Talk:World War II

Link to www.truth-hertz.net

Some time ago I provided an external link to the site www.truth-hertz, which was almost immediately removed by Binksternet who sent this message to my user page: "Please do not add non-neutral material such as links to essays at" www.truth-hertz.net "to Wikipedia articles, as you did to World War II and Strategic bombing during World War II. Doing so violates Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. " Binksternet (talk) 20:53, 5 April 2010 (UTC) The "essays" to which Binksternet refers are in fact seven or eight downloadable CHAPTERS from the non-fiction book Between the Lies (2nd edition, London:2007), which include several hundred primary and secondary sources, footnotes and extensive bibliography. The book, which remedies some prevailing historical myths about WW2, was published by a reputable academic publisher. So it was presumably subjected to academic peer review prior to publication. I doubt if Binksternet actually took the trouble to read those chapters, the appropriateness of which might be a subject for discussion instead of arbitrary deletion. Wiki's rule is that external linking to a website is acceptable if and when the site provides "significant and reliable additional information on an article's topic", and certainly the link to www.truth-hertz.net meets that requirement. As for allegedly violating neutrality, I think that's a matter of Binksternet's own less than neutral personal point of view. As I understand it, Wiki's definition of neutrality does not mean the absence of a point of view, but rather a judicious and unbiased mix of sources cited. Between the Lies seems to do that rather well, but I could be wrong. Nobody's perfect. Communicat (talk) 23:26, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

The link looks unsuitable to me. It appears to be a self-published website, and there's no need to give prominence to a single book, particularly in such a high-level article as this one. Nick-D (talk) 23:37, 24 July 2010 (UTC)

I just answered this same post at Talk:Strategic bombing during World War II#Link to www.truth-hertz.net, where I noted that the book, the author and the web link are all dismissed by the guideline at WP:FRINGE. Binksternet (talk) 00:27, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

To answer Nick-D: Appearances can be deceptive. Why not assume good faith? Alternatively, why not verify whether or not it's a self-published site by contacting the publisher Southern University Press via the contact link provided at the site in question?

To answer Binksternet: I think you should be referring to WP:EL and not WP:FRINGE as you've done. This discussion was meant to be about an external link, not an article, which is the function of WP:FRINGE. But since you've raised WP:FRINGE, I'm okay with broadening the discussion. Interestingly, WP:FRINGE with regard to real or perceived fringe / minority / alternative / revisionist / other (call it what you like) positions, states: NPOV requires that all majority and significant-minority positions be included in an article. Why is it that content of the main WW2 article and all its related sub-articles deal exclusively with majority i.e. Western positions? (Strikes me as a major flaw in an otherwise excellent and high-level article). WP:FRINGE also rules that In general, Wikipedia should always give prominence to established lines of research found in reliable sources and present neutral descriptions of other claims with respect to their historical ... prominence. And: ideas should not be excluded from the encyclopedia simply because they are widely held to be wrong. So, it follows that the existing WW2 article and sub-articles seem to have a serious NPOV problem in so far as they exclude all reference to "other"-type positions which deviate from those of dominant majority-position type editors. But to return to the question of reliable sources, WP:FRINGE further rules that "reliable sources on Wikipedia include ... books published by university presses (and)published by respected publishing houses. The download-linked book in question and under discussion is published by Southern Universities Press, London. Enough said.

By the way, it might be worth bearing in mind that today's "fringe" position can sometimes become tomorrow's majority position. Take the Battle of Britain for instance, which was once described by mainstream historians and others as "a heroic victory of the few against the many", when in fact, as latter-day historians have now established beyond doubt, RAF fighters at the time of that battle vastly outnumbered those available to the Luftwaffe (Sources available on request). It might also be worth bearing in mind that what is seen as a fringe / minority / "other"-type position in the West can also be a consensual mainstream / majority position outside of the Western cultural and political sphere of influence, i.e. in socialist countries. Communicat (talk) 19:35, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

I am unable to determine who is behind Southern Universities Press in London. They appear to me to have published a handful of scholarly psychology texts, and Winer's book, but nothing else that I can find. They are not very prolific. Certainly, the press has not published any WWII histories, or any other histories, so I do not see their ability to properly manage a work such as Winer's. I wonder if the press has been compromised.

Here's a flavor of the wild-eyed prose in the book: "Many historians and ideological managers of Western society—teachers, journalists and the like—would in future years attribute the commencement of the political Cold War between East and West to the Berlin blockade of 1947. They are all wrong, though the myth survives to this day. The fact is, the origins of the Cold War are firmly embedded in World War II, when Churchill and his elite cabal secretly waged a shadow war against communism under the guise of fighting the Nazis and 'helping' the Soviet Union."

Winer gets many of his facts and figures wrong, and draws conclusions that are flawed. In other scholarly works, Winer is not cited at all; a poor indication of his reputation among other historians and scholars. I still say the book is not appropriate for this article. Binksternet (talk) 20:40, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

WP:ELNO says not to include "Any site that misleads the reader by use of factually inaccurate material or unverifiable research, except to a limited extent in articles about the viewpoints which such sites are presenting."

A quick look shows the contents massively differ from what respectable sources say, so I believe it is factually inaccurate. So, what can you provide to support Stan Winer being a respectable historian, and that book in particular being reliable? A review by a respectable body would do. (Hohum ^@) 20:43, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Far as I'm aware, Winer's book Between the Lies does not aspire to be a history, but rather an investigative work. As the site in question explains: "... Between the Lies, has exhumed a large body of evidence that somehow managed to escape the censors and the incinerators." Several hundred references to reliably published and impeccable sources, and an extensive bibliography are provided to support his thesis. But never mind all that for the moment. More noteworthy with regard to the editor's comments above is the dexterity with which they've managed to evade the cogent WP:FRINGE issues raised in my preceding post, which I don't have time to repeat again. Read them for yourself. The fact of the matter is that significant fringe / minority / alternative / revisionist / theories do exist, and since their existence is an indisputable fact, it should as a matter of NPOV be stated in the WW2 article or sub-articles. Apart from Winer's effort, there are many other reliable, well-researched books etc about WW2 that deviate radically from the lame, so-called "respectable" and officially endorsed accounts of grand strategy and of what happened and why. (Titles and authors available on request, in the unlikely event that you're interested). I suspect that the reason why editors such as yourselves prefer to pretend such works don't exist, or to simplistically dismiss them as "propaganda" is because recognition of those works would mean a whole lot of extra work to remedy the omissions and correct the "NPOV" of the existing WW2 and related articles. Trying to engage constructively with editors of that ilk is an excercise in futility. As the saying goes: You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink. This discussion in now closed from my end. Communicat (talk) 19:35, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

On the contrary, the sources used appear far from impeccable, and the conclusions deviate so far from those of high quality sources that it is misleading and factually inaccurate, so per WP:ELNO it's not suitable. I haven't called it propaganda or pretended it doesn't exist, I have just pointed out its flaws, and the lack of credibility of the publisher - which you either ignore, embrace, or even seem to think of as benefits.

Cogent and fringe are mutually exclusive, by definition.

You can try and feed a horse with coal, but it's unlikely to eat any. (Hohum ^@) 21:11, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Your pedantry does not merit a thoughtful response. Communicat (talk) 15:43, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

There was a Southern Universities Press in the US during the 1950s and 1960s, but it appears to have no relation whatsoever to the self-publishing endeavor that they've used. It sounds authoritative and intellectual, which is generally a dead give-away that it's not. Interestingly, the Hera Trust is ALSO located at 12 McLeod Court, London SE22 8NS. (try putting London SE22 8NS, United Kingdom into Google maps and you'll see the set of apartment buildings that exist in SE22 8NS, behind "The Grove Tavern", the reference to McLeod Court can be found using this street-name reference. Sure seems like a generic self-publishing location to me. Bad news, Stan. If you're the only one who believes your stuff, it's likely you're wrong, not smarter than everyone else in the world. --Habap (talk) 21:18, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

You may be right about self-publishing, but I do not know if this is related to the "Hera Trust". The link you provided connects the Hera Trust to Cristina Odone, who's husband hardly shares any of the POV of Stan Winer, even if both of them maybe fringe and conspiracy theorists. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 23:32, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

I suspect that it is the same business that published both works and that they just use different names for different works. Further research reveals that McLeod Court is the name of the building and that "12" is the number of the flat in which this publishing house operates. So, apparently not a long-lived, reputable publisher, nor one that engages in rigorous peer-review. (Binkster, the psychology texts were published by the US-based SUP in the 1950s and 1960s, they only share the name, not their history.) --Habap (talk) 15:50, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Are you people trying to get Wiki Foundation sued by Stan Winer and/or Southern Universities Press for libel/defamation? (Wiki Foundation possibly has lots of money to pay compensation settlement for damages). I've already deleted the defamatory remarks once, and am not interested in editing wars, so I'll let it remain, and Wiki Foundation can ban the above users and pay damages to whoever may want to litigate. You have the address, so why don;t you contact the publisher direct to get his/her side of the story before shooting your mouth off? There's also an email link at the website in question.

And no, my name is not Stan Winer, nor is independent publishing the same as self-publishing (i.e. vanity publishing), and nor have you addressed the issue raised of double-standards as regards the numerous other independent publishers (27 of them) cited in the WW2 article notations, including at least one memoir which is supposed to be disallowed by wiki rules. Get real. Communicat (talk) 12:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

PS: I thought this was a deadhorse issue and had already moved on to more interesting things. Since some editors and an administrator are keen to revive the issue as they've done, I;ll wait a few more days and if it's not resolved thoughtfully and convincingly by then, especially the issue of double-standard notation, I'll request mediation or arbitration together with multiple other unresolved matters in different sections below. Communicat (talk) 16:16, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

You can hardly bring this to arbcom over a few sources and wordings in an article like this. Good luck trying to get them to hear this case. You never tried any other mediation. Furthermore, you cannot bring in 10-15 other people here who are disagreeing with you into an arbcom case. You'd have to bring in everyone who had a hand in the GAN and possibly the reviewer.--White Shadows ^{Nobody said it was easy} 16:20, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

He's free to try arbcom, although it does seem inappropriate. The issue about the publisher is about reliability of the book. This "independent" publisher doesn't seem to have any reputation with historical works, not does the author, he isn't cited widely (or much at all), and peer review is lacking, nor were any forthcoming on request. WP:LEGAL may be of interest to involved parties. (Hohum ^@) 18:02, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't aware that stating that it "seems like a generic self-publishing location" was defamatory. Please let me know what laws we would be violation of and in which court you think they could be tried. You stated that

The book, which remedies some prevailing historical myths about WW2, was published by a reputable academic publisher. So it was presumably subjected to academic peer review prior to publication

The location and low output of the publisher argues against your statement that it is a "reputable academic publisher". From what I have seen so far, I have doubts that there is any academic peer review (it is common for peer reviewers to be quoted in praise of the work on the back cover. Anyone ever seen the back cover? Comunicat, if you have an image of that, submit it to Amazon. (I suspect the reviewer, William Stiner, is actually Stan Winer, but that's just me....) Sadly, Amazon has no copies of the book to sell.

My reference to "Stan" was not directed at you. It was directed at Stan Winer in case he ever reads this page. If your first name is also Stan, my apologies for lumping you together. --Habap (talk) 19:39, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Also, it might be prudent to review Wikipedia:LAWSUIT#Perceived legal threats in reference to my comments being "defamatory". --Habap (talk) 19:47, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and unfortunately, I think you are woefully incorrect about "Wiki Foundation possibly has lots of money to pay compensation settlement for damages". It would be like getting blood from a turnip. --Habap (talk) 20:11, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I've exchanged emails with the publisher and I think we can feel pretty well-insulated from any complaints from him. Nice fellow, but he did swrite that he doesn't consider it a publishing business. --Habap (talk) 13:34, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Reply to all the above: I have my view, you have yours. Mine differs substantially from yours. Important POV, sourcing, and other issues are at stake. They have already been identified and detailed by me, and they remain unresolved and/or evaded by all the editors concerned. The key issues will be repeated and detailed comprehensively by me in my request for mediation in accordance with all the appropriate wiki procedural rules, which some of you appear to have misinterpreted and/or misrepresented.

To user Habap above: If your argument is weak, don't try to embellish it with lies. Refer to relevant Amazon page where you will see that, contrary to your false assertion, the 2nd edition of the book Between the Lies is readily available in both new and 2nd hand copies. Further, the "reviewer William Stiner" whom you incorrectly name is actually one William Steiner, apart from other falsities that you have conjured up. Brevity prevents me from detailing them all at this time and place.

To give some background of my original good-faith intention: I submitted the external link to wiki milhist article because, in my view, the link seemed a useful public domain resource -- fully a third of the work consists of citations and annotations citing an impressive array of reliable sources. The online 1st online edition of the book first appeared in 2004 on the wellknown political site www.coldtype.net where I first came across it. In subsequent correspondence with the respected editor of that site, I learned that the online version has been downloaded nearly two million times, without any complaint or negative criticism being generated. Since then, numerous other sites around the world, such as Scribd, and also a Chinese translation of the work, have made pirated copies available. In short, the work has received a very wide readership from an international community of interest, with no attendant furore that I'm aware of, (apart from some reactionary wiki editors). Communicat (talk) 15:53, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

PS: Having now taken trouble to find the book at my local library, and to answer Hohum's appeal of 20:43, 25 July 2010 (UTC) somewhere above, "... what can you provide to support ... that book in particular being reliable? A review by a respectable body would do: The back cover (2nd edn) presents some favourable print-media review excerpts including one from Rhodes University in South Africa. Same review is quoted at truth-hertz.net website for your ease of reference. Communicat (talk) 18:19, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

When checking the relevant amazon page supplied by you[1] I have to conclude that the book is not readily available at all. The "new" book seller is Pro Bono books which is new seller on Amazon (with 0 transactions) and has only 6 google hits none of which is its homepage[2]; which probably makes it unlikely that this bookseller is truly in business. The 'used' seller (quartermelon) states in their offer that are not in fact shipping a used version of the book published by SUP, but will print the book on demand for you[3].

In other words the claims made in your text "where you will see that, contrary to your false assertion, the 2nd edition of the book Between the Lies is readily available in both new and 2nd hand copies." are not true. Perhaps a more modest tone rather than accusing other editors of false assertions would be in place, especially when you are presenting an argument that does not fit the facts. BTW Amazon.com (US) lists one bookseller that claims to sell it[4] Arnoutf (talk) 19:11, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd love to see an image of that back cover. Could you take a photo? Or better yet, let me know which library it is and I'll ask the\ librarian to do it for me. Any idea when the reviews were published? --Habap (talk) 19:31, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

By the way, Rhodes Journalism Review appears to be a student-published journal. All of the issues appear to be online in PDF. I only glanced, but I'm not sure where they publish their book reviews. I'll investigte further later. --Habap (talk) 19:40, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

In my opinion, the whole discussion is flawed. I personally think that any edit of this article should be made based on a number of sources to confirm that these edits reflect majority or significant minority views. That is especially the case for the book we discuss, because, according to Communicat, this book "remedies some prevailing historical myths about WW2" (i.e. is a revisionist book). I think all revisionist writings should be excluded from this summary style article, unless it has been demonstrated that these revisionist writings reflect a significant minority views. The latter fact could be proven, e.g., by providing several (at least 3-4) reviews on this book written by professional scholars, which are published in some peer-reviewed journals, or by giving references on some historical articles which cite this book. Unfortunately, I was unable to find even a single such a proof so far (in jstor and google scholar databeses). In my opinion, Communicate should use his energy for searching this proof, because the burden of evidence rests with him. It would be good to have such an evidence, because some Winter's points look valid, however, I don't think we can speak about usage of this book in this particular article as a source until the evidences of its acceptance and notability have been provided.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:09, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Well said. Binksternet (talk) 20:25, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

This section / topic, because it was resurrected by some editors at such a late stage, and because of current page length, is probably in imminent danger of being moved to the archives. So, first things first: can the relevant administrator or whoever does these things, please ensure that this section is not archived before I reply in proportionate length to the recent postings above? If not, should I copy and paste everything in its cohesive form to the bottom of this existing page? Communicat (talk) 14:49, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I found the Guardian review. The quotation is the only flattering line in the review.

Governments bending the truth and misleading the populace to pursue their own cryptic geopolitical agendas - it didn't start yesterday. Winer studies a long 20th century, from 1898 to the present, of propaganda, deliberate provocation and undeclared hostility, during wartime and the "peacetime" of global proxy wars. There is much that is interesting here on official psychological strategies and the herdlike collaboration of journalists. There is also much that is on the extreme edge of revisionism, such as the peculiar notion that Churchill (referred to with repeated sneers in phrases such as "Churchill and his cronies") deliberately prolonged the second world war. Winer tends to subscribe to the we-can-do-no-right school of parapolitical study, so he also derides any sort of "humanitarian intervention", such as that which eventually halted genocide (he calls it a "civil war") in former Yugoslavia. It's this sort of thing that gives conspiracy theory a bad name. A noticeable recurring flaw in this style of argument is to criticise any action as immoral if it has undesirable consequences, without ever trying to weigh the likely consequences of inaction.

I was especially amused by "It's this sort of thing that gives conspiracy theory a bad name." --Habap (talk) 15:05, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The review in the Morning Star is far more accurately portrayed by the quotation provided "If this unnervingly convincing analysis is correct, beware hydra-headed fascism." That paper was originally the product of the Communist Party of Great Britain and now says that the programme of the Communist Party of Britain underlies the paper's editorial stance. --Habap (talk) 15:50, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Frankly, the latter fact is not too convincing: the fact that X is supported by Y, who is known to be a villain, tells nothing about X. The problem with Winer is that he is superficial: he considers just one hypothesis and devotes almost no attention to alternative explanations, various pro et contra, etc. Despite the number of good sources and correct facts, the book resembles more a propaganda article, rather than real history study. I found only one review on this book written by a scholar and published in a peer-reviewed journal (Tiffen, R. Stan Winer Between the Lies: Rise of the Media-Military-Industrial Complex; John Pilger (ed.) Tell Me No Lies: Investigative Journalism and its Triumphs. Australian journal of international affairs, 2005, v. 59, p. 563) which comes to the same conclusion:

"So this book fails to achieve either of two worthwhile aims: none of its cases are explored in sufficient depth to break new ground in a compelling and original way, so even on those few topics where the book has promising things to say (e.g. on British Strategic Air Command being out of control in World War II), the topic is passed over too quickly. But neither do the great array of cases that it touches upon form any coherent pattern, so that there is no sense in which each part is contributing to a greater sum."

In any event, unless the examples of the opposite have been provided, this book should be considered as an example of not too carefully done revisionist study, which is not supported so far by other scholars. Nevertheless, although Winer's major hypothesis has not been confirmed so far, the facts and sources he cites are correct and reliable.--Paul Siebert (talk)

The reason to examine the source of the reviews is that Comunicat asserts reliability based on "The back cover (2nd edn) presents some favourable print-media review excerpts including one from Rhodes University in South Africa." Since the two favorable reviews are not peer-reviews by historians and the third review is actually unfavorable, the reliability of the book comes back into question. --Habap (talk) 18:31, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I also found the RJR review. Slightly different wording is used in the quote than in the review, but not substantively different. I was mistaken in believing it was student-published. Their website clarifies that it is edited by a senior lecturer in their Journalism department. at truth-hertz:

Paints a picture of the shameless symbiosis between capitalists - some selling information for profit, others selling weapons for profit and all depending on implicit approval of a fearful, angry or confused population.

in RJR:

But then again, perhaps because he was painting a picture of this beast called propaganda, he needed to show that the Bush phenomenon is not new, but is rooted in the shameless symbiosis between capitalists – some selling information for profit, others selling weapons for profit and all depending on implicit approval of a fearful, angry or confused population.

The review spends a lot of time talking about the Iraq war and not much about the book, but it is a favorable review. Note that it is reviewed in a journalism periodical and not by historians. --Habap (talk) 16:22, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Nevertheless altogether I think we now can conclusively decide that this is a source of at best dubious reliability and should not be used. Since there are many 1000's of books and articles on WWII, lets move on and close this chapter. Arnoutf (talk) 17:24, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

To reply briefly to some of the above, not necessarily in their chronological order or scale of perceived importance, and to add some comments of my own:

(1) To arnouft: the "link" you claim was provided above by me is not same the link that I provided. It is some kind or redirect link. I don't know what you're playing at. The correct link, which I gave you in the first place is repeated

here again

In any event, even the redirect link to Pro Bono which you misrepresent, states clearly that the book is "in stock". The correct link to relevant amazon page says the same: "In Stock. Four days delivery." Only the 1st edn hardback is stated as being "out of stock". Habap similarly claims falsely: "Sadly, Amazon has no copies of the book to sell." What the two of you are trying to prove? That the book doesn't exist, and/or nobody thinks it's worth selling? From the tone and content of your arguments, I suspect you're simply trying to destroy my credibility, and to some degree or another, much the same applies to most of what has been said by other editors under this topic. Could this have anything to do with matters concerning some of my ongoing postings in other talk sections on this page? If not, then why did you resurrect this topic after it had already been closed for several weeks? You and others have made it very difficult for me to accept any good-faith intentions on your part.

