Was The Decline Of The West Sir Winston's Fault?

You might get an answer in the affirmative from Pat Buchanan.

The first blunder was a secret decision of the inner Cabinet in 1906 to send a British army across the Channel to fight in any Franco-German War. Had the Kaiser known the British Empire would fight for France, he would have moved more decisively than he did to halt the plunge to war in July 1914.

Had Britain not declared war on Aug. 4 and brought in Japan, Italy and the United States, the war would have ended far sooner. Leninism and Stalinism would never have triumphed in Russia, and Hitler would never have come to power in Germany.

The second blunder was the vengeful Treaty of Versailles that added a million square miles to the British Empire while putting millions of Germans under Czech and Polish rule in violation of the terms of the armistice and Woodrow Wilson's 14 Points.

A third was the British decision to capitulate to U.S. demands in 1921 and throw over a faithful Japanese ally of 20 years. Tokyo took its revenge, 20 years later, by inflicting the greatest defeat in British history, the surrender of Singapore and an army of 80,000 to a Japanese army half that size.

A fourth British blunder, which Neville Chamberlain called the "very midsummer of madness," was the 1935 decision to sanction Italy for a colonial war in Ethiopia. London destroyed the Stresa Front of Britain, France and Italy that Mussolini had forged to contain Germany, and drove Mussolini straight into the arms of a Nazi dictator he loathed.

Mr. Buchanan has a new book out describing these and other diplomatic disasters.