(ASCACHESS) wrote in
message ...
ASCACHESS wrote:
...the US would have won both wars with or without support.

George Mirijanian (Miriling) wrote to ASCACHESS:
Are you serious?

Evidently, he seriously believes it; some other people don't believe it.

"US played some secondary important role in the victory over Hitler."
--GM Mikhail Golubev (17 April 2003, 'A new enemy of Lev Khariton')

Without the Russians, i.e. Soviets, the U.S. could not have
won the war in Europe. Ask any World War II military expert.

After the war, nearly every German general acknowledged that Germany had lost
the war primarily as a consequence of its conflict with the Soviet Union.

"Britain could never have built enough military power to invade the Continent
alone. *Unless the strength of the Soviet Union were added, the United States
could not have projected sufficient military force across the Atlantic Ocean,
even over a period of years, to reconquer Europe by amphibious invasion in
the face of an untouched German war machine.* Since the United States was
increasingly preoccupied with the threat of Japan, it almost certainly would
not have challenged Germany.

Thus, Germany would have been left with a virtually invincible empire and the
leisure to develop defenses and resources that, in time, would permit it to
match the strength of the United States. Though Britain might have refused
to make peace, a de facto cease-fire would have ensued. The United States
would have concentrated on defense of the Western Hemisphere and Pacific.
Even if the United States had proceeded with development of the atomic bomb,
it would have hesitated to unleash it against Germany."

--Bevin Alexander (How Hitler Could Have Won World War II, p. xii)

Bevin Alexander was an official historian for the United States Army.

Atomic bomb.

Without the work of any non-American scientists, would the United States
have been able to develop the atomic bomb first and be certain enough that
there should be no significant risk of retaliation by a German atomic bomb?

Larger air force than all the others combined.

I doubt that the United States's air arms (Army, Navy, Marines) could have
achieved air superiority over the combined forces of the Royal Air Force,
VVS (Soviet Air Force), Luftwaffe, and Japanese air forces (Army, Navy).
Moreover, both the Germans and the British were more advanced than the
Americans at introducing the revolutionary new jet aeroplanes into service.

Larger navy than all the others combined.
One hundred aircraft carriers by 1945.

That would have been irrelevant to conquering Germany on land.

Yes, we could have done it without the Russians.

"We *could* have done it without the Russians" is a weaker assertion than the
previous "the US *would* have won both wars with or without (any) support".

'What elegant historian would neglect a striking opportunity for pointing out
that his heroes did not foresee the history of the world, or even of their
own actions?'
--George Eliot (Middlemarch)

--Nick

..
Without the Russians, i.e. Soviets, the U.S. could not have
won the war in Europe. Ask any World War II military expert.


Why -- are these "experts" infallible when it comes to *speculating* what
might have been?



Thus, Germany would have been left with a virtually invincible empire


Somebody stopped, to insert the word "virtually," above. Interesting, no?
:-)



The United States would have concentrated on defense of
the Western Hemisphere and Pacific.


I think somebody is overestimating the U.S. here.
Since when did the U.S. ever concentrate solely on *defense*, and leave other
countries alone? The development of the Bomb embues power. And power
corrupts. If we had the bomb (and nobody else did), there is no reason why
the U.S. could not have thwomped even a vast German Empire, if the right
politicians got the urge.
Obviously, if the Germans had conquered all of Europe, they would have had no
qualms about taking over the seas next, sinking U.S. ships via submarine
attacks whenever they deemed it necessary or expedient. Hence, the U.S. would
need no further pretext to drop the Bomb. A-Bomb here, A-Bomb there, here
A-Bomb, there A-Bomb, everywhere A-Bomb-bomb. Old MacDonald had a farm.
E-i-e-i-oooh.



Without the Bomb, it's a horse of a different color. That would be like
trying to win WWII without the Russians.... :-)






"Never bite-off more than you can chew."

--- Hitler


"Let sleeping dogs lie."

--- the fellow who unwisely woke-up Fischer.






One hundred aircraft carriers by 1945.

That would have been irrelevant to conquering Germany on land.


In fact, whenever the U.S. is about to launch (yet another) land invasion,
this is always preceeded by sending in the aircraft carriers, from which planes
are launched. These planes "pave the way" by pummelling the enemy ground
forces to smithereens. We also always try to establish nearby land airbases
from which to launch air attacks.
It is silly to imply that ground troops are not actually transported by the
aircraft carriers, for they always accompany the transport ships; but then, a
large-scale ground invasion is not necessarily the only way to fight a war.
In fact, heavy losses which were projected for an land invasion of Japan were
used to "justify" the dropping of the Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is
often referred to as evidence of racism, for "we" dropped the Bomb on "the
yellow man," but not on our fellow "white man." But maybe we just ran out of
Bombs.... :-)

(ASCACHESS) wrote in
message ...
Nick wrote:
"We *could* have done it without the Russians" is a weaker assertion than the
previous "the US *would* have won both wars with or without (any) support".

Another candidate for the parsing of "is".

Bruce Draney and I already have observed that ASCACHESS's "use of the word
'could' makes a difference"; indeed, it makes what ASCACHESS wrote originally
significantly different from what ASCACHESS wrote later. ASCACHESS's original
position was that the United States "*would* have won...without support" from
any allies; ASCACHESS's changed position seems to be that the United States
"*could* have done it without (only) the Russians".

