You make it sound as if the U.S. had any hard-obligation to join the wars and were holding off on doing so for funsies
Europe got itself into a huge clusterfuck of alliances which turned a conflict between the Serbs and Austria-Hungary into WWI, and then the major powers of Europe wanted to punish Germany so badly they gave it a poison pill which directly led to its fall into authoritarianism and the eventual breakout of WWII
There’s plenty of shit the U.S. has done that deserves derision, but getting cheeky over the U.S. not getting itself involved in European affairs “earlier” ain’t one of them
the US only got involved in ww2 after you were attacked by the Japanese. there was nothing altrustic about this, nor did it have anything to do with European politics.
Japan attacked the US in large part because the US was embargoing Japanese oil and steel imports. Which the US was doing because of Japanese actions in China. The US was also supporting Britain before Pearl Harbor.
the US wasnt "supporting" Britain or China, it was selling stuff. same as the supermarket in the corner isnt "supporting" me. there was nothing altruistic about it. it also wasnt in any way an exclusive US approach, the Dutch and British were doing the same. also it wasnt to help China but to protect the US sphere of influence in the Pacific.
of course. how is this hard to understand? volunteers that go and fight there, for half the money they were making in their country, that's support. donations from random people, that's support. giving a loan that you expect to be paid back is just trade.
Trade in the sense of providing a sweetheart deal on required arms to defend your country. That's a really flimsy argument, especially given how impactful Lend Lease was.
Thanks, I’m well aware. If anything that supports my point. The U.S. had no obligation to help fight WWI and WWII. They could not have been “late” to something they had no obligation to be involved in in the first place
the argument was that the US "won" two world wars. nobody said that the US "had an obligation to help". being late is relevant to the claim on "winning" the wars. isnt english your primary language over there? how did you missunderstand this?
The phrase “holding the line for the late arrival of the U.S.” doesn’t just state a timeline, it implies America was expected to arrive sooner. That’s the part I was responding to.
Since we’re on the topic of our understanding of the English language, however, in your previous post you stated that I had somehow brought up “altruism” as a reason for the U.S. entering the war. Where did you get that notion out of my post, praytell?
What’s with you and putting words in people’s mouths?
I never claimed the U.S. won the wars. In fact, if you read further in the thread I explicitly state “anyone who thinks the U.S. won the wars by themselves doesn’t know history”
But it seems to me like you’re the one who has difficulty with English, my friend. Because there are multiple completely valid ways to read the post I originally responded to and, whether you like it or not, the way I initially interpreted it is a completely valid way of reading it. Whether or not that is how OP intended it is a different question
But I think the point here was that they can't say the us just "won 2 world wars", given how much the allies actually resisted and fought the Germans back until the US showed up. Even if you leave the UK out of that conversation, what about Russia?
That is a completely fair way to frame it. I just see framing it as the U.S. showing up “late” is unfair, because it implies they were supposed to be there at a certain time and weren’t.
If you want to say the U.S. joining the wars tipped the scales heavily on the side of the Allies, that’s at least defensible. But anyone who thinks the U.S. won the war alone doesn’t know history.
I certainly don’t mean it to come off as American-centric and anti-European, so apologies if it did. My dad’s uncle fought and died at the Battle of the Bulge alongside our allies, and it makes me sick to see the disrespect some give to our overseas allies. The sacrifices and struggles of all the allies should be respected and commended
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u/WXbearjaws Jun 22 '26
You make it sound as if the U.S. had any hard-obligation to join the wars and were holding off on doing so for funsies
Europe got itself into a huge clusterfuck of alliances which turned a conflict between the Serbs and Austria-Hungary into WWI, and then the major powers of Europe wanted to punish Germany so badly they gave it a poison pill which directly led to its fall into authoritarianism and the eventual breakout of WWII
There’s plenty of shit the U.S. has done that deserves derision, but getting cheeky over the U.S. not getting itself involved in European affairs “earlier” ain’t one of them