(2) It may be recalled that, contrary to what others may claim, I have not made any attempt whatsoever to cite the book in question as a source for anything in the WW2 article. I first submitted it as an external link to the World War II in contemporary culture article, which I considered to be perhaps the most appropriate article relative to the public domain on-line book's sociological/cultural subject matter. When that link was promptly deleted, and because the book contains a lot of other unique material related to WW2 military strategy and tactics among other things, I then externally linked the www.truth-hertz.net site to the WW2 overview article, with similar lack of success.

(3) As for the independent publisher Southern University Press (SUP) which I happen to know is headed by veteran sociology / cultural studies Prof. G. Dench, who edited and published the hardcopy version of the work in question, and which publisher is certainly not in the self-publishing i.e. vanity publishing business (where clients pay publishers to publish their work): In recent correspondence with Prof. Dench, he describes SUP's rationale thus:

"Free speech and debate are important, something which publishers (and universities) in former times used to recognise as their duty to promote. But that was then. So I help provide an alternative to authors who have difficulty in having their work published by mainstream publishers. That was the case with Between the Lies, which is a study in the sociology of mass communications relative to how the Second World War and Cold War are usually portrayed in the academic and other mass media."

(4) Rhodes Journalism Review, which provided a favourable review of the work in question, is published by the department of communications studies at Rhodes University. It is Africa's leading academic institution specifically in the fields of conflict studies and communications studies. The Review is edited by a professor of communications studies. The book in question was authored by a veteran journalist with experience as a war correspondent, so he probably knows a few things about military matters.

(5) Revisionism: is an established historiographic, academic, analytical paradigm. So why these efforts to disparage it? Beats me. Said disparagement reflects general POV bias, which is inappropriate for any astute and objective wiki editor. There are rightwing revisionists, centrist revisionists, and left-leaning revisionists and revisionists of every shade of opinion in their private or public lives, but revisionism has nothing to do with individual political bias or ideology. It is an analytical position, that's all it is. There is no wiki NPOV policy to disqualify a source on the simplistic basis of "revisionism".

(6) Paul above observes: The problem with Winer is that he is superficial: he considers just one hypothesis and devotes almost no attention to alternative explanations. True. This is probably because, as Winer states somewhere in the Introduction to the hardcopy edition, all the mainstream viz., so-called "alternative" explanations as referred to by Paul, have already been provided over and over again ad nauseam by mainstream academic historians who themselves have ignored alternative i.e. Western revisionist and non-Western accounts. Paul further states: Winer's major hypothesis has not been confirmed so far, (but), the facts and sources he cites are correct and reliable. Winer's hypothesis might not have been confirmed so far, but neither has it been disproved.

(7) One editor in this discussion has already declared without my concurrence and on behalf of other involved editors "we can now conclusively decide that this (meaning Between the Lies), is a source of at best dubious reliability and should not be used." In other words, further discussion is pointless, even though it has evaded the real issues; and the real issues, in my submission, are as follows:

(8) The key issue according to my version of the dispute is the misapplication of wiki policy in relation to POV, double standards in sourcing, and other related matters. When it suits some active milhist editors, independently published works are acceptable for citation. When it doesn't suit them editors, independently published sources are disparaged, derogated and disallowed on the basis of a range of pretexts. Consider for instance reference no. 271 of the WW2 overview article, which reference has been allowed; then consider www.truth-hertz and/or Between the Lies, which is disallowed even before any attempt might be made by me to cite it as a source. There are other examples. Not to mention completely unreferenced (mainly pictorial) works that are cited as sources in the WW2 refs, which then become wiki secondary sources, which in turn may then be cited by others who are under the possibly mistaken impression that the sources they are citing are reliable secondary or tertiary sources, and so on, thus notionally polluting the information stream. Moreover, not a single Soviet or any other non-capitalist society source is contained in the entire list of WW2 article notations, some 334 of them in all. Even if a Soviet source is cited rarely in discussion only, it is falsely deemed inadmissable by some editors because the cited source "can't be found on the internet." In other words, "only digitised sources are allowed." Which, of course, is obstructive and sheer nonsense. Moreover, wiki rules state that opposing / controversial viewpoints must be included equally in wiki articles. Furthermore, "Consensus" as rightly defined by wiki, must not be restricted to only a handful of editors (in this case a small cabal of self-styled military historians), but can and should also take into account the wider (wiki) community.

(9) Since discussion has now been concluded (as declared by Arnouft) without my concurrence, my request for mediation will be drafted in due course and submitted accordingly to the relevant committee. If this section is archived before mediation, I'll retrieve and repost it. If a POV dispute tag is removed before mediated resolution (or arbitration if necessary), a disciplinary complaint will be lodged. Communicat (talk) 00:52, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I’d like to respond to some of these points

As to (1), the link Arnoutf provided is on the page you link. Follow your own link, then click on the words “these sellers”. You’re splitting hairs when you say it’s not the same link. In regards Amazon having none, I apologize, as I obviously must have only looked at the first edition’s non-availability. However, the fact that Pro Bono is identified by Amazon as “Just Launched” and has no feedback makes one doubt that they’ve had any sales of any books, let alone this one. As already noted, the other seller is a print-on-demand seller. My impression is that the book is one that few are interested in buying and may be obscure enough to be irrelevant.

As to (3), I also corresponded with Professor Geoff Dench and his reply to me was similar.

I don’t really have a publishing business. Where friends are having problems with mainstream publishers – which in UK is mainly to do with pressures for political correctness – then I sometimes help provide an alternative. Free speech and debate are important, and what publishers (and universities) used to recognise a duty to promote. But that was then.

To me, that first sentence is key. Also, since he’s a sociology/cultural studies expert, historical works are not his normal field. That lessens the value of having him as an editor.

As to (4), RJR is a journalism review magazine. Having accolades from journalists is not the same as having them from a panel of peer-reviewing historians.

As to (5), you are correct that the work should not be rejected just because it is considered “revisionist”. However, the fact that one of the three reviews they cite on the back cover actually derides the work as the “sort of thing that gives conspiracy theory a bad name” indicates that even left-leaning newspapers consider his work unsatisfactory.

As to (6), just because Winer's hypotheses have not been proven wrong in the mind of one editor doesn't make them true. In fact, I refer to that Guardian review (i.e. it's merely bad conspiracy theory).

As to (8)I would favor going through all of the 334 sources and removing the ones that are of equally low quality. If the 227 you refer to is Edward Kantowicz’s Coming Apart, Coming Together, (published by William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company) I likely concur on removing it. It looks like it was cited for a very obvious point that I wouldn’t think would need citation and comes from an independent publisher that focusses on religious works. Saying that we should include Winer because there are equally dubious sources is not a logical argument. We should strive to remove everything that is of dubious quality.

I'm intrigued by the mediation idea. --Habap (talk) 14:25, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Re arnoutf link: No, not splitting hairs. Just giving one example of various attempts to discredit / negate my credibility through falsification and similar. If you or anyone else really wants it, I suggest buy the book direct from amazon.co.uk, not via one of its newly launched subsidiary outlets. Excellent service. Book readily available. No problem. Your stated "impression" is incorrect.

Re non-historian editor / author. History, especially military history, is much too important to be left to the "historians". Interesting discussion about this from time to time at History News Network. Consensus among more enlightened historians is that history must be multi-disciplinary.

Re RJR: It's edited by academics. My comment above re multi-disciplinarity serves likewise.

Re "conspiracy theory" as per Guardian review: It seems highly unlikely to me that any book criticising mass media, and news print media in particular, will receive any glowing reviews from the same print media that the book analyses critically, even or especially British "left-leaning" media. Same applies to most academic media, etc, etc, and maybe even wiki, which is itself of course a mass communication and information medium.

Re reference sources: No, the ref I meant is the one citing self-publisher North Amrican Kurdish Association (whatever that is). It's just one of around 27 dubious sources that I've noticed via quick review. You still seem to miss the point, however. Forget Winer's "unreliable" book for the moment. Not even one identifiably socialist / Marxist / revisionist source among more the than 300 mainstream sources listed. Read rules on parity of sourcing, opposing-controversial positions, etc, etc. Raises important NPOV policy issues.

Re mediation: Don't hold your breath. Without presuming to prejudge the outcome, and based on the tone and content of preceding discussion, my instinct is that mediation is most unlikely to succeed. Procedure demands that dispute resolution must first exhaust all other means, including discussion and mediation, before proceeding finally to arbitration. Discussion got nowhere, people still missing / evading the essential points, so mediation next, before arbitration as last resort. Communicat (talk) 19:38, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

If history is far too important to be left to the historians, perhaps surgery is far too important to be left to surgeons.

The real point about the Guardian review is that it is included as praise for his book, but is actually a negative review. It makes one suspect that positive reviews by anyone were hard to come by. Otherwise, why quote from a review that labels your work as giving conspiracy theory a bad name? Neither the use of that praise nor the paraphrasing of the RJR review are good signs about the critical acclaim of this work.

OK, dump the Kurdish one as well. Keep coming up with more that are lousy and they will get removed. Find a socialist/Marxist/revisionist work that is reliable and I’d be glad to see it included. Much of my final year as an undergraduate was spent on a paper about the transition from feudalism to capitalism in Marxist theory, so I most certainly don’t reject something just because the author is a Marxist. One of my favorite recent purchases is from Ralph Ingersoll, who may well have been a Marxist himself. I think that the Kurdish one, just like Winer and Kantowicz, was included to advertise the source and it's inherent bias.

I'm certain there must be some works written by the many Soviet authors who had access to the Smolensk archives that are worth including, but I never got very far in my Russian courses (it's all gone from my head now). Don't despair. Well-researched and well-written works by authors I don't agree with will pass my review. --Habap (talk) 20:04, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

You cannot buy the book directly from Amazon; you can pay through Amazon but they will send your order to the listed booksellers an mediate for you. Amazon explicitly does not guarantee excellent service for books (like this) they do not stock themselves; but will refund and handle complaints. (I have ordered books this way before through Amazon). Amazon is not the seller, the only sellers provided are the print on demand and the very new bookshop without findable own homepage. So indeed, it is splitting hairs. It does not matter much, but you provided Amazon as evidence for the book being readily available. All I did was look at your evidence and easily found that it is not as strong as you suggest. You can accuse me of what you want, but that will not give your argument any merit.

I am all for mediation; I am not sure what the dispute is; but apparently you feel that many editors (among them myself) are out here to get you. A condition for mediation would of course be that all editors (including Communicat) will agree to accept the outcome before any such effort is undertaken; especially on all issues where mediation goes against their ideas. Arnoutf (talk) 20:18, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Why are the two of you so obsessed with that book? The book is not at issue. The reviews are not at issue. Amazon is not at issue. SUP is not at issue. What is at issue are major and advanced policy differences. Take the time to read and comprehend the subsequent threads that evolved after the initial thread under this section heading was first discontinued, (before being suddenly and unexpectedly resurrected by Hapab et al), and you might understand exactly what IS at issue, and why it has stalemated. Or else just read the summary para.8 of my 00:52, 19 August 2010 (UTC) posting above. Or the section headed "Anti-communist prejudice", inter alia.

There is no point at this late stage for Hapab to suddenly start offering to look for marxist sources etc and revising the entire article and its references, in order to belatedly try bringing the article properly in line with policy. That is something that could take a very long time to accomplish -- especially since it will be endlessly obstructed on a range of pretexts by those who think they know it all, just as my own attempts have thus been consistently blocked. What is needed is a lucid and binding affirmation / understanding of policy, and an open undertaking by certain editors / administrators to adhere single-mindedly and objectively to policy. This will hopefully be the outcome of arbitration, which is now probably inevitable. In the meantime, Arnouft might be best advised to read the rules properly, because he clearly does not understand them.

Unless anyone has anything really ground-breaking and constructive to say, I'll not be responding any further to editors postings here. Any silence on my part should however not be taken as concurrence. 41.30.115.26 (talk) 00:47, 20 August 2010 (UTC) Communicat (talk) 13:10, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

I think you misunderstand what mediation is. It is a way to resolve a problem by involving a third party in the discussion. If you do not commit yourself to the suggestions of this 3rd party before any such effort, I see no benefit whatsoever spending my time on mediation, so there cannot be mediation with me as I will not involve myself with the mediator. Oh, and if someone is obsessed with the book it is you, you alone did raise Amazon, so do not put obsession with us. Arnoutf (talk) 14:22, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

arbitrary break

The thread appeared to re-gather interest after I reverted your deletion of another editors entry, which bore your edit comment that it was defamatory to someone, which it didn't appear to be. It seems you are more interested in this thread than anyone else, based the volume of your posting.

If this thread does get archived, which will only happen if its dormant for over 20 days, there is no reason to repost it on account of pending mediation, a diff of your last post will be enough to show that you made it, and the entire thread would be complete in the archive anyway - the entire point of an archive.

edit: If you make a "disciplinary complaint" (whatever you think that might be), in the event of a tag being removed - reflecting the general agreement of interested editors that is was spuriously placed, don't be surprised if your own behaviour is examined. (Hohum ^@) 01:51, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for explanation. Thread you refer to is closely intertwined with the contents and meaning of other related threads. I shall save in my files a definitive version of this page containing all the relevant threads, for presentation if necessary to whoever mediates / arbitrates. If mediation / arbitration is in progress, that means dispute is unresolved. Arbitrator has final say about such things, not "interested editors" such as yourself. And no, I won't be surprised if my own behaviour is examined and deemed understandable, given some of the more noteworthy provocations directed at me. 41.30.41.113 (talk) 18:00, 19 August 2010 (UTC) Communicat (talk) 18:21, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I think Hohum is referring to Wikipedia:Don't shoot yourself in the foot. I would suggest you read that before seeking arbitration or similar. Arnoutf (talk) 19:03, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

WW2 origins of Cold War

Binksternet, in his posting of 20:40, 25 July 2010 (UTC) in the talk section above, headed Link to www.truth-hertz.net, ridicules the proposition contained in Winer's book Between the Lies, that " ... the origins of the Cold War are firmly embedded in World War II, when Churchill and his elite cabal secretly waged a shadow war against communism under the guise of fighting the Nazis and 'helping' the Soviet Union." In fact, that historical premise has been around for a long time. Not only does it reflect a majority position in Russia, which bore the brunt of the fighting in Europe during WW2, but it is view shared to one degree or another by a substantial number of very well respected Western historians as published by very well respected Western publishers. They have drawn much the same conclusion, namely that the roots of the Cold War were buried deep in WW2. They agree on the basis of impeccable documentary research that by land, sea and air, the Western Allies generally failed to deploy their overwhelming military advantages to good effect while Russia suffered appalling losses as a result, on the eastern and decisive front of World War II. See Vladimir Petrov (ed.), Soviet Historians and the German Invasion, Columbia: University of South Carolina Press 1968, p.286; Y Larionov, N Yeronin, B Solovyov, V. Timokhovich, World War II Decisive Battles of the Soviet Army, Moscow: Progress 1984; Gar Alperovitz, "How Did the Cold War Begin?" in Walter LaFeber (ed.) The Origins of the Cold War 1941-1947, New York: John Wiley 1971; DF Fleming, The Cold War and Its Origins: 1917-1960, New York: Random 1961' Wilfred Burchett, Shadow of Hiroshima, London: Verso 1983. Stan Winer, in Between the Lies, in Chapter 4 titled "The Missing Front", elaborates that position further in citing, among others, the memoirs of Red Army commander Georgi Zhukov to support the proposition that the roots of WW2 are firmly embedded in WW2. Wiki editors, in their "wisdom" and without being able to provide any concrete evidence whatsoever to support their allegations, arbitrarily refute all the foregoing documentation as "flawed", "unreliable", or "fringe". Which brings us to the issue of [WP: FRINGE], as first raised by Binksternet in his posting of 00:27, 25 July 2010 (UTC). [WP: FRINGE] rules that NPOV requires that all majority and significant-minority positions be included in an article. And since wiki editors concur that the matter at issue concerns a "fringe" position (in the West, where wiki is based), this "fringe" position must therefore be included in the WW2 article or a related sub-article. Rules are rules. I didn't make them.

In the meantime, I'd be much obliged if discssion participants support their arguments with concrete evidence when they allege "unreliable" or "flawed" sources, or similar facile remarks that lower the tenor of what's supposed to be a serious discussion.

Incidentally, and at the risk of digressing, the question of the roots of Cold War being embedded in WW2 relates essentially to Grand Strategy, yet the Grand Strategy of the Western Allies (nor anyone else) seems to be conspicuously absent from the WW2 article. This is with the exception only of a brief passing reference (see ref no.104 in the article), which speaks about Britain having to "reconsider its grand strategy", but curiously without saying what was their grand strategy in the first place. Communicat (talk) 18:32, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

PS: Britain's wartime Minister of Aircraft Production, Colonel Moore-Brabazon (Lord Brabazon), is on record as stating Britain's grand strategy: "Let the German and Soviet armies tear into each other. We will pick up the pieces." McClaine, Ian, Ministry of Morale: Home Front Morale and the Ministry of Information in World War II, London: Allen and Unwin, 1979 Communicat (talk) 11:56, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

The WP:BURDEN is on you to prove that sources that you want to use are reliable, not for other editors to prove otherwise. This article is an overview of WWII, not the Cold War, so it probably isn't the best place to try and include your pet theory anyway. Even if it is accepted, it is very unlikely to get more than a sentence. (Hohum ^@) 18:42, 30 July 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. This is a high level overview of World War II, and certainly not the place to push fringe theories on the war. Nick-D (talk) 10:01, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

You are evading the issue by voicing opinion instead of fact. My postings are not to "push" any theories but to insist that the rules of WP:FRINGE be properly adhered to. WP:FRINGE was evoked in the first place by military history task force member Binksternet on this WW2 talk page, and I assume he knows what he's doing, which is why this "discussion" for the sake of continuity remains on this page. I assume also that the military history task forcers are the same for both WW2 and the CW. I hope to avoid complicating or obscuring matters by now having to move or duplicate the discussion to CW talk page. I also hope to avoid declaring a full-blown dispute, which may be my next logical move. A further logical move would be to invite the authors of WP:FRINGE to elaborate their rules. As already stated twice above, WP:FRINGE, rules that all majority and significant-minority (i.e. "fringe") positions be included in an article for consistency with NPOV. Communicat (talk) 12:39, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

The issue isn't being evaded, it's being responded to head on. You are exhibiting WP:ICANTHEARYOU, and wildly misinterpreting WP:FRINGE. Please do go and ask for clarification. (Hohum ^@) 15:25, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

At the article Long War (20th century), the idea that the Cold War started within WWII is completely and totally subsumed by the assertion that all the great power wars of the 20th century are basically the same one, extended. The concept that the last century held one long war is not brought up in this WWII overview article, nor does it appear at Cold War, and I think that is appropriate. The proper place to put Winer-et-al's fringe theory is in other articles, ones such as Aftermath of World War II or Effects of World War II (the two possibly merged.) Another possibility is to create a new article about it, like the Long War editors did. Binksternet (talk) 16:46, 31 July 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughtful response, (It makes a change from the gibberish that HoHum keeps posting). My own inclination for appropriate placement, and for reasons not yet elaborated, was more in the direction of "WWII in Contemporary Culture" article. That was where I did originally place the external link to Between the Lies some time ago, which someone then promptly deleted without discussion. My preference for placement in the WW2 article of what you describe as "Winer-et-al's fringe theory", is also based on three factors: (1) The WW2 overview article, in the right-hand panel of the top-page, attributes the "Beginning of the Cold War" to the Allied victory, which "Winer-et-al's minority position contradicts. (2) In the 3rd paragraph of the top-page there is the unsourced claim that WW2 "set the stage for the Cold War", which Winer-et-al's minority position similarly contradicts. (3)WP:FRINGE rules that, for consistency with NPOV, all majority and significant-minority (i.e. "fringe") positions be included in an article (parity of sources).

