Blitzkrieg meets geographic hard power : its total failure to conquer BIG NATIONS

Today's EU, geographically, is about as big as were the eight 'big' nations of WWII.

Hold that thought for a moment or two.

If we consider the 1940 version of the Indian empire and not today's India, they definitely included Russia , Canada, China, America, Australia, Brazil and perhaps India and perhaps British southern Africa  -South Africa and Rhodesia and Kenya etc.

Japan and Germany , France and Italy were not among them. - no Europeans in the lot.

But if we contend that Canada and Australia-New Zealand in 1940 were really effectively 'overseas Europeans' (British) , in a way that European colonies with an only tiny minority of Europeans were not,  Britain suddenly seems much bigger.

Seen as a 'big nation' of WWII , its willingness to resist Nazis to the last man suddenly seems much more geographically hard power sensible.

Notice that Antarctica is also not on this list - it sure is big but it has no people.

But while India, by contrast, has tons and tons of people, I am not as sure about calling it a nation in 1940 as I am about Australia with far far less people.

What made Australia or Canada so hard for medium sized nations like Japan or Germany to conquer - unlike Hong Kong or Denmark - was that they truly were a nation .

They had been independent long enough as one big nation family, in a time when nationalism's strength was near boundless, such that a citizen in Perth or Vancouver wasn't likely to meekly surrender to an oncoming invader merely because the citizens in Halifax or Sydney months earlier had been overrun in a sneak attack.

To conquer Canada or America or Brazil et al , one must fully conquer and hold all of it.

It can't be bitten off a tiny piece at a time or held by a light garrison.

Russians in distant Siberia did not say "the suffering citizens of conquered Kiev is not my problem, I have no economic interests there" - instead they fought and died to free the part of their nation under the enemy's occupation.

Blitzkrieg works well ----  to quickly conquer small nations close on one's own borders.

But it loses its element of surprise as the miles tick by trying to conquer all of a vast nation.

And its supply lines wear themselves out as the miles get longer - even without enemy submarine or partisan attacks.

But of course there are always sub and partisan attacks.

Now partisan and sub attacks successfully stalled the Germans and Japanese supply lines even when they were attacking big nations relatively near to them.

Now imagine how well a not-Blitzkrieg would do after first travelling thousands of miles just to get to America - before advancing a further 3000 miles across its land !

I am more certain that Brazil or Australia or Canada - all with tiny populations and small industries in 1940 - would fight to the finish against enemy invaders than I am certain that India's varied empire would remain united in the face of an invasion.

Social cohesion of a relatively small population combined with a large land mass make for a fearsome team -- even if they are short on weapons.

Even big America found just how hard it was to hold small Iraq against a hostile (if supposedly disarmed) civilian population.

This is why I contend the Germans and Japanese's manmade and awesome military hard power was a certain war-loser in WWII .

Only peoples with better soft powers could succeed at the kind of 'bits and pieces' coalition building needed to really dominate the world.

America could safely deliver its military forces to distant  Europe, Australia, India and against Japan only because its supply routes were secured by a lot of small weak coalition partners doing not much more than giving it sub , escort and air bases.

America's real unsinkable battleships and aircraft carriers were makeshift airfields in places like Natal Brazil.

Now back to today's EU.

Europe back then was like a huge US of A , with dozens of states just like America.

But unlike America, where the residents of distant Washington or Alaska would definitely rush for to die trying to clear Florida of invaders, the various states of the EU, circa 1940, were quite content to sit on their asses as their near neighbours were brutalized by Hitler's goons.

So as long as the governments of sixty years independent Indonesia or the Philippines were at least acceptable to their citizens, I doubt very much they would fall as easy to enemy invaders today as they did in 1942.

The soft power of social cohesion - that regard for each other's difficulties - in geographically big nations can best the biggest guns in the long run : and wars are always won in the long run .

Speedy Blitzkriegs were only really over when the fat lady sang and she was often painfully slow onto the scene, but came she did - and never singing the expected victory lieder ...