Stalin said:
Only in the US was slavery ended by war. And the real advancement for African-Americans came through peaceful resistance.
Fascism/Nazism, like any extreme governmental type, would've collapsed on its own. Upon Hitler's death, Nazi Germany would've imploded. Their economy also sucked, only working because of wartime production. It never would've worked in peacetime.
Communism was never defeated by war. It collapsed on its own, just as any other extreme government would've. The US lost Vietnam, and didn't solve communism.
Baathism still exists, so it wasn't defeated in the Iran-Iraq war.
Your argument doesn't work.
It wasn't a serious post, I only posted the picture for lulz. Devil's advocate and all that. You don't have to agree with me on this stuff, I'm just doing this for the sake of debate. I may also put in some historical details as well below, for those of you who like that stuff.
I don't believe advancement for African-Americans came from any one source, it was a number of factors and a number of different people. It is possible that the government's fear of what the Black Panthers might be capable of had something to do with it as well. Of course, not entirely, but in part. And it took over a hundred years for anything to really start happening anyway. Of course, things still aren't perfect in that respect here in the US.
It's hard to say whether or not fascism would have lasted had Germany won the war. Another fascist regime in Spain, under military leader Francisco Franco, lasted for a very long time, from 1939 to Franco's death in 1975. Sure, it didn't continue after he passed away, but I believe it does show that fascist regimes are capable of at least staying afloat if not at war with their neighbors. It's hard to say whether the Nazi regime would have lasted after the death of Hitler, but he did have a successor chosen named Reinhard Heydrich. Heydrich, however, was assassinated by Czech partisans in June 1942. There's no reason to believe a new one would have been picked, though.
Some would argue that taking action in Vietnam did have a role in slowing or preventing the spread of communism, but there is little evidence to prove this. The part of the war I find most peculiar is the fact that US forces won most engagements with the NVA and Vietcong, and still lost in the end. While the losses on the NVA/VC side were many times greater than the US/South Vietnamese side, the communist forces never quit. It was a war of attrition, and apparently the communists were willing to throw far more troops away than the American and South Vietnamese forces were. Of course, the capitals of Laos and Cambodia were overrun by communist guerrillas and that too probably affected the outcome of the Vietnam War. Enemies all around. Even communist countries were at odds sometimes, the Soviet Union and China split in the 1960s over ideological disagreements, and had a number of border disputes. Also, going back to Southeast Asia, Vietnam (now unified under communist rule in Hanoi) and Cambodia (ruled by the Khmer Rouge) went to war in 1975 as well, both communist, and backed by the Soviets and Chinese in that respective order.
And while the Soviet Union no longer exists, China still does. And while the Chinese Communist Party is still in power, they have adapted to the world and turned their economy into a market economy, so effectively, China may in practice be more fascist than communist. Under fascism, businesses are allowed to be privately owned, as long as they serve the interests of the state. Kim Jong Un has been looking at China as a model to emulate for North Korea's economy. Personally, I think it's a miracle that country hasn't collapsed. Or perhaps it's because Kim's only ally, China, is helping out a lot to maintain a buffer zone with the democratic South.
Another thing to look out for is that North Korea has nuclear weapons now, but it is unknown what the strength of their warheads may be, or the capability of their missiles to accurately deliver such a payload at an effective range. They have all the conventional artillery they need to take the southern half of the peninsula, and North Korean forces are believed to own some stockpiles of chemical and biological agents as well. Of course, the irony of North Korea being propped up by China is in the fact that it's in China's best interest to keep the peninsula divided, so no matter how much Pyongyang wishes it, China will not allow the South to be invaded and annexed. Also, without Beijing's blessings and patience, the regime in North Korea might not have lasted as long as it has. Historically, Korea has often been divided into separate kingdoms and/or occupied by foreign invaders (such as Japan from the early 20th century to the end of World War II), so it makes a lot of strategic sense for China to keep the northern half separate from that of the south. While a second war in Korea is a possibility, it is also somewhat unlikely at this given time. Actually, come to think of it, the Korean War never officially ended, there's simply a cease fire at the moment.
Baathism exists in Syria, yes, but no longer is it the primary ideology in Iraq. Who knows what's going to happen there, though, with Al-Qaeda's affiliate (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant) gaining power in Fallujah and the western provinces? We may yet see a mix of radical religious ideologies and other groups attempting to take Saddam's place.
The Baath Party in itself (and Baathism as an ideology) exists in a few different countries in various forms, but is largely in disarray in Iraq and in danger of disappearing in Syria at some point. I'm not completely sure on that, though, the war has been continuous for the past three years and shows little sign of slowing down. I'll have to read more to respond in detail about Baathism. The Iran-Iraq War itself showed Saddam Hussein's lack of military genius when he passed up an opportunity to capture Tehran when it was still in disarray from the Iranian Revolution, and allowed the Iranian forces to rally against him. He ordered his troops to stop at the oilfields of Iran, an object of his obsession. Baathism itself is a secular pan-Arab ideology, and Saddam built his Baath Party using Hitler's party as a model of sorts for how it would be organized, if not copying its ideology.
Sorry for the long winded response, I just figured I should share my thoughts a bit.
But who knows if war has ever really solved anything? When one war ends, another is quick to take its place.
