WW II as a Pre-Emptive War by Britain and France
WHICH WARS ARE JUST can be a difficult question, but what one hears commonly this spring is that a just war is a defensive war, where “defensive” means that you wait until you’re attacked. I didn’t see anyone point it out, but this implies that Hitler was fighting a just war against Britain. He did not attack Britain in 1939; indeed, he said publicly that he had no quarrel with Britain, and that is quite believable, since he had several countries to conquer first before he had anything to gain by attacking Britain. What happened was that in 1939 Prime Minister Chamberlain, deciding a bit too late that Hitler couldn’t be trusted, issued a unilateral statement saying that Britain would defend Poland against an attack by Germany. Germany attacked Poland later in the year, telling Britain to stay out of the fight. Instead, Britain decided to attack Germany.
Britain was justified, of course, but that does not alter the fact that this was a pre- emptive war against Germany, started by Britain not because of any imminent threat from Germany, but out of fear that without a war in 1939, Germany would be strong enough to beat Britain five or so years later. And, indeed, Germany’s U-boat program was not ready yet, having been scheduled for a later war.