That sounds really hard.
Why do people think that the US won WW2 in Europe?
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Re: Why do people think that the US won WW2 in Europe?
#52Would the USSR have won against Germany if the US was not involved? And what if the US joined the Axis powers in the war?
That's a difficult question. Without US involvement the USSR would probably have won but at an even more disastrous cost. And the war would have taken longer.
But ultimately the USSR had more resources and more manpower than the Nazis so the question was moreso about when the Soviet wartime production would have finished building up.
There is also the question that Soviet planning would very probably have been much more urgent if the US kept neutral.
Re: Why do people think that the US won WW2 in Europe?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about lend-lease?
Lend lease was a serious part of it but 10-15% of the USSR's output is no match for 90-85% of the Soviet output plus 20 million lives. The US still did however a lot to help.
Materially significant portion of lend-lease also happened after Stalingrad.
If US would not join USSR in the war effort, the Soviets would stop at the Atlantic shore, not in Berlin.
Re: Why do people think that the US won WW2 in Europe?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe also: Would the US have won against Germany if the USSR was not involved?
Please do recall that the USSR was effectively on the same side as Germany for the first two years of the war.
Not really. The USSR knew conflict with Germany was inevitable, Molotov-Ribbentrop was about delaying it as much as possible.
Re: Why do people think that the US won WW2 in Europe?
#55The US was a smart, well organized, helpful 3rd party entering the war from another side of the map. I'm spitballing highly here, but it feels to me like it changed the conflict from a side vs side attrition to something more dynamic & much harder to fight. The size & scale of that change doesn't necessarily have to mean that the US did most of the fighting, did the most to "win" the war, but it's substantial presence was key to changing the nature of the conflict & bringing it to a close.
Another key point to me about the US's importance in the war is something I've only heard in the last decade, from The Secret History of Silicon Valley[1][2][3]. The US's technological work in trying to learn & counter advanced German war machines seems like a crucial contribution to the war. Foiling Germany's impervious air defenses (& thwarting their bombing campaigns) is one example of the advanced signals & intelligence role that the US contributed to the war effort against the Nazis.
As the linked Quora answer points out though, the US was also making colossal material contributions to the Soviet war effort, while also running their own invasion in parallel. While also working enormously hard to keep England fighting too. In the earlier days of the ar, denying German's free reign over the Atlantic required not nearly as many lives as a ground war (but still a horrific death toll), but gracious were a lot of ships ever lost trying to bring food & supplies under the Lend Lease program, & created the war-time industry needed to eventually enter the war in full.
[1] https://steveblank.com/secret-history/
Re: Why do people think that the US won WW2 in Europe?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please do recall that the USSR was effectively on the same side as Germany for the first two years of the war.
Not really. The USSR knew conflict with Germany was inevitable, Molotov-Ribbentrop was about delaying it as much as possible.
Why delaying? USSR has the most powerful army in 1939. USSR could have occupied Ploesti oil fields in 1940 that would effectively stop the war.
Creating a common border with your enemy is not a very effective way to "delay" from my point of view.
Re: Why do people think that the US won WW2 in Europe?
#57The Headline misses the second half of the question, "because the USSR killed 75% of German Soldiers in WW2". KIA/Casualties are just one metric. You would expect the long war of attrition and many Pyrrhic victories on the Eastern front to have a high cost of human life, that doesn't necessarily equate to strategic impact. The saying is... Churchill gave the time, Roosevelt gave the money and Stalin gave the Blood.
When you account for PoWs, the numbers are more equitable. Approximately 4 and 1 million German fatalities occurred on the eastern and western fronts respectively. The USSR took a further 3m PoWs, while the US, UK, and France captured 7.6m between them according to Overmans. Along similar lines, troop distributions again reinforce that both fronts were critically important to Germany. I'm sure many people will be happy to point out the issues with both of these metrics, but the different fronts were clearly very different places.
Re: Why do people think that the US won WW2 in Europe?
#58In Brazil, a country heavily influenced by US culture, people will carefully explain you how the US won the Vietnam war.
People in the US don't even say that..... thats the primary one considered a loss.
> People in the US don't even say that
While they talk about it less now because they’ve got other more current foreign issues for both military chest-thumping and blaming liberals, conservatives used to (at least, IME between about the mid-80s and about 9/11) incessantly talk about the US having won Vietnam “militarily” before political betrayal by the “liberals”.
Not endorsing any part of this view, but I certainly got subjected to it.
Re: Why do people think that the US won WW2 in Europe?
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really. The USSR knew conflict with Germany was inevitable, Molotov-Ribbentrop was about delaying it as much as possible.
Why delaying? USSR has the most powerful army in 1939. USSR could have occupied Ploesti oil fields in 1940 that would effectively stop the war. Creating a common border with your enemy is not a very effective way to "delay" from my point of view.
This is really absurd. By 1939 the Red Army was massively lacking in tanks, artillery, air power, and logistics. They could not have sustained an expeditionary offensive against Germamy, even in Romania. And while Ploesti had significant oil production, by 1939 Germany had alternatives and a lower oil consumption, so this would not have stalled the offensive.
Re: Why do people think that the US won WW2 in Europe?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please do recall that the USSR was effectively on the same side as Germany for the first two years of the war.
Not really. The USSR knew conflict with Germany was inevitable, Molotov-Ribbentrop was about delaying it as much as possible.
USSR backstabbed Poland and occupied it since 1939.