Today...

[Bra]

Unbelievable. For anyone to claim America was 'useless' or whatever in World War II is full of shit. North America almost singlehandedly prevented the German dominion of the vast majority of Europe. Sure you 'weakened' their forces, but had the United States not intervened, your efforts would have been for naught. It took the combined effort of every nation in the Allied Forces to make an appreciable impact.

If not for the United States' and Russia's combined efforts, I sincerely believe Germany would have won World War II. They were totally capable of taking one superpower at a time, but Hitler just had to piss off both the big players. I'm glad he did, too. Glad they lost.

That is not to say that the US or Russia alone could have beaten Germany. I sincerely doubt it. (Well, maybe Russia could have, but the war would have been much longer, I would imagine) But without either one of them, Europe would look very different today.

In the Japan section of the war, I'd have to agree with Amadeus that firebombing was more effective than the ancient nukes of the time. But nobody can possibly argue that seeing two cities lit up under the two most outrageously powerful, singular attacks on civilians did not have a severely damaging effect on Japan's morale.

Japan had to have been left wondering if America had more. The United States played a risky gamble, claiming there were, in fact, several more nukes at their disposal. The looming threat of nuclear armageddon is not something the Emperor or his subordinates could have taken lightly.