If I were Talanji, I would heap the blame on Zul because he’s 1) an enemy of the throne and 2) dead. Obviously, if it weren’t for that no-gooder Zul, the tragic mistakes of the uprisings in Zul’Gurub and Zul’Aman, and the Zandalari intervention in Pandaria with Lei Shen, never would have happened, so the Alliance (and Horde!) would never have been in a cold war with the Zandalari, and their ship would not have been seized.
In fact, Zul’s later unmasking as a blood troll and worshipper of G’huun makes that all the more palpable. The road to war was one laid out by a traitor, playing both sides to his own ends. The Alliance didn’t invade of their own accord, they were tricked by Zul - who would do anything to bring down his archrival Rastakhan. The desolation of Dazar’alor is simply what happens when too many trolls fall under the sway of rogue prophets instead of standing true to the throne and the loa.
(I’m not saying Zul actually orchestrated all these events just to kill Rastakhan, although I’m not saying he didn’t either. I’m just saying it would play well as domestic propaganda.)
The Allies (Read: United States) demanded unconditional surrender (Which not only prolonged the war by pouring cold water on anti-Hitler elements in the OKW & Abwehr), demanded the execution of NSDAP & OKW Leadership, then benefitted enormously by essentially occupying Germany. The Allied Occupation zones & later Bundesrepublik were essentially a puppet of the United States as much as the DDR was a puppet of the USSR. Early West German Statesmen like Adenauer were kept on a fairly short leash, and despite them wanting to move in an independent direction (eg, in Africa), they didn’t have the capability to do so.
The example doesn’t work here, because the Zandalari did not, in fact, fight a total war against Kul’Tiras, neither Kul’Tiras nor Zandalar were puppeted by the other, neither had their entire leadership cadre killed off & replaced by their ideological opponents, etc.
Not all of history is 1939-Now. There are plenty of times where lingering resentment blows up relations between nations, starts wars, etc.
But honestly, this poor defense doesn’t really surprise me. You’re the same person who wanted to pretend that Shadowlands retcons weren’t really retcons… If you’ll defend that slop, I don’t think there’s anything you won’t defend.
Please, for the love of God, look at French history.
The allied occupation of Germany ended their de facto occupation in 1949 when they switched from a military government to a civilian government. There was virtually no German resistance to the west and people in the Eastern zone were risking their lives to get to West Germany.
And yes there are times when lingering resentments cause problems but if you look at those countries that are eternally at war what you find is that it works against their best interests in almost every situation.
Just do a search on “per capita income by country” and you will find that most countries on the top of that list are Western countries that don’t fight against each other.
You are aware that America can exert influence over the foreign policy of a country without directly occupying it, right? This is why I brought up that Adenauer anecdote.
You do realize there are factors beyond “Not going to war :(” that might be significant factors, right? Are you just glossing over America’s military adventures? Are you going to ignore the fact that Western Europe shot past other parts of the world in terms of wealth during a violent period of European history?
You don’t seem very historically literate. Perhaps that explains the WWII brain…
One reason we have so much influence over European countries is that while they seem to have gotten over fighting with each other, they still have nationalistic tendencies. If they did what we did and turned the EU into a federation they would be a super power on par with the US.
So they are in a position to be influenced by choice.
I’m remembering something a one-time naval attaché said about a conversation with his Soviet counterpart in the early 1980s. Somehow the topic of lost submarines came up.
“You must understand how this game is played,” the Soviet attaché said. “We do not ask about K-129, and you do not ask about Scorpion.”
They did you dirty, you know they did you dirty, but you’ve got a gods-rotted job to do, so you pull up your big boy pants and do it, and maybe you can get a chance to settle scores later.
Wow, look you just stopped addressing the fact that your little WWII analogy doesn’t fit here at all. Instead you’re trying to segue into an entirely different lecture that is not remotely relevant to the criticism I made, and frankly, your political opinions are not well-informed enough for me to want to have this conversation with you.
A few problems with this:
-“Wow, imagine how prosperous we’d all be if everyone got over their nationalistic tendencies and we all united :^)”
-“Wow, imagine how powerful and influential a Balkan, South Slavic power would be if only the Croats, Serbs, Bosnians, and Macedonians just like got over nationalism :^)”
-Germany tried doing this in WWII (See: Großraum & Weltpolitk in Zweites Buch + Europäischer Staatenbund plan from Ribentrop + A.A. detailed in documents seized by the U.S. Army and compiled in “Documents on the History of European Integration Volume II: Continental Plans for European Union (1939-1945)”
-Kaiser Wilhelm II tried doing this (See: Mitteleuropa)
Napoleon Bonaparte tried doing this.
-The post-Monarchy Habsburg family tried doing this.
-The Carolingians tried doing this.
-Political Identity is the result of negation. We know what we are because of frequent exposure to things we are not. This is why Pan-European identity took hold in America, where non-Europeans were present, but did not in Europe.
-Nationalism in foreign policy is often, especially in the case of European history, a proxy for serious geopolitical concerns.
-Nationalist sentiments are not just a “silly identity and belligerent set of policy preferences.” It’s about the fundamentally different ways distinct peoples engage with politics & the world due to ethnic, historical and cultural factors. (This is why European Integration faces so much turmoil & most geopolitical analysts are bearish on the future prospects for the EU. Anyone who has spoken to Europeans about politics understands there’s some pretty deep antipathy between Meds & Germanics on budgetary issues).
-“Nationalism” is not the reason the European economy has lagged behind. An EU superstate would likely continue policies that have hamstrung business & regulation given the body’s preference for regulation & hostility to mobile industries.
-A European Superstate would not actually be on par with America, for a host of reasons.
-America did not achieve what it did by abandoning its nationalist tendencies, rather it embraced them, fought off the Indians, Mexicans, separatist sentiments & began a spree of colonization.
-America’s advantages cannot be replicated by Europe (eg, the Mississippi waterway is the largest navigable waterway on the planet. The U.S. is completely isolated from geopolitical rivals. The U.S. is not actually economically dependent upon hostile foreign powers, despite what China Hawks like to claim, etc.)
Like all of those criticisms are incredibly obvious. Also obvious is the fact that you’re just rattling off a Liberal Internationalist (Geopolitical theory, not a political dunk) platitudes that you’ve absorbed from somewhere (Who knows, because it doesn’t seem like you read much).
BUT THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IN ALL OF THIS, AND SOMETHING IN MY PREVIOUS POST THAT YOU COMPLETELY IGNORED:
Why did Western Europe shoot ahead of more centralized states like China despite far more constant warfare on their end?