Various editors including yourself have variously tried to rubbish Between the Lies as "unreliable", "unverifiable", "flawed", "self-published", etc, etc. In view of those dismissive remarks, and to make a point (since the "Burden of proof" of reliability etc evidently rests on me), I submit the following: In recent correspondence between myself and the author and the publisher in question, I've established that Winer's Between the Lies was not self-published. It was published by an independent publisher, Southern Universities Press. Independant publishers are by definition publishers that are outside the mainstream commercial publishing industry, in so far as commercial mainstream publishers employing their own editors etc are profit-driven (they publish essentially books that sell); whereas independant publishers are not profit-driven, their print runs are small, and editing is usually outsourced to specialist freelance editors in their respective fields of expertise. From a quick review of the WW2 overview article's reference sources, I've identified no less than 28 citations to independently published works, (and at least two self-published works, including one item published by an obscure outfit calling itself The Kurdish National Congress of North America). This suggests that double standards are being applied, i.e. it's okay cite independently published / self-published sources in some instances, but not in others, such as myself. (I have also noted at least 15 citations to tertiary sources, which seems rather strange, given that wikipedia is itself a tertiary source citing other tertiary sources).The allegation that Winer's book is not cited in other works, proves nothing. Not all books have been digitised, and digital citation figures apply only to digitised works. I rest my case, for the moment. Communicat (talk) 00:39, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Please respect WP:CIVIL. Your explanation of Southern Universities Press is dubious at best. There is nothing to suggest they are reliable, or that Winer is. Have you got clarification of WP:FRINGE? (Hohum ^@) 02:09, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

In case you haven't noticed, Winer's book Between the Lies and the proposed external link to it are no longer the key issues here. What is at issue (see new section head) is the WW2 origin of the Cold War. You are exhibiting WP:ICANTHEARYOU. As regards WP:FRINGE, I don't need any "clarification". WP:FRINGE makes quite clear the distinction between unreliable fringe theory and substantiated significant-minority position, namely my position, from which I'm not surrendering. If or when necessary, I'll invite opinion from authors of WP:FRINGE as to resolving the merits or otherwise of this ongoing dispute.

As regards civility, discussion pages are intended to improve an article. They are not supposed to be a forum for flippancy about horses eating coal, or for incoherent remarks such as yours at Section "Flawed overview? -- Battle of Britain", below. Communicat (talk) 12:42, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

The "flippancy" about horses eating coal followed your apparently premature announcement that you were done with this discussion, where you alluded to the other editors here being horses led to but not drinking [your] water. The civility has been thin on both sides. Binksternet (talk) 13:38, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

When I claimed I was done with this "discussion", I meant I was done with discussing it under the section head "Link to www.truth-hertz.net] ". I then started this present "discussion" section headed "WW2 origins of CW", because the discussed issues had evolved into a rather more complex and multi-faceted scenario. This was largely as a result of your disparagement of the relevant source's "wild-eyed" conclusion that the roots of the Cold War are embedded in WW2, and which I have since shown to be a majority position in the former Soviet Union and a currently significant-minority position among a substantial number of published Western historians and researchers. And as a significant-minority position, it merits serious consideration in terms of NPOV / WP:FRINGE rules as already cited but not yet (if ever) resolved satisfactorily through reasoned discussion. You might have noted my use of the word "discussion" in parenthesis, this because of the very limited number of actual participants, and because "discussants" such as HoHum indulge in provocative criticisms that are not supported constructively by concrete fact or citation. Not forgetting Nick-D who seems fond of passing terse and dismissive one-line judgments that are either similarly unsupported and/or just plain erroneous. Communicat (talk) 18:19, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Communicat, your posts are tl;dr and unclear. Can you please summarize in a line or two what you want changed? I can't tell exactly what you have a problem with here. Parsecboy (talk) 20:04, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and removed all the tags..as its seems there is no need for them since there is no references to back any claims made and most believe only small changes might be needed .Moxy (talk) 06:37, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Most of my claims have been backed by references. Granted though, my epic gripe has by now become so filled with multiple issues under various section heads that I can't honestly blame anyone at this point for not being able to see the wood for trees. To save everyone the time and trouble of reading the whole damn thing, I'll just say it's not "only small changes" that are at issue. There are of course some relatively minor syntax, grammatical and factual edits needed, but the main proposed changes are significant ones, hence my efforts at achieving consensus via discussion as per wiki rules. To keep it simple:

(1) Entire para 3 needs reworking / correcting and parity sourcing, while retaining brevity.

(2) A minor but significant external link is proposed to a Selective WW2 bibliography regardless of whether or not anyone agrees or disagrees with the actual thesis of the CC-licensed online book from which the bibliography is lifted. It's the accurate, concise and objective Bibliography that matters here, not the subjective thesis (which thesis has given rise to some editors' disapproval, and so it won't be cited, unless others want it to be). Communicat (talk) 20:36, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

There is no a thing as a minor external link in an article like this. Either a source is reliable, or it is not. If it is we use it as a source, and no external link would be needed, if it is not reliable it is (by definition) not significant ad whatever content would be as useful as that of a Biggles novel. Arnoutf (talk) 17:05, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Flawed overview -- para 3

The unsourced paragraph 3 at top-page is flawed as regards "... acceptance of the principle of self-determination accelerated decolonisation movements in Asia and Africa ...".

"Acceptance" by whom? Certainly not by the main colonial powers, Britain, France, Portugal. When the war ended, Britain and America promptly reneged on their 1941 Atlantic Charter which had lured partisan movements around the world (including Poland) to side with the Allies against Germany and Japan, in return for the promise of "freedom" from colonial rule. When this "freedom" failed to materialise after WW2, indigenous independence movements, with Sino-Soviet help, mounted fullscale liberation wars in Kenya, Malaya, N.Korea, N. Vietnam, Philippines, and later in southern Africa. Not to mention a violent mutiny and bloody rebellion in India.

Para 3 is further flawed by omitting any reference to the crucial, immediate post-war Bretton Woods Agreement to reform international financial institutions, tariffs and trade, etc, which had been identified as among the main economic causes of WW2. Communicat (talk) 11:59, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Contrary to its self proclaied "good article" status, the ww2 article is riddled with other errors and ommissions and double standards in accepting or rejecting citations. The milhist panel -- HoHum, Nick-D, Blinkster etc -- seem to be suffering from an ownership problem The article is "their" turf and anyone who trespasses on it, especially Communicat of late, is trampled upon in jackbooted nazi style. There are many examples in the talk archives. Milhist panely w2ould be put to better use by actually improving-correcting-shortening the artile instead of acting like a bunch of nazis. A more couteous and open minded atitude would be nice. Besides, none of the milhist panel appear to have any historical or editorial qualifications listed on their user pages. At best they seem to be self opinionated computer geeks and not much else. 41.145.238.141 (talk) 14:02, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

You will find that calling people names will not get you far here...Pls simply point out what YOU believe is wrong and find a source for it...We dont care about opinions here only verifiable sources. Moxy (talk) 14:40, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Note to Admin: Not dormant; please don't archive yet; is partly subject to ongoing dispute resolution process. Communicat (talk) 19:18, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

USSR and USA at the top?

I find this insulting that they have been put ahead of the UK and France in the belligerents list considering that they joined in 1941 I urge that this should be changed back to something that makes more sense, France and the UK fought much harder in the War than that of the USA And Russia despite what numbers of casualties say. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Davido488 (talk • contribs) 15:25, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Regardless of placement, saying who "fought harder in the war" is an inherently subjective judgement, and has no place in an NPOV article. Length of time involved, casualty rates, scope of involvement, even alphabetical are orders that can be objectively stated. Any one would be fine as a potential scheme for ordering. Subjective boasting of "who fought harder" is not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.65.34.246 (talk) 18:35, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

Let me disagree with the statement that "saying who "fought harder in the war" is an inherently subjective judgement". It is possible to measure who fought harder simply by counting the losses sustained by some belligerent and, more importantly, by losses inflicted by him on its opponent. By both these criteria Britain (and, especially, France) cannot be placed on the top. More importantly, I would say that placement of France along with Britain would be insulting.--188.123.242.211 (talk) 21:04, 4 August 2010 (UTC)

you fortify Davido488's point here "Length of time involved, casualty rates, scope of involvement, even alphabetical are orders that can be objectively stated" Who was involved in the war longest? Who was most involved, Who Turned the tide in the African campaign at El alemein, who stopped the German advance into the west and maybe even the USA, who repelled the Japanese in Burma, who stopped the German advance in the middle east, in terms of Involvement, Length, and casualties it is no doubt that the UK should come top of the allies belligerents list

It's only fair that France should come Second as France fought extremely well for liberation from the start as one of the first to declare war involved in battles in Vietnam to Africa, losing over a million people. Please take it into consideration86.135.58.219 (talk) 19:29, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Well I couldn't of put it better myself really, the UK and France deserve to be above the Russia and the US do to a longer duration and and Span of conflict around the world. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Davido488 (talk • contribs) 19:46, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Give me a break. Enough of this nationalism going on here. 8 out of every 10 German soldier killed in the war were killed by the Russians.--White Shadows ^{Nobody said it was easy} 22:54, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Almost any metric of involvement will be argued to death. i.e. inflicted casualties, casualties inflicted versus casualties taken, amount of territory taken/recovered, size of forces, resources devoted to warmaking; all the previous factors relative to GDP, length of time engaged in the war, order of joining, most important battles, most distributed global involvement, etc. To argue about any of them simply for the "terrible outrage" of the order shown in an infobox would seem to indicate people are willing to devote more time to arguing than to improving the article.

My suggestion would be to identify the main combatants (for which there will be argument enough), and then list them alphabetically; and then get on with some proper editing. (Hohum ^@) 00:42, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Enough of the nationalism. Let's keep this article NPOV (FWIW, I hate the USSR. They kicked out my ancestors in 1918)--White Shadows ^{Nobody said it was easy} 01:11, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Alphabetically?? What in the world for? The current listing is perfectly NPOV. Its not "nationalist", its based on actual involvement in the conflict. And anyway how in the world would alphabetizing help anything, you cannot very well list all combatants - we'd still have to select the "preferred" ones. Plus the infobox in alphabetic order would be just plain stupid ("Australia and Belgium vs Bulgaria and Italy"). If we really need some determining factor it should be combined troop strength, not the sodding alphabet :P (except for the "Big Three" of course, which should be at the top in the current order regardless of troop strength).

The current listing is very accurate, the USSR's involvement virtually dwarfs that of all other countries combined. If it weren't for its status as one of the "Big Three" Britain should probably be below China. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 01:28, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I said "main combatants" alphabetically. I've given clear reasons why "level of involvement" can be argued about ad nauseam, and already has been on this talk page, and the infobox template talk page - read the archives. So, again, wasting more time on a minor point of presentation seems to gather more interest than content. (Hohum ^@) 01:46, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Here's an idea. Let's all leave it as it is :)--White Shadows ^{Nobody said it was easy} 01:54, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Eighty percent of all German losses were inflicted upon them by the Red Army on the eastern front. The efforts of the Western Allies on the eastern front accounted for only 20 percent of German losses, whereas total losses of the German Wehrmacht were 72 percent of its officers and men, most of them. dying on the Soviet-German (i.e. Eastern) front. Since the British Army deployed no more than 28 divisions as compared with the American army’s 99 divisions, the British contribution to Allied victory must have been in the region of only five percent. As for the Americans: the military potential of the US, as estimated in 1939 in terms of gross national product and industrial production, represented more than 40 percent of the world’s total. Yet that advantage was never translated into a proportionate contribution on the battlefield. The 99 American divisions were overshadowed 4:1 by Red Army divisions.The price paid by the USSR for defeating Hitler on the principal and decisive front of the war was enormous. Well over 40 million Russians, half of them civilians, died — many more than the combined total military casualties of Germany and the Western Allies together. Sources: John Erickson, Stalin's War With Germany, (2 vols) London: Grafton, 1985, where individual campaigns are listed at Vol II, p.1181; Alexander Werth, Russia at War 1941-1945, New York: Avon 1965: Norman Davies, Europe at War 1939-1945: No Simple Victory, London: Macmillan 2005. Forty million Soviet fatalities stated in Stan Winer, Between the Lies, Southern Universities Press: London 2007, 2nd edn, p.87 online edition p.82 citing Professor of Defence Studies at Edinburgh University, on the basis of former Soviet military archives opened to the West in 1994. Communicat (talk) 12:31, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I must reiterate, let's leave it as it is. There really is no since arguing over the order of flags! I'd rather not have to watch one of the lamest edit wars occur on an article that I am very proud to have promoted to GA status. Wikipedia never seems to be able to keep articles like these at GA level for long and this is why.....--White Shadows ^{Nobody said it was easy} 15:16, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

That's okay with me. I couldn't care less about the order of flags. My posting had more to do with NPOV errors of omission and the apparent Russo-phobia demonstrated by at least one milhist administrator, of which more later. Communicat (talk) 15:27, 6 August 2010 (UTC

I'm not going to argue on here because if I do I will never stop arguing and will probably be blocked which I cannot be bothered with, BUT Britain may not be ahead of Russia but should be ahead of the United states alphabetically and terms of casualties and war effort, and how high a country is on the belligerent IS relevant, but never mind because we all know this site is full of bias Americans trying to make everything done by America look that bit better than everyone else. So just leave it as that I'm not going to bother anymore on this silly article.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.135.58.219 (talk • contribs)

My question above was asked for the same reasons as this. There must be a process of listing belligerents that cannot be disputed. --Half Price (talk) 22:23, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Which is why alphabetical ordering was suggested in the first place. But I think the infobox is also a bit of an overview of involved editors, as I am pretty sure for example that small states in Europe like Luxembourg were more involved than e.g. South Africa. Arnoutf (talk) 09:55, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Huh? More than 10,000 S.African soldiers (third of the entire SA force in North Africa) were captured by Rommel at Tobruk. SA army threw German army out of German colony South West Africa. SA pilot Edwin Swales VC was posthumously decorated for heroism during the air offensive against Germany. Many other SA pilots were seconded to RAF. Etc. Now, how does Luxembourg compare with that? Communicat (talk) 12:18, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

The alphabetical ordering has one major disadvantage, namely, it is not clear from it which countries were major WWII participants. As a result, Australian pupils come from school being firmly confident that the WWII was a war between Australia and Japan, and that Australia won this war (I am telling about a real example). Another example is the initial Davido488's post (which can be better explained by simple ignorance rather than by Russophobia). It must be clear from the infobox that in actuality the WWII was the war between a handful of major Allied countries (of which only three made a decisive contribution in the the victory) and three major Axis' members (of which only one was the Axis leader). Of course, it would be incorrect to forget the contribution of South Africa, however, it would be even more incorrect to list, e.g. Belgium before, e.g. the USSR.

With regards to "a process of listing belligerents that cannot be disputed", we already discussed this issue before and came to a conclusion that no strict rules exist on that account.--Paul Siebert (talk) 13:59, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

In which case we need some. Otherwise this will happen again and again. Should I take this to any Wikiproject? --Half Price (talk) 14:47, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

In fact scrap that, Template:Infobox_military_conflict states that "Combatants should be listed in order of importance to the conflict, be it in terms of military contribution, political clout, or a recognized chain of command." Admittedly it also adds "If differing metrics can support alternative lists, then ordering is left to the editors of the particular article" --Half Price (talk) 14:54, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

That is exactly what I meant. --Paul Siebert (talk) 16:45, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

The only obvious objective way to determine it, is to place them in order of time participated. It is the only measure that can be measured without bias. Obviously it would be UK, USSR, USA, France, and so on. If you try and list them in order of importance, everyone will have different measures as to what that means.--Jojhutton (talk) 15:09, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Re: "The only obvious objective way to determine it, is to place them in order of time participated. It is the only measure that can be measured without bias." Of course, no. There is a lot of opportunity for bias here. For instance, if we interpret this criterion formally, than the first place should be given to Poland (at war since Sept 1, 1939), although no actual hostilities took place between this country and the Axis during 1940-42. Another example is the Phoney War. Anyway, since the most important consequence of any war is the loss of human lives, it is natural to expect it to be the most objective criterion. It is very strange for me that some quite formal criteria (e.g. formal duration of the state of war) seem less biased then casualties are. --Paul Siebert (talk) 16:03, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

"loss of human lives, it is natural to expect it to be the most objective criterion". Yes but how do we calculate that. What is more loss of human lives, if US military casualties of about 410,000 (0.32% of 1939 population) worse than the approx 500,000 civilian casualties in Greece (about 7% of 1939 pop). Are not the 2,000 casualties in Luxembourg relatively twice as much as those of the US (these 2,000 represented 0.68% of 1939 population). If you say US counts for more, you implicitly say that large countries will always suffer more (even if the 100% of the Luxembourg population would have suffered from genocide there would be far less casualties compared to the US). Even a so-called simple thing as casualties is not. Arnoutf (talk) 16:59, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Our task is not to calculate relative casualties. We need to provide some objective criterion for absolute (not per capita) military contribution. The country that deployed greater army, sustained greater losses and, importantly, inflicted greater losses on the opponent made greater contribution. With regard to small countries, they by definition cannot be listed first because, independently of relative losses, their military contribution was small.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:09, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

While I agree that casualties are not a good way to see importance of the war, i.e following your rationale the pinnacle of military strategy would be to emply only unarmed troops (or horse cavalry or light infantery) as that will guarantee you a lot of casualties on your side, an hence by your reasoning massive casualties on the side of the enemy. I do not see why we cannot calculate relative casualties. OR why civilian casualties do not count. Casualties alone is no measure for importance of a country (e.g. if you look at casualties USSR (23 Million) Poland (5.7 Million) and Dutch East Indies (3.5 Million) score about ten times more than the US; if you look at military casualties the Yugoslav partisans (446,000) trump the US (417,000)). So "objectively" the order of allies would be (all casualties USSR, Poland, Dutch East Indies, India, Yugoslavia) or if you limit yourself to military it would be (USSR, China, Yugoslavia, US, UK), if you look at relative death it would be Poland, USSR, Yugoslavia, Greece. Useful to put Yugoslavia before US and UK, not really, but that will be the consequence of the "objective" measure. Arnoutf (talk) 17:27, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Re: "the pinnacle of military strategy would be to emply only unarmed troops (or horse cavalry or light infantery) as that will guarantee you a lot of casualties on your side" Quite the opposite. As I already noted, the losses inflicted on the opponent are more important criterion.

Re: "I do not see why we cannot calculate relative casualties." Because it is irrelevant. We discuss the relative importance of nation's contribution into the war, not who fought harder. The fact that Luxembourg sustained relatively more losses than the USA does not mean its contribution was comparable with that of the USA. The WWII was primarily a war between great powers.

Re: "Casualties alone is no measure for importance of a country (e.g. if you look at casualties USSR (23 Million) Poland (5.7 Million) and Dutch East Indies (3.5 Million) score about ten times more than the US;" That is both correct and incorrect. Dutch East Indies casualties led to only minor Japanese casualties (and, frankly, did not affect a situation in any important theatre of war). Polish casualties were mostly civilian casualties and didn't change German ability to wage the war. By contrast, Soviet casualties (which were accompanied by almost equally high Axis casualties) led to exhaustion of the Axis military machine, a loss of the greatest part of German possessions in Europe, and, eventually, to the victory in the most important WWII theatre. Therefore they are the measure.

Re: "So "objectively" the order of allies would be" Such a reductio ad absurdum is hardly relevant here. My point was that, as soon as we want to invent a single objective criterion for military contribution, military casualties are the most appropriate one. However, as I already noted, the casualties must be military, not total, and, importantly, the casualties inflicted on the opponent should weigh more than the casualties sustained.

However, I never stated that such a single criterion can be universal: it is impossible to use the same criteria for comparison of quite different theatres of war: yes, based on the amount of troops involved, losses sustained/inflicted, strategic importance etc., we can compare, e.g. African campaign and Case Blau (and made quite objective conclusion abou relative importance), however, it is hard to compare, e.g., BoB and Battle of Leningrad.--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:10, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

To summarise. Of course, it is incorrect to state that the country that sustained greater total population losses made greater military contribution. However, a combination of military losses sustained by a country plus military losses inflicted by the country on the opponent can be a primary criterion when we compare similar theatres of war. Other criteria can be (i) the level of military production; (ii) the country's role in providing military resources for the most important theatres of war; (iii) the technological level of warfare the country was involved in; (iv) political weight the country had during the war and its role in making the most important strategic decision; (v) (you may expand this list if you have any other ideas).

Based on i-iv, both the US and the UK should occupy one of first three positions. However, the USSR also meets these four criteria: the level of military production was high there (the USSR was responsible for production of a lion's share of the armament used in the Eastern Front), technological level was relatively high (the most modern German tanks, artillery and partially planes were produced for the use in the East); political weight of the USSR was enormous during WWII (after 1941).--Paul Siebert (talk) 18:25, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Well your post above argues that casualties sustained alone are indeed not the most suitable objective criterion. I fully agree. Note that it was you who proposed this first. On the other hand, while you correctly argue that most of German advanced tanks were produced for the east, almost all German navy (including U boats) and the most avanced Luftwaffe was deployed against the Western allies. All in all, the inclusion of political weight, level of technology etc. adds additional interpretation which is not 100% objective (let alone the decision to put sustained military casualties over civilian casualties).