Perhaps ASCACHESS fails to understand that important difference in language,
or perhaps he simply does not care to admit it. By the way, what has happened
to ASCACHESS's lawsuit against the USCF?

Their was a "Great Patriotic War" between the Russians and Germans.
Without that war, the US still could have and would have defeated Germany
and the Japanese.

Is that contention being made only on the basis that the United States still
would have been fully supported by every other allied nation (except for the
Soviet Union)?

Both German and Japanese codes were broken and we could read their messages
faster than they could.

The German secret codes were originally broken by the Poles and the British,
not the Americans (unless perhaps in the Hollywood films).

If the Soviet Union had been cooperating with Germany in the war, then perhaps
the excellent Soviet secret service could have discovered that the German
secret codes had been broken and then revealed that fact to the Germans.

Further, Germany was not even close to having the A bomb.
That sort of leaves the US with the bomb all alone.

In the *historical war*, for various reasons the Germans did not come close to
developing an atomic bomb by 1945. In a *hypothetical war* (given a neutral
or a cooperative Soviet Union), it's possible that the Germans could have made
more progress in developing an atomic bomb. If Germany and the Soviet Union
had been able to cooperate on an atomic bomb project, then the Germans could
have benefitted from the Soviet espionage on the Manhattan Project.

If you think 100 aircraft carriers would not have made a difference in
the Atlantic, I think you are nuts.

That's a misunderstanding of what I wrote. My point was that I doubt that
the aircraft carriers could have exerted a decisive influence on the clash of
vast armies on land in the heart of Europe. Moreover, not having to fight the
Soviet Union, the Germans should have had much more time and resources to
develop their secret weapons, many of which were much more advanced than any
American weapons. The American aircraft carriers could have become vulnerable
to guided missiles fired from the German jet aeroplanes.

In reality by 1945, both the Germans and the Japanese had developed advanced
submarines (U-Boats or I-Boats, respectively), which were capable of sustaining
high speed while remaining submerged. If enough of these submarines had
become operational, then the Allies would have faced another crisis at sea.

The industrial output of the US was far greater than the rest of the world
combined.

"Far greater" is an absurd claim. (Does ASCACHESS ever check any figures
before he waves the United States flag?) Notwithstanding the advantage of
having been entirely safe from enemy bombing (except for the raid on Pearl
Harbor), the United States did *not* produce more aeroplanes and more tanks
than "the rest of the world combined" during the war.

Who do you think supplied Britain and the Russians?

Does ASCACHESS seriously believe that most weapons and equipment used by the
British/Commonwealth and Soviet armed forces were made in the United States?

What do you think was meant by the phrase "arsenal of democracy".

No one disputes the fact that the United States was the greatest industrial
power in the world. But it was not "*far greater* than the rest of the world
combined".

During the entirety of WW2, how many heavy bombers did Germany produce?
The answer is none.

Actually, the Germans did produce some prototypes of heavy bombers.
Germany had the industrial might to produce more heavy bombers, but its
leaders simply had decided that the Luftwaffe did not need a powerful
strategic bomber arm.

Your stupid assertion that the US could not have prevailed against the
combined airforces of the Japan, Russia, Germany, and Britain is absurd.

The American professional historians of my acquaintance treat me with respect.
Some of them even regard me as an expert on some (though not all, of course)
aspects of the Second World War.

The US had then the incredible advantage it has now.

No, the conditions during 1941-45 were different from those in 2003.

What other nation has over 500,000 (currently) trained pilots?

It's not sound historical practice to extrapolate backward in time like that.

You think the appearance of jets would have made a difference?

If the Luftwaffe had been able to operate enough jet aeroplanes, flown by
enough skilled pilots, with enough fuel to fly them, early enough in the
air war, then that powerful force "would have made a difference".

For how long before the US was producing 1000 a week?

I doubt that all of the United States's generals then were as complacent as
ASCACHESS about the capabilities of the revolutionary German jet aeroplanes.

A American jet had been designed early in the war, but there was no need.

Actually, both the Germans and the British were more advanced in jet
propulsion than the Americans, who benefitted much from the transfer of
British jet engine technology.

All your "what if" questions are just revisionist history and ignore the
material reality of the American advantages over all other nations.

At the historical conferences that I have attended, continuous United States
"flag-waving" has not been accepted as a substitute for reasoned arguments
supported by citing evidence.

If you think the Russians would have defeated the Nazis without American aid,

Actually, I believe that the United States Lend-Lease (not to mention the
British Lend-Lease, which ASCACHESS naturally did *not* mention) did make a
significant contribution toward the Soviet victory.

then how can you possibly make the argument that the Americans could not
have done it alone? Sheesh.

The American academic historians of my acquaintance and I should agree that,
evidently, ASCACHESS is an ignorant American who prefers to believe that his
favorite brands of "flag-waving" propaganda must be "real history".

Will ASCACHESS challenge me to a "duel" after he has fought Aviv Friedman? :-)

'It is dangerous to arm the enraged and the ignorant.'
--Sophia Lee (The Recess)

--Nick