Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: AndyJackson
He merely says that refusal to negotiate was fatal to Poland.

What was there to negotiate? Anyone who read Mein Kampf knew what Hitler's intentions for the East were.

282 posted on 05/25/2008 7:49:24 AM PDT by dfwgator ( This tag blank until football season.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 114 | View Replies ]


To: dfwgator
What was there to negotiate? Anyone who read Mein Kampf knew what Hitler's intentions for the East were.

At post 253 I cited Schelling's work on game theory applied to the strategy of conflict. Schelling was instrumental in understanding and explaining deterrence theories vis-a-vis the Cold war, Stalin , and Khrushchev, in particular.

Schelling's important contribution was that on the assumption that neither side wanted mutual total annihilation, there were bargaining opportunities between the US and USSR. The Soviets were not, fortunately, irrational, or we would all be dead. Nuclear deterrence, sadly, depends upon the other party being rational.

Pat's article is, in short clear English, an enunciation of two classic bargaining problems of the kind that Schelling spent his life analyzing, Israel, supported they believe, by the US, its parallel, Poland, supported they believed by the British.

Pat's point was that, merely in terms of bargaining theory, you can negotiate the terms of your surrender or occupation. The Germans were not irrational, or unobjective. They were just moral monsters, willing to use the most effective means to achieve their desired goals, regardless of the inhumanity. The manner by which you surrender, or are overwhelmed is not irrelevant, as the difference between Czechoslovakia and Poland demonstrate.

The Czechs capitulated and were occupied. It was a brutal occupation. The Poles resisted, Hitler reached agreement with Stalin to divide Poland, Hitler invaded, resistance was valiant, but suicidal, and the subsequent repression was far more brutal than it was in Czechoslovakia. Poland was not Hitler's ultimate objective; Stalin was. Poland's resistance did little for the allied cause and gave Hitler's armies more practice in the field.

283 posted on 05/25/2008 8:38:30 AM PDT by AndyJackson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 282 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson