Pat Buchanan Asks Was WWII Worth It?

Buchanan really lobs a grenade with this one. But he asks a good question that deserves better thought than the attacks he has been receiving. Certainly there was a lot done in WWII that, in retrospect, were clearly not worth it. The bloodbaths in Italy were a big mistake. Ditto the bloodbaths in Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal. But Pat is asking a much bolder and provocative question - would we have been better off letting the Third Reich be than with the Soviet Empire that replaced it?
Much of his argument is based on the state of affairs when the war started. Hitler had not yet attacked or annexed the non-Germanic nations to the West nor had he begun his extermination of Jews (something Buchanan manages not to bring up!). Would Hitler have been emboldened to invade France and the Low countries had France and England not declared war first?
Buchanan ignores the tremendous benefit the U.S. got out of WWII: with Western Europe and Japan in ashes and the rest of the non-Third World enslaved under Marxist governments, we had no serious economic competition for years. Now, of course, things are different. Japan and Western Europe recovered nicely while much of Eastern Europe has joined them; and China is no longer Marxist. Fortunately the continued political chaos in post-Soviet Russia has prevented it from gaining a foothold in international trade. So if Buchanan really wants the U.S. to regain its economic strength, another World War could be just the thing.