil

It was a pre-emptive action on the Kaiser's part to protect the german people, just like the Fuhrer wisely pre-emptively attacked the USSR in 1941 just days before Stalin was poised to invade and rape all of europe to the atlantic.

Problem with what the Germans did in 1914, too, was a distinct lack of communication as to what everyone did. It was hard to talk with everyone, what with the lack of technology, but it was a big problem. At least, that's as far as I can remember, not sure if it's accurate.

not fucked off the US for one, Germany trying that retarded plan to ally with Mexico (which even the Mexicans turned down), and unrestricted submarine warfare was fucking crazy, honestly if the Boche had just held the line for a while longer think the Entente would have come to the negotiating table

The central powers really didn't make any critical mistakes.

Also America barely did shit in the war. Pic related though, great great uncle took it off a dead German in France.

You're correct, von Moltke was stricken throughout the Marne with the feeling that his battle was running away from him. He wasn't wrong either, as orders to field armies were often late and no longer valid by the time they reached them. Case in point, when he ordered Kluck's 1st army to fall in echelon with Bulow's 2nd, he instructed Kluck to stay behind and support Bulow's flank and rear. When the order was received, Kluck was a full 2 days march ahead of Bulow, so he decided to simply keep pressing. These failures characterize the beginning of the war (both sides) moreso than the end.

>AH was so garbage
True, further evidenced by the fact that as the war progressed, more and more Austrian generals were replaced by German ones, so that by the end Germany was running not only the AH military, but much of its country as well. This can be attributed to the new heights of total war WWI reached, but it's revealing nonetheless.

Then why wasn't the soviet artillery paired with its organic transport? Why were there no reserves at railheads? Why didn't they take even the elementary preparations they made before attacking Finland and Romania?

Hey Stalin purged his officers. Also if you lower your naval capabilities Britain will feel less threatened. So maybe the Nazis during ww1 would have saved Germany through their incompetence.

Not invade Belgium?
Wait like 10 more years for technology to improve so that they could have just whacked France before moving onto Russia?

...are you literally implying WW1 Germany should have acted like WW2 Germany?

They were planning to keep building up before invading. Their plan was to let the allies and the axis exhaust each other before wiping out both. They were planning for war in 1943, if I remember correctly.

Submarines cant blockade. Submarines can only sink ships. The British might prevent your nation's commercial ships from going to enemy ports but they won't destroy them and kill all of the crew on board.

I don't know I think Austria-Hungary in starting a war that they were in no way shape or form able to win was a mistake.

You know, Suvarov doesn't really count as a source, he flat out admitted he ignored evidence that ran contrary to his position.

Besides, the user I replied to said, and I quote

>in 1941 just days before Stalin was poised to invade and rape all of europe to the atlantic.

Without the intervention of the United States, Germany could easily have forced a negotiated peace with France and Britain that did not involve the dismemberment of their Empire.

Remember, Russia had surrendered a HUGE chunk of its land to the Germans in 1917-18. Pretty much all of what is now Poland, Central Ukraine and Belarus. At that point, all the soldiers on the Eastern Front were free to go to the Western Front.

But the reinforcements did not matter at this point because hundreds of thousands of American troops were pouring into Europe, and the US Fleet had moved into the North Sea/Med and effectively completed the stranglehold blockade of the Central Powers.

Germany lost by default. While they had defeated Russia, they had no more men left to counteract the United States. Britain and France were in the same boat financially and manpower wise as the Germans, but were buoyed by the massive infusion of American blood and treasure. It pushed Germany over the edge from what would have been a huge land gain from Russia and White Peace with France/Britain to outright surrender to France, Britain and the USA.

>You know, Suvarov doesn't really count as a source, he flat out admitted he ignored evidence that ran contrary to his position.
I don't really care about him. The USSR's mission was to turn the world into a socialist republic. There's plenty of evidence that they did plan to. For example, both Lenin and Stalin attacked and annexed several countries. Also, the USSR had tens of thousands of tanks, planes, and artillery, as well as millions of infantrymen, before Germany invaded them. They also supported communists worldwide, most notably in China.

