[lmilcin]

That's very simplistic view on military.

Think of a corporations that make all decisions at top level vs corporations that at the top level mostly worry about creating correct environment for the individual contributors and low level managers to be able to make right decisions, individually.

US military won the IIWW war because it created that right environment.

Mobilizing people (people who are not interested in achieving goal are almost useless), keeping spirit (for example US military will always do what's necessary to save individual solders vs Japanese that treated soldiers mostly as expendable), ensuring that people are promoted on merit and not birth, ensuring people are trained and are given right tools.

All those things are so that soldiers can make the right decisions, on the spot.

It is naive to think that a general can say whatever he wants and make it happen. It will only happen if all those people want to make it happen and are prepared to make it happen.

[ncmncm]

The US military did not win the war, at least in Europe. They pottered around in Africa, Italy, and Belgium while the Soviet army won the war. Ten of the ten biggest battles were on the eastern front, while a tiny fraction of axis assets held off the West for years. Western bombing (despite huge losses) had negligible effect on German industrial production, which increased right up to 1945. (US industrial imports to Russia through Iran were important, though.)

The US did win the Pacific war, despite that its torpedoes were wholly almost wholly non-functional until 1944. It won at monstrous cost in wasted Marine Corps lives, apparently because blockade work was not dramatic for home audiences.

[barry-cotter]

The Soviet Union could not have won without US support of arms and materiel. It might have been able to survive in some form by completely abandoning everything east of the Urals. US industrial production was crucial to Soviet survival, not a nice to have. Costly business, dividing up Eastern Europe in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

[mbrodersen]

Russia stopped the Germans by building more than 34000 tanks and sacrificing millions of lives. The US only really entered the war after 4 years of sitting on the side lines. Yes US support of materials to Europe was important but don’t overplay it’s significance. Also, remember that Europe paid for the US materials in gold. The US was basically acting as an arms dealer, with the 2nd world war being a huge business opportunity for US manufacturing, and the direct reason for the US moving ahead of Europe.

[ncmncm]

"West of", perhaps?

But it had beaten back most if the invasion before US materiel showed up in substantial quantity, and its industrial output (also) grew dramatically throughout the war.

Whether it could have secured enough food to sustain that output, without US SPAM, is unclear; the Soviets openly acknowledged the importance of the SPAM. The hundreds of thousands of trucks, millions of tires, millions of tons of steel, and corresponding amount of refined petrolem the US delivered probably mattered too, when it finally got there. Soviet pilots liked the P-39s, sort of proto-A10s.

The Soviet materiel placement in 1941, immediately before Germany invaded, was consistent with immediate plans to invade Germany.

[AnimalMuppet]

What were you going to use to enforce the blockade? Torpedoes?

[barry-cotter]

Mines, lots and lots of mines.

[lmilcin]

Hey, wars are messy business. Usually if there is so much disparity in power that the outcome is known beforehand it does not come to war.

US had declared Axis powers to be the enemy and then the enemy was defeated. Nobody questions that US was key to winning WWII. It seems impossible that soviets would hold if Nazi Germany was able to send all their resources to eastern front. Even with the help on the western front, soviets held JUST BARELY. And at key moment US troops landed in Italy forcing Hitler to divert his forces that were necessary to win battle of Kursk.

I don't see how you can question that US won the war, it is a fact documented by representatives of states involved in the war signing their capitulation to US.

[bluGill]

It was a joint effort. To claim any single entity won alone is wrong. There are alternate history questions, but they will never be conclusive.

[lmilcin]

Well, every one of those entities won. Do you want to say nobody actually won the war?

In a sense it is true, but not in the sense we are talking about.

[ncmncm]

What we are after is who, if anybody, was responsible for a clear majority of the total effective engagement of Axis forces.

On that question, it is dead clear that the Soviets were, and by a huge margin.

Did US and British troops contribute? Yes. Did P-51s and P-38s help clear the skies of effective German air power? Sure. Would the outcome have been notably different without them? Probably not.

The biggest single setback for Germany, driving deep into original German territory, happened while the US and Britain were pinned down in Belgium and Southern France by a tiny fraction of German assets. Without, the war might have gone on for up to another year, and the Soviets would have ended up owning all of Europe and, probably, Africa. We must be satisfied that that did not happen.

[deterministic]

The US did almost nothing for 4 years, except selling materials to Europe in return for gold. It only joined the war after Europeans had already killed more than 23 million Germans, and destroyed most of its military. Claiming that the US won the war is BS. The US was part of a large group of countries that won the war, all contributing to defeat the Nazis.

[AnimalMuppet]

Four years? Counting how? War in Europe began in September 1939. So the US didn't do anything until September 1943? Bull. (I mean, I guess they didn't land in Europe until Italy, which was 1943. But even though it wasn't in Europe, they were still fighting Germany in Africa in 1942.)

> It only joined the war after Europeans had already killed more than 23 million Germans, and destroyed most of its military.

German military casualties were only 5.3 million by the high estimate. Total German casualties were only 7.4 million by the high estimate - for the whole war. So... I don't know where you get your ideas, but they are objectively very wrong.

[mbrodersen]

So you agree that it took 4 years before the US entered the war in Europe. And yes I am probably wrong about the 23 million. It doesn’t change my conclusion though: the US spent 4 years on the side line selling weapons to Europe, and only joined the war after most of the German war machine was defeated.

[AnimalMuppet]

If you consider the entire North Africa campaign to be "the sidelines" I suppose. I completely disagree with your conclusions, though, because I completely disagree that North Africa was "the sidelines", even with respect to Europe. What were they doing in North Africa? Killing Germans. Was that "selling weapons to Europe", or was it more than that? I claim that it was much more.

[ncmncm]

Entering the war while Germany and Russia were on the same side would have been fatal, and might even have prevented or delayed their fission.

Staying out long after the split, while Germany and Russia gored one another, was clearly the wiser course. Entering before the Soviets could subdue Germany and overrun western Europe was necessary. But any claim that the US had any sort of primary role in defeating Germany remains nonsense.

[lmilcin]

Exactly. I was brought up in Poland during communist rule and even then nobody claimed US wasn't key to winning the war.