I do agree based on your analysis that the main allies were indeed the traditional big 3: USA, UK, USSR. Each of the was essential in its own way and I would hesitate to put one over another, for those 3 alphabetic order seems fine to me. Arnoutf (talk) 21:02, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Re: "Note that it was you who proposed this first." I am not a proponent of the use of any single criterion, my point was that, as soon as we decided to use some single criterion the losses would the most objective one. However, I doubt such oversimplification would be correct.

Re the decision to put sustained military casualties over civilian casualties. I see no problem with that because total casualties just show who suffered more, whereas own military casualties show who fought more and, accordingly, the opponent's military casualties show whose military contribution was greater.

Re navy etc. That is correct, and that is one of the reasons why all the Big Three's members can be grouped together (separately from other Allies). However, that is insufficient to say that their contributions were comparable. Obviously, whereas all Big Three's members meet criteria i-iv, the scale and strategic importance of the Eastern Front leaves no doubts that Soviet contribution was far greater. However, there is one more argument that you missed, namely, that from 1 Sept 1939 till 1941 the USSR was de facto (although not de jure) the German ally. Of course, one may argue that during that time the USA were collaborating extensively with Japan by providing her with oil and other resources needed for the war with China, however, one way or the another, Nazi-Soviet collaboration is the only fact that may counterbalance the enormous Soviet contribution into the victory. That is why I cannot unconditionally support the placement of the USSR on the top of the list. Probably the idea of the alphabetical order is not so bad, however, as you probably noticed it does not change the Big Three's order much: the Soviet Union goes first, the United Kingdom is the second, whereas the United States of America occupy the third position. However, if we agree on that the footnote has to be added to the infobox explaining that the Big Three's members are listed alphabetically.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:56, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree with your reasoning, and indeed the Eastern front was a massive drain on German personell and resources. But even that is not as simple (as you already indicate with the Germany-USSR alliance). In the early stages Anglo-American supplies to Murmansk have helped the Russians to stabilise the Eastern front; and in the later stages the massive bombing of German industries has weakened their Eastern tank divisions considerably.

Re alphabetic order; I share you concern, but as any other criterion seems to spark nationalist tendencies I see no alternative. One thing I wondered about, why are we talking about Soviet Union instead of USSR and not about United States and United Kingdom, that seems a bit inconsistent to me. Arnoutf (talk) 07:08, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

I'd agree that it should be the USSR, rather than the Soviet Union. In which case, if going by it alphabetically, it should be the United Kingdom first, United States second, and USSR third. --MILLANDSON (talk) 18:40, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Well, what is the reason for use of abbreviation in one case (the USSR) and full names (United Kingdom and United states) in others?--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:00, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Note to Amin: Not dormant. Don't archive yet. May be subject to ongoing dispute resolution. Communicat (talk) 19:22, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Editing Dispute -- expressions of interest invited

Senior editor Moxy at his userpage gives this message to editors: "Please stop tagging (adding templates) to the top of every article you read and actually take the time and fix the problems." Now that's all very well and good. But, having followed that advice and actually taking the time and trouble to fix problems at WW2 overview page, (see View history entry 17:53, 5 August 2010), I've now simply had my edit reverted arbitrarily by milhist administrator User:Nick-D (see View history entry 22:47, 5 August 2010). This despite the verifiable fact that I'd first proposed the changes clearly and courteously at section headed Flawed overview? - Para 3 on this discussion page, without receiving any response to my proposed changes from User:Nick-D or anyone else. So, after a few days without feedback, I simply followed Moxy's advice and labouriously fixed the problems, only to have the edit reverted by User:Nick-D. It's not the first time he's done this kind of thing. I'm happy to work productively and co-operatively but have neither the time nor the inclination to get involved in puerile and unproductive editing wars with evidently disruptive administrators. Do well-intentioned people really have to go through all this $h1t in order to improve an article? Communicat (talk) 17:13, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

I have to say I was astounded to find that nothing leapt out at me as particularly poor about Communicat's recent edit (diff) to the lead. It's unusual to splatter prominent dispute and NPOV tags over such a minor difference though. Perhaps Nick-D could say what his objections are in more detail. (Hohum ^@) 19:44, 6 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Maybe some astute editor will do reversion to my proper earlier version. Still no word from the esteemed User:Nick-D. Maybe they do things differently in the land of Oz.Communicat (talk) 14:44, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Below are my commentaries on some Communicat's edits.

1. "The war was fought between the Allies -- America, Britain, British Commonwealth forces and the Soviet Union -- against the Axis powers: Germany, Italy and Japan."

Comment. The sentence fully ignores the role of other Allies, especially, Poland, France, China, as well as other European Axis members, especially Romania. It is also worth mention that Britain was a part of Commonwealth. My proposal is:

"The war was fought between the Allies — primarily British Commonwealth and the United States, as well as the Soviet Union — against the Axis powers, primarily Germany, Italy and Japan." Yes, that's good

Let me also note that this sentence (both old and new versions) reproduces the first lede's sentence:

"... which involved most of the world's nations, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. "

We have to discuss how to avoid this repetition. Well spotted. Should have seen it myself the first time

2. "The Allies were supported militarily by communist-led resistance movements throughout Europe and the Far East. "

Comment. The Communist supported resistance movement was a real fighting force mostly in Yugoslavia; the role of resistance in France or Italy is usually exaggerated. Resistance in Poland was supported by non-Communists or even anti-Communists. My suggestion: remove from the lede. See further discussion, esp. Far East groups, below in section "Anti-communist prejudice".

3. "British wartime leader Winston Churchill, in his voluminous history of World War II , depicts a generally cordial relationship between the Western allies and their Soviet allay."

Comment. Churchill was hardly a professional historian, his writings can be considered partially as memoirs (a primary source), so we cannot rely upon them too much. My suggestion: remove. A lot of people DO unfortunately rely on them volumes. But yes, remove source if you're a purist, as all good editors should be. Lots of other secondary sources available to support same premise, viz., cordial relationship.

4. "Documents declassified after the war provide a different perspective. In secret wartime correspondence between Soviet leader Josef Stalin and Churchill, Stalin complained repeatedly that by land, sea and air, the Western allies were failing to use their military forces to good effect while, as a result, the Soviet Union suffered appalling losses on the eastern or Russian-German front. "

Comment. Declassified documents are primary sources. secondary source Introduction by editor Richardson (which refers to docs in mainbody of book) can be source ref. If not, the same docs can probably be found in Hinsley somewhere, if one only has the time to look for them ... The lede cannot devote a space to discussion of them. No, "discussion" is not proposed. Just a one-sentence mention.Discussion of tension between the Big Three's members hardly deserves mention in the lede. The implications are so vast and important that I consider it worthy of mention. In addition, introduction of the dead wikilink into a good article is hardly a good idea (especially, taking into account that the name is not common). Not common in the West. Standard in the former Soviet Union. My suggestion: remove. My suggestion: disambigulation warning.

5. "Russian historians contend that the Eastern Front was the principal and decisive front of the war. "

Comment. It is incorrect to present this POV as a national POV. Many western historians (e.g., Glantz, Bellamy et al) share this point of view. All the more reason to say so. My general suggestion regarding ##3-5 is: add a brief description of WWII theatres along with discussion of their relative importance. Space problem. Maybe an entire section to itself? But, article already tooooo longgggg and needs trimming overall. Rather you than me.::::"Revisionist historians propose that, because of the wartime tensions that existed between Stalin and the Western leaders, the roots of the Cold War can be traced to events in World War II. "

Comment. I am not sure we need to discuss the revisionist point of view for at least two reasons: firstly, to discuss the revisionist POV, one have to present a mainstream point of view; secondly, I am not sure if we need to discuss the roots of Cold War in the lede of the article about the WWII.

Conservative mainstream view has entered the ideologically conditioned (Western) collective psyche to such an extent that it hardly requires further regurgitation. So, in interests of NPOV, I think revisionist view might merit at least a brief airing.

My general conclusion is that, although some Communicat's points (which have been put forward by him on the talk page) are valid, it would be premature to support the changes made by him. I propose to discuss these prospective changes on the talk page first.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:41, 7 August 2010

Thanks for taking time and trouble to comment thoughtfully. My responses for ease of reference are reds above. Communicat (talk) 00:59, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

As a quick comment, the problems with the material added in these edits were. 1) The text on the nations involved in the war (which now seems to be resolved) Small matter of copy editing 2) the claim that "The Allies were supported militarily by communist-led resistance movements throughout Europe" is simply wrong - while communist groups played the key role in the resistance in several countries, the Communists didn't 'lead' the resistance in western Europe which was coordinated by the various governments in exile located in Britain. My use of term "communist-led" is clarified in Section below headed "Anti-communist prejudice". Greek resistance had no contact with monarchist government in exile which they intended to overthrow anyway. Italian resistance had no govt in exile. Italian communist-led partisans, the only partisan force that actually managed liberate enemy-occupied territory, insignificant? 3) The armed resistance movements in most of Japanese-occupied Asia were fairly small and unimportant. Korean / Vietnamese / Chinese (Mao's) resistance "small and unimportant"? Hmmmm. The Philippino resistance movement was probably the most significant of them, but it was not 'communist led' as it was coordinated out of General MacArthur's headquarters. Filipino resistance was conducted on the ground by groups operating in enemy occupied territory and completely cut off from communication with McArthur. 4) The material on Churchill's memoirs is simply out of place in this very high-level article on the war - you may wish to add it to Winston Churchill as historian Not memoirs as such. Taught as "history" in many schools. But never mind. Debatable point. 5) the claim that "Russian historians contend that the Eastern Front was the principal and decisive front of the war." is also out of place in this high-level article and ignores the fact that most western historians now agree with this view in relation to the war in Europe, If there's East-West consensus on decisive front, then surely this merits some acknowledgment, not for the sake of knowlegeable historians but for the benefit of less informed mortals who rely on wiki for enlightenment, though it's obviously not correct for the war in the Pacific (where the American offensive through the South-West and Central Pacific was decisive). Digression. 6) the material added to the 'Chronology' section was wordy and seemed to suggest that the USSR didn't participate in the war until it was invaded by the Axis in 1941. I didn't write it. Material was moved to Chronology because of repetition and to make space for reworked 2nd / 3rd pars. Moved material needed cleanup, as stated. I'm not going to engage with your rude comments about me beyond observing that reverting edits is part of normal editing, and wasn't performed in my role as an admin. Rude comments: I merely reacted to your own rude and defamatory comment that I'm trying to air "pet theories". The fact remains that I cited WP:FRINGE concerning the rule that equal weight must be given in an article to all reliable majority and significan-minority positions in support of NPOV. Discussion, what there is of it, has carefully circumvented that matter and otherwise appears to be leading nowhere. So what's the point in discusing it further, I wonder. (User Paul Siebert Phd excepted) Nick-D (talk) 08:06, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Many Thanks but I don't agree with most of your observations. See bolds above. Communicat (talk) 15:27, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

You might find it helpful to note (1) "Philippino" (your word) should correctly be Filipino. (2) The word "Front", as in "principle and decisive front", means the forward position of an army in battle (Oxford English Dictionary). The Pacific war, which you refer to, was a Theatre, not a front. Communicat (talk) 23:33, 8 August 2010 (UTC)

Can you please reformat your response so that it's not in the middle of what I wrote? This makes it very difficult for other editors to follow what I posted and your response. Nick-D (talk) 08:01, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

You presume to have the authority to speak on behalf of "other editors", (who've not complained). I see no diversionary need to "reformat" my responses above. In fact, it's the least confusing way to address directly and lucidly the multiple points at issue. Instead of presuming to complain on behalf of "other editors", why don't you just DEAL with the issues? Which of course you have not. Communicat (talk) 16:32, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Although Nick-D has no authority to speak on behalf of other editors, he is probably right: it is really rather difficult to follow. To demonstrate this point, try to imagine how the initial post would look like if Nick-D responded in the same manner you did (by wedging his comments between your comments on his text). In addition, it is generally recommended to avoid using bold text, which may be interpreted as shouting. I don't think that was your intention.

I believe the problem will be resolved if you post (or re-post) concrete proposals, namely, which concrete pieces of text should be modified, how concretely should they be modified, and what sources support the changes you propose.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:21, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

Note to admin: please don't archive yet. Not dormant; may be subject to dispute resolution process ongoing. Communicat (talk) 19:25, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Duplication / cleanup

Para 2 duplicates info and should be moved to Chronology section after cleanup. Sentence too long and unsourced. I fixed this in my earlier edition (see History) which was then reverted by admin. Maybe someone else should try, seeing as admin doesn't like my edits. Communicat (talk) 14:40, 7 August 2010 (UTC)

Note to admin: please don't archive yet; not dormant; may be subject to dispute process. Communicat (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:27, 20 August 2010 (UTC).

Lead: problems

1) Grand strategy: war is essentially about fighting, and fighting is predicated by grand strategy. Grand strategy of main belligerents should be brought into the lead (and then amplified in article).

2) Partisans: involvement of partisan / guerrila resistance in support of Allied war effort should be mentioned (after identifying main Allied particpants at start of new / reworked para.2). Tentative wording could be: "The Allied war effort was militarily supported by communist, nationalist, and populist armed resistance groups and movements around the world, the most active and successful of which were the communist and/or communist-led resistance organisations."

(Editors note: The latter included: Maquis in France which provided valuable intelligence on enemy disposition, etc; Yugoslav partisans under Tito; ELAS-EAM in Greece; Italian communists in N. Italy; Mao's guerillas in China; Kim ilSung's guerrilas in north-east Korea; the Viet Kong and Vietminh against French Vichey and Japanese forces in Vietnam; and the Malay People's Anti-Japanese Army in Malaya. Foregoing assertions are self-evident / undisputed truths, and as such do not require source attribution. English language Sources are available for European resistance, less so for Far East / Indo China resistance, in respect of which many non-English language sources -- especially Mandarin -- ARE available, but with attendant translation problems for wiki and and other mainstream English-language publishers.)

3) The last sentence of 1st paragraph (which is too long, and same applies to preceding 1st sentence of same para) states ..."it has been estimated etc". Estimated by whom? Better wording would be: "Official estimates of fatalities range from 50-million to 70-million killed."

4) 3rd paragraph: "...setting the stage for the Cold War ..." Has been already agreed in earlier discussion that roots of CW were in WW2. Should therefore read: "escalated the Cold War which would last for ..." Communicat (talk) 18:55, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Re 1. IMO, many people take for granted that the Axis started the war because it was evil, so no additional explanations are needed. That is incorrect, so at least a brief overview of each party's plans and intentions, as well as of their change during the course of the war is needed. Since the article's The War Becomes Global section states that:

"Hitler's objectives were to eliminate the Soviet Union as a military power, exterminate Communism, generate Lebensraum ("living space") by dispossessing the native population and guarantee access to the strategic resources needed to defeat Germany's remaining rivals."

and

"Japan planned to rapidly seize European colonies in Asia to create a large defensive perimeter stretching into the Central Pacific; the Japanese would then be free to exploit the resources of Southeast Asia while exhausting the over-stretched Allies by fighting a defensive war."

a mention of Nazi New World Order, Japanese Great Asia Co-Prosperity Zone is needed in the lede (as well as probably the mention of the Axis' anti-Communism, Nazi anti-Semetism etc.) However, I would go further and added similar description of each party's global plans to every WWII section (probably, with subsequent modification of the lede).

Re 2. Since partisan resistance has been only briefly mentioned in the article, I don't think it deserves mention in the lede. Try to modify the article first (although I personally think on additional details about partisan movements are needed in such a summary style article).

Re 3. Removal of weasel words (as well as a passive voice) is welcomed. I propose "Estimates of fatalities range from 50-million to 70-million killed."

Re 4. Disagree. The present wording is more neutral, because not all sources agree that CW was an immediate result of WWII. The present wordings means that new players emerged that were a CW's key participants. It leaves the question about the CW's start date beyond the scope, which is quite neutral and does not contradict to any existing source.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:27, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

re (I). What I meant was precis of military strategy per se; viz., along lines of "Britain's strategy was to disorganise and break the will of the German people through mass aerial bombardment, before attempting to launch any concerted ground attack on the European mainland. The Wehrmarcht's strategy against the USSR was an encircling movement aimed at separating Moscow from the rest of Russia. Italy's was blah blah. Japan's was (repeat as stated succinctly in the above quote you gave). Your other comments are valid.

re (2) Only Yugoslav communist resistance is mentioned in article, and it is refered to no less than six or seven times. No mention whatsover of very substantial Far East / Indo Chinese communist resistance. Conclusion: Eurocentric bias.

re (3) Agreed.

re (4) Okay then, leave the CW's start as is, but lead must mention start of the East-West nuclear arms race, which was of course a central feature of the CW. Communicat (talk) 22:59, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

Re 1. Seems too detailed for the lede, although we can discuss introduction of that into the main article;

Re 2. Please, read a Second Sino-Japanese war talk page. Many Chinese editors question the role of Chinese Communists in resistance to JIA. IMO, the present article should not contradict to the SSJW article unless you provided a very reliable sources as a support.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:33, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

re 1: Might strike you as "too detailed", but military strategy is highly relevant, conspicuously absent from current lead, and of central importance to any article on war, especially a lead intro. Hence, Lead should be expanded to accommodate military strategy, because lead is probably first thing people read and strategy is arguably the main thing they're interested in. Rest of article on related sub-issues should be substantially shortened to accommodate longer lead. As for Re 2, above: I think you'll find the "Chinese editors" referred to are in fact Taiwanese editors whose views are possibly tainted by biased anti-communist political agenda. Communicat (talk) 14:23, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

re 2: Eurocentric bias? Incidentally, this war was primarily a European war (a European proudly exclaimed while realizing that the two wars destroyed Europe beyond recognition or true recovery :). With all respect to the Second Sino-Japanese War, it can (and often is) easily be considered a separate conflict. No WWII history book I've read covered it in detail. Most you'll hear is "in Burma the British needed to keep the supplies running" or "a lot of Japanese resources were committed to the war in China". The Americans would easily have won without the Sino-Japanese War since the Pacific was won with naval and air power above all. Even if the Japs had occupied the whole of China, there'd be fighting in India but there wouldn't be any Japanese victory, but I digress. Even if we disregard all the above, to my knowledge the Communist Chinese primarily fought a "regular" war, holding their regions from the Japanese (albeit being more aggressive towards the Japs than the Kuomintang). --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 17:10, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Your "knowledge" is faulty, re the 'Communist Chinese primarily fought a "regular" war,'. See:

Mao's Guerilla Warfare chapter six And yes, you do digress somewhat, but nobody's perfect, hey? Communicat (talk) 18:29, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

Re Paul comment above: Please, read a Second Sino-Japanese war talk page. Many Chinese editors question the role of Chinese Communists in resistance to JIA. IMO, the present article should not contradict to the SSJW article unless you provided a very reliable sources as a support.--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:33, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

This is obfuscation and has no bearing on the matters at hand. There is nothing in this present discussion that contradicts the SSJW article in any way, though it may contradict some of the bellicose and UNsubstantiated TALK by dissidents on that article's talk page, which you are now presenting as a supposedly reliable source. I'm wasting my time trying to engage any of you in reasoned discussion. Communicat (talk) 10:54, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Pretty much any modern military strategy would disagree that grand strategy is about fighting, To refer back to Clausewitz, War is the delivery of foreign policy objectives by means of coercion. Initially the grand strategy was to force a withdrawal, although that very quickly became decapitation of the Reich.

ALR (talk) 11:38, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Following the Casablanca Conference the Allied goal was actually to force the unconditional surrender of Germany and Japan by destroying their ability to continue the war. Any changes of leadership (via decapitation) wouldn't have had any impact on this. Nick-D (talk) 11:52, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Hitler-Stalin Pact: Stalin invaded the Baltic Countries according to the stipulations he negociated with Hitler and alledgedly did in consent with his Western Allies. The crimes against the Baltic Nations is an important part of the total crime.

The article should reflect this crime as well and not duck the question of crimes against the Baltic population.

Additional the following attack of Stalinist Red Army on Poland an Finland must be mentioned.

Of course Hitler's totalitarian government, as well as lot of people in the Governments of Western countries such als GB and the USA were supporting Stalin's crimes, but wikipedia is not the right place to sugarcoat theses historic facts as happens now.

