Oh. Yes, the economically, socially and militarily devastated post-1991 Iraq was a *huge* threat to the world, seeing as they are the only country on the globe that managed to develop *invisible* weapons of mass destruction.Kharn said:
Happy 4th Of July Americans and Americanophiles!
- Thread starter John Uskglass
- Start date
Ratty said:
Still a dictatorial regime, 't was. Though indeed in this case the word "saved" is a bit hard to apply...
Yeah, and the US saved Chile from Pinochet.
No, wait.
No, wait.
By creating McDonald's, US saved the world from not becoming fat.
Lazarus Plus
The smoovest
Ratty said:
Whoa. Says WHAT? In this scenario America sends zero aid to Russia. Changes the picture for Russia, doesn't it? Do you know how many Russian infantry divisions were equipped with American weapons in 1941-42? A lot. How many jeeps made in America they rode on? How many boots and shoes they marched on? Our aid was pivotal to Russia.
With what? If Japan could have attacked Russia and did not have to worry about America, then Russia almost certainly would have lost the war. Even if Japan did not attack, what was the Russian pacific navy to Japan's strength in the water, if America wasn't fighting Japan? Ridiculous.
A cynical view. Germany was losing, it had not yet lost. And various technical innovations could have changed the situation for Germany in a large way. (The Me-262, for example, stopped only by bombing the extended airfields necessary for their take off. Germany air superiority could have been reestablished over Germany with that fighter. Thousands were built, after all.)
Agree with that. WWI attrition rates for successful offensives were 3-1. A very disenheartening figure when you consider that the whole of the Germany army was now on the Western Front.
Basically true, Italy was practically a no-count in WWII.
Well, yeah. At least there was a better justification for either of those wars, though.
Doubtful. Majority of Soviet weaponry and vehicles were manufactured in USSR. Larger quantities of US aid didn't start arriving until 1943, around the time the largest and most pivotal battles of the war had already played out and Germany was in regression. Face it, Russians practically carried the entire WWII on their shoulders and no other front anywhere in the world was even remotely comparable in sheer size and scale of carnage to the eastern front. If I tell you that in the battle of Kursk alone Germans lost more tanks than they would later dispose on the entire western front, hopefully it will give you some idea of how much the Soviet role in WWII dwarfs the role of any other Allied power.Lazarus Plus said:
Whether Japan would have attacked Russia is very questionable. The only reason why they started the war against USA in the first place was because US presence on Filipines meant Japan had no access to middle-eastern oil supply. In the unlikely scenario where Japan attacks USSR and USA remains neutral, USSR would have most likely won, because no army in the world can endure a death march across thousands of kilometers of frigid Siberian wasteland without a devastating loss of life.
Germany was doomed after battles of Stalingrad, Kursk and El Alamein. At Stalingrad and Kursk they suffered unrecoverable losses in manpower and equipment, while at El Alamein they lost access to oil. American involvement in North Africa and Europe had no effect on the outcome of the war itself, but only on its duration (and thus indirectly preventing further loss of life, kudos to that) and on political outlook of the post-war Europe (in sense they prevented spread of communism into western Europe, even bigger kudos to that).
John Uskglass
Venerable Relic of the Wastes
No US=Nazis in Cairo=Rommell in the East. Not good.
Also, the Germans had a lot of troops in held in France, Italy not to mention North Africa, troops that could have turned the tide in the East.
The Russian Navy would simply be totally incapable of crossing into the Mainland without 4 years of American naval war. Once the Japanese take Vladivostok, I doubt they would need to go further; the Russians have as much difficulty getting troops to Siberia without the Siberian Railroad as anyone, and they already are under a lot of manpower stress in the West.
And you seem to be forgetting that the Japanese Army is almost entirely in China and Manchukoku at this time; and this is an army that at this point still has oil, is extremley dedicated and is very, very big.
Uh...Africa? El Alamein would not have been as big a victory without Torch.
