Is this post a level?

Just calling something great = waffly platitude.
Actual facts = not waffly platitude.

The world is flat. No one has to leave their families and culture to reach success in the computerized, flat world. Why come to America? Not for the food. Not for the culture. Not for the money? Why?

Isn't Superman's Fortress of Solitude still up there somewhere?

This could be right if we were talking about quality of life and culture, but we aren't, are we?

You could very well be right. I was under the impression that the Germans used 60-70% of their armies on the Eastern front. This wasn't what I was arguing, I was simply saying that if they would have done it the right way and attacked one group of people at a time, they'd have had a better chance. Do you have a citation for this 80-90% range? I'm genuinely curious as I like reading about that stuff, I'd hate to get this wrong in the future.

That's not the point. My point was that you can take each metric in and of itself and America wouldn't be #1, but we aren't using that metric. We're using "Greatness". Finland != greatness. Get it?

This is simply wrong. You can't even make this argument in the same countries. I don't work from home for a company in Japan, and I would daresay that you couldn't find many Americans that did. The same vice-versa. In any two countries. On earth.

95% of German casualties on the East Front.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Barbarossa

Yea but the point is that the word greatness in isolation is just a waffly platitude, to make it mean anything you actually have to refer to some of those facts. That said Finland can not be the greatest because of its ****ty weather and darkness. Fact.

Hitler was obssesed with defeting Stalin. If he would proceed towards Ukraine like it was planed then he could probably won the war, but luckily he didn't. He wanted to humiliate Stalin by destroying Stalingrad and that backfired on him. If he won in Stalingrad no D-day would ever save Europe.

65% of Allied military casualties also come from that front. Without Russia there would be no Europe today.

The Germans went through Ukraine to get to Stalingrad. Germany could never have won at Stalingrad, they only could have lost less badly by allowing the 6th Army to withdraw. Even if they had done this they would still have been waffle crushed.

Yeah sorry my bad.

Yes.... I'm sure all those divisions sitting on their hands in France wouldn't have made one iota of difference in 41-42 on the eastern front.

I'm also sure Stalin wasn't screaming bloody murder for the allies to open up a second front in that time frame to lessen the pressure on him, either.

Those 250,000 german troops sitting on the Atlantic Wall couldn't have been of any help at Stalingrad and neither would this:

But the diversion of the German Air Force and the loads of material flowing to Russia from had nothing to do with the out come of the battle and the rest of the war.

Gotta disagree with this. I don't know if these are unquestioned facts or just fairly solid rumors, but I think hitler was using meth and showed signs of parkizans(sp?) while he was alive. That was going to be a short lived personality cult empire. I am sure France, and some other countries, would have come back in some form after he died and when **** hit the fan subsequently.

Metrics that describe the welfare of a country's people seem to have a lot more to do with Greatness than "great because it fights for things it believes in" which is just ******ed. I mean seriously?

I already explained the leadership role. If you disagree with my wording, fine, I believe I had a few drinks when I wrote it. If you want to define the greatest country as the one where the the welfare of the people is the highest, I'd argue against it.

I don't define "great" by the metrics that have been mentioned. I don't know how many times I can say it - Finland (I'm using Finland simply as an example) is not great. It may very well be a nice place to live, but "great"? Not even close.

If you're going to use metrics that measure the welfare of country's people, then use it and match it up against the US, respond. You want to argue about the "greatness" of Denmark, please, knock yourself out. But stop with the nitpicking with my choice of words, jesus.

Actually if he wouldn't have detoured into the Balkans in the Spring he would have rolled regardless

/hijack

fyp

edit : also what happened to you in your pregnancy thead?

If you actually had some understanding of the actual numbers of divisions involved, you would know that they would have made negligible difference to the outcome of the initial attack. It was a huge thrust over a massive front. Of those 250,000 men on the Atlantic wall, only a very small fraction would have been at Stalingrad, because you know Russia is pretty big and the Germans had 3 army groups engaged in it. After Stalingrad you could have put every German soldier into Russia and it might have meant a stalemate after a massive withdrawal that Hitler would probably not have allowed at best, but that is being very very optimistic for the Germans. After Kursk and Bagration it would have not made an iota of difference.

The presence of a larger Air force would have done little to sway the strategic situation at Stalingrad, with the huge build up of Russian reserves of which the Germans were utterly and completely unaware. The counter attack and encirclement at Stalingrad caught the Germans completely by surprise, they cant bomb what they cant see.

Of course the allies supplied Logistic support no is disputing that, but whats your point? No one is arguing about that.

It's absolutely ****ing amazing there.


Take me with you!

+1, instead of the first to drop 2 nukes in a day, we would have been the first country to drop 2 nukes on 2 different continents in a day.

Which ironically would have been built with much assistance from German scientists. As it turns out the Bomb was very useful, one of the main reasons it was used was to show the Russians what might happen if they decided to keep going after Berlin and try and occupy the whole of Europe. Yanks will start tub thumping LDO but they could have handily defeated the Allied conventional forces in theatre.

You said the question was answered 40 years ago. Yesterday was the 68th anniversary. 68-40=28.

My point is simple. This thread is supposed to be about (broadly speaking) has America's influence on the world been positive or negative.

My point being, without America's influence in world affairs during WWII, Europe would either have ended up under Hitler or Stalin and either of those options would be far worse than the hegemony of America under which individual liberty has thrived.

Getting back to Stalingrad for months that battle could have gone either way. It is hard to imagine part of the Luftwaffe being shipped to North Africa and the Allied aid to Russia through Murmansk and Archangel had no influence on the out come of the battle.

But the notion that life would be just ducky today in the Netherlands today had either Hitler or Stalin had prevailed is just silly. The notion that America carries all the mail is incorrect, but the notion that Europe would be anything similar to what is is today without the participation of America is just as silly.

The stark reality is without America , Europe and Asia would be far worse places today.

Now the question of is America "better" than other countries is a little loaded, but I would say net, America has been a hugely positive influence on individual liberty world wide.

Well played! I meant to say Reagan's speech was given 28 yrs ago on the 40th anniversary of the D Day invasion.

But the transfer did not happen until after Nov 8th. At that point it had already dropped thousands of tons of bombs and flown thousands of sorties and the Russians still held positions on the west bank. By this point the outcome of the battle would not have been changed by the presence of a few more aeroplanes as it could have done nothing to change the massive forbearance of the Russian strategic reserves.

What about these people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_..._United_States or these people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_americans ?

Yeah, they were the first in line in the resistance....

Actually, they were a little late to the party. After all, they had, er, there own race relations deal going...

b