this post was submitted on 26 May 2026
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Being the only country to use nuclear weapons?
Needing the fascists to bomb a naval base in an island colony to reluctantly join the fight against them, rather than just war profiteering?
Think we'd be better off if they'd sat it out?
Folks love to read a history book on WW2 and tell themselves the only fascists that ever existed were the Germans, the Italian, (and occasionally the Japanese).
And then we say "they lost! we won! Problem solved!"
Maybe with some hand waving about how Russia was full of Tankies and it's a good thing we won the Cold War, too.
There's never any real analysis of why we joined the side we did or why we broke with them before the smoke had even cleared.
the book i like on ww2 history is about submarines. no geopolitics at all, just submarines and what it's like to be on a submarine (because my wife's grandfather was on one of the submarines they were talking about in the book? i read it two decades ago before i started dating my wife. her little brother recommended it to me in high school before i met her. and shit high school was not two decades ago.). aaand i think i forgot the name. it might be Iron Coffins.
They did sit it out as much as they could - the Japanese attacked them and then the Germans declared war on them, the US was only involved out of self-defense.
We would probably have been better off if the US had declared war on Germany in September of 1939, rather than Germany declaring war on the US 2¼ years later out of solidarity with Japan.
The oil embargo on Japan was a virtual declaration of war.
As always the US wants war to defeat their economic rivals.
In Europe they waited royally late until the decisive battle of Stalingrad in 1943.
The reason they 'liberated' western-Europe was to take a part for themselves and stop the Soviets from going all the way to the Atlantic.
Making Europe vassals to this day.
There was no self-defense only opportunistic self-interest.
I don't think the US expected that Japan would attack them. They wanted to cripple Japanese imperial power in the Pacific so they could colonize the Pacific instead, but they would happily let China get genocided in the process rather than go to war and lose actual troops and material.
So I agree with you that "self-defense" made the US seem too pacifistic, when what they wanted was to bleed the world dry so they could become king of the ashes. But it should be made clear that the US did not take initiative to fight fascism. It did not "virtually" declare war. It sought maximum economic advantage for itself as millions perished.
The sensible military experts knew moving their main base to Pearl Harbor was crazy and creating a juicy target.
They most definitely expected an attack from intercepted messages and other intelligence.
And the embargo on Japan from resources is at least an act of aggression if not war.
They knew the Japanese certainly saw it that way.
Of course the US didn't fight fascism as many industrialists liked that ideology.
They only acted against them when they were sure they would lose against the Soviets.
From then on they actively helped to evacuate and save nazis for their future war against communism.
Good? The Japanese were slaughtering literally millions of Chinese people, and others across east Asia. The embargo was absolutely called for, and declaring war outright would have been even more commendable. The only thing we should be criticizing is a hesitancy to enter the war, if the embargo was essentially "an act of war" that reflects positively on the US, right? Why are you talking like an act of war against the Japanese was a bad thing?
Yes that's awful but I guarantee you the US couldn't care less about that.
The examples of the brutalities in the Philippines and other places in the area show enough about their attitude. (nothing has changed about that BTW)
I guess some people believe also they really want to help the Iranians from their evil government.
I repeat, they only did it out of self-interest, certainly not out of some humanitarian motivation.
And the same goes for their actions in Europe.
I agree, nations are generally not motivated by benevolence and certainly not at that time. However, the US was still on the right side of the war, it was good that it joined, and it did make a substantial contribution to the war effort. I'm not claiming that the US was "pure of heart" or something, what I am claiming that its involvement in WWII did more good than harm.
Saying that they only joined the war when it was clear that the Soviets were going to win is just ahistorical. The Germans had just reached Moscow days before US entry into the war, and the outcome of the war was far from certain. Yes, there was plenty of quibbling over who gets what towards the end of the war, particularly under Truman, but that doesn't mean that the US did not make real contributions in it.
I guess I just don't see why it's necessary to shit on the one time the US stumbled into the right side of history, to the point of historical inaccuracy. The Soviets were glad to have the US in the war, and coordinated with them substantially. You can hate the US while still acknowledging that. I don't see what the Iran War has to do with anything.
They let the germs and Soviets weaken themselves, they saw both as their enemies.
