Comment Re:NASA is the world leader in what? (Score 2) 229
The only thing the U.S. saved Europe from in World War II was being completely overrun by our ally at the time, the Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany at Stalingrad and Kursk in 1942-1943 when the U.S. was barely even engaged in Europe. Germany's defeat was a foregone conclusion by the time the U.S. landed at Normandy in 1944.
England was done, they weren't pushing the front from the West. There may have been pressure from Russia to the East but without the invasion of Normandy and the threat from the West, Germany could have easily sustained it's control over the entirety Europe. Without the pressure from the South in Italy, Mussolini could've held his ground as well. Is Russia going to be able to free even Poland? Not a chance without an invasion from the West.
Meanwhile, the US was fighting tooth and nail against Japan, preventing them from taking over the entire Western Pacific Rim, from New Zealand to China. You're welcome.
The U.S. helped win the war certainly but it simply wasn't the decisive force the Soviet Union was or that you are claiming.
Its true the U.S. helped turn the tide against Germany in World War I, but that was simply due to a huge infusion of fresh troops and supplies in to a war where all the incumbent armies and nations were spent. There wasn't anything exceptional about the U.S. troops, any infusion of a million fresh troops from anywhere would have had the same effect.
Fresh troops? You are making it seem like the US hadn't been fighting for 3+ years already, like we were just sitting on our hands with infinite resources ready to go, just coming in for garbage time. We were the only country who fought in every front of WW2 - Europe, Africa, the Pacific. Russia defended one front. It might've been 2 at one point but, oh yeah, the US took care of Japan for them.
All things considered, you proved the grandparents point by flaunting how self infatuated and self inflating American's can be. The grandparent is correct, the Vietnamese were probably the most succesful military in the 20th century, and I would add the Afghans as a close second, because they have defeated every vastly superior force they've faced including the Soviet Union and the U.S.
It really depends how you define success. If you want to call losing multiple generations of a population to an infinitely superior opponent, sure. To be fair, the Afghans were getting their ass kicked by the Soviets until the US started supplying them with arms. Obviously Vietnam would have to turned out differently without Soviet and Chinese supplying the Vietcong.
Take your blatant anti-Americanism out of it and look at history. Without American intervention does France get freed from Germany? (No.) Does Italy get freed from fascism? (No.) Does Russia have the ability to defeat a single-fronted German army? (No.) Does almost the entirety of SE Asia get freed from the control of Japan? (No.)