Tide of war in North Africa had already turned by the time Americans landed there, though their presence greatly accelerated ultimate German defeat.John Uskglass said:
Nah. German troops stationed in Western Europe, Italy and North Africa were negligible compared to what they were losing daily in Russia. This especially goes for North Africa, where they had less soldiers than in the occupied Croatia and Bosnia (where hundreds of thousands of soldiers would unsuccessfully fight a barefoot rebel army of peasants).
That's exactly what made the war between Japan and USSR extremely unlikely. Both sides had little to gain from it and much to lose. An invasion of Soviet mainland would have been suicidal for the Japs, and Soviets would have had no reason to drive them out of Eastern Russia, as bulk of Soviet industry and resources were located around and to the west of Urals. But had the Japanese been crazy enough to launch a full-scale invasion of USSR and advance westward, it would have likely ended in their defeat.
German army was thoroughly beaten at El Alamein. They no longer had the capacity to undertake any large-scale operations in North Africa, and Berlin couldn't spare any more troops to renew Rommel's dwindling divisions. Operation Torch was important because it drove them out of Africa sooner and set stage for invasion of Italy, which was vital for obvious reasons.
People, this is getting tiresome.
Posting Crusades in order to debate if 900 arguments are as valid as CCR's usual "omg amerika teh win" are really getting on my nerves. So are imbecillic arguments involving geopolitical powers presented in such a manner as if all the agents were Monopoly cards or other dipshit boardgame constant function.
So yeah. Is anyone willing to give me a valuable argument on the fact that the US didn't support authoritarian regimes, or are we going to bicker over Rommel's pubic hair lice and other imbecilities that are supposedly extremely linked to the thread's subject?
*lights firecracker*
wee! we're the god guys!
Posting Crusades in order to debate if 900 arguments are as valid as CCR's usual "omg amerika teh win" are really getting on my nerves. So are imbecillic arguments involving geopolitical powers presented in such a manner as if all the agents were Monopoly cards or other dipshit boardgame constant function.
So yeah. Is anyone willing to give me a valuable argument on the fact that the US didn't support authoritarian regimes, or are we going to bicker over Rommel's pubic hair lice and other imbecilities that are supposedly extremely linked to the thread's subject?
*lights firecracker*
wee! we're the god guys!
Elric
First time out of the vault
Hahahahahahaha! And what if Switzerland entered the war allied with the Nazis? Boom! Bang! Ka-blam!
Lazarus Plus
The smoovest
That's actualy an interesting scenario, seeing as Switzerland happens to have a fair portion of the world's banked wealth in it's borders.
Another interesting one is if the Nazis invaded Swizterland to make their last stand in more defensible territory...
Another interesting one is if the Nazis invaded Swizterland to make their last stand in more defensible territory...
Or if they sent an army of ninja wizards and bears that shoot laser beams out of their eyes to Greenland.
KillaKilla
Still Mildly Glowing
Wooz said:
Which would be suprisingly effective. Bears (Polar bears, I assume) are very adapted for the north, and would be able to survive far longer on scoutiing and patrol than a human would, and a wizard could simply cast some kind of shield around a tank, making it impermeable to enemy shells.And if they were ninjas then... then the... fight would be inherintly cooler?
*Kill Bill Theme*
EyeMaster7
A Smooth-Skin
Oh no !!! don't mention ninjas. This is going to derail this topic about WWII and invasion of other nations without a good excuse.
OIL. BLOOD FOR OIL !!!!!!! THE OIL MUST FLOW!!!!
What a deal !!! not only the US is going to clean the country from it's *beep* sending them to die in iraq but it's also going to get cheaper oil!!!!!
*EyeMaster7 buys ExxonMobil shares to celebrate the 4th of july.*
OIL. BLOOD FOR OIL !!!!!!! THE OIL MUST FLOW!!!!
What a deal !!! not only the US is going to clean the country from it's *beep* sending them to die in iraq but it's also going to get cheaper oil!!!!!
