• KiraChats [she/her, they/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    11 months ago

    The US was (and still is) ideologically aligned with the Nazis, and only joined WW2 in the 11th hour because Japan forced them to with the attack on Pearl Harbor. To think that the US "won the war" or should be uniquely congratulated for their contributions to the war is... absurd. If anyone should be awarded that honor, it's the Soviets.

    Edit: I really like this place. Yall taught me so much in the replies and it felt welcoming to learn it. This type of discourse seems so rare to find these days. Thank you comrades!

    • GarbageShoot [he/him]
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      edit-2
      11 months ago

      You can go way further than that. The US initially only declared war on Japan and not Germany, only to join the European Theatre later.

      There are various interpretations of this, but it seems plain to me that they were hoping the Nazis would beat the Soviets and the US could decide what to do from there, but once the Soviets began to resist more effectively, the US needed to make sure that the Soviets wouldn't get control of the entirety of Germany's manufacturing capacity in the case that they won out*, so they joined in Europe to ensure the liberal coalition would control a portion of Germany.**

      *Which most historians agree they would have, even without the US

      **Which is indeed what happened

      • CarbonScored [any]
        ·
        edit-2
        11 months ago

        This was also almost the only reason the US dropped both bombs on an already-surrendering Japan, to ensure control of the negotiations and that the Soviets got as little as possible.

        Killing 200,000 civilians to get a leg up on the Russkies soviet-playful

    • TheBroodian [none/use name]
      ·
      11 months ago

      I would argue that Japan didn't even force them to enter the war. America chose to enter the war to beat the soviets to the pacific theatre, so that they could prevent an unconditional surrender to the Soviets.

      • Dolores [love/loves]
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        edit-2
        11 months ago

        the US declared an embargo on japan in july 1941, when the red army was fielding losses in the hundreds of thousands in the first month of barbarossa. to make japan attack them and take their colonies. so they'd have an excuse to get to the pacific before the Soviet Union. galaxy-brain