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Quote by: sdbest  A quibble. America was on the winning side in WWII, but I would argue that the it was the USSR that defeated Germany. The other Allies played a positive role. The U.S.'s major achievement was that it could provide supplies because its factories could not be threatened by German forces. The U.S. military was not the major winning factor in WWII; the Soviet military was. |
tivodan1116 and maximdewinter have it right. I would like to add that according to the book “Russia’s Life-Saver: Lend-Lease Aid to the U.S.S.R. in World War II” without Lend-lease the Soviets would very likely have lost Moscow and other large tracts of territory… let alone mass starvation due to the loss of nearly all its agricultural base. Also, without the American embargo on Japan during ’40 and '41 it is very likely Japan would have attacked the Soviet Union which would have bogged down the Siberian divisions that were key to keeping the Nazis out of Moscow.
Soviet archives have indicated that Stalin was ready to negotiate a peace with Hitler if Moscow was lost and that was the outcome Hitler was looking for. With the Soviets pushed west of the Urals and most of its industrial/agricultural areas under Nazi control the Soviets would become a non-threat for decades.
In total war economics become more important than boots on the ground… in that case the US was the major factor to victory against the Axis.