In assessing Chamberlain and Daladier's military options and their chances of success it is vital to consider the nightmarish magnitude of the casualties Britain and France sustained fighting Germany in World War I.
Due to these casualties and the support that the Third Reich enjoyed in powerful conservative circles, particularly in Britain, public opinion was overwhelmingly opposed to a pre-emptive invasion of Germany, their powerful neighbor to the east.
Since Britain and France are democracies, public support is essential for such a risky,expensive and lengthy program as the preparation of the armed forces for an offensive war.
Is the different moral climate that would have followed a successful British-French pre-emptive strike against the successful, popular and unblemished pre-War Fuehrer even imaginable?
Would a world in which Hitler virtuously and courageously defended the Reich from a pre-emptive allied invasion be better than the one we live in?
Would a world in which Hitler was martyred in steadfast, but unsuccessful defense of the Fatherland a world that would have produced the peace and prosperity enjoyed in Europe today?
What Rumsfeld, Bush, Cheney and the GOP seem not to have learned from all their combined decades of high level f*ck-ups is that the way to have peace is to wage peace.
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