No, I'm an outsider with an outsider's perspective. I acknowledge a lot of good the US has done, but I also acknowledge the good done by your rivals and the harm you've done but play down. We've been talking about cutting China off for...reasons, despite their importance on the global scale. They are arguably the most important trading partner many of us have (yes, more important than you). When pressed as to why they should be sidelined (resulting in even worse economic instability and increasing the chances of an eventual shooting war) no one can give me a straight answer. Lots of countries have downplayed or outright lied about the numbers of victims, the US included (we've seen links in the other thread providing evidence) Lots of countries have played dirty, the US included. Don't get me started on how hypocritical those complaints are in light of how the AIDS/HIV outbreak played out. Why should Europeans favour you as allies over China? Why should we have to pick sides in your rivalry?
Case in point. It was in your interests to support your allies who had borne the brunt of the fighting in WW2. Not to put too fine a point on it but the international communities failure to stabilise and rebuild Germany after WW1 was a major factor in the buildup to round 2. Amongst the major powers you were the least affected by the turmoil and had suffered the least damage. You needed a bulwark against your most dangerous rival and in both geographical and political terms Europe was the arena for that rivalry to play out, much as your proxy wars played out elsewhere, so let's not pretend that was a selfless act of charity or some reason for European servility over half a century later. Let's also not forget that China entered the war and fought as an ally far sooner than the US, suffering orders of magnitude more casualties and damage. The US likes to gloss over that little detail when telling the glorious narrative of how it established a world order of freedom and democracy on everyone else's behalf. Europe collectively maintain vast trading connections with China, connections which benefit both parties greatly. So do you. No one is going to commit economic suicide and knowingly destabilise the world just to appease the US.
I took your comment as implying that the only reason China entered the war was because Japan invaded. In other words they would not have done otherwise. That's very debatable indeed given the relations between the two at the time but we'll never know. However the parallels with the US's entry shouldn't be overlooked given that both powers were prompted into conflict by Japanese aggression, yet China's role in the war (and the inordinate suffering they endured) is almost entirely overlooked in the West.
This analysis seems to only consider troop contributions to the war effort and ignore Lend-Lease which kept the UK and Soviet Union in the fight and the American led embargo of oil and rubber to the Empire of Japan which crippled its war machine (and directly led to the Attack on Pearl Harbor).
Not really. I'm aware of lend lease but it's beside the point being made about the common perception about US entry into the war being utterly pivotal to saving us from aggression. I'd question in fact whether lend lease "kept the UK and Soviet Union in the war", the timeline doesn't fit. It was enacted in March 1941 yet the UK's bleakest period was during the summer and autumn of 1940. By the time it was signed the Germans had already long since abandoned any immediate hopes of an invasion of the British Isles and had been forced to redirect forces to the Soviet front given the losses they were sustaining there. British forces, the RAF in particular, were already resurgent and running offensive operations across Europe. Hardly out of the game.
You are only considering the Lend Lease Act (and even then your dates are wrong as Operation Barbarossa was 3 months after the Act was signed) and ignoring the 50 destroyers Roosevelt (unconstitutionally) lent/leased to the UK in Sep 1940.
Actually Germany abandoned Sea Lion long before ever invading the USSR. Not only due could they not control the skies or the seas thanks to the RAF and RN, but the Germans didn't have enough sealift capability to land a force capable of getting even a toehold on English soil.
In May of 1940, there were 65 U-Boats operating in the Atlantic and you lost 65,000 tons of shipping. In October of 1940, there were 230 U-Boats operating in the Atlantic and you lost 350,000 tons of shipping. Overall, in 1940, the UK and its Commonwealth lost 3,318,000 tons of shipping while only building 862,000 tons. If Lend-Lease hadn't started in 1941, Britain and her armies, would have starved because the Germans were still sinking ships faster than Britain could build them at the end of the war. The only reason Britain had positive net tonnage at the end of the war because of the ships supplied by the US. Did the US win WW2 single-handedly? Of course not. For the Allies, the Soviets bore the brunt of the casualties. But, they were fed with US food and used weapons made with US steel. The Soviets can't make T34's without steel and the Britains can't make tea unless they have a ship to haul it. We did that. Why do I care? Because it wasn't the people wearing Admiral's Stripes and General's Stars that won the war. Because of the chain of events put in place by Lend-Lease and the oil embargo of Japan, it was Joe Public and Rosie the Riveter that won the war because without them, it was over.
