Black is an internationally recognized military historian and the author of more than 100 books on 18th century British politics and international relations. He is a professor of history at the University of Exeter who lectures widely at institutions of higher education around the world. He was recently in town to deliver a lecture at the College of William & Mary on the subject of how World War II is viewed by the nations who fought it.

In his lecture, Black pointed out that the debate over the causes of World War II links contemporaries with those who come later. “For contemporaries, such debate was largely political, an attempt to mobilize support, both domestic and international. For subsequent generations, in contrast, debate links the issue of war guilt for wartime opponents to more general questions of justification and vindication,” he said.

Post-war debates often focused over responsibility, notably the controversy over appeasement. During the Cold War, the left in Western Europe argued that the British and the French were partly responsible for the outbreak of the war because their failure to adopt a robust stance toward Germany, Japan and Italy. The global economic situation and the Great Depression have also been responsible for increased political support for extremists.

Since the 1960s, asserts Black, criticism and blame have been directed within Western states at previous generations. Attention was devoted to re-fighting World War II as it plays a key role in the national account of a large number of states. The criticism of British strategic bombing and of Winston Churchill, Britain’s war leader has been prevalent. Wartime alignments play also a crucial role in the process by which guilt or praise is established by association. Hungary is judged “bad” because it allied with Hitler’s Germany against the Soviet Union in 1941, whereas the Soviet Union is vindicated for posterity because it fought Hitler’s Germany.

Hitler, as the leader of Nazi Germany, played a major role in shaping events that made compromise almost impossible, Black said. The racial ideology and policy of the destruction of Jewry and the subjugation of the Slavs presented an agenda in which racial conflict was linked to a exultation of violence.

He noted that in 2003 and 2013, opponents of international intervention in Iraq and Syria, respectively, were described as Appeasers. Although the comparison was misplaced, the usage of the term, still resonate strongly.

What makes Black’s research into the history of World War II so germane is his ability to demonstrate how fatal errors of the past, if repeated, will doom today’s policies.

The Germans, he said, knew how to conquer territory, but not how to exercise their will. The Nazis, .didn’t have a strategic plan how to make their military conquest translate into an alliance with the people inhabiting those territories. Following the German Army, the SS-Eisatzgruppen, brutalized the population, turning them into enemies and insurgents. Just, as it happened in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Summing up the lessons of history, Black said, “In armed conflicts not the conquest of territory, but the outcome is the key.”

Frank Shatz lives in Williamsburg and Lake Placid. His column is reprinted with permission from the Virginia Gazette. He is the author of “Reports from a Distant Place,”, a compilation of his selected columns.