85.176.225.117 (talk) 12:06, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

All those actions by the USSR are mentioned (with links to the specific articles) in the 'War breaks out in Europe' section. Nick-D (talk) 12:10, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Re ALR posting above re "...disagree that grand strategy is about fighting..." You'll notice in preceding talk that I subsequently modified my wording "grand strategy" to "military strategy". A top-level and much visited military history article that omits any reference to military strategy does merit some constructive criticism, don't you think?. Communicat (talk) 12:38, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Re Direktor posting of 17:10, 12 August 2010 (UTC) above viz., "...the Communist Chinese primarily fought a 'regular" war,' and my rebuttal thereof, i.e. "read Mao's Guerilla Warfare chapter six ". I take it Direktor's subsequent silence on the issue indicates that he concurs. Communicat (talk) 21:35, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Admin pse dont archive; not dormant; may be subject to dispute mediation etc Communicat (talk) 11:47, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Communist-led resistance

Discussion has become so desultory and threatened by TL/DR, so I'm starting new section to revisit as yet unresolved issues previously raised. Here are sources / substantiation for communist-led resistance, (editors have questioned effectivness of communist-led partisans and/or berated me for not providing source references):

China: McArthur cited in Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, (9 vols) Tokyo and New York: Dondasha 1983, Vol VII, pp.201-2 describes anti-Japanese communist guerillas as "only body of fighting men in China worth mentioning." US president Truman, describing effectiveness of communist guerillas: "If we told the Japanese to lay down their arms immediately (after surrender) and march to the seaboard, the entire country would be taken over by the communists. We therefore had to take the unusual step of using the enemy as a garrison ...” Harry S Truman, Memoirs, (2 vols), New York: Doubleday 1956, Vol II, p.66.

Korea: Communist anti-Japanese resistance is described in Jon Halliday & Bruce Cumings, Korea: The unknown war, London: Viking, 1988, Chap.1

Greece: Bruce R Kuniholm, Origins of the Cold War in the Near East, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1980; Prokopis Papastratis, "The British and the Greek Resistance Movements EAM and EDES", in Marion Sarafis (ed.), Greece: From Resistance to Civil War, Nottingham: Spokesman 1980, p.36

Italy: Sources already provided.

Europe general: Sources already provided.

Malaya: Sources already provided.

Phippines: Nick-D has sources, no doubt. Communicat (talk) 13:15, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

You make no suggestions for actionable improvements to the article, so I have no idea what you expect from this. Also a statement like "Italy: Sources already provided." has no meaning in this thread which should be understandable as a stand-alone discussion.

The previous discussion on this exact same topic (Anti-communist prejudice) seems to have died a natural death 5 days ago, so please do not try to revive this dead horse. Arnoutf (talk) 13:55, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

No, it has not died a natural death. Far from it. Nor is it my problem if Nick-D and others have thus far been unable to deal cohesively with the unresolved points at issue -- see postings of Nick-D (talk) 08:06, 8 August 2010 (UTC) and my responses Communicat (talk) 15:27, 8 August 2010 (UTC) under section "Editing dispute". I have made several actionable suggestions towards improvements. How about making some actionable / useful / thoughtful contribution yourself, towards improvement of the lead? Communicat (talk) 14:30, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Do not ever again change your posts AFTER a response has been given. This is unacceptable behaviour as you falsify the answer response structure of talk pages, and can, if you want to make look the editors you are talking to look as if acting in bad faith.

With regard to an actionable suggestion, where exactly in this thread "communust-led resistance" have you proposed an actionable action to the improvement of the article? Arnoutf (talk) 14:37, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

OK what is it your trying to change this time -- what are thsi refs saying??. Moxy (talk) 14:48, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

• China: "McArthur cited in Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan, (9 vols) Tokyo and New York: Dondasha 1983, Vol VII, pp.201-2 describes anti-Japanese communist guerillas as "only body of fighting men in China worth mentioning." - You would like to do what with this? as its a pov by one person..
• "Harry S Truman, Memoirs, (2 vols), New York: Doubleday 1956, Vol II, p.66." - we are to add what to were and how??
• "Korea: Communist anti-Japanese resistance is described in Jon Halliday & Bruce Cumings, Korea: The unknown war, London: Viking, 1988, Chap.1" Interesting and we do what whit this one??
• "Greece: Bruce R Kuniholm, Origins of the Cold War in the Near East, Princeton: Princeton University Press 1980; Prokopis Papastratis, "The British and the Greek Resistance Movements EAM and EDES", in Marion Sarafis (ed.), Greece: From Resistance to Civil War, Nottingham: Spokesman 1980, p.36 " - again not sure what we can do if we cant read the pages in question or are told what its for!

Response to Arnoutf re ... unacceptable behaviour as you falsify the answer response structure of talk pages, and can, if you want to make look the editors you are talking to look as if acting in bad faith If you read the history editing summary, you'll see that I merely added few more sources which I'd earlier forgotten to include. This change was in no intended to "falsify the response structure" nor was it intended to have a bad-faith effect on you or anyone else. There was a save-page editing conflict that prevented me posting the additions prior to your rapid response. In any event, please accept my apologies if I've hurt your feelings. My actionable suggestions which you inquire about were originally and clearly defined in related section headed "Anti-communist prejudice", which you might care to refer to. Those who've followed attentively / participated in the relevant discussion thus far should have no problem in understanding the pertinence of this present thread.

For the edification of Moxy above: I'm not trying to change anything "this time", as you irately put it. Instead, I'm still pursuing my earlier endeavours (see section Anti-communist prejudice, and later comment re Eurocentricism somewhere else above and other closely inter-related discussion about improvement of the lead). I'd proposed inclusion in a lead paragraph of the fact that the Allied side was actively supported by communist-led resistance groups around the world. My associated edit of the lead, (following Moxy's order of "don't put tags, just fix it") was rapidly undone and reverted by Nick-D. Further obstructionism from various other editors were to the effect that resistance was not communist-led, that resistance support was not worth mentioning because resistance was non-existent or negligible, and that I must provide sources to support any position to the contrary. I've now done all that. Take it or leave it. I'm outta here. Communicat (talk) 15:44, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I propose to split the issue onto 2.5 parts:

1. Was the contribution of the partisan movement as whole into the Allied war efforts big enough to be mentioned in this summarystyle article? (of course I exclude Yugoslav partisans, who in actuality was a serious fighting force that tied down considerable Axis forces, and Polish resistance; both of them do deserve mention)
2. Did Communists play a leading role in the partisan movement?

(and one subquestion): What about pro-Axis partisans?

IMO, the problem is that the dispute is mainly focused on #2, whereas I still am not sure if we need to discuss partisan movement (except Yugoslavs and Poles) at all (due to its relatively low military contribution), and, if we decided to do that, why should we restrict ourselves with pro-Allied partisans only.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:17, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

@communicat: 40 minutes between your post and my response can hardly be seen as a "rapid response" for a high traffic article like WWII. Also, this is not the first time you have been changing posts after responses to the post, so while in this case it was not very problematic, the pattern is seriously worrying me indeed.

@communicat: If you think this is part of another thread you should include it to that post. Treating the whole of a talk page as a single topic discussion smells a lot towards claiming ownership. The interested uninvolved editor should be able to respond to each single thread, and your claim that involved editors will understand goes against the idea that everyone can edit (THE main idea of Wikipedia).

@PaulSiebert, I agree with your arguments. Resistance movements were in general ineffective (although their after-war claims are rather more grandiose; with the exceptions of Yugoslavian and early Polish attempts).

More in general Even if communist resistance was perhaps stronger than most, they tended to be isolated in Western Europe and not leading. In the Netherlands (which did not have a strong resistance movement) for example, fundamentalist Christian and communist were among the fiercest resistance movements (as for both Nazism went against their core beliefs) but they did not like each other at all; let alone that either conceded leadership to the other. Arnoutf (talk) 17:33, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Arnoutf, you are irritating and disruptive. Please stop your personal attacks on me, assume good faith, and get on with the more interesting business of improving the lead. Communicat (talk) 18:29, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

To Paul: Not being an intelligence agency, it's impossible for me to quantify "proof" of extent of either non-communist or communist partisan contribution -- just as, by same token, it's not possible to quantity contributions of individual regular armies (see discussion at above section "US, USSR at top"). Besides, aside from actual fighting and tying down of enemy troops, how does one quantify the value of every shot-down Allied pilot rescued, every assisted escape of POWs, every piece of intelligence provided to Allied high command about enemy movements and disposition, and suchlike non-combatant resistance activities?.

The sources I've provided above and preceding, when considered collectively, indicate substantial communist-led resistance contribution that merits mention as proposed. Proposal does not suggest any fullblown discussion, just half a sentence, after identifying key belligerents, saying "Allies were supported by mainly communist-led partisans around the world". Polish resistance numbers are far outweighed by collective numbers of communist partisans.

I concur, Polish resistance was multifarious, was not fully communist-led, (and even included anti-communists and very active Jewish resistance group not usually mentioned in the literature). Chinese communist guerillas, by contrast, were very large and prominent factor in overall resistance equation. (To quote SSJW article, communist guerilla force estimated at more than a million combatants, and see also McArthur and Truman quotes provided above).

I think that answers your (1) and (2) above. As for pro-Axis partisans: now there's a relatively tiny and highly insiqnificant partisan grouping (including post-war nazi White Wolves) certainly not worth mentioning in summary. Communicat (talk) 18:29, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Excuse me but your remarks and actions in this and other threads are uncivil, assuming bad faith, and disruptive at the same time towards me to a degree none of my justified questions and remarks are. So basically in the light of your most recent response I cannot say more than SHUT UP you re going all that is Wikipedia by accusing me of all the thing you are doing to me at least several magnitudes more.

Basically, I never assume bad faith, but if the editor is confusing rather than illuminating whatever (s)he is suggesting that is sometimes hard to keep to. In the light of this large and over-arching article you have done nothing to suggest that the rather marginal resistance movements (except perhaps (notice this word) Yugoslavian partisan) require any mention in the lead, so my suggestion would be to stop listening to any suggestion you make and leave the lead as it is (which is an actionable suggestion). PS in my experience editors blaming other editors being the first in a discussion to explicitly question good faith of other editors tend to act in bad faith in 99 out of 100 cases......... Arnoutf (talk) 19:00, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Get a life Communicat (talk) 19:10, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Which is a personal remark and has no relevance whatsoever to improving this article and as such has no place on Wikipedia. But of course, if you cannot distinguish between discussion here and personal remarks towards other editors perhaps you just do not understand the meaning of Wikipedia. Arnoutf (talk) 19:16, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I understand perfectly your meaning, which is to impede progress by disrupting the cohesiveness of this section which, as you might have noticed, is headed "Communist-led resistance". If you (and others) don't like the message, don't shoot the messenger. If you want to attack me personally, you're invited to make use of my talk page. Otherwise, please cut it out and do some productive work here. Communicat (talk) 19:57, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok, ignoring all personal attacks against my person, I will ask again these productive questions:

1. What are your specific suggestions with this, as from your posts it is not clear what you think should be added/changed?
2. Where exactly in this (rather large and broad) article do you think such information should be added?
3. You seem to suggest that communist resistance should be added to the lead, is this correct?

• • In earlier discussions and in the present thread it has been discussed that resistance in general (including communist resistance) has only been of minor influence on the war effort (with the notable exceptions of Poland and Yugoslavia). If you indeed suggest to add resistance, or even more specifically communist resistance, I have not yet seen arguments to ustify that (but of course I may have misinterpreted you and you were not referring to the lead).

(PS Your edit summary is rather rude (quote) "reply to disrupter" and proves you do not assume good faith, if you do not see that you are at least a significant part of the problem you have with other editors you really should consider another forum than Wikipedia) Arnoutf (talk) 20:42, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

It's implicit in my suggested changes to the lead that appropriate changes / deletions / additions / corrections should be made to the main body of article wherever highly relevant and important article mainbody topics/subject matter have either been overlooked, understated or are otherwise absent from the article. For instance: role of signficant communist partisan resistance apart from Yugoslavs in supporting Allies; precis of belligerants' military strategies; decolonisation in aftermath of war; etc. I've several times already justified / substantiated / argued the rationale for all those changes in preceding discussion, together with supporting references, citations etc. I'm very sorry but I just don't have the time or energy to repeat myself yet again. (I've had to repeat myself for a couple of other editors already). If you're really interested and have the motivation, (I'll forgive you if you don't), you'll find everything you need to know in the current, unfortunately complex and convoluted discussion dispersed over the several inter-related sections above (i.e. flawed overview; editing dispute; anti-communist prejudice; communist-led resistance etc; and probably some more, unresolved and already in the archives, together with my undone and reverted edits concerning some of this. Communicat (talk) 22:56, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

If you put it like that I can only say that all my reasons why I think your suggestions go too far can be found somewhere in the British library. To paraphrase you "If you're really interested and have the motivation, (I'll forgive you if you don't), you'll find everything you need to know in the books and other resources of the British library".

Of course you can also just accept that repeating a point where you did not get agreement again and again and again will not change the majority view that your suggestions should not be incorporated in the article. Just like you, me and other editors do not have time or energy to keep repeating the problems with your suggestion.

Simply put, if you want to reopen a discussion that has ground to a stalemate, it is up to you to open it as a comprehensible stand alone discussion. Otherwise other editors cannot be expected to give any useful responses to your new thread. Arnoutf (talk) 09:36, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I'll wait another few days, if all foregoing outstanding issues are not resolved thoughtfully by then, I'll request mediation and declare a dispute tag at head of article. Communicat (talk) 11:58, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

"All foregoing outstanding issues" - this is not workable. Each discussion point needs to be solved on its own merit (as I have said repeatedly before)

The dispute as it is seems to be the case of a U-1 consensus not to change, with one editor having a problem with that. If you put up a dispute tag make sure that you create a single talk page section that contains all relevant information to discuss the dispute (i.e. a section that does not point back to other threads).

Please read WP:mediation Wikipedia:Mediation Committee/Policy. Basically you will need agreement of the other editors here to take it to mediation. Arnoutf (talk) 17:11, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Re your I can only say that all my reasons why I think your suggestions go too far can be found somewhere in the British library. That's not good enough. Please cite your sources, just as I've taken the time and trouble to do. Re your "paraphrasing" of "my" comments: "... you'll find everything you need to know in the books and other resources of the British library" ; please don't put words in my mouth, and/or don't alter the meaning of what I've said to suit yourself. And don't presume to have the authority to speak on behalf of "other editors", e.g. your "... me and other editors do not have time or energy etc ..." PS: If I stop responding to your silly remarks from now on, please don't interpret my silence as agreement with anything further that you might still feel the need to say to me. Communicat (talk) 17:40, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

To Paul: In view of your silence thereto, I take it that you concur with my posting of 18:29, 14 August 2010 (UTC) above, which responds to yours of 16:17, 14 August 2010 (UTC) above, before Arnouft started butting in with raving diversions. Communicat (talk) 17:48, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Please, explain what concrete text do you propose to add into the article (with sources), and explain where it is supposed to be inserted.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:57, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes please do as most of my "raving" have been requests to do just that. Give a concrete proposal supported by reliable sources, a specific location where to change the text, and a rationale why you think it should be so? Arnoutf (talk) 18:27, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Re Paul above -- Concrete text proposed: "Allies were supported militarily by mainly communist-led guerrilla movements around the world." (Source: Myron J. Smith, The Secret Wars, Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 1988). To be inserted in lead, after identifying key belligerents, either in present lead or in new lead currently under revision (?). Communicat (talk) 19:39, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

There are three things. First of all, we have argued above that in some countries communist movements were leading but not in all, probably not even in the majority. (Note that I think communist movements were important in many countries, but your statement goes much further claiming that it was by far the most important (based on the word "leading") in the vast majority of countries (based on the word "mainly"). Secondly, most of the resistance were not guerilla but much more modest resistance movements. Thirdly, around the world needs rephrasing as that would imply there were important communist lead resistance movements in the majority of countries, including those of the Americas, Africa and Oceania. Arnoutf (talk) 20:11, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe it is premature to speak about this modification of the lede until at least one para about partisan resistance is added into the main article. Let's speak about modifications of the main article first.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:07, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Wish someone had said that in the first place, at the outset of topic. Would have saved lots of time and trouble. Thanks however for granting / recognising that one-paragraph mention should be made of partisans world-wide. That should dispel what could otherwise be construed as racist view that only white Europeans were capable of resistance. Comment by other editor is blinkered and effete, and can easily be countered if/when appropriate edit time arises. Communicat (talk) 12:10, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed that we first have to work in partisan resistance before it can be part of the lead, which should indeed be a summary of the main text.

After we have created such a paragraph where there is much more space for information (e.g. where resistance movements were effective and where not, where they were communist led, where not etc (with references of course). We can revisit if and what should be in the lead about resistance movements, and whether the whole issue of communism is still relevant once we have contructed a main text about resistance movements.

The section "impact" or possibly the lower level section "occupation" seem relevant for resistance (although for Yugoslavia and China that were never fully occupied this may not be the best. Arnoutf (talk) 13:57, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Admin pse do not archive; not dormant; may be subject to dispute mediation Communicat (talk) 11:44, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

"Subordinate" countries in the infobox

I propose we remove all countries that were not completely independent from the infobox, since its getting rather crowded.

• On the Axis side that would mean removing the puppet states
  • Thailand
  • Manchukuo
  • Slovakia
  • Independent State of Croatia
• On the Allied side we'd be representing the countries of the British Empire with the British infobox entry (also possibly adding a note clearly stating that Empire troops were involved). This would mean
  • South Africa
  • New Zeeland
  • Australia
  • Canada

I think it would be a good idea to de-clutter the infobox and leave the independent combatants only. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 13:16, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree decluttering the infobox would be a good thing. I think we should do it slightly different though. My suggestion would be to leave Canada in (as Canadian armies played their own role from D-day onwards).

I agree with all your other deletions, but would suggest to take out additional countries that were rapidly overrun (Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Norway, and Poland) and played no major military role in the conflict on the allied side.

Also Vichy France was officially neutral, but de fact a puppet state of the Germans, and not an axis state, so I would remove them as well. (and perhaps rename France in the allies list to Free French). Arnoutf (talk) 18:27, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

• Canada. I thought of that myself, the problem is that the status of Canada was equal to that of Australia, NZ, etc. If we de-clutter the infobox based on level of independence it would seem like "preferential treatment", if you will. I wouldn't seriously mind but from an Australian standpoint, for example, that might seem inappropriate. I think it would be best to treat the Empire countries equally whatever the case.
• Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands perhaps may grudgingly go based on their brief "Denmark-like" overwhelming. However I do not strongly support the notion, I would merely add "(1940)" to their entries instead of "(1940-1945)". "(1940-1945)" seems rather like wishful thinking.

As for the rest, their inclusion and the length of involvement within the conflict should be imho determined by the strength of the resistance. For example, if we have resistance à la France (minor acts of sabotage/reconnaissance) then no, however if its à la Yougoslavie (military formations numbering in the thousands holding territory and fighting full-scale battles), then yes.

• Poland certainly warrants inclusion I should say, under any criteria. However, it may be a good idea to add "(1939)" to its entry. Poles in Polish unis within foreign armies such as the (Royal or Red one) certainly do not somehow "prolong" the fight of Poland as a separate combatant authority. However, since I am unfamiliar with the extent of Polish 1940-1945 resistance within Poland itself, I cannot say whether "(1939)" should be added. I cannot agree to its removal from the infobox, though.
• Greece. To my knowledge the Greek resistance, though plagued with internal conflicts, was still a relatively effective military-style partisan force. If its anything like the Yugoslav Front, I would not move Greece (nor add a note stating that Greece fought only in 1941).
• France. The problem with renaming the French entry into "Free French" is that France itself fought the Germans in 1940, and then remained neutral 1940-1944 ("Vichy France"). Its a touchy question. Here's what we probably should do, if we really went by the book:
  "Allies: France (1940)<br />Free France (1940-1945)",
  and we should of course strike any further mention of (Vichy) France from the Axis column. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 22:25, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

• I agree we should remove some countries from the infobox, but it should be the countries like Belgium, the Netherlands and Norway. Australia and (especially) Canada contributed enough to warrant their flags in the infobox. From the standpoint of someone who is interested in WWII (and also a Canadian, I will admit), I can't agree with the flag of one of the three countries that landed at Normandy not being included in the infobox, not to mention the other important roles Canada played in things like the Atlantic and the liberation of the Netherlands. --PlasmaTwa2 23:55, 15 August 2010 (UTC)

Canada was part of the British Empire, I see no reason why it cannot be included in the British entry. Why is then the New Zealand entry to be excluded? No, there is really no reason to list all Empire dominions that took part. India contributed to the victory with very significant numbers of troops just for example.

