I don't follow your logic that him destroying his own argument when you brought up Japan.
Cold War against China?
- Thread starter VorZakone
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I don't follow your logic that him destroying his own argument when you brought up Japan.
Which is something that I haven't disputed.
The US entered the war after the Peal Harbor attack by Japan.
I never disputed that. I'm confused about how you feel that undermines the point he was making.
Saying the USSR was the reason the Nazis lost discounts the impact of lend-lease.
The USA could have just fought against Japan and stayed out of the European theatre - they didn't.
Russia only fought against the Nazis because they were invaded. America fought against the Nazis without having been invaded. Yes, it would have been better if they had entered the European war earlier, but at least they did so for reasons of less self-interest than Russia.
And both the UK and the USA provided tremendous support for Russia in their fight against Germany.
No one said that either, though. I said they did the heavy lifting, and @JPRouve said they were the main reason. Both of those are true, and can still be true even if obviously lend-lease was significant, and the US did a lot of heavy lifting in the Pacific and on the Western Front, and the UK as well (Edit: and China against Japan, and partisans, etc. There's a lot of credit to go around).
The Chinese won't invade anyone. They might eventually in 30-40 years use military force to take territory they claim as their own, but as the recent stand-off with the Indians in Ladakh has shown, the Chinese have no appetite for large scale conflict ATM. They're playing it smart, they could have militarily defeated India, but the damage that the Indians would have caused their economy, infrastructure and military would have set China back decades. They want to consolidate power before they do anything else.
Where is @Nucks
Germany declared war on them.
He denies the importance of the USSR because they only entered the war due to Germany, he should follow the same logic with the US who only entered the war due to Japan.
They couldn't because Japan, Italy and Germany were allies through the Tripartite pact, when they attacked one, they attacked all of them. Germany declared war on the US after the US declared war on Japan.
I don't know about you guys, but I for one am pretty pleased that this angry politics thread turned into an angry history thread instead.
So what? Germany was 3,000 miles of sea away from the nearest USA coastline. There's no way that Germany was going to be able to threaten the USA mainland.
So, I repeat, the USA could have stayed out of the European theatre indefinitely and simply focused everything on Japan, who had actually attacked them. They chose not to.
To be fair, if I had issue with your post about heavy lifting I would have quoted you but JP is guilty of the sin of omission and must be flogged to earn his penance.
While I don't want to derail my own thread too much I genuinely don't think it was much of a choice at all.
I think the situation kinda forced the US to step in. That's the impression I got from a documentary.
Also, this notion that Russia (i.e. Germany's invasion of Russia) is the biggest reason why Germany lost the war is false.
The biggest single reason was the the UK remaining free of Nazi invasion. If the UK had fallen, Germany would have won the war.
This is because without the UK (and its bases outside the UK), the USA would have had no base from which to participate in the invasion of occupied Europe . And without that invasion, Germany would have been able to focus much more of its resources on the Eastern front ... which in turn would have made Russian success problematic to say the least.
The biggest single reason was the the UK remaining free of Nazi invasion. If the UK had fallen, Germany would have won the war.
This is because without the UK (and its bases outside the UK), the USA would have had no base from which to participate in the invasion of occupied Europe . And without that invasion, Germany would have been able to focus much more of its resources on the Eastern front ... which in turn would have made Russian success problematic to say the least.
It's almost like a global war can be won without somebody being the hero and jumping in to save everyone. Perhaps the UK and later the US holding the Western front took away German resources as did Russia with help from their allies on the Eastern front whilst other countries took care of Japan.
Trying to talk down the magnitude of the Soviet contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany is utterly bizarre. (No one has tried to deny or belittle the importance of the US effort, btw.)
I find this really interesting, the 'tech' suggestion has popped up a few times. Do we really live in a world where Russia, China and the USA differ significantly in terms of technical know how?
I am not disputing here about the USSR being the reason the Allies won (and apologize to continue any derailment), but I felt the need to clear up a point here. The US was not actively looking for a way out of the war. They were quite actively supporting the Allies, to the point that when Germany declared was war it was felt as an acknowledgement of something that more or less already existed.
And we knew fully well the aggressive stance we were taking towards Japan and demanding they give up their holdings in China would lead to war. Blocking any resources like oil is as close to war as you can get without firing a shot. We were already in a war stance in the Philippines: those are not the actions of one ‘actively looking for a way out of the war’.
Yes. Let's not forget that the USA landed people on the moon more than 50 years ago - something that neither Russia or China have even now not yet managed to do.
I don't think he was denying the importance of the USSR, but their motives. Nobody can deny the importance of the Soviet's once they entered war with Germany. The US were supplying the UK and the Soviet's before Pearl Harbour so were in essence not neutral but reluctant to be dragged into yet another World war.
He did and he even went further in a following post.
Yes he probably alluding to the fact that Josepth Stalin was not a nice guy. There is a reason why the germans and the japanese were far more eager to surrender to the US and UK once they knew the war was lost.
Is that out of choice though or a genuine tech disadvantage? I can see the conspiracy theorists coming in here claiming it was all staged
As far as Germans go, the reason is probably that they had been waging a war of genocidal destruction against the Soviets.
That's surely one of the main reasons yes.
Is that out of choice though or a genuine tech disadvantage? I can see the conspiracy theorists coming in here claiming it was all staged
The US can't land on the moon at the moment either, although there's the beginnings of an effort to get back there. Having said that, it was only yesterday that the US had the next setback in the SLS as the engines failed an 8 minute test after 50 seconds which will probably lead to a long delay. China are also starting missions which will lead to them getting on the moon. It's mainly investment that's the problem, not technology as it's hugely expensive and the benefits of being there have been largely political up until now.
To suggest that the US somehow have the ability to make better technology than China is a bit weird though as it's blatantly not true. They may have more experience in some areas historically.
China's biggest enemy seems to be China
I think that applies more to the US.
Sorry but what do you mean? China's ongoing genocide? The control over it's people and the way they express themselves? Causing a global pandemic because they didn't want anybody to think there was a virus that originated from them? You might not like the USA but they're miles away from what the world would look like under any real Chinese influence.
Is that out of choice though or a genuine tech disadvantage? I can see the conspiracy theorists coming in here claiming it was all staged
Interestingly the technology used was very basic compared to what we have today, the issue is that it cost a fortune and there is little benefit outside of propaganda and no amount of PR will make being second sound good.
It is true though. The US has more technological know-how than China, hence China trying to steal research, blueprints etcetera through cyber warfare.
What do you think they have "better technology know-how" in? China has been at the forefront of smartphones, routers, electronic design for years now. There's been a global stamp-down on Huawei to try to get them out of networks they're currently dominating worldwide due to concerns.
Maybe China stole some of those designs to catch-up 10 years ago, I don't know but there's no way they're behind at this moment in time
Is it that simple and does it only happen in one direction?
Something that probably slipped under the radar with all the other madness around was how the US leaving the Cold War era INF treaty with Russia affects their relationship with China. Once they were freed from those bounds, the Pentagon went straight to ramping up their budget on surrounding China with more missiles. So that report was probably using data before these budget increases had their effect.
Reuters Special Report
China doesn't even have the tech to make their own airliners to rival Boeing and Airbus.
They obviously have advanced in many technological fronts, but they still way behind in many others.
They will eventually catch up, of course.
They have the tech, they simply didn't have the knowhow. Now they have the Comac something in development.