As Winston Churchill famously said, “No war would have been easier to prevent than this one.” (World War II). No one seriously anticipates war between the United States and China or Russia, in the sense of a declared war to be conducted until one side surrenders, but the deterioration of relations with those countries could be stopped. Because of Hitler’s endless acts of bad faith and compulsive aggression and the barbarous incivility of Japan’s sneak attack on Pearl Harbor and throughout the Pacific area, a war of total victory, at least on the Allied side, ensued. It is true that Stalin would have made a separate peace with Hitler, and implausibly resurrected the Nazi-Soviet pact which Hitler had violated by hurling 200 divisions into Russia with no warning and no claimed provocation. But Stalin would only have done so if he had concluded that the Western allies were not serious …