America doesn't fight.

Roderick posted "This cripples Britain as by now she has used up her entire gold reserves, this get worse when both Canada and South Africa are running dry their gold reserves, while Germany has plenty of cash and gold reserves." and I'm a bit stuck on it too. Germany did overrun several countries, but they evacuated much? most? of their gold, along with items like diamonds from jewelers in the Netherlands. It would be interesting if someone has solid information.

 

I believe he is pulling an Achilleus and is sulking in his tent, albeit not over a slave girl.

The notion that seems to be so oddly common amongst what iffers is that when they post a scenario, which very evidently was a product of the Good Idea Fairy rather than actual research, they expect it to be met by a chorus of acclamation, kudos, and cries of "what a smart boy you are!" rather than questions and explanations of why it was unlikely to come to pass. It also seems to be universal that when they get a questioning reaction, they immediately go into a huff and accuse others of a lack of imagination, rather than reexamine their own knowledge on a subject. It is tiresome.

 

I was thinking about this, wondering if America being able to focus entirely on the Japanese would mean a greater involvement in the CBI theatre, which may well mean that the Burma Road is either not broken by the Japanese or is recaptured quickly.

I then wondered whether US forces would get involved in mainland China, but got distracted by realising that British and US forces would be working together out East, and how that would work in terms of cooperation, lend-lease, and American avoidance of any sign of helping the British in Europe, while fighting Germany's ally alongside Germay's enemy

 

Anglo-American cooperation in CBI is an interesting question. Although allies, they had different priorities: the US primarily concerned with supporting China, Britain with regaining her colonies. The initial Japanese onslaught would still take Burma and cut the Burma Road, but reopening northern Burma might be an area where the allies could agree.

No doubt there would be some resentment on the British side if the US was not also allied against Germany; how might that affect cooperation against Japan?

 

True about the polls, but as we have discussed a thousand times or so, there was no desire for the US to initiate hostilities with Germany. The invitation is still open to draft a speech FDR could have made to Congress and the American people in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor to convince them to add to our enemies the one that was on the verge of dominating most of Europe.

 

Exactly.

 

A durable German hegemony in Europe is established with the Soviets collapsing either in 1943 or 1944 without a viable second front given the lack of the United States as a direct contributor to the fighting. Britain likely cuts a deal at about the same time; the exact contents of that depend on what the status of the fighting in North Africa is and how tired Germany is relative to the UK.

The ensuing Cold War will be far, far more difficult for the U.S. than what happened IOTL and I'm not sure they can win it. German control over Europe and their own industrial planning means they will have the larger economy and material production enabling them to win an arms race with the U.S. in a way the Soviets couldn't. On the flip side, it's likely the U.S. won't collapse like the Soviets did either.