[philwelch]

That WWII reference is especially ignorant. The vast majority of the West spent the entire 1930's trying to choose peace over war. They tried so hard to choose peace over war that when a handful of dictators chose otherwise, they stayed out of their way until the very last minute. It's very ignorant for someone today to accuse people of the pre-WWII era of not trying hard enough to avoid a war, when all of those people saw firsthand the horrors of WWI and for that very reason, tolerated military aggression against other countries as long as possible. In retrospect, the consensus seems to be that the Allies spent too much time avoiding the war, not too little[1].

And even if you include the people of Germany, Italy, Russia, and Japan into the mix, you're making a fallacy about how people actually behave. It would have taken prescience people didn't have, back in the 1920's, to prevent the rise of the dictators of the 1930's. That's how history works.

[1] The only dissenting viewpoint to this that I give any credence is the idea that appeasement was necessary as a delaying tactic so the allies could build up their militaries to match the Germans.