Quote (Black XistenZ @ Sep 10 2024 05:45pm)

Nah, the USSR was rapidly industrializing during the 1930s and had the manpower and the natural resources to become a behemoth once their production and technology had caught up. See also the Cold War which followed WW2. So in this sense, the clock was ticking for Germany to stop the Soviets before they would become too strong. Striking too late in the year, and with insufficient forces and equipment, in 1941 is what did them in on the operational level. In the end, they were able get within 20km of the Kremlin, although that's deceptive because it were 20km of dense urban area with heavy fortifications still lying between them.

Stalingrad was the symbolic and moral turning point of the war, but on a macro level, the war was already lost by that point. The Allied victory over the Axis in WW2 was a done deal since December 1941, after the Soviets had prevailed in the Battle of Moscow and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor had prompted the US to enter the war against the Axis. The remaining 3.5 years of war only determined where exactly the dust would settle.


/offtopic history hour

Quote (zorzin @ Sep 10 2024 03:36pm)

Quote (Djunior @ 10 Sep 2024 18:36)

I guess that you believe the USSR was planning to attack Germany which wasn't the case, fact of the matter is Stalin purged much of his senior military and then the Molotov-Ribentrop pact of course.

Hitler could've maintained the status quo but attacked his trade partners and called them untermensch FFS. Massive amounts of oil and raw materials were going to Germany before the invasion in 1941.

Stalin thought a war with Germany was inevitable but it would be Germany attacking the USSR not the other way around.

Quote (ofthevoid @ 10 Sep 2024 22:07)

#team defensive alliance is now supplying weapons to a country that is not in NATO to strike another country

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We truly live in a world where a lot of people in the west will look at this situation and still label us defensive in nature, even though the only reason this war continues to this day is because we keep pumping tens of billions every month into Ukraine. It would be a breath of fresh air if they would just give up the moralism and stop trying to reframe all these wars we've engaged in since 2000s as defensive or 'protecting democracy' or whatever other sound good label and just be honest lol.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Sep 10 2024 05:39pm)

History classes in the US probably don't go into that much detail (and why should they?), but no, the status quo was in fact not sustainable, not at all. The Nazis had spent like drunken sailors to re-arm and get the country out of the Great Depression. They had set up a rapine economy which crucially depended on capturing fresh resources and slave labor to keep going. Hyperinflation was already looming and Germany was barely able to feed its population at the time. (Agricultural methods and fertilizers weren't as advanced back then...)

They needed to keep conquering Lebensraum, else, the whole house of cards that they had built would have crumbled. And that quest inevitably put them on a collision course with the Soviets. Except that the much larger USSR would have been unbeatable if given a couple of additional years of rapid industrialization. So yes, the clock was ticking. Considering the size disparity, the margin for a Nazi victory during WW2 was razor-thin since the very beginning. Thank goodness that they made several major strategic errors on top, which shortened the war and allowed it to come to a conclusion before both sides had developed nukes. :rolleyes:



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We are supplying an ally with the tools to defend itself by striking the supply lines, air fields and launching sites from which the opponent has been pummelling them for over two years. We can surely debate about how wise this step is, but I don't see a glaring contradiction.


You should mention that ending Western support would imply Ukraine getting fully invaded, occupied, "cleansed" and subjugated. Trying to frame this situation as the nefarious West needlessly extending a war which could and should 'just end', is quite the stretch. You're making it sound as if the West would just need to get out of the way so that things in Ukraine can go their "natural course", with everyone being friends again, holding hands and singing kum ba yah.

Quote (iLoveMyUsername @ 11 Sep 2024 00:18)

I mean in Canada we spending more on Ukraine than our own Citizens so yeah...

Quote (Black XistenZ @ 11 Sep 2024 01:27)

There's a big qualitative difference between arguing that we owe the Ukrainians nothing and shouldn't spend our money for their cause, or arguing that we are actually the bad guys while Russia is the actual victim (of Western aggression). The former is a legit judgement call, the latter is an oversimplification and a twisted form of victim blaming.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Sep 10 2024 03:27pm)

There's a big qualitative difference between arguing that we owe the Ukrainians nothing and shouldn't spend our money for their cause, or arguing that we are actually the bad guys while Russia is the actual victim (of Western aggression). The former is a legit judgement call, the latter is an oversimplification and a twisted form of victim blaming.

Quote (Black XistenZ @ Sep 10 2024 05:39pm)

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We are supplying an ally with the tools to defend itself by striking the supply lines, air fields and launching sites from which the opponent has been pummelling them for over two years. We can surely debate about how wise this step is, but I don't see a glaring contradiction.


You should mention that ending Western support would imply Ukraine getting fully invaded, occupied, "cleansed" and subjugated.Trying to frame this situation as the nefarious West needlessly extending a war which could and should 'just end', is quite the stretch. You're making it sound as if the West would just need to get out of the way so that things in Ukraine can go their "natural course", with everyone being friends again, holding hands and singing kum ba yah.