Germany and Japan teamed up again Russia? Hmmm, wonder what happened the last time Germany and Japan teamed up against Russia.
Rytis Kurcinskas
LOL good one
Keanu Victor
Fair point but your forgetting, they had the USA and the commonwealth and the free forces of Europe on their side as well. The US, Europe and the commonwealth aren't on Russia's side anymore, they are imposing sanctions on them. Oh and Japan didn't actually team up with Germany against Russia, they were only at war for a couple of months in 1938-39 and the last month of the war. The rest of the time they were at peace. It was the US and the Chinese that defeated Japan, not Russia. They effectively did absolutely nothing to japan. Russia only won because of numbers, nothing more. For each man the Germans were 10 times better, in both skill and technology. Oh and now the people against Russia outnumber them and have better technology. So sucks to be you Russia.
SilverЪ Pozzoli
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Storm
It sucks to be you, Keanu :)
deathtokoalas
indeed. it's largely understood that truman ordered the nuclear attack in order to prevent japan from falling into soviet hands. also, it should be understood that the reason the americans entered the european theatre of the war in the first place (remember that they were attacked by japan, not germany) was to prevent the soviets from taking over western europe, which no doubt would have happened otherwise. the british are a slightly different story, but for all meaningful purposes the americans entered wwII against the soviets.
in today's world, germany and japan are both client states of washington. there's nothing really meaningful in the comparison.
0pTicaL823
I'm not Russian but I know for a fact the US did not end WWII. I was brought up believing the story of US dropping 2 atomic bombs and WWII was over, US contribution to WWII was minimal at best. The USSR took the brunt of the attack and did all the work, on BOTH western AND eastern fronts. The deciding factor was the Soviet's declaration of war on Japan and what I like to call the "Manchurian Blitzkrieg" that ended WWII. Over 800,000 elite Japanese troops surrendered in less than a week. Any strategist knows that when you lose troops of that size, it's checkmate. Japanese cities were dropping faster than flies, US was carpet bombing Japanese cities for shits and giggles. Dropping 2 or 20 atomic bombs wouldn't have made a difference. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa - a highly respected historian at the University of California, Santa Barbara agrees.
Keanu Victor
never said the US ended ww2, I just said that the US were a lot more involved in the defeat of JAPAN, not Germany than the soviets were. So what about August storm. The Japanese had already been pushed back from most territories by then. It was the millions of Chinese people that gave their lives which stopped Japan not the Soviet union. The soviets stopped Germany, not Japan. If America had not been in ww2 you would now be saying Heil to the fuhrer. They didn't do as much on the ground but their contribution in equipment was unquestionable. A lot of which by the way went to the USSR.
deathtokoalas
yeah. the americans were funding both sides up to '41, and some say even longer than that. lots of money involved in funding a war....
i don't think it's true that we'd be speaking german if it weren't for american involvement, but the germans and french and italians and spaniards (and maybe even the british) might be speaking russian....as a second language. attacking russia hasn't worked out for anybody that's tried it. it was a huge strategic error. and, i'm not quite sure why there's such a resistance to this idea that hitler lost because he made a series of mistakes, rather than that he was out-manned or whatever else. maybe it was a jewish conspiracy, who knows...
mainland china was indeed the primary battleground of the asian theatre, but you have to understand how important oil and rubber were to japan. the chinese didn't have an air force, which was the dominant factor in japan picking on them in the first place. the dominant factor that contributed to japan's collapse was cutting off those supplies, which is perhaps the royal navy's last major victory. of course, there was some help from the french and the americans, but...
that doesn't change the fact that the soviets were in position to invade before the bombs came down and the americans weren't.
Keanu Victor
actually it kind of has, the mongols back in the 1200-1300s absolutely demolished the Russians. And the Japanese in the war of 1905 absolutely demolished the Russians. Then in ww1 the Germans absolutely demolished the Russians. The Germans beat them so badly that it caused an entire civil war and Russia to sue for peace on humiliating terms. Russia may have saved Europe in ww2 but it was repaying the favour from when it had been saved by the West 25 years before. The only countries that has never been successfully invaded that are of significance are JAPAN and Ethiopia. Russia has been invaded and conquered.
deathtokoalas
the mongol and japanese invasions are not meaningfully comparable to any invasion of russia from the west. to begin with, russia as we know it did not yet exist at the time, and is actually very much a successor state to the mongols in the first place. that's like suggesting that america is easily conquered by pointing to colonization by europeans. it's just not meaningful.
the entirely unprovoked and western-backed japanese invasion was on the colonial fringes of the empire, in an area that doesn't meaningfully even count as russia. it just has nothing to do with attempts to conquer actual russia.
all of the other examples you're citing (along with napoleon's attempt and sweden's attempt in the great northern war) indicate how impossible invading russia is. this idea that the germans defeated the russians in wwI is just absolute rubbish. what happened is that the army revolted, because it thought the invasion of germany was pointless (and it was) and the czar was a more meaningful target. the terms that russia picked were a function of the empire's repressiveness, not a function of german military strength. and, the fact that the germans gladly called a truce is indicative of where the balance of power truly was.
the front is certainly wide open and always has been, but the same reasons that make it difficult to defend make it impossible to close, and work in reverse for invading russian armies.
Keanu Victor
actually the Russians were shit in ww1, they lost millions of men, I think that may have actually contributed more to the mutiny. If Russia were winning the war then they wouldn't have complained. Secondly the newly imposed provisional government did actually try and regain territory from the Germans in early 1918 and got massacred. So they had to give even more land. Napoleon and Hitler were both defeated by snow not by Russian soldiers in their initial invasions. Without the weather Russia would be fucked. While it was summer and autumn the Germans and the French steam rolled across Russia, killed millions and captures huge swathes of territory. Both made it all the way to Moscow and then ran out of resources and the winter set in. If Russia wasn't so vast it would be conquered easily. They have always had leadership that is lacking in quality compared to other nations. Their military is large but not invincible. Countries may Gail to invade Russia fully but Russia fails to invade the west fully as well. It's never going to happen.
deathtokoalas
oh, i don't expect russia to invade western europe. this debate is historical, with essentially no relevance to today.
when you're talking about a country that is being conscripted and sent across a continent to fight a war they don't understand (and wouldn't care about if they did), winning or losing isn't really important. it's fighting that is the problem. most people don't know that canada faced massive general strikes and ethnic unrest during the war, as workers revolted and the french refused to serve. that's because most people don't care about canada. there were comparable revolts in france, as well. you need to flip the situation around and derive the loss of life from a lack of national pride. it wasn't an accident that the communists picked russia, it was very carefully targeted.
you're otherwise explaining my point, not defending yours.