Again, only after the battle of Stalingrad decided the future outcome in 1943 did they enter the European theater.
Those are 2 facts and historically accurate.
Yes the Soviets were glad the west did a (small) part against the nazis.
But that only was a temporary marriage of convenience.
And again, they only went in to grab a piece of the loot as the opportunistic vultures they are so the Soviets wouldn't get it.
Which they still could if they wanted to, and chase the combined western 'allies' out too if they decided to continue the war.
I'm certain they don't teach that in most US schools but they do at West Point military academy BTW, in case you want to call that ahistorical again.
The US deserves to be shit on for all the awful things they do and did.
If you're looking for a win for your country, WW2 is not it.
As I said, we Europeans became US vassals, same as the Japanese.
So no, they were not the good guys despite the liberator heroes propaganda BS.
Before D-Day, the US prioritized Europe before Japan, and it fought the Germans in North Africa and in naval battles, while providing material support to the Soviet war effort.
100% agree. It does not, however, deserve to be shit on for killing fascists 80 years ago.
I am absolutely not "looking for a win for my country" I am simply not willing to change historical facts just to make the US look worse than it already is, because I don't need to.
Nobody said anything about "good guys."
There's plenty of bullshit propaganda regarding the historical narrative, but that doesn't mean that this knee-jerk criticism is correct. Like when you've reached the point of "The US is bad because it provoked Imperial Japan" I think you need to seriously consider whether you're overcorrecting.
North Africa was largely a British effort (not to mention also late in the war, AFTER Stalingrad)
The actual fighting in Europe except for some bombing runs was the invasion of Sicily. Also 1943.
I am not overcorrecting, just correcting.
I have also for a long time overestimated their efforts (and allies in general) when the Soviets eliminated 85% of nazis, most of their troops were on the eastern front.
Al this caused by propaganda and revisionism.
The times and places of battles are correct, they are not up for discussion.
How you interpret them and their weight is another thing.
But more important than their effort was the realization of their motives.
That was the shocking thing for me, also Europe's part and the heavy downplaying of collaboration and whitewashing afterwards.
Maybe we should make a difference here between the troops and government also when talking about the US actions.
I believe that nearly all the soldiers should be respected for the effort in fighting fascists.
The government is another thing.
You may see it differently but we can have our own opinions.
That's all I have to say I guess, unless you have objections ;)
Fair enough. I just think that our line should be slightly more reserved. Its enough to point out that the US was motivated primarily by self-interest and that the Soviets made the greatest contribution to the war effort (although I generally find that sort of "glory hounding" distasteful regardless of who's doing it, it is good to set the record straight). Those two things have very firm backing, and I don't think there's any narrative that should require going further than that. Imo, that only weakens otherwise solid criticism by getting into more disputable territory and gives fuel to accusations that we're just knee-jerk anti-American regardless of anything it does or doesn't do.
Whether it would have been possible (or strategically advisable) to do D-Day sooner is not a concrete fact. The US needed time to mobilize. If you want to present some form of hard evidence or academic work that proves otherwise, be my guest. But until then, I think your argument rests on shaky ground and again I just don't see any reason to push that far.
What exactly is the harm in just saying, "Yes, the US stumbled into doing something good one time, and it's been exaggerating about that for the past 80 years and using it to justify themselves while conducting imperialistic campaigns of terror and brutality ever since?" Do we really need that one good thing to actually be bad? Why?
And many people in the US quite liked Hitler and what he was saying. Henry Ford was a personal fan
Since we can speculate how much better it would have been if they'd joined sooner, can we also speculate if it would be worse - at all - if they'd never joined?
China might have become a Japanese colony, and all of Germany would have become part of the Soviet block.
The war may have lasted a year longer.
And the US wouldn't have become the leading superpower in the world.
The Nazis definitely wouldn't have won, though. They were on the back foot before the US military entered the war in Europe.
(I'm assuming the US would have still supplied the Soviets with weapons, cause there's no reason to assume they would let a good opportunity for profit go to waste)
On a side note, the US declared war only on Japan. They didn't enter the war to stop the Nazis for moral reasons, only as a reaction to being attacked themselves. So there wasn't really an option to sit it out.