It's a pretty safe guess to say that Stalin was going to try to invade Europe at some point.

Yes. Because a whacked off France would put pressure on England to Ally with Germany instead and because they didn't invade Belgium the British wouldn't have had to honor their deal with the Belgians.

>The USSR's mission was to turn the world into a socialist republic.

Which they had been remarkably lax about pursuing post 1921.

>For example, both Lenin and Stalin attacked and annexed several countries

I'm unaware of any countries Lenin annexed, unless you count breakaway Russian politicla entities.

And Stalin didn't do any expansion prior to the Molotov Ribbentorp pact, which makes German claims about feeling threatened by it a bit laughable.

>Also, the USSR had tens of thousands of tanks, planes, and artillery, as well as millions of infantrymen, before Germany invaded them.

So? Their level of armament relative to the overall size of the economy wasn't anything special. Britain had 10,000 planes on the eve of WW2, and they built that with a considerably smaller economy. Were they planning on a conquering spree?

>It's a pretty safe guess to say that Stalin was going to try to invade Europe at some point.

It's pretty safe to say that there's no actual evidence of him having a concrete plan to do so, and an attack on "You might do it one day if it proves profitable" is nowhere near a preemptive attack.

>Which they had been remarkably lax about pursuing post 1921.
Because they lost to POLAND. They realized they weren't ready for expansion. Look at this quote by Stalin.

>We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us.
Speech "The Tasks of Economic Executives" (4 February 1931) Stalin said this in 1931, at the beginning of the rapid industrialization campaign.

>I'm unaware of any countries Lenin annexed, unless you count breakaway Russian politicla entities.
I do count them. He also tried but failed to annex Poland.

>Meanwhile, the Soviet leadership's confidence soared.[71] In a telegram, Lenin exclaimed: "We must direct all our attention to preparing and strengthening the Western Front. A new slogan must be announced: 'Prepare for war against Poland'."[72] Soviet communist theorist Nikolay Bukharin, writer for the newspaper Pravda, wished for the resources to carry the campaign beyond Warsaw "right up to London and Paris".[73] General Tukhachevsky's order of the day, 2 July 1920 read: "To the West! Over the corpse of White Poland lies the road to worldwide conflagration. March on Vilno, Minsk, Warsaw!"[68] and "onward to Berlin over the corpse of Poland!"[16]

>And Stalin didn't do any expansion prior to the Molotov Ribbentorp pact, which makes German claims about feeling threatened by it a bit laughable.
See above. He didn't feel ready yet. He saw the pact as the perfect moment to annex smaller countries before going west.

I'll continue on my next post.

Any good Stalin biography you'd recommend that doesn't go out of its way to demonize(nor idealize) the man?

>So? Their level of armament relative to the overall size of the economy wasn't anything special.
It really was special. Go look up the actual GDP of the countries and their armies in 1941. They had over 5 times the amount of tanks that Germany had.

>Britain had 10,000 planes on the eve of WW2
Not true.
>Once it became clear that Germany was a threat, the RAF started on a large expansion, with many airfields being set up and the number of squadrons increased. From 42 squadrons with 800 aircraft in 1934, the RAF had reached 157 squadrons and 3,700 aircraft by 1939.
I don't know of any, sorry.

>Because they lost to POLAND. They realized they weren't ready for expansion. Look at this quote by Stalin.

So, in other words, they were like any other imperialist state, vastly preferring to fight short, easy wars . That doesn't make them millinarean ideological expansionists.

>I do count them

Why? If the Whites had come out on top, or any other ideology in Russia, do you really think they'd act any different?

>He didn't feel ready yet. He saw the pact as the perfect moment to annex smaller countries before going west.

Which again, means that he's not a nice guy by any means, but he's a rational, calculating actor on the world's political stage, and isn't going to fight tiny little shit countries like Latvia and Estonia without foreign backing, or at least promises of nonintervention.

Why on earth is he going to attack a major power like Germany? That's a much, MUCH bigger undertaking.

