The Tsar who freed the serfs was killed by Jews and lefties about that time frame, and Russia was screwed for a century. If the D Party had admitted JFK was shot by a Communist, it might have broken the party. Things can always get worse.

If Lincoln had allowed the southern states to secede, slavery would have persisted, but the 700,000 men who died in the war would have lived out their natural lives, and the 300,000 former slaves who died of disease in refugee camps after manumission would have done the same. It’s difficult to imagine a worse outcome that what happened, since slavery would have ended eventually, even without a war.

Same with World War Two. If Germany had conquered Europe and Russia and Japan took Asia without resistance, it’s doubtful that whatever horrible outcome that entailed would be worse than the deaths of 50 million people over a period of six years, the Holocaust (which took place in the middle of wartime, and which I maintain would not have occurred outside of a total war situation) the rise of Mao’s China and the tens of millions of deaths he presided over, and all else we got from that conflict.

Wars, which are ostensibly fought to prevent catastrophe, inevitably become the catastrophe themselves.