*EyeMaster7 buys ExxonMobil shares to celebrate the 4th of july.*
Happy 4th of July!
welsh
Junkmaster
Wooz, thou shalt not stifle conversations nor derail threads merely because you don't like them.
This John, is where the stupidity of your post begins.
If you don't like the fact that many people see the policies of the US over the last few years looking like Nazi policies (and no, I am not saying the US = Nazi), than maybe the US should take a step back and maybe reflect on some of these policies.
If we are to celebrate the birth of the US than perhaps we should appreciate what the US stands for. A little balancing might be in order.
Fair enough- the US has played an important role in fighting against tyranny and oppression. At the same time the US has participated in the spread of tyranny and oppression. The US has championed the spread of human rights and at the same time has made torture, disappearances and imprisonment without trial part of its policies. While the US has spread civil rights and increased enfranchisement to all, it has not done so for all people. While the US established the freedom of individuals to worship, it lays the seeds for intolerance. Where we have created a notion of an "american dream" in which individuals can acheive greater class mobility through sweat, intellect or their own initiative, we also have established patterns of class insulation.
That you, if in joking, support more oppression and domination, perhaps that reflects a blindness of Americans to reflect and in that process see that with their virtues come vices, and perhaps realize in the celebration of what is great about America one may also realize where the US can do better.
Maybe that's what is wrong with Americans today- a defensive nationalism/patriotism that Americans can do no wrong, a moral (almost religious) blindness that others pay for and sustains a rot within our own society.
Perhaps that is what's wrong with the Fourth of July. In the fireworks and picnics, in the softball games or family gatherings- we celebrate a holiday of the past and not the future.
Back to World War 2-
On Russia in the war-
Think of this in terms of sufficient and necessary conditions.
There are two theories at play here. One argument is that if Hitler had taken the centers of communication in Russia (Moscow, Leningrad, St alingrad) than Russia would have collapsed. WIthout those centers of communications the Russians would have been pushed back East and would not have the capacity to mount an organized counter offensive. There is a lot of support for this theory and if correct, it suggests that World War 2 could easily have gone the other way but for issues of timing and some mistakes.
Second theory argues that the Russians could have continued to fight no matter. They had already moved much of their war production back. Because this was a total war and the German own policies when dealing with even sympathetic Russian civilians, the Russians would have continued to fight. Stalingrad, Moscow were thus actions to halt and bog down the German advance, a holding action until superior Russian forces could overwhelm the weary and weakened Germans. From what I have read on Stalingrad, this seems to have been a strategy.
IF you accept theory one, than the US war effort perhaps helps turn the tide in Russia. Essentially those actions were so "close" than US aid was perhaps necessary for Russia winning. You might also argue that US aid was the sufficient condition for turning the tide of battle.
If you accept theory two, than US effort was a helpful but not necessary condition for Russia to win. Granted the US supplied Russia through the Artic convoys or overland through Iran, but those supplies were not sufficient nor necessary to turn the tide of battle.
Of these two, I favor the second. Yes, US supplies helped. But alone the Russians would have continued to retreat back into Russia and eventually launched their counter offensive. Lack of infrastructure hurts both sides in this, plus Germany is stretched further from its lines of supplies that are being interdicted. I doubt the Germans had the chance to stretch their forces over the mass of Russia.
In that sense the US and British war effort in the West was perhaps more important in drawing necessary forces away from the Russians. But the forces deployed by Germany against the West were few when compared to the massive forces staggered to slow the Russians.
US landings in North Africa (which were not without difficulty once the Germans began to react) came after El Alamain and the war in the desert had turned. Invasions of Sicily and Italy where slow ponderous efforts. In Sicily, most of the German forces escaped. In Italy the allies were frustrated all up the boot. And when you consider Italy, you should also recall that the campaign there was hardly an American effort but a more "United Nations" effort. The forces that moved up from Salerno to Naples and Rome, that fought in Cassino and Anzio were American, but also French, Polish, even Brazilian. IN fact, when Italy rejoined the war effort, it deployed troops to kick the Germans out of Italy.
