Interesting choice of dogs.
If it were today, Germany would be either Dobermans or German Shepherds and France, of course, would be the poodle.

As a total "Francophobe," I have never understood the need for our so-called "alliance," so you're preaching to the converted.

I think that had Wilson stayed the hell out of that war (and the subsequent "peace"), Hitler could never have risen to power.

Washington was a smart guy.

It sucked for the Americans involved in their wars, but we did do good work last century.
It's been a long time since Europe tried to take over the world. Probably the longest they've gone since they discovered gunpowder.

It's been 60 years for Germany, longer for France, England gave it up over about 20 years from the late 40s to the late 60s, Spain had a hard time keeping some worthless islands from Morocco. It's been 20 years since Russia was really a threat to invade.

Russia would like to take back some SSRs, but they haven't had much luck. They had to pretty much level Chechnya to keep it, Grozny looks like Dresden in 1945.
I look for them to try Georgia and maybe Ukraine soon, but that's about it and they might not succeed.
And we did good work on Japan. They were a threat to their neighbors anytime they got good boats for the last thousand years or more. Now? I figure in about 40-50 years we'll notice that Japan got really quiet so we'll go there and find nothing but a bunch of creepy robots.

Now we're dealing with the Middle East. Hopefully we're successful enough that they all go socialist and whine at us instead of their current "kill everybody" policy.

We could make the world a place you would like to live, if we don't blow it all up beforehand.

I do figure that even in a thousand years there will still be a few commie dictatorships that will be defended by leftist university professors.

People don't change. Just how we kill each other does.

So if Germany had been represented by a rottweiler, would we have been afraid?

So you're saying WWI was a war of choice, not a war of necessity? Huh. I thought only George W. Bush got us into wars of choice. Actually, except for Wilson's extreme racism, George W and Woodrow W are strikingly similar, from the crusade for making the world safe for democracy, to winning a first term without a majority and a second term by a razor thin margin. Woodrow would have been quite comfortable with the whole notion of "you're either with us or against us." (I will never understand how Wilson is such an icon to liberals. Makes no sense.)

RH, I think WWI was a disaster which led directly to WWII. In retrospect, it would have been better for the US to have stayed out. But it's easy to say that now; had I been alive then I'd have probably supported it. (Overall, though, I find Woodrow Wilson appalling, and consider him one of the worst presidents in history.)

Not to defend Bush, but 9/11 was a lot worse than and in no way comparable to the Lusitania.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Lusitania

You might want to read up on Alfred Thayer Mahan and the influence of his thinking on American neutrality.

Basically - when America became a sea power it gave up on protecting other neutral's rights during a general conflict. At least in so far as making it a part of International Law.

Hitler rose to power because America had insufficient political power in the post WW1 negotiations. Specifically - reparations.

We did not make the same mistake post WW2.

If only the WWI alliance had been between Britain and Germany, I'd be more comfortable.

I really hate France....

The interesting part is that it should have been so, Eric. The British royal House of Windsor was German; England and France always had a history of warring with each other, and the royalty in Europe should have been wary of France's republican status.

Of course, other political issues and realities of the day prevailed.