[darkpuma]

I think you're discounting the roll of America's massive industrial output, which shipped more than 17 million tons of goods to the Soviet Union throughout the war, including more than 400,000 trucks/jeeps, 7,000 tanks, 11,000 airplanes, and 1.75 million tons of food, just to name a bit.

Relative to national size, the Soviet Union received more tanks and planes from the British than the Americans, but the American trucks in particular were incredibly important for the Soviets. During that same period the Soviet Union only produced a fraction of that many trucks and Soviet trucks were frankly inferior trucks. Beyond the obvious logistic advantages of trucks in a war largely characterized by mobility, receiving American trucks allowed the Soviet Union to dedicate more of it's (relatively limited) industrial capacity to the production of tanks and airplanes.

Incidentally, here is something else American students aren't taught (I wonder if Japanese students are?): The leadership of the Japanese military considered the emperor to be a figurehead and after the 2nd atomic bombing when the Emperor was preparing to surrender, the staff office of the Ministry of War as well as several members of the Imperial Guard seized control of the Imperial Palace, with the goal of preventing surrender. They failed of course, but only due to the bravery and good luck of a few people in the Palace. The point here being, there were high ranking elements of the Japanese military that wanted to continue fighting even after the second bomb, and even with the Soviets preparing an invasion. Nationalism is a hell of a drug...

[DoreenMichele]

The only thing I'm discounting is the American tendency to talk like we are the center of the universe and always have been. I'm saying "WW2 wasn't a war with the US. There were multiple countries on both sides of that war."

That's it. That's all I'm saying. It doesn't actually translate to "America didn't count and made no difference whatsoever in the war effort."

[darkpuma]

Americans do call it a World War, don't they? I think you're being a bit too cynical.

[DoreenMichele]

Perhaps pedantic. But the comment I was replying to specifically framed WW2 as "a war with the US" and I've had foreign friends, such as in Canada, who have commented on America's tendency to talk like we singlehandedly won that war.

[darkpuma]

I don't think "war with the US" was meant to imply "A war in which America was on it's own and did everything"; that's a cynical read of it. A less cynical read would be that "war with the US" means "war in which the US was a participant."

Germany did declare war with the US, hence there was in fact a war with the US. Of course, Germany was also at war with lots of other people. All Americans are taught that in schools. It's called a World War for a reason and people do understand that, even when they're going out of their way to mention it. If Americans don't mention Canadian participation much it's simply because they don't talk about Canada much in the first place. It's not because they're unaware that Canada participated in the war. Canada is a commonwealth country, of course they participated in the war. Everybody here knows that.

[DoreenMichele]

I don't understand your use of the word cynical here. It sounds like you might mean "bad faith or uncharitable reading."

Ironically, that framing of my remarks strikes me as uncharitable. I did start by asserting from the get go that I was picking nits.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_charity