>It really was special. Go look up the actual GDP of the countries and their armies in 1941.

No it wasn't. And GDP doesn't mean shit in a command economy where you don't have pricing, like the Soviets.

You know what they had? They had double the population of Germany, far more of a steel industry, and weren't constrained by material bottlenecks. Go look up tank production in 1941-1945 between the two countries: The Soviets are producing a hell of a lot more tanks, even before the Germans start switching over to large scale production of SPGs as a cheaper alternative.

Their having more tanks is a sign of having more industry to devote to tanks.

>Not true.

Objectively wrong.

ww2-weapons.com/raf-squadrons-in-september-1939/

>In September 1939, the RAF had 10,208 aircraft in service,

>Once it became clear that Germany was a threat, ...the RAF had reached 157 squadrons and 3,700 aircraft by 1939.

I don't know what you're quoting with this, but it's almost certainly talking about operational aircraft, not total aircraft in inventory.

And to finish off, since I hit the character limit, NONE of the above has anything to do with Hitler or Germany's intentions. It takes a supreme act of self-delusion to look at a head of state who had published a book detailing the need to access and settle the Eurasian plain, to promote an autarkic economic system of self-sufficiency that required securing natural resources to be found in a country, against an enemy whose only expansion within the leader's own reign to be things that he explicitly agreed to; to feel threatened and characterize the attack as pre-emptive.

It was an expansionist campaign, pure and simple.

I also don't really know any. I don't really focus on biographies, more military history in general.

>So, in other words, they were like any other imperialist state, vastly preferring to fight short, easy wars
Why wouldn't you prefer that? It's the logical thing to do.

>That doesn't make them millinarean ideological expansionists.
Good job on ignoring all the quotes from actual Soviets with power which prove that they were exactly that.

>Why? If the Whites had come out on top, or any other ideology in Russia, do you really think they'd act any different?
Because those were all states that broke off from Russia, so they had a serious claim on them and had been at war with them from the starts. On the other hand, the USSR actually cooperated with the Ukrainian anarchists, and then betrayed and invaded them when they were an established state. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_Insurrectionary_Army_of_Ukraine

>Why on earth is he going to attack a major power like Germany? That's a much, MUCH bigger undertaking.
Because it would have been a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to actually take over Europe when all its major powers would have been exhausted and weakened by war.

>And GDP doesn't mean shit in a command economy where you don't have pricing, like the Soviets.
Yes, it means something. GDP isn't a capitalist construct. It's a way to calculate what a country produces over a year. A command economy has an advantage in that they can force industries to produce stuff at will, but they still can't spawn production out of thin air.

>You know what they had? They had double the population of Germany, far more of a steel industry, and weren't constrained by material bottlenecks. Go look up tank production in 1941-1945 between the two countries: The Soviets are producing a hell of a lot more tanks, even before the Germans start switching over to large scale production of SPGs as a cheaper alternative.
I never said otherwise. Keep in mind, though, that the USSR was receiving a massive amount of material and weapons from the USA. They were far from being able to produce everything.

>Their having more tanks is a sign of having more industry to devote to tanks.
Yes and no. You can have a ton of industry but still not build a gigantic army. That's what the USA did before the war. Why? Because they weren't planning to fight.

>I don't know what you're quoting with this, but it's almost certainly talking about operational aircraft, not total aircraft in inventory.
I was quoting wikipedia's RAF article. I guess I'll concede that point.

>Good job on ignoring all the quotes from actual Soviets with power which prove that they were exactly that.

Ever hear the expression "Actions speak louder than words"? The USSR hadn't invaded another country for a full 20 years by 1941. Deterrence worked quite well against them for close to 50 in the Cold War. They were not about to attack a country that could seriously hurt them, and their historical actions demonstrated this. You may as well say Iran or Saudi Arabia are hellbent on expansion and need to be attacked now for the security of the world based on what they said?

>Because those were all states that broke off from Russia, so they had a serious claim on them and had been at war with them from the starts.