Also, Overlord itself (with perhaps the exception of Omaha) is vastly overrated in the public mind. Juno Beach in particular was just a standard walkover with Canadians outnumbering Germans 3:1 +air support +naval artillery - the Germans just surrendered. In addition, from a strictly professional historic viewpoint, Canadian units were probably the worst troops in the Allied ranks throughout the entire Normandy Campaign, performing very poorly on the whole (the Falaise Gap comes to mind). Participation in a simple, brief conflict such as Juno is not really something to base infobox inclusion on.

In short, I'm strongly in favor of including British Empire dominions in the British entry, with a note listing the dominions contributing military forces example. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 00:58, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

If we are going to consolidate every British Empire country into one entry, it makes sense to do it like it is in the WWI article and include the United Kingdom as a member of the British Empire. The UK cannot be included in the infobox with every other British Empire country as a footnote to it. That signifies that the Dominions were under direct control of Britain, which isn't true. Each Dominion declared war by themselves and were considered on equal footing to the UK following the Statute of Westminister (At least Canada and Australia since they both ratified it during the War). The UK didn't lead Canada and Australia into the war by holding their hand, so it makes no sense to put them as a footnote next to the UK. As for New Zealand, I don't think it is questionable that, in miltary terms, Canada and Australia were much more important to the war than New Zealand was. --PlasmaTwa2 03:50, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

And as for India, I'm fairly positive that the consensus years ago (explaining why it has never been in the infobox to my knowledge) is that it was politically controlled by Britain itself; the same as Newfoundland. Canada had control of it's own foreign policy and was de facto independant. --PlasmaTwa2 04:11, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Here's a thought. Let's leave it alone. Why remove or add anything? Removing Belgium? Give me a break! See Battle of Belgium, it a GA! Belgium, Holland, Norway and yes Canada/Australia deserve to be included....--White Shadows ^{Nobody said it was easy} 04:24, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Re: "Canada was part of the British Empire, I see no reason why it cannot be included in the British entry. Why is then the New Zealand entry to be excluded?" Canada was not a part of British Empire (unlike India or Newfoundland). It was a dominion, which declared and conducted a war separately.--Paul Siebert (talk) 05:55, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I am aware of Canada's status as a dominion, but to my knowledge dominions are part of the British Empire? The Commonwealth includes Canada, Australia, etc., and it was formed out of the countries of the British Empire. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 11:01, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, but according to Statute of Westminster 1931 the dominions (by contrast to colonies) became fully independent.--Paul Siebert (talk) 12:12, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I am not questioning Canada's or Australia's or New Zeeland's independence, of course not, what I'm saying is that we might consider including them in the British entry along with the other countries of the British Empire? The "United Kingdom" entry as it stands now does certainly not include only the United Kingdom itself, but also other countries of the Empire. The only goal here is to make the infobox more elegant in representing the combatants, and I thought this might be a good way to introduce brevity into the account. I'm not going to press the issue, though, I do know full well that Canada in particular contributed large numbers to the war effort.

My point is that in grand strategic terms of WWII the British Empire represents one homogeneous entity, an "alliance within an alliance" if you will, and that representing it as such within the British entry may be a good way to shorten the account (5 entries -> 1 entry). I am not (pro-)British and I certainly have nothing against Canada (who does? :), I'm just throwing a proposal on the table. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 12:40, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The infobox is not necessarily about countries per se but about Belligerents viz., combatants, that being so, the infobox might therefore also include the standards (flags) of the Peoples Liberation Army of China, the Yugoslav partisans, the Korean liberation force, and the Vietminh. Communicat (talk) 13:29, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The idea is to declutter the infobox, not to add more. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 16:25, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, I thought the idea was to be accurate and objective. The entire article could do with some decluttering. Communicat (talk) 17:12, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

If we want to be fully accurate we should mention every single country involved, which would include (among many others) Luxembourg and Denmark. We have to find a line between being complete but becoming bogged down in details and excluding too much. I think (and I am Dutch), that the Netherlands can go so can Belgium as this battle of 18 days was of no major influence on the war. France itself was also easily overrun, but perhaps we can keep that as it was one of the great powers. Arnoutf (talk) 18:15, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm 100% against removing Belgium or the Netherlands. They are mentioned a lot in the article and not having them in the infobox would make readers wonder.....--White Shadows ^{Nobody said it was easy} 18:24, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Well I don't like the idea much either. My proposal was to remove the four Axis puppets and to reorganize the four British Empire dominions into the British entry.

I do, however, think that Belgium and the Netherlands (and Norway, if it stays) need to have the "(1940)" note included in their entries. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 20:54, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

As it has been pointed out, countries like Canada and Australia were not a part of the British Empire unlike for example India and large parts of Africa and were independent countries. Even though I understand the need to perhaps cleanup the infobox I think this would be misleading, as it is incorrect. It's harder to justify countries like Iraq who participated for around one month with little casualties and with little to no impact on the war. Also, in what way can Petain be described as a major Axis leader? If we are trying to remove puppet countries to make the infobox shorter, why then add their leaders? Besides, Vichy was legally neutral for most of their short existence. --Nirvana77 (talk) 20:42, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I agree that Petain should probably be removed, perhaps replaced with the Bulgarian Tsar (we have Romania and Hungary). As for Iraq, why not? It was an independent state fighting on the Axis side. If we're removing puppets only I can see no reason to exclude Iraq. After all, Belgium and the Netherlands were actively fighting for a lot shorter period, etc.

While I am aware of the difference between an Imperial dominion and a colony, dominions like Canada and Australia (though undoubtedly independent) were indeed very much part of the British Empire, just as they are now part of the Commonwealth of Nations. I do not see how it is misleading to include them under that heading. The British Empire was very much an "alliance within an alliance" inside the Allies, represented and led by Great Britain (i.e. Churchill), and constituting (in the terms of WWII) a very homogeneous entity. I would like to see a source confirming the statement that Canada and Australia were somehow "not part of the British Empire", as I consider it erroneous. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 21:55, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

I think what he meant by saying they weren't part of the Empire was that they weren't dependant on Britain like India; for example, Canada and Australia declared war themselves, instead of automatically being at war when Britain declared war on Germany. The problem I have with putting Empire countries as a footnote next to Britain is that it gives the impression that they were not independant forces in their own right. Whether or not Britain led the Empire is irrelevant - they were equal members of the Empire and giving precidence to Britain makes no sense when none of the countries you want to place as a footnote were under British control. There are a lot of people who might be offended if the article suggests that an independant country was subservant to another, myself included. If every country was a member of the British Empire, then every country can be listed under the name "British Empire". Labelling these countries as subordinate is as false as saying they weren't members at all. And another thing; please don't edit the template. There is no kind of consensus here yet to change it. --PlasmaTwa2 06:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

So in other words, Canada was a part of the British Empire. For the seventh time, independence has nothing to do with my argument here. I am very well versed in WWII history, if I do say so myself, and am fully aware of the level of independence Empire dominions enjoyed. My argument is that in grand strategic terms of WWII the British Empire represents one homogeneous entity, an "alliance within an alliance" if you will, and that representing it as such within the British entry may be a good way to shorten the account (5 entries -> 1 entry). --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 09:28, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Can you please identify the sources you're using support your view that the self-governing dominions were entirely subordinate to Britain in foreign affairs and defence matters? I can't say that I care much either way, but this does need some justification. It's certainly the case that the self-governing dominions subordinated their defence and foreign policies to Britain in the early years of the war, but Australia largely aligned itself with the US from January 1942 and the war lead to the beginnings of independent Australian defence and foreign policies. Nick-D (talk) 11:26, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

"Self-governing dominions were entirely subordinate to Britain in foreign affairs and defence matters"?, they were not and I made no such claim. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 12:34, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Could you please explain what you mean by "My point is that in grand strategic terms of WWII the British Empire represents one homogeneous entity" then and the sources you've consulted which support this view? (though I note that some other sources stress disunity between the Commonwealth/Empire countries). There was significant diversity between the views and actions of the self governing dominions, though I agree that overall they normally acted together. As I said, I don't care that much one way or the other and agree that de-cluttering the infobox is long overdue, but you seem to be arguing on the basis of your personal views as you haven't provided any sources. Nick-D (talk) 22:49, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

With the infobox in mind I'd like to ask a question: was Siam a true puppet state or closer to an "unequal ally" of Japan, similar to the relationship between Hungary and Germany? --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 22:01, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

What do the sources say? Nick-D (talk) 11:26, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

That's just it, I cannot find any clear description of Siam's status. It was undoubtedly in an unequal relationship with Japan, but so were Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria with respect to Germany and they were not puppets. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 12:33, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

My understanding is that Thailand (as the country was named at the time) was independent but under Japanese dominiation. I'll check my copy of the Oxford Companion to World War II when I get home - it should have an article on the country. Nick-D (talk) 22:49, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, you can see how the case is somewhat borderline, "independent but under Japanese dominiation" :). Look forward to clarifying this. --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 23:02, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The Oxford Companion to World War II entry on Thailand states that, in essence, the country was aligned with Japan after the first few days of the Pacific War, but remained an independent country. Its armed forces briefly resisted the Japanese invasion and then played a minor role in the Japanese invasion of Burma in early 1942 but didn't see any further combat. Nick-D (talk) 10:41, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

At least one para is missing in the lede.

In my opinion, the lede does not adequately reflect the article, because the course of the war (the article's major part) is absolutely not reflected there. The para about the war's start:

"The war is generally accepted to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and most of the countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth. China and Japan were already at war by this date, whereas other countries that were not initially involved joined the war later in response to events such as the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the Japanese attacks on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and on British overseas colonies, which triggered declarations of war on Japan by the United States, the British Commonwealth, and the Netherlands."

is immediately followed by a the para about the war's outcome and aftermath:

"The war ended with the total victory of the Allies over Germany and Japan in 1945. World War II left the political alignment and social structure of the world significantly altered. While the United Nations was established to foster international cooperation and prevent future conflicts, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which would last for the next forty-six years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers started to decline — while the decolonization of Asia and of Africa began. Most countries whose industries had been badly damaged began moving toward economic recovery and across the world political integration emerged in an effort to peacefully stabilise after war relations."

By contrast to, e.g. the WWI lede, nothing has been said about the major parties' objectives, how the war developed, about the main theatres etc. That seems odd taking into account that a whole para is devoted to the war's start date (which is ridiculous, and in that sense I agree with Communicate).

I propose to think how to fix that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:36, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Bearing it mind that it's a summary article, which condenses the entirety of WWII, which was of far wider scope and complexity than WWI, it may be a bit of a challenge to condense the main contents into one paragraph. However, I suppose, very briefly:

1. German war aims.
2. German early successes
3. Japanese war aims
4. Japanese early success
5. Reverses to Germany in Russia
6. America enters war, re-invasion of Europe.
7. Reverses to Japan in Pacific

Even with only one densely packed sentence each, that is a paragraph, and it misses a lot. (Hohum ^@) 18:19, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good, although I would suggest to add the grinding down of German advance towards UK and in the atlantic, basically adding tat to the lines Reverse to German advance. This would be a line, or a version thereof something like:

"By the end of 1940 the Battle of Britain eliminated the threat of an invasion of the UK. By the end on 1941 operation Barbarossa had ended in a failure to overwhelm the USSR. With the UK victory in El Alamein in 1942 German ground forces were no longer advancing on any major front, and were forced to abandon Africa and to the defensive on the eastern front." Arnoutf (talk) 20:33, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Maybe include British War Cabinet minister (of Aircraft Production), Colonel Moore-Brabazon's articulation of British grand strategy: "Let the German and Soviet armies tear into each other. We will pick up the pieces." McClaine, Ian, Ministry of Morale: Home Front Morale and the Ministry of Information in World War II, London: Allen and Unwin, 1979, p.207 Communicat (talk) 21:14, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Re "With the UK victory in El Alamein ..." Nonsense. Australians, New Zealanders and especially South African's played an important role. Communicat (talk) 21:23, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

The Moore-Brabazon quote seems inappropriate on two counts. Firstly, a specific quote by an almost unknown figure would be too specific a piece of minutia even for the main body of this summary article, let alone the lead. Secondly, it would need to be used as a quote by an authoritative and reliable historical work which identified it as being representative of British grand strategy; not a book about propaganda.

Agree, "Allied victory at El Alamein" would cover all forces. (Hohum ^@) 22:44, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Re: "With the UK victory in El Alamein in 1942 German ground forces were no longer advancing on any major front..." I probably didn't understand something, but this is simply incorrect. By the end of the Second Battle of El Alamein the Paulus' Sixth Army was still conducting its offensive at Stalingrad. Moreover, some successful major offensives, e.g. Third Battle of Kharkov, which was more massive than whole African campaign, took place even after Stalingrad. The Battle of Kursk was also a German major offensive, and the Wehrmach did advance at the beginning.

Re: "... and to the defensive on the eastern front." It is not clear for me how the victory in Africa could force the Wehrmach to go to the defensive in the East, taking into account that the latter launched several successful major offensives in the East after El Alamein (see above).--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:04, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

You are right, the relation Africa-Russia was very careless; probably me wanting to phrase it too briefly. Let me try again to give the reversal of fortune line for Germany.

Suggestion for the first half for the European theatre. (open to rephrasing and suggestions) "Germany set out to establish a large German empire in Europe. In 1939 Poland was invaded and quickly overrun, in early 1940 German forces invaded and conquered most of North-Western Europe. By the end of 1940 the Battle of Britain eliminated the threat of an invasion of the UK stopping Germanys western advance. In 1941 operation Barbarossa aimed to overwhelm the USSR. The Germans advanced deep into Russia and managed to besiege Leningrad, reach the outskirts of Moscow and besiege Stalingrad. After the Russian victories at Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk in 1943 Germany no longer had the offensive initiative on any major front."Arnoutf (talk) 07:33, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Digression: Re Moore-Brabazon (Lord Brabazon, who even had an aircraft named after him, if I'm not mistaken). My suggestion was tongue-in-cheek. Thought it would be recognised as such. Turned out he was drunk at the time. Many a slip 'tween cup 'n lip. Or maybe in vino veritas?. Communicat (talk) 11:52, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Re: "Germany set out to establish a large German empire in Europe." Since Nazi goals were more global, I would propose:

"Germany set out to establish a large German empire in Europe, and eventually to dominate the world."

Re:"In 1939 Poland was invaded and quickly overrun, in early 1940 German forces invaded and conquered most of North-Western Europe." Since invasion of Poland has already been discussed in the previous para, since not only North-Western Europe was conquered, and because we speak not only about Germany, I would propose:

"During 1939-early 1941 by a series of successful military campaigns and political treaties the Axis conquered or politically subdued most of continental Europe besides neutral USSR."

Re: "By the end of 1940 the Battle of Britain eliminated the threat of an invasion of the UK stopping Germanys western advance." As someone correctly noted before, the Axis advance to the West was stopped by Atlantic ocean, not by Britain. In my opinion, it would be better to say that during late 1940 - first half of 1941 Britain remained the only Axis' military opponent they had to take into account. I propose:

"Britain eliminated the threat of an invasion of the islands thus remaining the only major anti-Axis fighting force, which continued extensive naval warfare and fight in Mediterranean."

Re: "In 1941 operation Barbarossa aimed to overwhelm the USSR. The Germans advanced deep into Russia and managed to besiege Leningrad, reach the outskirts of Moscow and besiege Stalingrad. After the Russian victories at Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk in 1943 Germany no longer had the offensive initiative on any major front." In my opinion, we do not need to focus on the geographical names that sound odd to the Anglophone audience and on other details. I think it would be sufficient to say that after June 22 a new theatre emerged that dwarfed all other theatres of WWII. In addition, it is incorrect to write about Germany only. For instance, Romania and Hungary sustained more than 600,000 military losses in the East, which demonstrate the degree of their involvement in the conflict. I also don't think we I propose:

"In June 1941, the European Axis invaded the USSR, thus giving a start to the largest land theatre of war in history, which, from this moment on was tying down and grinding down the major part of the Axis military power."

With regard to the rest part of the Eastern Front story, I think it should be told concurrently with the events in Pacific/Mediterranean. For instance, Midway, El-Alamein and Stalingrad should be combined in one sentence. I propose:

"In December 1941, Japan, which had already been at war with China since 1937, and which aimed to establish a dominance over East Asia and Oceania, attacked the US and European possessions there, quickly conquering significant part of the Pacific. The Axis expansion was stopped only in 1942 after defeat of Japan in a series of naval battles and after devastating defeats of European Axis troops in Mediterranean and at Stalingrad. In 1943, with a series of German defeats in the East and the Allied invasion of Italy the Axis no longer had the offensive initiative on any major front"

Summarising all said above, below is the text which describes the events before the D-Day:

"Germany set out to establish a large German empire in Europe. During 1939-early 1941 by a series of successful military campaigns and political treaties the Axis conquered or politically subdued most of continental Europe besides neutral USSR. Britain eliminated the threat of an invasion of the islands thus remaining the only major anti-Axis fighting force, which continued extensive naval warfare and fight in Mediterranean. In June 1941, the European Axis launched an invasion of the USSR, thus giving a start to the largest land theatre of war in history, which, from this moment on was tying down and grinding down the major part of the Axis military power. In December 1941, Japan, which had already been at war with China since 1937, and which aimed to establish a dominance over East Asia and Oceania, attacked the US and European possessions there, quickly conquering significant part of the Pacific. The Axis expansion was stopped only in 1942 after defeat of Japan in a series of naval battles and after devastating defeats of European Axis troops in Mediterranean and at Stalingrad. In 1943, with a series of German defeats in the East and the Allied invasion of Italy the Axis no longer had the offensive initiative on any major front."

I think, two or three more sentences about the end of the war would be enough. Feel free to modify the proposed text if you disagree with something or if you think the wording is awkward.--Paul Siebert (talk) 15:48, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Well said. How about adding something about Blitz of Britain coming to end when USSR became Britain's only fighting ally in Europe. GAF bombers shifted focus to bombing Russian cities. Not sure if that's in mainbody article, but if not, should be. Plentiful sources available. Communicat (talk) 16:02, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

@Paul, looks good, some minore suggestions for rewording (bold)

"Germany set out to establish a large German empire in Europe. During 1939-early 1941 in a series of successful military campaigns and political treaties the Axis conquered or politically subdued most of continental Europe apart from neutral USSR. Britain eliminated the threat of an invasion of the British islands thus remaining the only major Axis fighting force, continuing extensive naval warfare and fight in Mediterranean. In June 1941, the European Axis launched an invasion of the USSR, giving a start to the largest land theatre of war in history, which, from this moment on was tying down the major part of the Axis military power. In December 1941, Japan, which had already been at war with China since 1937, and which aimed to establish a dominance over East Asia and Oceania, attacked the US and European possessions in the Pacific, quickly conquering significant part of the region. The Axis advance was stopped in 1942 after defeat of Japan in a series of naval battles and after devastating defeats of European Axis troops in the Mediterranean and at Stalingrad. In 1943, with a series of German defeats in the East and the Allied invasion of Italy the Axis no longer had the offensive initiative on any major front."

@Communicat, the Luftwaffe (medium range) bombers were struggling with the range to do any substantial military damage to the UK by that time; also Luftwaffe could no longer protect the vulnerable bomber because of increasing fighter air defense in the UK. I am not convinced the moving of these rather inefficient bomber fleet to Russia seriously affected the war. I think this is an interesting topic for the battle of Britain article, but I think it is too detailed for this one, and in any case too detailed for the lead section. Arnoutf (talk) 16:34, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Correction: mine above should have read "Blitz on London" not "Blitz of Britain". I've sources to counter your view above. Await Paul input. Communicat (talk) 19:28, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok, but notice that the Blitz itself also had no major military impact. Still relevant for Battle of Britain but too much detail for this large overview article, let alone its lead. Arnoutf (talk) 20:05, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Currently the main article states: "The diversion of three quarters of the Axis troops and the majority of their air forces from France and the central Mediterranean to the Eastern Front prompted Britain to reconsider its grand strategy. " If that is what Communicat means, then the event which is only briefly mentioned in the article hardly deserve a mention in the lede. If Communicat believes the importance of this event is understated in the main article, let's discuss how to change the article first, and only after that can we speak about the lede's change.

One way or the another, the more I look at the lede the more I am inclined to think that Communicat was right that too much attention is devoted in the lede to the WWII start date. That is probably a result of an old dispute [5]. One way or the another, I think that, if the above text (the Arnoutf's version) will be supported by others, it would be good to combine the para starting with : "The war is generally accepted to have begun on 1 September 1939..." with the new text. Does anyone want to try to do that?