It still blows my mind that we were able to churn out 3 Liberty Ships every 2 days. - Anc contrast that to my tenure in the army - they couldn't crank out a routine battalion level garrison training schedule in two days.
I couldn't watch "the front fell off" without thinking about Ron White telling the story about his Sears wheels falling off his van! "My left front tire fell off...it fell off...it fell the fuck off!"
Neither of which address the point being made that in no sense can the US make a legitimate claim to have prevented a German invasion of the UK. Nor can a genuine claim be made that the US was the first amongst equals (which is often the portrayal) when, as @Elwood comments, it was the Russians who bore the lion's share of the fighting and the associated losses. I'm not downplaying the fact that US intervention was a major event, but I am disputing the commonly espoused narrative that the US "won the war", saved us from "speaking German" and came to our rescue like the Riders of Rohan on Pellenor Field. The facts aren't in dispute, the flavour and characterisation which belittle the other participants are.
Going back up to this, a couple of points here are incorrect. First, Germany didn't need rebuilding after WWI as the war never reached Germany. In fact one of the Nazi's propaganda points was that Germany could have won WWI but that communists and socialists inside Germany caused the ceasefire (and the humiliating Versailles Treaty). Secondly, the Marshall Plan wasn't in response to WWI, but instead due to the Soviet Union. The original plan was to turn Germany into a primarily agricultural nation in order to stop it from rearming. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgenthau_Plan
How long would the US have stayed in the fight in Europe without the UK fighting against Germany and basically turned the entire island into a military base? How long would the US have stayed in the fight against Germany if Russia had withdrawn?
Not to sidetrack the argument, but an interesting sidebar is that the initial $13.3 billion cost of the Marshall Plan was more or less matched by the estimated $10-$15 billion saved by the Truman Committee which sought out waste, fraud and abuse in the military procurement system during WW II. If Trump's mentality had ruled during that time, the Marshall Plan would have been much harder to justify. Now, carry on...
None of us know, but I suspect we'd have fared far better than you give us credit for. It wasn't US aid which beat the Blitz. It wasn't US aid which defeated the Nazis on the Eastern front. It helped, but we were stronger post BoB than at the beginning of the war and now living in a war economy. The Germans, on the other hand, were significantly weakened and the Luftwaffe was in no position to mount another assault. But it doesn't matter does it? Because you've proved my point here. You're pointing to the loan of material as a counter to the observation that it was your rivals who bore the brunt of the actual fighting. Fighting the US is very proud to take credit for. You can't address that directly so you side step the point altogether. A better question might be how long do you think the US could have stayed in the fight without the sacrifices of Russia, the UK and China? How often do you hear an American claim we'd be speaking German if it weren't for Russia, or China? Not as palatable as simply glossing over the scale of their input whilst reaching for a copy of Saving Private Ryan. 1) Of course Germany needed rebuilding post WW1. Rebuilding means more than just the physical structures, it also means the economy. Collectively we did exactly the opposite. It's hardly a secret that the Treaty of Versailles was targeted and punitive, becoming a major factor in setting the scene for WW2. 2) No one said it was in response to WW1. It drew heavily on the lessons learnt from Versailles but I've already argued upthread it was also about building a buffer against your greatest potential threat at the time.
After about July, 1945, the Germans would've had much bigger problems than the Russians if they were still fighting.
I think that US intervention was fairly decisive in WW2. The recieved wisdom that the UK "won the war" is only nominally true. They ended up on the winning side, but they were essentially defeated in 1940. And when the US entered later, their conditions involved the UK having to give up its role as world power with the UK largely excluded from post-war decision making, despite the optics.
Actually, the US probably saved western Europe (the continental part, at least) from speaking Russian -- or at least from having to use it to communicate with the central command system of the empire. So even though the Americans hardly won the war singelhandedly, as so many Americans are taught to believe, the importance to Europe of the US involvement in the latter part of the war should not be minimized in any way.
