I'm not sure the case can be made here. Japan attacked the US. The US declared war on Japan. Germany declared war on the US. The US then attacked Germany. The US got involved with Japan because of direct attack. The US got involved in Germany because they declared war on us, and the best time to attack them was when they were already occupied with fighting on many other fronts. If they had defeated their other enemies and then been able to focus entirely on the US, we'd have had much different problems.
The US had been working with the Allies long before Japan attacked Hawaii. Roosevelt wanted to go to war in Europe, but the American public wasn't ready for WW2. That said, even after Germany declared war on us, there was no need for us to put the resources into fighting Germany that we did. We could have dedicated ourselves to defeating Japan and then brokered peace with Hitler if we wanted to. He would have been more than willing to make peace with the US and avoid adding another partner to the allies. But that was never going to be an option. The US was going to fight the righteous war one way or another, and Hitler knew it. You have to remember that Hitler did not want America in the war and did not want Japan to attack the United States. Japan made that decision on its own and Germany was furious. He honored his treaty with Japan not because he really wanted to, but because he ultimately knew he had no choice. The die was cast.
I think this whole assertion is academic. In the end, it's kind of pointless to credit winning to whoever. But if you want to list the countries that came out the rosiest following the war, US would be #1 and Russia would #2(US edging out due to the lack of fighting our our soil). And no other countries come even close, IMO.
LOL, exactly. I guess the question is interesting to historians, but it does strike me as a "If Shane Battier had been playing for the Cavs instead of Craig Ehlo, does Michael Jordan hit that famous game winner?" Um, here's a hint: we will never know.
I will point out that the lend/lease program of the USA contributed greatly to the USSR's ability to wage war, as the Soviets did not have the industrial infrastructure to be a credible opponent to the mighty German army, who had the entire world technologically outclassed.
I sometimes wonder how Europe would look today if: 1. Hitler never invaded Russia 2. Hitler never declared war on the US Would we still have invaded France? To help our ally Britain? Would D-Day have even happened if Hitler wasn't pre-occupied in the East? Would he have driven us back into the ocean if he could've had all his forces concentrated in the West?
dude, when I opened up the the D&D section and saw you were the last to post in this thread. I just knew I would get an A Gemans bombing Pearl Harbor comment. And I don't even like that movie
Damn, I didn't even think of that! I guess the snow is affecting my ability to make tired, stupid jokes.
More than half. But, that was a double-win for the US. We got to rebuild advanced countries like France, and the USSR got to rebuild eternal backwaters like Romania. Though, obviously USSR did do the heavy-lifting on the war.
Well people have some misconceptions about WW2. First of all, Hitler did not want war with France and England to begin with. He wanted Poland, and then his goal was war with Russia over Eastern Europe. He did not anticipate England and France having the balls to attack him over Poland. Because his ultimate goal was Russia, there's almost no scenario where he wouldn't have invaded them. But, had he not had designs on Russia and stayed at peace with them, he would have won WW2. Fighting a war on 2 fronts and suffering terrible defeats in Russia and losing all the troops to the winter is was doomed Germany. Stalingrad changed the tide of the war against Germany and it never recovered. The Allies alone were not going to win a war on the Western front of Germany. D-Day would have been a historical disaster had Germany been able to commit all of her armies to stopping the Allied invasion.
I think there's a saying in Russia that goes something like this... Americans won with machines, Russians won with blood.
Eh... Nuking Japan is one thing, nuking continental Europe is something entirely different. It's racist, it's "western elitist", etc., but I don't think the US would ever have been able to justify nuking white Europe in the 1940s. Not only that, but countries like France and England would have reacted completely different if you nuked Europe.
Hell no. If Russia and Germany never engaged on the eastern front, Germany would've taken over all of Western Europe by the time US had nukes. US would have to carpet nuke the entire Western Europe to eradicate Germany's occupation, leaving you with a wasteland full of people with genetic diseases and mutations. The net result is worse than being ruled by Nazis. And millions of innocents under German rule would perish as a result of dropping nukes. The effect would be no less horrifying than Hitler and his concentration camps.
Agreed. But, if someone forced me to choose... In terms of ending state of nation, America won - no question. In terms of actually doing the work and paying the cost to win, Russia. They got the living tar beat out of them, and then came back and just annihilated everything in their path. I highly recommend Russia's War by Richard Overy for a great take on the ferocity of the soviet counterattack, and the outrageous oppression and slaughter it required.
I'm actually disappointed that anyone could say that no one won. This wasn't a war of choice or a war designed to make some rich guys richer. This wasn't Vietnam, this wasn't Korea, this wasn't Iraq... This was a truly righteous war. You had a madman who was committing genocide and threatening the sovereignty of free people everywhere. The world DEFINITELY won this war. You can say that nobody wins in conflicts like Vietnam and Iraq, but it is ridiculous to suggest that this was a war nobody won. One of the few times in history where you can't say that lives lost were lost in vain.