Precisely, so they were part of the Russian territory and anyone who held Moscow wanted to hold onto them.

>On the other hand, the USSR actually cooperated with the Ukrainian anarchists, and then betrayed and invaded them when they were an established state

Sort of like how Nazi Germany cooperated with the Soviet Union, up until they betrayed and invaded them?

>Because it would have been a one-in-a-lifetime opportunity to actually take over Europe when all its major powers would have been exhausted and weakened by war.

How do you figure that? If I'm Stalin in 1941, I've seen Hitler roll over France pretty easily, and then the Britain ineffectually trying to do something for 8 months or so afterwards. There's no bruising conflict in the European continent. Who the hell is going to be wracked and exhausted?

>Yes, it means something. GDP isn't a capitalist construct. It's a way to calculate what a country produces over a year. A command economy has an advantage in that they can force industries to produce stuff at will, but they still can't spawn production out of thin air.

And it's measured by aggregate spending. It's not an issue of capitalism vs communism. In a command economy, prices are meaningless since the state sets them all.

>I never said otherwise. Keep in mind, though, that the USSR was receiving a massive amount of material and weapons from the USA. They were far from being able to produce everything.

No, you implied heavily that the USSR's armament level was indicative of their malice and being ready to attack someone. And while they were getting Lend-Lease during the war, they also got a huge chunk of their country occupied and significant concentrations of industry either destroyed or cut off. Not to mention that they were getting quite a bit of material from Germany pre-war.

>You can have a ton of industry but still not build a gigantic army. That's what the USA did before the war. Why? Because they weren't planning to fight.

Yes, but their armament levels relative to their productive capacity wasn't out of line with other European powers. Furthermore, this is a police state. Stalin was quite worried about disaffected Soviet subjects, especially in the Ukraine and Kazakhistan taking up arms against him. Is he a nice guy? Fuck no. But again, having a big army (and most of it in reserve, let's not forget; the amount of infantry on the ground during June 22nd 1941 was about a million or so in favor of Germany) doesn't necessarily indicate hostile intent, especially for an economy of the USSR's magnitude.

>I was quoting wikipedia's RAF article. I guess I'll concede that point.

So then follow it. Who was Britain planning to invade? After all, it was almost twice the size of the Luftwaffe, and Britain's wartime plane production was only about 1.3 times that of Germany's (although this is somewhat deceptive: British planes tended to be larger and more expensive) After all, they wouldn't build such a large inventory, and especially those strategic bombers, if they weren't planning on bombing someone, right?

Apologies, but wish to amend one part of this post

> The USSR hadn't invaded another country for a full 20 years by 1941.

Should be

A full 18 years by 1939.

>Ever hear the expression "Actions speak louder than words"? The USSR hadn't invaded another country for a full 20 years by 1941.
Yeah, because they were building up their industry and military first.

>Deterrence worked quite well against them for close to 50 in the Cold War.
Because nobody wanted a nuclear war. It's a lot scarier than conventional ones.

>They were not about to attack a country that could seriously hurt them
Yeah, that's why they were waiting before attacking.

>Sort of like how Nazi Germany cooperated with the Soviet Union, up until they betrayed and invaded them?
Pretty much, yes. But then I never claimed that Germany's attack on the USSR didn't count as invading a country.

>If I'm Stalin in 1941, I've seen Hitler roll over France pretty easily, and then the Britain ineffectually trying to do something for 8 months or so afterwards. There's no bruising conflict in the European continent. Who the hell is going to be wracked and exhausted?
The plan was way older than 1941 Everybody before 1940, on all sides of the war, expected the western front to be a remake of WW1 western front. That's what the soviets especially were hoping for. After that, I'm guessing they were hoping for a costly Sea Lion and/or air war.

>In a command economy, prices are meaningless since the state sets them all.
Prices are never meaningless. You still have to give reasonable wages and prices or else the economy will just collapse. You also have to mind foreign prices. Command economies can't just escape the laws of economics. And besides, GDP isn't even all about pricing. Go read about it.