[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]

The entire North Africa campaign certainly was the sidelines, by any measure. It involved a tiny fraction of German forces. Every day spent in Africa was a day not spent advancing on the German heartland.

That said, the US was far from ready to advance on the German heartland until after the time they were pottering about in Africa. It was a way to look busy.