And, finally, we need to discuss how to describe D-Day and the events after that. I propose to focus on that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 20:25, 17 August 2010 (UTC)

Not sure if arse-about-face method is best, but according to exigencies of wiki methodology it might or might not turn out to be the only practical way. Debatable. My own preference, for what it's worth, would be the Pathfinder approach, viz., establish / modify lead first, and then revise mainbody, having defined in lead what must be the key ingredients to follow. (Bearing in mind especially that the article as a whole needs very extensive editing / shortening, otherwise is TL;DR). But that's just me.

Re Strategy: My point: What in fact was Britain's strategy (as distinct from tactics) before Britain "reconsidered strategy" as stated? (Maybe I'm just getting lost the maze here). Crucial Brit strategy was Strategic Air Offensive aka area bombing / terror bombing, which consumed very much more expenditure in terms of Brit casualties and money than was expended on Navy and Army (sources available). Which in turn was cause of delayed opening of second front in Europe. Merits at least one modest sentence in your reworking of para which can otherwise not be faulted. And speaking of sources, does your para indicate relaxation of sourcing rules in this instance?

Slight Digression: Re other editor's claim of Blitz not having any major military impact. It had profound impact in so far as it "justified" Brits subsequent retaliatory strategy of area bombing, i.e. bombing of civilian population. And never mind what other editor has to say about GAF's allegedly "inefficient bomber fleet". Destruction of Coventry, Stalingrad, Leningrad etc convincingly proves otherwise. Communicat (talk) 13:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I think writing the summary (=lead) before the main text requires at least agreement to fit the main text to the new lead very soon after. I think for an article as developed as this that is not very likely.

I guess you mean that you have a single reliable source that combines the argument: Focus on Air Offensive over Navy and Army led to delay in invasion in exactly the same way as you do; since combining this argument from several reliable sources would be synthesis a form of original research. I would be very interested in this source.

Heavy UK industry was moved to Scotland, outside the reach of medium range bombers, making them ineffective. Heavy Russian industry was moved beyond Ural making the bombers ineffective. That left them with a very usable role as ground support bombers, but since at that time there was no ground front in the struggle with the UK in Western Europe, the bombers were ineffective there as well. All other uses was terror bombing, which is not considered of any great military use by current historians. Arnoutf (talk) 17:20, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

My word, arn't you clever. So clever that you managed to miss the element of Strategy, regardles of whether it was good, bad or indifferent. Have you nothing better to do except react pedantically to everything and anything I post? What's your problem? Rhetorical question. Don't reply. Communicat (talk) 18:10, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Before talking about any British strategy, let's come to agreement about the strategy of modification of the article. We all agree that some modifications of the lede are desirable, however, please, take into account following considerations:

1. The article is a good article and it is really in the good shape;
2. The article is not a draft and not our sandbox;
3. The article is being constantly read by large number of ordinary readers, so at any concrete moment the article should be self-consistent.

In connection to that, I propose to do two things in parallel: firstly, to finish the work with the current lede to make it consistent with what the article says, and, secondly, to propose a new lede (and, accordingly, a new article's concept). However, this concept should not be based solely on Winer's writings, we need much more solid ground for these edits. Try to provide more sources, because I was unable to do that so far.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:36, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I think in the light of your point 1 (it is really in the good shape) that we should apply evolutionary improvements, rather than revolutionary overhauls of the article. If we adopt the evolutionary approach, I think that (after the proposed lead changes are implemented) we should probably work new additions/changes into the main text before revisiting the lead again. Arnoutf (talk) 19:49, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I took the most essential statements from the para telling about the war's start date and combined it with the version you edited. Below is what I got. If this version is accepted it will substitute the para about the start date and will be followed by the para about the war's results and aftermath. We have to think how to represent post D-Day's events, because the para is not finished by now.

""The war is generally accepted to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and most of the countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth. Germany set out to establish a large German empire in Europe. During 1939 — early 1941 in a series of successful military campaigns and political treaties the Axis conquered or politically subdued most of continental Europe apart from neutral USSR. Britain eliminated the threat of an invasion of the British islands thus remaining the only major force continuing the fight against the Axis in the Mediterranean and in extensive naval warfare. In June 1941, the European Axis launched an invasion of the USSR, giving a start to the largest land theatre of war in history, which, from this moment on was tying down the major part of the Axis military power. In December 1941, Japan, which had already been at war with China since 1937,, and which aimed to establish a dominance over East Asia and Oceania, attacked the US and European possessions in the Pacific, quickly conquering significant part of the region. The Axis advance was stopped in 1942 after defeat of Japan in a series of naval battles and after devastating defeats of European Axis troops in the Mediterranean and at Stalingrad. In 1943, with a series of German defeats in the East and the Allied invasion of Italy the Axis no longer had the offensive initiative on any major front."

The only thing, which is not clear for me is if "thus remaining the only major Axis fighting force" doesn't sound ambiguously. --Paul Siebert (talk) 20:41, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that bit reads a bit difficultly. How about "thus remaining the only major force continuing the fight against the Axis in the Mediterranean and in extensive naval warfare." For the rest looks good to me. Arnoutf (talk) 21:12, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Done. Let's think about post D-Day events.--Paul Siebert (talk) 21:46, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm really hoping that all of these edits are actually beneficial and will keep the article as a GA and not a GAR candidate. Communicat, please stop trying to make the text written the way that you want it to be. It does not appear that the current consensus is on your side to be honest....--White Shadows ^{Nobody said it was easy} 01:11, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

As some comments on the current proposed para (which I agree is an improvement):

• "Britain eliminated the threat of an invasion of the British islands" - "eliminated" is too strong. Britain managed to fend off invasion in 1940 by preserving the RAF while inflicting heavy loses on the Luftwaffe, but didn't 'eliminate' anything. There's also a lot of doubt in the sources about whether the Germans actually had the capability to invade Britain in 1940 given the underlying military and industrial balance of power, with the most common view being that it didn't. During this period Commonwealth forces were also rapidly building up in Britain in North Africa and started to reach significant levels. As such, I'd suggest that this be changed to simply "Britain and the Commonwealth remained the only major force continuing the fight against the Axis in the Mediterranean..."
• "aimed to establish a dominance over East Asia and Oceania" - Japan didn't intend to go anywhere near Oceania other than capturing the strategically important harbour at Rabaul to deny it to the Allies. The fact that some of the key battles of the Pacific War took place in and around New Guinea and the Solomon Islands was not anticipated by the Japanese, who never wanted to capture these areas. Also, the conquest of the Dutch East Indies in South East Asia was one of the main Japanese objectives in starting the war. As such, I'd suggest that this be changed to "aimed to establish a dominance over East Asia and South East Asia" Nick-D (talk) 11:00, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Good comments, thanks. Most of them I agree on taking in as you suggest. For the first "Britain eliminated the threat of an invasion of the British islands"; perhaps "After British victory in the Battle of Britain it was clear there was no threat of an invasion of the British islands" would do better. The British were scared of an invasion so there was at least a psychological threat, for which reason I would suggest to keep something like this in. Arnoutf (talk) 19:08, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Never mind, when placing in larger context my suggestion emphasise BoB too much. Arnoutf (talk) 21:02, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Re White Shadow 01:11, 19 August 2010 (UTC) order to me above: Don't know what you're talking about. I'm not allegedly "trying to make the text written" the way I want it to be. My posting of 13:55, 18 August 2010 (UTC) was in direct response to specific query posed to me by Paul regarding question of strategy. In fact, far as I'm concerned, the less I have to do with current reworking of the lead, the better for me. I've bigger fish to fry.

Please don't post any more on my talk page pleading with me not to go to arbitration. I am the one who will decide what to do regarding stalemate. The rules allow me up to three months to make up my mind. Communicat (talk) 20:24, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

The current proposal is now to replace the 2nd para of the lead with the following. Can you give further suggestions for improvement. Personally I think it is about ready to put into mainspace.
The war is generally accepted to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and most of the countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth. Germany set out to establish a large German empire in Europe. During 1939 — early 1941 in a series of successful military campaigns and political treaties the Axis conquered or politically subdued most of continental Europe apart from neutral USSR. Britain and the Commonwealth remained the only major force continuing the fight against the Axis in the Mediterranean and in extensive naval warfare. In June 1941, the European Axis launched an invasion of the USSR, giving a start to the largest land theatre of war in history, which, from this moment on was tying down the major part of the Axis military power. In December 1941, Japan, which had already been at war with China since 1937, and which aimed to establish a dominance over East Asia and South East Asia, attacked the US and European possessions in the Pacific, quickly conquering significant part of the region. The Axis advance was stopped in 1942 after defeat of Japan in a series of naval battles and after devastating defeats of European Axis troops in the Mediterranean and at Stalingrad. In 1943, with a series of German defeats in the East and the Allied invasion of Italy the Axis no longer had the offensive initiative on any major front. Arnoutf (talk) 21:02, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, since the Axis was formed after 1939, the second sentence should be changed to:

"During 1939 — early 1941 in a series of successful military campaigns and political treaties Germany conquered or politically subdued most of continental Europe apart from neutral USSR."

Secondly, some links would be helpful in the second and third sentences:

"Britain and the Commonwealth remained the only major force continuing the fight against the Axis in the Mediterranean and in extensive naval warfare. In June 1941, the European Axis launched an invasion of the USSR, giving a start to the largest land theatre of war in history, which, from this moment on was tying down the major part of the Axis military power."

Thirdly, we need to finish this para. Upon meditation, I came to a conclusion that it would be incorrect to start the next sentence with the D-Day, because the loss of offensive initiative refers to Kursk/Husky (summer 1943), so there is almost one year gap between these events. Therefore, the last sentence should be changed tp fill this gap. I propose:

"In 1943, with a series of German defeats in the Eastern Europe, the Allied invasion of Italy and American victories in the Pacific the Axis had lost strategic initiative and passed to strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944 the Western Allies invaded France, whereas the Soviet Union regained all territorial losses and invaded the territory of Germany and its allies. The war in Europe ended with capture of Berlin by Soviet troops and subsequent German surrender on May 8, 1945. By that time Japanese naval power was defeated by the US, and invasion of Home Islands became imminent."

If these changes are generally accepted the lede will look like:

"World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated as WWII or WW2), was a global military conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945 which involved most of the world's nations, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million military personnel mobilised. In a state of "total war", the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by significant action against civilians, including the Holocaust and the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare, it was the deadliest conflict in human history, that resulted in fifty million to over seventy million fatalities.

The war is generally accepted to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and most of the countries of the British Empire and Commonwealth. Germany set out to establish a large German empire in Europe. During 1939 — early 1941 in a series of successful military campaigns and political treaties Germany conquered or politically subdued most of continental Europe apart from neutral USSR. Britain and the Commonwealth remained the only major force continuing the fight against the Axis in the Mediterranean and in extensive naval warfare. In June 1941, the European Axis launched an invasion of the USSR, giving a start to the largest land theatre of war in history, which, from this moment on was tying down the major part of the Axis military power. In December 1941, Japan, which had already been at war with China since 1937, and which aimed to establish a dominance over East Asia and South East Asia, attacked the US and European possessions in the Pacific, quickly conquering significant part of the region. The Axis advance was stopped in 1942 after defeat of Japan in a series of naval battles and after devastating defeats of European Axis troops in the Mediterranean and at Stalingrad. In 1943, with a series of German defeats in the Eastern Europe, the Allied invasion of Italy and American victories in the Pacific the Axis had lost strategic initiative and passed to strategic retreat on all fronts. In 1944 the Western Allies invaded France, whereas the Soviet Union regained all territorial losses and invaded the territory of Germany and its allies. The war in Europe ended with capture of Berlin by Soviet troops and subsequent German unconditional surrender on 8 May, 1945. By that time Japanese naval power was defeated by the US, and invasion of Home Islands became imminent.

The war ended with unconditional surrender of Japan on 2 September, 1945. World War II left the political alignment and social structure of the world significantly altered. While the United Nations was established to foster international cooperation and prevent future conflicts, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which would last for the next forty-six years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers started to decline — while the decolonization of Asia and of Africa began. Most countries whose industries had been badly damaged began moving toward economic recovery and across the world political integration emerged in an effort to peacefully stabilise after war relations."

For comparison, below is the current lede:

"World War II, or the Second World War (often abbreviated as WWII or WW2), was a global military conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945 which involved most of the world's nations, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million military personnel mobilised. In a state of "total war", the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. Marked by significant action against civilians, including the Holocaust and the only use of nuclear weapons in warfare, it was the deadliest conflict in human history, that resulted in fifty million to over seventy million fatalities.

The war is generally accepted to have begun on 1 September 1939, with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by the United Kingdom and France with their colonies. China and Japan were already at war by this date, whereas other countries that were not initially involved joined the war later in response to events such as the German invasion of the Soviet Union and the Japanese attacks on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor and on British overseas colonies, which triggered declarations of war on Japan by the United States, the British Commonwealth, and the Netherlands.

The war ended with the total victory of the Allies over Germany and Japan in 1945. World War II left the political alignment and social structure of the world significantly altered. While the United Nations was established to foster international cooperation and prevent future conflicts, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as rival superpowers, setting the stage for the Cold War, which would last for the next forty-six years. Meanwhile, the influence of European great powers started to decline — while the decolonization of Asia and of Africa began. Most countries whose industries had been badly damaged began moving toward economic recovery and across the world political integration emerged in an effort to peacefully stabilise after war relations."

In my opinion, although the new lede is somewhat longer, the difference is not dramatic (21 vs 14 lines).--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:38, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Good work, and the revised central paragraph now covers the gap in the chronology identified by you at the start of this section. I would be happy if the text you put above is put in the article as it is. Thanks for the positive collaboration in this. Arnoutf (talk) 14:26, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to have missed this, but it seems a bit misleading to refer to a "neutral USSR" prior to June 1941 given that it took part in the invasion of Poland in September 1939 and generally acted in consultation with Germany. The Soviet Union was very much a player in the war prior to the German invasion. Nick-D (talk) 23:47, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Frankly, I didn't think the USSR activity during that period deserved a mention, because during the period between August 1939 (Molotov-Ribbentrop pact) and June 1941 (Barbarossa) it was not a major player. How do you propose to fix it? Frankly, the situation is very complex because from 1 Sept 1939 to 22 June 1941 the USSR:

1. Won a border war against Japan;
2. Expanded its territory at the expense of some Central European states;
3. Conducted a war against Finland;
4. Negotiated about further division of the spheres of influence with Germany;
5. Remained formally neutral.

How all of that can be described in few words? Probably "... apart from formally neutral USSR, which also expanded its territory at the expense of some of its neighbours."

From one hand, if you think it would be not too wordy for the lede, we can add that. From the other hand, I am not sure it would be absolutely correct in a situation when conquest of Norway, Danmark, Greece or Yugoslavia is left beyond the scope totally. --Paul Siebert (talk) 00:58, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps just omit 'neutral'. Nick-D (talk) 01:06, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

...with Romania making the largest contribution to recapture territory ceded to the USSR...

Taking into account that in the attempts "to recapture territory ceded to the USSR" Romania captured Odessa, established a control over Crimea and reached Stalingrad, it is hardly believable that to recapture Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina was the Romanian genuine and primary goal. I propose to re-phrase it.--Paul Siebert (talk) 23:03, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Had Germany won on the eastern front, I doubt that Rumania (Romania) would have been allowed to annex these lands. Their goals were lost territory and some of western Ukraine. How would you re-word it?--White Shadows ^{Nobody said it was easy} 23:07, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I think we do not need to tell about Romanian motives at all, because nothing is said about other Axis members and Finland. In addition, apart from Bessarabia, Romania was forced to cede significant part of its territory to Hungary, which didn't make it an anti-Axis country. In my opinion, this edit is a national POV, and very inconsistent POV: the editor wanted to mention a huge Romanian contribution into the war simultaneously trying to provide a plausible pretext for that (to stress a difference between Nazi Germany and Romania).--Paul Siebert (talk) 00:48, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Romanian opposition parties were against Romanian operations beyond Bessarabia and Bukovina. ([6]) Two preeminent political figures of the day, Iuliu Maniu and Constantin Brătianu declared that "the Romanian people will never consent to the continuation of the struggle beyond our national borders."(Charles King, The Moldovans: Romania, Russia, and the Politics of Culture, Hoover Institution Press, Stanford, CA, 2000. ISBN 081799792X) ----- The number of Romanian troops sent to fight in Russia exceeded that of all of Germany's other allies combined. A Country Study by the U.S. Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress attributes this to a "morbid competition with Hungary to curry Hitler's favor... [in hope of]... regaining northern Transylvania."(U.S. government Country study: Romania, c. 1990.[7])

I propose the wording "...with Romania making the largest contribution to recapture territory ceded to the USSR, gain Hitler's favor in hope of regaining Northern Transylvania, and pursue its leader Ion Antonescu's desire to combat communism." Lt.Specht (talk) 09:12, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes the venerable Herr Leutnant and his crusade against communism on Wikipedia :P. Yes, I'm sure Romania as a nation absolutely craved to fulfill its Führer's "desires" to fight communism... --DIREKTOR ^(TALK) 10:17, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

IMO, the reliable source must be provided to prove that the only Romanian goal was to recapture the territory annexed by the USSR after 1939, as well as "to combat Communism". In addition, I still got no explanation why Romanian motives are explained in the article, whereas Hungarian, Slovakian or Finnish are not.
However, since Romanian contribution into the war was really significant, I have no objections against mentioning of that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:11, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

At this late stage...

Recently, Comunicat has been lamenting that attempts to change this article "at this late stage" are futile. Checking the history, I found an old copy of the article from late 2001. That was only the oldest copy still available. So, the article is probably MORE than 10 years old. Communicat, my friend, we're not at any more of a "late stage" than we were in January when you started editing. This article will continue to be edited as long as Wikipedia exists. We don't have to worry about a deadline after which no more edits can be made. The article should be continually edited and improved. We won't have a final version unless they pull the plug on Wikipedia. So, the removal of dubious sources and the addition of other POV sources (or, preferably, NPOV sources) can and should continue, with vigorous attention to detail for many years to come. Once more into the breach my friends! --Habap (talk) 14:20, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

If you're gonna quote me, please do so in proper context and with relevance. My "lament" pertains to topic entirely separate and different from commendable revision of lead as currently underway. Said revision has my full support. In fact, and modesty aside, I believe it was I who instigated the currently ongoing revision in the first place (see topic sections Flawed Lead etc originated few weeks ago, somewhere above). So I'm certainly not complaining about any "late stage" in that particular context. Get over it.

As for your stated intention to add "other POV sources etc", good luck to you. My own experience has been that when any sources are submitted that deviate from the conservative / Western / mainstream paradigm, they are rejected, obstructed, or dismissed arbitrarily by certain self-styled "senior editors" using an unconvincing variety of pretexts / excuses / "justifications" etc,. The numerous marxist, Western revisionist, and other non-mainstream sources that I have submitted are all contained in foregoing sections where you can find them at your own convenience if you're really interested and want to put your bibliographic talents to good use. Communicat (talk) 20:02, 20 August 2010 (UTC) PS: The "late stage" I was referring to, and in relation to which you have quoted me completely out of context, was in fact the late stage of your entry into discussion, without your being properly aware of the facts and matters at issue. Why have you started this particular topic section here, with its curious heading, immediately below the ongoing lead discussion (to which you've evidently not contributed in any way), instead of commenting at the appropriate section in which my quote applies? Are you still busily trying to discredit me? I think so. Communicat (talk) 23:24, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

Geez. I was trying to reassure you that there is plenty of time for changes, not trying to discredit you. You have sounded as though you lament any chance of making the article NPOV and I had hoped to reassure you that it is possible.

I did not include this in any of the other threads because it was intended to be a separate point and a reminder to all parties that continuing change in the article is certain and that no one should walk away out of frustration. The lamentations and despair are seen in many of the threads above. I have confidence in the editors here.

I have not contributed to discussion of the lead because I did not feel I had anything to add. As much as I like to hear myself speak, I did not feel cluttering the discussion was useful when others were handling it ably. --Habap (talk) 14:49, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Very well then. How 'bout putting your money where your mouth is? Just try coming up with some non-Western majority position sources and/or Western revisionist significant-minority position sources and/or any other sources that deviate from the dominant conservative mainstream position, and you'll see how the Old Guard reacts. Communicat (talk) 19:54, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Looking at what you've previously posted, it appears that much of it was rejected only because of the link-spamming of Winer's book.I will begin looking to see if I can find any of the works you cited in that 8 August entry. --Habap (talk) 21:26, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, there's quite a lot that you've misinterpreted, and which it seems you're slowly coming around to understanding. While you're at it, have a look at the article reference to No, Kum-Sok; Osterholm, J. Roger, relating to "brutal North Korea." As the title states clearly, it's a memoir; memoirs are not allowed. Yes, I know, it was co-authored by an American journalist, but that was simply to overcome English language writing difficulties on the part of the Korean. Three down, 24 to go.

