Without American military help it would have really hard for the Russians to roll over all of Europe. They may get Germany or maybe a conditional surrender after German leadership falls apart. No chance they get to France. But America could still get involved at any point.

I lived in the US for 5 years (one of the really good parts too).

And funnily enough I recently changed from getting paid in US dollars (with US deductions) to Canadian dollars (with Canadian deductions) and my aftertax income is about 0.005% higher in Canada.

A lot of my wife's family is from Canada and they always talk smack on us, I asked her why and she said "Bush and healthcare and stuff, they think they are better than us". I laughed in her face.

But I can kinda see why.

How about Korea?

If the entire Korean Peninsula was swallowed up by a tsunami a week from next coming Tuesday would a single person in America be effected?

Viet Nam? Were we in it for the rice, or just the exotic strains of Chlamydia?

If it makes you feel better I make fun of these people too. It's almost worse since they're ignorant but don't even realize it.

So you believe that the #1 reason for Korea and Vietnam was that the US felt like it was the moral thing to do? They were just being good guys?

Nice. Very nice.

Obviously not, but you can't discount there was a reason to stop aggression. We can talk about future economic interests or domino theory, but stepping in during an act of aggression between two other countries counts for something at least, doesn't it?

Oh!!! This is a new tact..... America helping Russia defeat Hitler is the actual cause of the misery behind the Iron Curtain since without American assistance, Stalin's tanks would have run out of gas at the Neman River and stopped.

Got it now......

I mean you can't have it both ways. If America sat out WWII either Hitler would have won or Stalin would have prevailed on the continent. The notion if Stalin would have defeated Hitler's Germany, that he wouldn't have had the gas to move through the rest of the continent and rolled his army back home is just lol.

You see, these are the counter-factual problems you run into with America sitting on its hands playing nice nice . Things can only turn out uglier.

Um... maybe? I mean the world's a complex place and I don't think its at all obvious that the Vietnam war was better than the alternative.

But anyway - I'm not arguing that the US hasn't done good things. As far as Super Powers in history have gone its probably the best. I just don't think you can point to any significant act of the US' that wasn't done mainly for its own self interest. I don't have a problem with that either - I just think its silly to believe or claim otherwise.

Edit: Also, by your definition of "greatness", I would probably agree that the US is the "greatest" country. It's definitely not my definition of "greatness" though, and its certainly a different argument than "best" country.

Germany was fighting on two fronts. Even with his divided armies Russia almost fell. If Germany would have poured all its resources on just Russia, I think they'd have had a really bad time of it.

It's impossible to talk in terms of ifs when it comes to history though.

I'd lose half my Starcraft buddies.

No, no you don't got anything.

I don't believe this. Russian winter and the Russian ability to fight awful painful wars cannot be understated. They will stretch your armies across their massive land mass. They will lose battles and burn their own cities to the ground before they leave. Invading Russia was one of the dumbest mistakes hitler made during the war.

Canada does have a pretty sweet deal. America to the south, Santa Claus to the north and delicious fish to the east and west!

Not for nothing, but I believe Santa Claus moved his workshop to Honduras in the mid 90s.

Not trying to derail too much here, but I'd have to disagree. Documents have come out afterwards from the pope at that time that said "Europe was lost". The average life expectancy for a Russian soldier in Stalingrad was 24 hours. Russia lost 20-25 million people.

The Russians fought tooth and nail, but that's because they had to. If the full brunt of the German army was in Russia, I'd argue they'd have been in much much worse shape. Stalingrad itself was the worst fight in human history, and that's after Hitler split up his group, one to take the oil fields and one to take Stalingrad, if my memory serves me correctly. The Russians got their butts handed to them, then battled back and surrounded the Germans (Operation Uranus), annihilating their 6th army essentially.

Don't get me wrong here, the Russians fought valiantly, but don't think it was some sort of easy victory. It was actually very dire and very much close to a loss. I couldn't imagine what would have happened if the Germans would have come at them full force.

I don't think you and CC are in disagreement.

Can we get back to the haters being mad USA #1 thank you.

Pretty much. He's not wrong about anything, but I think that's just what happens to everyone who tries to invade Russia. I don't think the Germans would have been the first to ever accomplish that worthless task.

It took the Roman empire almost 600 years to implode from its apex.

The United States seems hell bent on accomplishing the same feat within three generations.

American success was based upon a simple algorithm of vast untapped resources and a steady influx of risk-taking, ambitious immigrants.

The resources have been tapped and the energetic immigrants have been replaced by the lady boy gamer generation that grew up in the bubble-wrapped suburbs.

In a recent test with 65 other countries, Americans scored 23rd in science and 31st in math. According to the latest national assessment, only 14% of high school seniors are proficient in American history.

How are these lazy losers going to compete against China, India, Israel, Germany and Russia?

It looks like brainwashing because you only promote the greatness of USA by vague flowery purple prose platitudes that have no specific content.

Like the same way people are arguing against?

USA not #1 because of (take your pick) per capita income, education, health care, etc.

All of these in itself may be true, but it doesn't mean America still isn't the greatest country on earth, at this time. I've never heard "Finland is the greatest country on earth", ever. Have you?

Immigration.

If we are talking about the quality of life and culture, America would not even make to top ten. Nor the top twenty. Most of Scandinavia would make the top ten.

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL.

The Germans put on average 80% of there Military into the Russian invasion, more like 90% at certain times. The West front was a side show in comparison. After Stalingrad they could have put 100% it would not have mattered.

German casualty figures on the East front are much much much bigger than the totals of all other campaigns combined. At the end of 44 there had been 2.7 Million German casualties in Russia compared to 339,000 on the West front.