The US was instrumental in backstopping Moscow and Beijing during the late 30s, which is what dragged us into the conflict at Pearl Harbor. Japan was trying to cut our supply lines to it's enemies.
Go back to 1932 and hypothesize that the Dems had flubbed it. Or that some neoliberal hack had taken over after Hoover and dragged out the Depression another four years.
Then imagine fascism fully taking hold in the US like it had in Europe. I don't think the Soviets benefit from that. I also don't think China becomes a Japanese colony (for the same reason Japan was run out of Vietnam without any real Western aid). But you also probably don't get Nixon opening the US economy to China in the 60s.
It raises a ton of question marks across the board. What happens to the Middle East, Latin America, and the Pacific Rim? What happens to India and the African states as they industrialize? What does Europe look like under a post-Hitler government? Etc etc.
Absent the US, I don't see how you get 1950s Europe in any conventional sense
OK, you postulate a lot more hypotheticals.
In the end, a lot of things could have had a major effect, and it's impossible to tell the result.
That's the fundamental problem with the premise. I might suggest comparing WW2 to profit prior periods of global war - the Thirty Years War or the Napoleonic Wars or even WW1 - when looking for a "what might have been?" hypothetical.
WW1 is actually a great comparison, as it illustrates a world that fought a brutal, self-destructive conflict and came out of it learning virtually nothing.
I vehemently disagree on the world learning nothing.
Chamberlain's appeasement policy was motivated by lessons learnt from WW1.
The "sitting war" that left Poland all alone against Germany while Germany's western border was wide open was due to lessons learnt from WW1.
The French defensive strategy was a direct result of lessons learnt from WW1.
The US reluctance to get involved was due to WW1 experience.
Even the crippling reparations for Germany that helped the Nazis rise to power in the first place were a result of lessons learnt from WW1.
My point is: The entire world learnt lessons from WW1. They did the best they could to prevent another war just like it.
But without the benefit of hindsight, they didn't realize how much had changed in the few interwar years, so they learnt all the wrong lessons.
Chamberlain wasn't appeasing Germany, he was negotiating an alliance against Russia.
So much of the grade school education on the prelude to WW2 was calling France/England surrender monkeys. Very little details how the fascist movement had infiltrated these states and was fueling the movements in Germany, Italy, and Japan.
The massive debts assigned to the loser countries after WW1 and the stagnant industrial growth among the "winners" (such that they existed) propelled the planet into a Great Depression.
These were the same colonial patterns that had produced conditions for the First World War.
The countries that broke this pattern - Russia following the Bolshevisk Revolution, Germany under the Weimer and then Nazis governments, Japan during the Meiji Restoration and Taishō period, and the US under FDR - rapidly emerged as imperial powers best positioned to capitalize on stagnation of the Old World.
Bro thats like asking if we'd be better off if the world was flat, too large a question with too many variables, completely impossible to actually give a proper answer
The USW has plenty of sins but to Axt like the US has done nothing good for the whole fucking world since 1945 is frankly absurd. You could argue it is a net negative and at least you'd have something to argue about but saying they've done nothing for the world is just stupid. The world has relied on the US for decades for massive funding of many many projects around the world. Was it self serving also? Absolutely but it still helped a lot and no one else was fucking doing it.
Now Diddy Trump goes in and gets rid of all the "extra" US spending so he can plunder even ire and who the fuck has stood up to fill the US gaps? Oh yeah. No one.
So yeah duck the US and their meddling but at least it had some collateral good. Where the hell are the other countries that just pointed at the US and patted themselves on the back for helping maintain world peace. Germany? England? France? Hello. Spend money on the world please. It needs it.
Have I lost the thread? We're just openly admitting now that we'd blame the US regardless of which decision they made?
This is literally my only comment in this thread. Are "we" an amalgam to you?
And even if "we" are to be considered an amalgam, can you find a set of comments such that "we" criticize every possible choice the US could have made with regard to a specific decision?
Literally you are the same problem you despise on the right side. This type of person is destroying the world. And get. You think you are helping. Ironic.
All this blind single issue rage.
Hey, the world is more complicated than 0 or 1. Fucking read more and process before you blurt out the first thing your little meat engine had pop into it.