Or, if you're desperate to keep the "brutal North Korea" part, how about some balance by mentioning the brutal American-sponsored covert assassination programme that killed thousands of South Vietnamese civilians, viz., "Operation Phoenix". Or the American-inspired brutal massacre of around one million civilian communist suspects in Indonesia? All very well documented. No sourcing problem. Communicat (talk) 23:29, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Note to mediation committee + parties

Mediation request was filed to mediation committee on 21 August 2010. Request cites intertwined threads on discussion page. Some of the threads have since been moved to archives on 22 August. (Archiving dormancy procedure was suddenly reduced from 20 days to 15 days and now 10 days). Movement of relevant sections to archives may make it difficult and/or complicated for cohesive mediation request assessment and parties' participation, if any, relative to past discussion as referred to in request for mediation.

For ease of reference, the interrelated dispute elements are contained either wholly or partly under various talk topic section headings, either archived at archives #38 and #39 or still on this current page (as at 22 August), are as follows in more or less chronological order:

Link to www.truth-hertz.net

WW2 origins of Cold War

Flawed overview -- para 3

Anti-communist prejudice

USSR and USA at the top?

German surrender

Editing Dispute -- expressions of interest invited

Duplication / cleanup

Lead: problems

Communist-led resistance

At this late stage...

Communicat (talk) 17:26, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh you did make a mediation request. You probably should have told so here so that the involved parties can tell the committee whether they think mediation is in order.

I had a look and found your request here: Wikipedia:Request_for_mediation#World_War_II_.28overview_article.29

The following editors were mentioned as involved parties, so if your name is here, have a look at the link above.

1. Communicat , filing party
2. Nick-D
3. Arnoutf
4. Paul Siebert
5. White Shadows
6. Moxy
7. Hohum
8. Habap
9. Binksternet

I will do so soon Arnoutf (talk) 17:59, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

The mediation committee itself notifies named parties within two days Arnoutf, likely to give them time to see if the request is valid. See WP:Requests_for_mediation/Guide#After_filing. (Hohum ^@) 18:06, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I use to notify users if I involve named persons myself, but fine I'll wait for their invitation then. Thanks Arnoutf (talk) 18:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

For those who might have missed it, here is Observation by mediator: "I would express my disappointment at what seems to be the acutely partisan nature of the editing of this article ... it saddens me to know that there are articles with regular contributors who are either so devoid of a collegial outlook or who have not yet reported such a disruptive user for administrative attention." (AGK 20:10, 24 August 2010) Communicat (talk) 19:54, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Himeta's quote

One of the sources mentioned by Communicat as dubious was the quote on casualties from Mitsuyoshi Himeta that came from Sharon Linzey's speech to the Kurdish National Congress of North America with a citation directly to the study by Himeta. One down, 26 to go? --Habap (talk) 21:23, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Source so-called "dubious" in so far as it does not conform to alleged requirements demanded by some wiki editors in respect of "self publishing" without peer review mechanism. You will note that Kurdish National Congress is self publisher and apparently without academic peer reviewers. Meantime, before jumping the gun (again), how about waiting for committee to decide whether or not mediation request is admissable? Communicat (talk) 22:09, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Restoring Habap's full talk entry, with "Kurdish National Congress" as posted. Communicat, do not refactor others' talk posts, not to correct facts or spelling or anything. Per WP:TPO, only very specific changes can be made to others' comments. Binksternet (talk) 22:14, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

Refactoring was not intentional. I'd meant to copy and paste words, but in late-night haze I copied and cut by mistake. Thanks for fixing & pointing it out to me. Communicat (talk) 22:49, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

A better reason than self-publishing for removing it was that it was not a direct quote of Mitsuyoshi Himeta. If you search for Mitsuyoshi Himeta on the internet (I happen to use dogpile for my searches, since I prefer it to google), you'll find more than a dozen speeches and papers that all use the same quote from him. From a historian's perspective, it's better to quote directly from the source (i.e use a primary source) than to use a secondary source for what he said.

I'm trying to fix the article. You've stated that one of the problems is that there is a double-standard for evaluation of sources. I think that there isn't and it's just sloppiness. I think you said there were 27 self-published works quoted. Since they are likely dubious sources, I am trying to find them and replace them with sources that are not dubious.

Do you want the article improved or do you want to "win" at mediation? I think our goal should solely be the improvement of the article. --Habap (talk) 14:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Note the subtle difference for the use of a primary source for a direct quote (as is the case here) but a secondary source to use for interpretation of these statements; as interpreting a statement is original research (but a direct quote is not). Arnoutf (talk) 17:05, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

"Winning" some stupid argument doesn't come into it. The whole point of going to mediation is, among other things, with a view to improvement of this and related wiki articles, as also to prevent any future fractious and time-wasting NPOV and similar disputes of this nature.

As for questionable sources, I don't have time to go into all that right now. It's a major undertaking which might or might not be handled in the fullness of time. You don't need me for that right now, if you want to make a start on your own. Maybe commence with checking out the several "Illustrated Histories", which use visuals to back up unverified and unsourced text, which text in turn is then quoted in WW2 article as supposedly reliable secondary source. I've mentioned this before; seems you missed it. (WW2 article, IMO, has vaguely similar problem: i.e. strong on visuals, fotos, graphics etc, but text is grammatically and stylisticaly a bit of a mess, even if highly sourced. All those irritating ellipses, for example).

Re Arnouft comment above: Can't make much sense of it. Rules are fairly clear in banning the use of primary sources. Communicat (talk) 19:57, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

No they are not banning primary source, the rules state you should use utmost care and caution to use primary sources and only use them for non-controversial facts and not analyse their content. A verbatim quote (without analysis) is clearly non-controversial as a fact (because easily verified by looking at source, whether you agree with quote or not is of no relevance). Quotes are however often misinterpreted and therefore in the specific case of quotes (without analysis) the primary source in that specific circumstance is often more reliable. For example, if I were to quote the line "to be or not to be" (without further analysis) should I source that with Shakespeare play Hamlet (primary source) or any of the hundreds of analyses of the text (secondary source). I hope you agree the sourcing to Hamlet is far superior to "my high school textbook on English literature". Arnoutf (talk) 20:06, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

If you have already done the hard work of identifying 27 dubious sources, listing them will be trivial, so that they can be checked, and the article improved. Thank you in advance. (Hohum ^@) 20:18, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

My apologies for introducing the terms on sourcing. It has obviously confused the issue. The speech stated that Himeta said there a certain number of casualties. Rather than providing a citation to the speech, it is much more correct to point the citation to the article that Himeta wrote, so people can read what he actually said instead of a partial quote and interpretation of what he said. --Habap (talk) 21:22, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

To all the above: Okay, I'll read the primary source rules again. Must have misunderstood them in relation to what user arnoutf is now telling me. Thanks for pointing it out.

Re "hard work" of identifying 27 questionable sources, no it wasn't hard work. Most were self-evident from just a quick scan. By the way, I actually said "at least 27" questionable sources. There are possibly more, if one makes the effort and takes the time to analyse in depth each and every one of the source notations. The alleged dubious sources in question didn't make their appearance overnight, but accumulated gradually and fragmentarily over a period of 10 years, and they have become so ingrained in the fabric of the article that it's gonna take a lot of time and effort to clear them up. I'm not over-enthusiastic to become more involved in such a clearing up operation at this particular moment in time because, as you can see, dissecting even just one questionable source has already accounted for the expenditure by Habap of considerable time and number of words. Imagine what it's going to be like with 27 or more such questionable sources. In fact, I'm starting to regret I even raised the matter in the first place, but I guess someone had to do it. Communicat (talk) 22:27, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

So, there is no list? --Habap (talk) 22:42, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

It would seem not. I ran through the sources yesterday (my time) and could only see one which appeared unreliable - I replaced it with a reference to the Oxford Companion to World War II (and tweaked the text as I couldn't verify in the several sources I checked that Hitler ordered an end to the bombing of England on 11 May 1941; the sources I consulted said instead that the bombing campaign largely ended in this month as bomber units were transferred to support the invasion of the USSR but that limited bombing of England continued). 23:00, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Re habap's, "So, there is no list". Read my posting properly and/or stop wasting my time. Where are all those NPOV alternative sources YOU were bragging about earlier? Communicat (talk) 19:19, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

aftermath

I've made new 2nd para, no changes otherwise. RE clarification requested, will do when edit conflicts subside, and will also fix ISBNs if/when ref numbers revert to sequence, for some reason current sequence gone all over the place. Can anyone tell me consistent ISBN policy, i.e. 10-digit, 13-digit, spaces and/or dashes between numbers? Communicat (talk) 18:39, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

For complete coverage it would be interesting to add how the denazification / war crimes programs of the USSR developed after the war. Is there any source information about whether the USSR similarly used high end former nazis in relevant postings and thus diluted their denazification programs in the same way UK and US did? (I know they were interested in Werner von Braun, but the Americans got him) Arnoutf (talk) 19:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

No, I don't have sources for USSR. Why don't YOU look for them, seeing as its your idea? (You might want to add that USSR wanted British bombing of German civilians to be included in war crimes trials). Communicat (talk) 20:04, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

A minor clarification, and some page numbers are needed. I have fixed the ISBN syntax. 10 or 13 digit ISBN work, 13 is preferred, WP:ISBN is the relevant wiki page for ISBN presentation. (Hohum ^@) 20:06, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

I did have a look and found a few interesting publications. Russian denazification lasted from 1945-1948. Older sources accuse the Russians of political cleansing of anticommunist sentiments, but modern sources (Vogt) does not agree and sais that denazification was relatively fair albeit slow. March 1948 denazification was halted/ called complete. All 'remaining' nazis were no longer pursued. So apparently no conscious Soviet intention to employ high level nazis in the new governmental structures, but acceptance that the task to continue finding "small" nazis could take forever and would disrupt the new situation, hence a stop on active persecution. In other words, the Soviets applied a similar kind of realpolitik as the US/UK except for those few case where US/UK actively used former nazis for their goals. [www.fas.harvard.edu/~hpcws/Vol4Denazification.doc] [8] [9] Arnoutf (talk) 20:24, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Interesting. So, why don't you work it into topic with ref?

Re your "...few cases where US/UK actively used former nazis for their goals": No, there were not a few cases, especially in relation to US. Try reading the readily available works I've cited. Entire US-sponsored Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty network, operating from US, was run by numerous former Nazis including war crimes suspects. Plenty of sources, but the three sentences I've provided are sufficient to the task at hand, without needing to make a fullblown article out of it -- (but of course you're free to do so yourself if you're that way inclined). Communicat (talk) 21:55, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Collapse previous reflist

I've just removed the para. The lack of page numbers is highly unsatisfactory, and I'm not convinced that it's either neutral (as other sources emphasise the harsh treatment of Germany in the post-war years and Germany's rehabilitation as a democracy) or about topics notable enough to be covered in this high-level article on the war (and not its aftermarth). As per the convention, it should also have been discussed here first. I've posted the para below to aid further disussions of it.

When the divisions of postwar Europe began to emerge, the war crimes programmes and denazification policies of Britain and the United States were abandoned in favour of realpolitik. Germans who were classified as ardent Nazis were chosen by the American secret services to become "respectable" American citizens. Secret arrangements were concluded between American military intelligence and former key figures in the anti-communist section of German military intelligence or Abwher, headed by General Reinhard Gehlen, to advise the Americans on how to go about establishing their own anti-Soviet networks in Europe.

In addition to the clarification request, and page numbers. Links to Operation Paperclip and Operation Osoaviakhim would seem relevant. Were Nazi Scientists gathered by the USSR too? - I believe Bower's The Paperclip Conspiracy covers this as well. The text starting "Secret arrangements were..." to the end of the paragraph goes into too much detail for an overview article IMO. (Hohum ^@) 23:34, 23 August 2010 (UTC)

Nick-D you could see that at the very time of your deleting my contribution, I was in the actual process of working on the paragraph you were busily deleting. If it wasn't for all the edit conflicts I was experiencing as a result of your interference, the required page number and "clarity" query would have been completed.

I have read and understand the rules and therefore see no need to first discuss with you what I propose to edit, except in the case of significant changes. I have not performed any significan change to existing text. I have inserted three sentences of new content, which editors can examine at their leisure and respond accordingly, as Hohum and others were in the process of doing before you butted in and acted arbitrarily without discussion. You're being extrememly objectionable and obstructive, and this latest instance will also be brought to the attention of arbitrator, in addition to other matters already filed today, of which you are no doubt aware, and of which you will no doubt be hearing further. In the meantime, please stop being retaliatory; you're only damaging your own case. Communicat (talk) 00:03, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Nick-D has edited the article exactly twice in the last twelve hours. That is not a lot of edit conflicts. The WP:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle is normal practice. Please stop making threats, knuckle down, and discuss edits constructively, like anyone else manages to do. (Hohum ^@) 00:16, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

re Nick-D has edited the article exactly twice in the last twelve hours. Exactly. Isn't it quite odd then that he should remove my edit just a few minutes after I'd filed items containing edit summaries that made it obvious I was in the very process of methodically fixing the section at issue (page numbers, clarity query)? Coincidence is all very well when it happens, but this, given the circumstances, was IMO no coincidence.

Besides which, his remark about "aftermath" in relation to the article is quite incoherent. I've read it several times and still can't figure out what the blazes he's talking about. Perhaps he knows what he's talking about? Never mind.

By the way, I'm not making threats. I'm making promises. Arbitration request has already been filed. In the meantime, the aftermath item is easily fixed on basis of your observations, and I was in fact doing so before disruption ocurred. Doesn't seem much point in proceeding further with that edit under present conditions. I'll just let arbitration run its course before attempting any more wasted effort here. You can do what you like with Tom Bower et al. If the boss lets you. Communicat (talk) 00:48, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

I wish you spent your time on improving edits instead of non-constructive argument and tilting at windmills. (Hohum ^@) 01:29, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Communicat, if you genuinely wish to discuss changes to articles it would be helpful if you'd stop your personal attacks on other editors - I'm not going to engage with them. Nick-D (talk) 02:26, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

If we want to go further with this para I would add a line immediately after the first: "Followed by an end to denazification by the Soviets in early 1948 " In any case, if we discuss the denazification we should fairly discuss US, UK AND USSR efforts otherwise we give an incomplete image which necessarily leads to a POV by omission.
I would also be perfectly happy to drop it, as I think the aftermath section is already very long for a high level overview article like this. So my preference would be to shorten rather than expand it. Arnoutf (talk) 07:02, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Dropping it is my preference. If Germany is covered, all the other Axis countries need to be covered and this topic isn't particularly relevant to the subject of the article (the war). Nick-D (talk) 07:13, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Communicat, in case you didn't check that RfA, please read Wikipedia:TINC. I found it amusing and quite relevant. --Habap (talk) 12:25, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Read WP:OWN. As for Rfa decision, read Response to assertion in statement by Nick-D regarding "... proposed changes to and complaints (by Communicat) about the World War II article ... are generally not supported by the balance of mainstream sources ..."

The article relies exclusively on mainstream sources, to the total exclusion of other available non-mainsteam sources / positions, and this is the specific reason why NPOV dispute arose in the first place. See Observation by mediator in this specific regard, which is as follows: "I would express my disappointment at what seems to be the acutely partisan nature of the editing of this article ... it saddens me to know that there are articles with regular contributors who are either so devoid of a collegial outlook or who have not yet reported such a disruptive user for administrative attention." (AGK 20:10, 24 August 2010)

As Moxy has recognised, there are some wide and advanced issues involved here, and I'm definitely not gonna let it go. Sorry to disappoint you all. Communicat (talk) 19:41, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

It's an overview article. It should rely on reliable mainstream sources. Further exploration should be on the hundreds of linked articles. (Hohum ^@) 19:46, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Lame excuse. Tendentious reasoning. Read the rules that require alternative positions to be stated in interests of NPOV, which rules I've already cited several times. I'm not going to repeat them endlessly for the benefit of a few editors apparently exhibiting "I can't hear you". It's clear the issue cannot be resolved via discussion with editors of that ilk, otherwise it would have been resolved a long time ago. I see not point in trying to discuss it further, and will pursue my options, of which there are still one or two. Communicat (talk) 20:07, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Currently, every other editor who has expressed an opinion disagrees with you on your novel interpretation of wikipedia policies and guidelines. You are flogging several dead horses simultaneously with your current behaviour. (Hohum ^@) 20:12, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

You have evidently missed my posting, (two postings above), re Observation by mediator, now repeated again for your edification: "I would express my disappointment at what seems to be the acutely partisan nature of the editing of this article ...." (AGK 20:10, 24 August 2010) In short, if as alleged no other editors agree with me, the quoted mediator for one does in fact agree with me. If you don't like it, take it up with the mediation committee.

As for your tendentious "It's an overview article." Firstly, wherever did you people get the idea that it's an 'overview'? Nowhere is it said in the article itself that it's an "overview". The article is a main article, with various separate sub-articles. As a main article it should contain the main points about WW2, regardless of whether or not the sub-articles elabortate further, and if they don't, it's the sub-articles' problem, not the main article's problem. And a main point, among others, that should be mentioned in the main article, is that significant alternative positions exist as to the causes and courses of the war. The article itself need not go into a fullwinded saga about the alternative positions. That's a separate story. For the main article, just mention that fundamental difference exist between Western mainstream, Western revisionist, and non-Western i.e. Soviet positions. That's all that's needed. No more than two or three sentences with reliable sources, as I've already provided and which were rejected out of hand.

Secondly: your "(the article) should rely on reliable mainstream sources." You're defeating your own argument. "Reliable mainstream sources" to the exclusion of reliable alternative and/or revisionist position sources is vcompletely out of line with NPOV, and even Habap has recognised this by now. And so has the mediator as quoted above.

So how come you're still having so much difficulty in grasping this very basic historiographic concept? I would suggest it's because of ideological conservatism on your part and on the part of some other editors; conservatism by its very nature is highly resistant to change; and that includes editorial changes to the article by any editor with a fresh perspective, in this case me.

You conservatives, having achieved "good article" status, now apparently want to rest on your laurels and protect "your" territory against perceived intruders like me, i.e. anyone who proposes any meaningful and progressive change to "your" article. Well, I'm not intimidated by your sort. Communicat (talk) 23:06, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

Just asking

What triggered the Japanese to attack the Pearl Harbor? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.255.215.222 (talk) 13:05, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Good question. The article didn't tell about that clear enough. The attack was triggered primarily by the US oil embargo. I fixed that, and now the article says:

"German successes in Europe encouraged Japan to increase pressure on European governments in south-east Asia. The Dutch government agreed to provide Japan oil supplies from the Dutch East Indies, while refusing to hand over political control of the colonies. Vichy France, by contrast, agreed to a Japanese occupation of French Indochina. The United States, United Kingdom, and other Western governments reacted to the seizure of Indochina with a freeze on Japanese assets, while the United States (which supplied 80 percent of Japan's oil) responded by placing a complete oil embargo. That meant Japan was essentially forced to choose between abandoning its ambitions in Asia and the prosecution of the war against China, or seizing the natural resources it needed by force; the Japanese military did not consider the former an option, and many officers considered the oil embargo an unspoken declaration of war."

Thank you for pointing my attention at that.--Paul Siebert (talk) 16:32, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Page numbers

Page numbers are really helpful for verifying what a writer actually wrote. If the "entire book narrates content of relevant sentence text", then, surely the thesis of the book is in a sentence or paragraph on some page. Provide that page number so that people can go to the book, look and say, "Ah, yes, he does say exactly that!" Otherwise, you force someone to read an entire book and decide if they interpret the author's meaning in the same way. You'd never be able to submit a paper for a history class and simply footnote it with "entire book". --Habap (talk) 21:56, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Could you say the ones that are missing because i see page numbers all over.Moxy (talk) 22:05, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Up in the aftermath section, Communicat cites several sources without page numbers, as he did in this diff, stating that page numbers are unneccessary because the entire contents of the books support the statement, kind of like the British library comment above. --Habap (talk) 01:21, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

O i see ..It has been removed ...yes we should have them for a 501 page book. (as as per Wikipedia:Citing sources#Identifying parts of a source) ..they also need to be in the proper templates. However that said this can simply be fixed in most cases and if not a tag added as done here will do or replace it all together......i Dont believe they should be removed (if not replaced) because an editors is not up to speed on layout...However this additions are part of a greater issue as see above, that i have backed away from some time ago...Moxy (talk) 02:02, 25 August 2010 (UTC)