the russians certainly played a pivotal role in the war... actually, scratch that, they were the most important, they tied down, like you said the vast majority of hitler's forces...
however, if the u.s. were not to intervene in north africa, there would not have been so many germans tied down fighting there (keep in mind that i'm not just talking about the germans who were already there fighting the british, but the germans moved a lot of troops into africa after operation torch).
were the united states not to bolster the allied ranks in africa, well, i'm not in any position to say with any authority whether the british, ANZACs, and free french would have won or lost. i believe they would have lost, but once again, that's just me. what i do know is if they lost, or if they lost sooner, that whole front would have collapsed and the important veteran units deployed there could have been redeployed to the east, which i think would have broken the russians' defense at stalingrad and elsewhere, leading to a german victory in the war.
once again, this is just me. i don't wish to marginalize anyone's role in the war - far from it, i really despise people who do. it's like, how can someone have the gall to say when a bunch of men were fighting and dying to defeat hitler, mussolini, and tojo, it didn't mean as the group of guys a couple miles down the road fighting and dying because they were of a different nationality? point is, every country that had a role in the allied war effort, whether by contribution of forces (no matter the size - it could be one fighter squadron, like mexico - and i understand they were some damn good pilots, or millions of men and tanks) or just economic, they each played an important part and i think it's dumb as hell to sit around and argue over whether the british or the americans or the russians won the war, because first, they all won the war - it was a team effort, and second, if you extract any one of the three, i don't really think the other two could have done it on their own.
baby can you dig your man?
he's a righteous man.
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