My dad told me I didn't know my history well. I told him we didn't have to join WW1 even though the Lusitania sank, it was purely a European war and that we didn't have to join WW2, even though the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, we could've just limited it to an American-Japanese war. Also I truly believe Soviets would've destroyed Nazi Germany without our economic assistance.
Am I a retard, Veeky Forums?
Nah, I mostly agree with you. Older generations are weird when it comes to world wars and whatnot. They're more "globalists" in that sense.
>My dad told me I didn't know my history well.
>we didn't have to join WW2, even though the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, we could've just limited it to an American-Japanese war.
Germany declared war on the USA, so yes, you are.
>frogposting
I didn't need to read your post to know you are retarded.
>Some country is autistically screeching at us
>"Hi we need to declare war in them too, who cares in 100,000's of Americans die, they forced us to"
Brb, gonna kill myself
Japan and Russia are still legally at war, they never signed a peace treaty; but you don't see them still shooting each other.
Its possible to technically be at war without actually being at war.
This^
OP here, not gonna kill myself btw, now that I have people on my argument side. Feels good to not be a retard.
Your dad is a boomer cuck. And your granddad fought so we could have gay rights and Muslim terrorists living in out country. Sorry to tell you like it is.
there's a difference between a technicality years later and your enemy's ally declaring war on you. putting troops on the ground wasn't a guarantee but naval battles against german subs in the atlantic definitely. the main reason britain and the US did land troops in Italy and Normandy is because of pressure from Stalin for another front
Why are babyboomers bad again?
Yes. The Lusitania was a convenient excuse but the real reason for entering the war was that the US gave absurdly large loans to France and Britain and if they lost the Americans weren't getting their money back. Krushev wrote in his memoirs that him and Stalin agreed that without the Americans the war would have been lost.
Let's do this shit point by point.
>I told him we didn't have to join WW1 even though the Lusitania sank
It wasn't just the Lusitania, it was them using America's own diplomatic cables to try and incite Mexico into declaring war on them, and starting unrestricted submarine warfare while Wilson was trying to broker peace talks.
>we didn't have to join WW2, even though the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, we could've just limited it to an American-Japanese war
We could have, but that would have been stupid. England and France are more valuable than the Philippines and Wake Island.
> Also I truly believe Soviets would've destroyed Nazi Germany without our economic assistance.
All evidence points to no. The Germans destroyed more Soviet tanks than the Soviets produced. How the fuck you gonna win a war with no tanks.
No they're not. Neither of the governments that participated even exist anymore. The Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and Imperial Japan was replaced in 1947 by Japan.
You're absolutely right about lutisiana. It did escalate the tension and probably almost caused it but it did not. The germans quickly reached out and offered to pay in full for any american ships that got "accidentally" sank during their submarine embargo on britain. And Woodrow basically accepted the payment as long as the german lifted/adapted their submarine blocade to only warships/allied ships and left passenger boats alone. Germany eventually reversed that policy in 1917 because Allies-US trade was keeping the allues afloat while the central powers supplies were running dangerously low and their vast agrarian resources which supplied them until then were going to shit due to overworking of the land and the farmera being shipped to the frontline. They knew reinstoring the unrestricted Uboat warfare policy was going to lead americans to declare war (or at least actively support the allies with moar resources to end it in their favour) so they approached mexico with a proposal to join their side of the war against the US by promises of supporting mexico's desire to reobtain the states they lost in the US-Mexican wars. The US intelligence services intercepted the infamous telegram, known as the Zimmerman telegram, and that was basically it. An unavoidable casus belli - unless the US was willing to risk another war with Mexico on its borders.
Regarding WW2, the carry&carry and lend-lease deals with the allies were pretty much forcing the hand of the axis, but the germans knew the US entering the war would be desastrous at this point in the war so they held back their hand. However the japs were pretty strapped for oil and getting desperate, the US unwillingness to let them through the panama canal and to trade with them made them go full kamikaze at pearl harbour. And a few daya later, as part of the 1936 anti-comintern pact & tripartite 1940 pact between axis countries both Italy and Germany declared war on the US.
So no, not much of choice.
The British intercepted the telegraph, not the Americans.
Sorry you're right. Same result though, the germans clearly overreached and their autism spelled their own doom once again.
wat
I believe it. America basically entered right as Russia exited, thus the Germans were pouring tons of seasoned veterans into the western front.
Without American reinforcements the allies would have been badly outnumbered on the Western Front, or forced to pull soldiers from other fronts.
>The Germans destroyed more Soviet tanks than the Soviets produced.
That is an interesting (and believable) figure, do you have a source for that?
The US entered WW1 because they fell for Anglo perfidy
>Germany vow to sink any ships with British soldiers on
>Britain start putting their soldiers and military supplies on commercial or cargo American ships
>Germany forced to attack
>Britain have secretly been tapping literally everyone's telephone lines throughout the war
>Intercept one from Germany to Mexico proposing an alliance
>"Hey USA look what we found"
>"But how did you get that?"
>"Hehe don't worry stupid burger"
So I do some googling
>Soviets lost 83,000 tanks during the war
>they started with 25,000
>they produced 116,000 during the war
>they got 7,000 tanks from Lend-Lease
On the other hand, they got basically all of their locomotives and trucks from the US.
The lesson here being "never be a Soviet tanker"
germany doesnt exist anymore, God made the USA fight in both those wars when you and your christian dog ancestors were slaves
>not knowing that WWII was a proxy war between Liechtenstein and Tonga
America did the smart thing both times on the European front. They let the europeans tucker each other out, waited until everyone else was so fucked that the US was then the defecto hegemony by nature of being the only nation left that wasn't blown to shit, and then finished both wars as quickly as possible as the strongest left standing and therefore had the maximum bargaining power in reforming the new world.
Shame they've done nothing but fuck it all up since day 1