When the US and British forces land in France in 1944, the Germans are in retreat in Russia. The US invasion draws forces away, allowing the Russians to make greater progress and have been since Zitadelle in 1943. In all intensive purposes the Russians have the upper hand. While US forces seize Cherbourg, St. Lo and then make the breakout, British Commonwealth forces fight in Caen, through Holland, seize Antwerp (spelling), and even Free french forces are in the fight.
So World War 2 in Europe- yes the US plays a role, but most of the credit probably goes to the Russians.
- Regarding Japan invading Russia.
Before the beginning of hostilities agains the US, and I think before the Japanese land forces in Indochina, documents reveal that there were in fact two plans- a South plan and a North plan.
The North plan involved an invasion of Soviet Russia's Asian provinces. These areas were rich in resources necessary for Japan. In 1941 the Germans are doing very well against the Russians and the Japanese are optimistic that their ally, Germany may carry the day. If so, there is a question of whether Japan will be left out of the spoils of Russia. Russian forces are deployed against the Germans and their allies, leaving the Far East vulnerable.
The problem for the Japanese is one of oil and China. China has become stalemated and is consuming too much of Japans military arm. The choice for Japan is rather to give up in China or to invade through French controlled Indo-china to cut of the Chinese flow of supllies. France has already fallen to Germany, leave Vietnam open.
So Japan decides to go South.
The US responds with an oil embargo. When the Japanese offer to pull out of Indochina, the Americans push the envelope by demanding that Japan pulls out of China, which for Japan means an end of their imperial ambitions and chance for regional dominance or war with a superior enemy.
When the Japanese leaders are considering war, they know that the Americans are globally dominant if regionally matched. They are aware that if America turns its attentions on Japan, Japan will eventually lose. The Emperor himself questions the political leaders essentially asking "Are you crazy? We're going get crushed!" But he's shut down. Why? That's a good question- part of it was because the power of the military elites was built on the notion that imperialism was necessary.
John Uskglass said:
This John, is where the stupidity of your post begins.
If you don't like the fact that many people see the policies of the US over the last few years looking like Nazi policies (and no, I am not saying the US = Nazi), than maybe the US should take a step back and maybe reflect on some of these policies.
If we are to celebrate the birth of the US than perhaps we should appreciate what the US stands for. A little balancing might be in order.
Fair enough- the US has played an important role in fighting against tyranny and oppression. At the same time the US has participated in the spread of tyranny and oppression. The US has championed the spread of human rights and at the same time has made torture, disappearances and imprisonment without trial part of its policies. While the US has spread civil rights and increased enfranchisement to all, it has not done so for all people. While the US established the freedom of individuals to worship, it lays the seeds for intolerance. Where we have created a notion of an "american dream" in which individuals can acheive greater class mobility through sweat, intellect or their own initiative, we also have established patterns of class insulation.
That you, if in joking, support more oppression and domination, perhaps that reflects a blindness of Americans to reflect and in that process see that with their virtues come vices, and perhaps realize in the celebration of what is great about America one may also realize where the US can do better.
Maybe that's what is wrong with Americans today- a defensive nationalism/patriotism that Americans can do no wrong, a moral (almost religious) blindness that others pay for and sustains a rot within our own society.
Perhaps that is what's wrong with the Fourth of July. In the fireworks and picnics, in the softball games or family gatherings- we celebrate a holiday of the past and not the future.
Back to World War 2-
On Russia in the war-
Think of this in terms of sufficient and necessary conditions.
There are two theories at play here. One argument is that if Hitler had taken the centers of communication in Russia (Moscow, Leningrad, St alingrad) than Russia would have collapsed. WIthout those centers of communications the Russians would have been pushed back East and would not have the capacity to mount an organized counter offensive. There is a lot of support for this theory and if correct, it suggests that World War 2 could easily have gone the other way but for issues of timing and some mistakes.
