As a sidenote, that’s exactly what great many Russians think about WWII coalition. Americans like to talk how they were allies with Russia against Hitler. Russians like to talk how US and Britain didn’t do squat to decide the WWII.
And there are trivially easy, factual, tangible rebuttals to that position.
Then exactly what is the issue here?
Such as that Russia would never defeat Hitler without allies help? Quite true. Now try to think how Poland or Ukraine may be proud for helping US succeed in Iraq.
Except Poland is NOT proud of their involvement. They admitted they were misled.
First, please, map coalition members into WWII allies. Think in terms of:
Troops committed (say, as a percent of national population - for the US say 10% or so in uniform)
Troops committed to battle during the war (not brought on after they thought the matter decided - for the WWII US all but two combat divisions)
Financial resources committed (Oh maybe one hundred and twenty five percent of GNP deficit, for example)
Materiel produced and committed (too long a list to mention)
Maintaining blockade of the enemy - starving it of resources (UK-US)
Fighting on alone for about a year sans allies (UK gets the nod)
In the current conflict, if the WWII Russia=Modern US then the UK, by far the most important current ally maps into which critical ally in the second world war? the US? China? The UK and Commonwealth? Or none of the above. Hell, in the current conflict even the US is making a particularly pathetic showing considering the level of importance leadership nominally places on it (compared to WWII effort levels). It’s a stupid analogy. One can argue about the value of the current coalition members, but to do it by comparing it to the second world war is ridiculous.
Second, figures in all of the allied governments insulted each other’s leadership and national qualities on a fairly regular basis. However, close cooperation and mutual interest, respect and trust allowed the leadership to overcome such incidents. Of course, if one has already forfeited one’s allies’ trust . . .
Pretty strong reasoning, gotta give it to you. Still think you are going overboard with words like “stupid” and “ridiculous”. No event in history is exact replica of another, but sometimes there are salient points. Pardon me, but is your partisanship showing?
Yes my WWII obsession (and pro-US in WWII) bias is showing. 
It may be that we are in fact in a cataclysmic conflict that drains all of the world’s energy and affects the vast majority of the world’s population. But no one is acting as though it is, policy wise.
More meaningful possible comparisons:
1991 coalition
Bosnia/Kosovo
Afghanistan
(Boxer Rebellion European alliance proposals?)
In technical terms, yes, absolutely. But I think this debate is not so much about historic details, which always change, as about human nature, which changes very little. It is extremely one-sided and ignorant for Russians to think they won the war against Hitler simply on the basis of dead bodies count; that demonstrates the worst of human capacity to be blind, chauvinistic and unreasonable. But when Kerry ridicules the present alliance based on the rate of casualties, isn’t he playing to the same base chauvinistic emotions in US people?
You are right that I got carried away with the WWII analogy in terms of absolute level of effort, but I think that my analysis of the aptness of the analogy stands.
In what currency are we not paying the vast majority? Dollars, troops, casualties, equipment, logistics - we win by a landslide in all these areas. In World War II you can point at casulaties and say the Russians did it all or look at other categories and they are wildly unbalanced in another direction.
If I were going to make an analogy between the current coalition and another, more “acceptable” effort I would probably go with the current coalition in Afghanistan. It would probably go something like this:
[Channelling altenate dimension neocon and administration apologist MMI]
In both Iraq and Afghanistan we went in US-heavy to start, driven by both logistics and schedule concerns - only we have the capability to support large forces in such remote areas. In both cases we went in with non-trivial support from allies. In Afghanistan we had large numbers of special forces from England, France and other traditional allies with us. In Iraq, where conventional forces would be more useful than special forces, logistical and schedule concerns resticted the allies who actually went in with us (very few countries can muster a decent sized force to go in with us).
In both Iraq and Afghanistan, after the heavy lifting had been done, groups of conventional forces from a wide variety of countries went in to keep the peace and help train the forces in country. This model seems to be praised in Afghanistan but condemned in Iraq. The principal difference between the two countries seems to be their relative warweariness and desire to live in a civil society. This is not a flaw in the coalition. Regardless of the number or selection of countries available for peacekeeping the securing of Iraq would have had to have been carried out overwhelmingly by the US for logistical and more importantly scheduling reasons. Had there not been miscalculations in the success of that securing operation, the Afghanistan/Iraq model of US makes the peace and allies secure it would have worked just fine.
