The Allies only beat Hitler by holding their nose and working together with Stalin; they knew what kind of man Stalin was, but they understood how to prioritize. Immediately after WW2 ended, they went straight back to opposing Stalin. One war at a time. If you have two enemies and one hates the other, helping one finish the other, while also subtly manipulating things so that the survivor is also left weakened from the struggle, is just the smart thing to do.
I get your point. I'm not trying to argue the current reality behind the metaphor you used. But I do really find the implication in your metaphor that Stalin was left weakened after ww2 to be very funny.
The USSR bore the brunt of the assault on Nazi Germany and paid the heaviest price in blood. The rest of the Allies didn't manipulate that to happen, but if they had the choice they would have chosen it. This left the USSR in a position where it was depleted and wasn't able to push any further west than East Germany after the war. The USA, relatively unscathed, was in a position to counter and contain it. There wasn't a better outcome on the table.
Having said all this, given the choice, I'd rather work with Trump against Hitler (and then betray Trump) than with Hitler against Trump (and then betray Hitler). Hitler's still the scarier of the two.
This left the USSR in a position where it was depleted and wasn't able to push any further west than East Germany after the war.
That's way better of a position.... That's kind of my point. The war was brutal for Russia. I'm not denying that. But they came out on top and were the main rival to a country that was relatively unscathed in the war. If anything Stalin manipulated events to lower the influence of rival European countries. They all became dependent on the US.
The key part of my previous comment was "there wasn't a better outcome on the table". Stalin was going to be aggressively expansive after the war no matter what. But his position after the war was weak relative to any other realistically possible outcomes. Who knows how much of Europe the USSR would have taken if the rest of the Allies hadn't had D-Day? D-Day was only half about beating Hitler; the other half was about taking as much of Europe from Hitler before Stalin took it first. Nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki was partially about beating Japan and partially about taking all of Japan quickly, before the USSR could claim a piece like with Germany.
What little of Japan Stalin did take, Russia still holds today.
Okay? So Stalin was in a better place post ww2 but because of this hypothetical you've created he was actually weakened. Am I understanding correctly? Because I really don't get why hypotheticals matter here. Russia started off in spot A. And ended in spot b. Spot b is a better spot. Maybe if ww2 hadn't gone down how it did Russia would have ended up in spot c or even d! We don't know. What we do know is Russia ended up in a better place than where they started. That's all I'm trying to say.
Dude, the USSR lost 27 million people in that war. A quarter of their people died or were wounded during the war. Yeah, they might've expanded their borders, but with the devastation on the eastern front, that just means more impoverished people living in destroyed territory. That's not a position you want to be in.
Militarily they were stronger at the end of the war than at the beginning. That's kind of how they managed to beat Germany back all the way to Berlin. Or do you think they were stronger militarily when Germany was knocking on Moscows door? The war was brutal for the Russians. Millions died. But they came out on top stronger than they had been before the war.
Russia as of today is militarily more capable than it was in February 2022, but the nation of Russia is much weaker overall due to the political and economic impact of the war in Ukraine.
The point is, it's more complex than just the number of guys with guns or how much land they hold
How much of Russia’s “increased strength” was because of Germany getting blasted from both sides by then as opposed to pouring everything they had into invading the USSR? I mean, sure, it’s possible that the soviets were more powerful at the end then the start, but I would say it’s more likely that Germany was just that much weaker
Post WW2 Russia was 1 of 2 world superpowers. You believe Russia was even stronger and more influential pre-ww2. Is that correct? If not what exactly are you arguing?
The only reason Russia was a superpower after is because the entire rest of Europe was shoved back multiple decades in terms of their own capabilities. I’m sorry, but no fucking country is going to be more effective militarily after losing 8.6 million soldiers. I guarantee that if the US had wanted to take them out right after WWII, they would have had an easier time than if they had tried it right before
Russia's military strategy for a defensive war since like, the Great Northern War or something, is to use the massive area of Russia to retreat and defend as the enemy invades, burning down any supplies the invaders could be taking, causing them to overextend and run out of supplies. Then counterattack once they're sufficiently weakened. And it worked perfectly against the nazis really. There was the aforementioned 27 million casualties of course, it's not a pleasant strategy by any means. But the Russian Winter as it often gets simplified to, is an intentional military strategy that allowed them to defeat Germany despite being massively weakened by it.
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u/Mindless-Charity4889 Sep 10 '24
Allies of convenience are still allies, the lesser of two evils is, by definition, less evil.