History

What are your opinions on the world wars? Were either of them avoidable? Could it happen again?

Of course they're avoidable...the question is why did the government choose to get involved?  During WWII, our government knew that the Japanese were on the way to bomb Pearl Harbor, but because a war was seen to be a good way to boost the economy, the bombing and all those innocent sleeping lives were sacrificed.  The government knew that the public did not want a war, but something like the bombing of Pearl Harbor or the terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers would anger the public enough to get its support when the declaration of war was made.

Could it happen again?  Absolutely.  When?  Who knows...but I promise you there will be another world war, and I hope I'm dead and gone by then.

This is a difficult question to answer because I was not there and did not live during this time.  I cannot second-guess what our leaders decided to do.  Much of the world was in turmoil, thus the terms "World Wars" came to be.  Many countries lost so many people in World War I and II.  Did good come out of them, absolutely.  History is what it is, and I'm a firm believer in things happening for a reason, so obviously, these wars did happen for reasons that we may never know.  Perhaps it was to show us how horrible and destructive it is.  

I have hope that there will not be any more wars of this magnitude for my children's sake.  I won't ever give up that hope.  If we all give up hope and see war as inevitable, then we're simply giving up, which I cannot and will not do. :)

I do not believe that World War I was avoidable by the turn of the 20th century.  The term "powder keg" is often used to describe the situation in Europe at the time and since Europeans had colonies all around the world, the explosion of this powder keg was bound to effect the entire world.  While the trigger for the conflict for World War I was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria, the real causes lie in the militaristic build-up of Europe, imperialistic policies that set European nations at each other's throats all over the world, secret alliances that required parties to attack if other parties were attacked, and a rampant nationalism that made each nation think they were better than the other. 

If World War I had reached a better settlement and had followed the recommendations of Woodrow Wilson and had not required punitive reparations from Germany it is possible that World War II may never have been fought.  However, once Hitler became an established power, I believe, there is no way we could have avoided war because no matter what Japan did, if Hitler had conquered all of Europe, it would have had dire consequences for the United States, because he would have not stopped with Europe.  Further, I believe that Hitler's racist evil needed to be stopped or whole peoples would have been wiped off the face of the earth.  There are times when war is just and righteous and WWII was one of those times.