[/channeling]
New Iskander You are writing a history of WWII: What is the largest ally you can omit from the text without substantially altering the story.
How about for Gulf War II/Iraq?
Not to interrupt the discussion, but while it’s certainly interesting, the comparison of WWII to the current Iraq war is irrelevant. There is no NEED to “justify” our involement in WWII, nor is there any need for Russia to justify their involvement. Both countries were clearly defending themselves against aggression.
If the Iraq war were a clear case of self-defense, WHICH IT QUITE CLEARLY IS NOT, then it would not be necessary to justify the U.S.'s involement. But since it is not, and since our attack was a pre-emptive strike that was not sanctioned by the U.N., the self-defense justification is not available to us.
The only other internationally accepted justification for war is when it is undertaken as a MULTILATERAL effort, sanctioned by the U.N. Unilateral invasion for the purpose of regime change is NOT ALLOWED. Therefore, when a country is invaded for the purpose of regime change, and NOT in self-defense, only then does it become relevant to examine whether it was a true multilateral effort.
In short:
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It is not necessary to build an international coalition in order to DEFEND your country.
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We were in WWII to defend our country - needs no justification.
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The Iraq war CLEARLY is not a case of self-defense - DOES need justification.
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THE COMPARISON IS INAPT.
OK, OK, you made your point…
Still, what about what Kerry said?
Couldn’t he say, “United States will never forget those nations that stood with it in the times of war. But we regret to recognize that our no-good President, who clearly doesn’t represent a single American, made a colossal blunder, misled the world, undermined peace… destroyed happiness… perverted decency… raped humanity…” and so on and so forth? He could say that and, if he is elected, he most probably will say that, I mean the first sentence. Then the whole thing will be quickly forgotten.
Still, I wish Kerry didn’t speak about “coalition of bribed and coerced” in the first place.
How far should we go in pretending that Putin’s Russia is committed to democracy and human rights to avoid insulting our valiant ally in the war on terror?
Should we go entirely mum on issues regarding China lest our bankers and allies in the containment of North Korea?
No, not the same thing. But in either case it is maintaining a polite fiction.
I think we have already spent too many electrons on this. We all agree it will have no long term consequences. It’s not as though the past four years have been free of loud and public criticism of other allies who were fighting alonside us elsewhere in the war on terror.
I think the truth of the matter is that Kerry simply is not a politic man. His reputation as ‘nuanced diplomat’ is as bogus as Bush reputation as a ‘uniter’. After all, this is the man, who said, “The Secret Service is under orders that if Bush is shot, to shoot Quayle”. Hilarious? Yes, but certainly not politic. He offended our allies, which is, whatever you think of them, is not a nice thing to do. He called Cheney’s daughter a “lesbian” at the largest public forum…
He simply doesn’t come through as political operator. Does it bother me? Not much.
Because, y’know, it was such a huge secret and “lesbian” is such a nasty, dirty word…
I only said that it was not a nuanced approach.
When they say Kerry is ‘nuanced’, they are using as an insult, suggesting that he ought not to be so nuanced. If the charge is bogus, then that would be good, correct?
I haven’t heard about him telling that joke, although it is pretty funny. I would point out, though, that Ronald Reagan made a joke about bombing Russia in ten minutes, and he seems to be widely heralded by the right as being somewhere between God and Jesus in stature. So do you really want to hold onto your claim that making a joke makes you not ‘politic’?
I already said that I have no problem with Kerry bluntness. The problem I have is with those who peddle him as a ‘nuanced diplomatist’.
Yes, you said that, and then I said that when people say he’s “nuanced”, they aren’t using it as a compliment. Verstehen? Your reponse was to simply repeat what you already said, as if you didn’t comprehend my post at all. Your contention that “people peddle him as a nuanced diplomatist” is a strawman. Could you at least tryto stay with the conversation here?