Second theory argues that the Russians could have continued to fight no matter. They had already moved much of their war production back. Because this was a total war and the German own policies when dealing with even sympathetic Russian civilians, the Russians would have continued to fight. Stalingrad, Moscow were thus actions to halt and bog down the German advance, a holding action until superior Russian forces could overwhelm the weary and weakened Germans. From what I have read on Stalingrad, this seems to have been a strategy.
IF you accept theory one, than the US war effort perhaps helps turn the tide in Russia. Essentially those actions were so "close" than US aid was perhaps necessary for Russia winning. You might also argue that US aid was the sufficient condition for turning the tide of battle.
If you accept theory two, than US effort was a helpful but not necessary condition for Russia to win. Granted the US supplied Russia through the Artic convoys or overland through Iran, but those supplies were not sufficient nor necessary to turn the tide of battle.
Of these two, I favor the second. Yes, US supplies helped. But alone the Russians would have continued to retreat back into Russia and eventually launched their counter offensive. Lack of infrastructure hurts both sides in this, plus Germany is stretched further from its lines of supplies that are being interdicted. I doubt the Germans had the chance to stretch their forces over the mass of Russia.
In that sense the US and British war effort in the West was perhaps more important in drawing necessary forces away from the Russians. But the forces deployed by Germany against the West were few when compared to the massive forces staggered to slow the Russians.
US landings in North Africa (which were not without difficulty once the Germans began to react) came after El Alamain and the war in the desert had turned. Invasions of Sicily and Italy where slow ponderous efforts. In Sicily, most of the German forces escaped. In Italy the allies were frustrated all up the boot. And when you consider Italy, you should also recall that the campaign there was hardly an American effort but a more "United Nations" effort. The forces that moved up from Salerno to Naples and Rome, that fought in Cassino and Anzio were American, but also French, Polish, even Brazilian. IN fact, when Italy rejoined the war effort, it deployed troops to kick the Germans out of Italy.
When the US and British forces land in France in 1944, the Germans are in retreat in Russia. The US invasion draws forces away, allowing the Russians to make greater progress and have been since Zitadelle in 1943. In all intensive purposes the Russians have the upper hand. While US forces seize Cherbourg, St. Lo and then make the breakout, British Commonwealth forces fight in Caen, through Holland, seize Antwerp (spelling), and even Free french forces are in the fight.
So World War 2 in Europe- yes the US plays a role, but most of the credit probably goes to the Russians.
- Regarding Japan invading Russia.
Before the beginning of hostilities agains the US, and I think before the Japanese land forces in Indochina, documents reveal that there were in fact two plans- a South plan and a North plan.
The North plan involved an invasion of Soviet Russia's Asian provinces. These areas were rich in resources necessary for Japan. In 1941 the Germans are doing very well against the Russians and the Japanese are optimistic that their ally, Germany may carry the day. If so, there is a question of whether Japan will be left out of the spoils of Russia. Russian forces are deployed against the Germans and their allies, leaving the Far East vulnerable.
The problem for the Japanese is one of oil and China. China has become stalemated and is consuming too much of Japans military arm. The choice for Japan is rather to give up in China or to invade through French controlled Indo-china to cut of the Chinese flow of supllies. France has already fallen to Germany, leave Vietnam open.
So Japan decides to go South.
The US responds with an oil embargo. When the Japanese offer to pull out of Indochina, the Americans push the envelope by demanding that Japan pulls out of China, which for Japan means an end of their imperial ambitions and chance for regional dominance or war with a superior enemy.
When the Japanese leaders are considering war, they know that the Americans are globally dominant if regionally matched. They are aware that if America turns its attentions on Japan, Japan will eventually lose. The Emperor himself questions the political leaders essentially asking "Are you crazy? We're going get crushed!" But he's shut down. Why? That's a good question- part of it was because the power of the military elites was built on the notion that imperialism was necessary.