Living In The Past: The World War II Hangover

“This watch I got here was first purchased by your great-grandfather during the First World War.  It was bought in a little general store in Knoxville, Tennessee.” – Pulp Fiction

Iran is stuck between Iraq and a hard place.

Every group has a story that defines them:  the myth, the memory, the moment that crystallizes who they are and what they value.  For Christians, it’s the Crucifixion and Resurrection, the ultimate sacrifice and triumph of life.  For the Chinese, it’s the Century of Humiliation, a wound that fuels their drive for global dominance.  For Three Stooges® fans, it’s the seismic shift when Shemp replaced Curly, forever splitting the purists from the heretics, and don’t even get me started on the anti-Curly, Joe Besser.

But for too many groups the Second World War is the foundational story, a crucible that forged their modern identities. And for most, it’s a scar that still festers, shaping their worldview in ways that are often more curse than blessing like the time I found a genie but didn’t get a wish because I rubbed him the wrong way.

Let’s start with the United States.

For the United States, WWII cemented the idea that big government is the ultimate and best problem-solver and has our best interests at heart.  The war effort, which would have cost $4.1 trillion in today’s dollars, mobilized industry, science, and bureaucracy like never before, birthing the military-industrial complex that Ike warned us about.  I hear JFK was going to work on that, but they changed his mind.

Biden’s final executive order:  “Purple crayons will now taste like grapes.”

The lesson of the war was simple:  if you throw enough tax dollars and central planning at a problem, you can save the world.  Never mind that the failed New Deal had already disproved this; WWII made it gospel.  Blacks can’t read?  Throw money and central planning at it.  Poor people keep doing the things that made them poor?  Throw money and central planning at it.  Women complaining about . . . whatever?  Throw money and central planning at it.  The result of all this was the United States giving DEI grants for difficult tasks, like breathing.

The war also taught Americans that war is noble when the British say so.  Pearl Harbor was the trigger for the entry of the United States, but Britain’s pleas for aid via Lend-Lease pulled us into Europe’s mess for the second time in a generation.  Post-1945, the U.S. embraced its role as the world’s foremost military power and world policeman, from Korea to Kabul, with a budget to match, spending trillions to give democracy to those that don’t care about it.

Another lingering ghost: the myth of the “Greatest Generation,” implying every war since is just as righteous, no matter the cost in blood or treasure.  This is the same generation that voted in all of Johnson’s Great Society crap, and the generation you can thank for the Hart-Cellar Immigration Act of 1965.  Our victory in World War II blinds us to overreach, ballooning debt, and the erosion of liberty at home as the state grows ever fatter.

My friend’s grandfather killed six Germans on the beach at Normandy.  It’s not as heroic as it sounds:  he did it last week.

Moving across the sea to Bongland, where they have a big tower that goes “Bong” every hour, Britain’s WWII story is one of defiance.  The “stiff upper lip” against Hitler’s bombs during the Blitz, with Churchill’s speeches rallying a nation under siege.  But the war’s cost, $120 billion in debt, 450,000 dead, cities like London and Coventry in jumbled rubble all askew like Yorkshireman’s teeth, broke the back of the Empire.

The foundational lesson twisted: instead of pride in survival, Britain internalized a twisted guilt, spinning off colonies that weren’t quite ready to govern themselves like India and Nigeria faster than you can say “Commonwealth.”

Worse, the “we’re all in this together” myth morphed into a masochistic anti-colonialism, where importing millions of non-British migrants became a moral crusade to atone for empire, starting with the H.M.S. Windrush bringing hundreds of non-British to Great Britain to keep wages down.  The result? A cultural identity crisis, where “Britishness” is now a dirty word, and cities like London are less British than Bombay was in 1850.  The war taught Britain to survive, but it lost its soul.  But, hey, think of all the great food!

Stop spreading the lie that moslem women have to wear the hijabs.  It’s their choice – they can also be stoned to death.

Germany got it the worst, or wurst:  their national policy became self-hatred.  Germany’s WWII story is Hitler and defeat, a double blow that turned national pride into a mortal sin and Hitler into a replacement for Satan.  The war toll of German death and destruction:  5.3 million military deaths, 2 million civilian, cities like Cologne and Dresden reduced to rubble or ash was compounded by the framing of Germany as the sole reason for war.

The foundational lesson?  Germans can’t be trusted with power or tanks or a sense of humor.  Post-war, this bred an anti-nationalism so intense it’s practically policy.  Germany’s “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” (reckoning with the past) demands eternal penance as if this was a racial punishment where current Germans who in no way were responsible for World War II have to take the blame.

Foot fetishes are on the rise in Germany, probably because of the smell of defeat.

The result?  Immigration surged, with 20% of Germany’s population now foreign-born, often seen as a way to dilute the “German” identity that led to 1939.  The war’s shadow stifles dissent:  question migration or EU mandates, and you’re a Nazi and your entire political party might be banned.  This self-hatred paralyzes Germany’s ability to act decisively, even as its economy stagnates and its culture frays.

For Russia and/or the Soviets, World War II was the triumph of the iron fist.  For the Soviets, the Great Patriotic War was proof the Soviet system worked.  Despite 27 million deaths (8.7 million military, 19 million civilian), the Red Army’s push to Berlin showed that the sheer scale of production of hundreds of thousands of crappy tanks and endless conscripted bodies could crush any foe.  Stalin famously removed seat padding from the T-34 after finding the average lifespan of a T-34 in combat was only a few minutes.

The foundational lesson they learned?  Central control, especially when done with brutality, gets results.  Stalin’s paternalism became Putin’s playbook:  the state over individual, quantity over quality.  Post-war, the USSR’s occupation of Eastern Europe and refusal of Marshall Plan aid cemented this mindset.  Even today, Russia’s drones are glorified T-34s—cheap, mass-produced, barely competitive, but there are thousands of them.  The war’s myth of invincibility fuels Moscow’s paranoia and aggression, from Ukraine to cyberwars, while its economy limps along on vodka, oil, duct tape, and nostalgia.

I guess those are all tank tops?

World War II was a cataclysm.  70-85 million dead and borders were changed as if they were drawn by a hyperactive kid with an Etch-a-Sketch™.  For the U.S., it birthed a bloated state and a messianic complex.  For Britain, it turned pride into shame.  Germany traded nationalism for self-loathing.  Russia doubled down on authoritarianism.  And, although we didn’t go into it, World War II is the singular foundational event for modern Jewish people, which is why they treat it with religious reverence and questioning any aspect of their narrative is treated as heresy.

The U.S. got off the lightest:  our homeland unscathed, our economy booming post-war, but we’re chained to the idea that we must police the globe for some reason.  For the others, the scars are deeper, twisting their cultures into knots of guilt, paranoia, or apology.  These foundational stories aren’t just history, they’re shackles.

Maybe it’s time to write new stories, before the old ones drag us all into another war, or the anti-Curly returns?