Your got a very strange definition of "the Russians are not obviously losing"? When the Germans have overrun much of their most productive land and on the outskirts of their two largest cities. I could see a basis for a maccy US cutting L-L when the Russians are somewhere between the Dniper and the former Polish border but not when their struggling to hold back the German hordes from their heartlands.
The problem is, from an anti-communist neutral PoV, cutting L-L when the Red Army is between the Dniper and the former Polish border risks to be too little, too late, for two reasons: first, it still leaves the USSR too strong in manpower and resources from recovered territories, second, even if you cut external aid at that point, the Soviets' own resources might be enough to let them go past their borders and overflow in Eastern Europe. Germans might not be able to stop them at that point. Of course, it might well be that Soviets are so exausted that they will be stopped at their own borders (and according to my own previous arguments this is objectivey likely) but it might not be obvious nor easy to time precisely for a neutral observer.
I would argue that for a such a PoV, the ideal outcome might be the Brest-Litovsk one: the USSR is significantly weakened, but not so much that they can't be a counterbalance in the future to German might, Germany is indeed made stronger, but not so much to be totally overwhelming, assuming the various serious difficulties the Nazis will have in managing their Empire with their ham-handed methods, and after the inevitable fall of the Nazi Empire from internal faults, Germany will still be strong enough to keep Russia off Europe's back.
Of course, in the meanwhile, this grand geopolitical strategy has still the little difficulty of a Europe under Nazi domination. What could the USA do, in order to weaken the Nazi grip on Europe, without weakning Germany so much as to cause a return of Russia in Eastern Europe ? Undermine the Nazis without crippling Germany as a great power.
The problem with this idea was the incompatable viewpoints of the two leaders. I think this was what Stalin was expecting to be Hitler's terms in the early part of the 41 campaign.
And he was reluctantly willing to concede such terms, I know.
If your presuming a radically changed Hitler then he could get that by late autumn 41.
Yep, but the problem is, how much change we assume in Hitler ? Since as I see it, there's a delicate balance to seek: if we assume a totally OTL Hitler that makes a whimsical decision not to declare war on USA, such a random whimsy is difficult to justify, and besides, his totally poor OTL leadership might still nullify the effect of the PoV, and from my egotistical anti-Communist Germanophile PoV, I find no interest in contemplating or discussing a possible WWII outcome where the Soviets still overrun Central and Eastern Europe, or Germany still ends up divided, half-communist, without Pomerania, Silesia, Prussia, Austria, and the Sudetenlands. OTOH, if we change him so much, as you point out, there are many other political and military decisions that we ought to change, too, before the December 1941 PoD.
However the historical Hitler was unwilling to consider anything but an overwhelming victory until he was clearly defeated and then still wanted terms incompatable with the Soviets.
Looking for the balance in Hitler I spoke of above, I just thought that a somewhat more insightful Hitler (enough to see the obvious benefits of leaving the USA alone), after years of vicious struggle, might be willing to accept the Brest-Litovsk deal as a decent victory in 1943, if with the menatal reservation that either him or his successors might try a rematch in the future.
It will be a problem straight from the start.
But it will take several, maybe many, years for the German people to get exausted from quelling insurgency in the Eastern territories, after the USSR and the UK have signed the peace deals.
If you presume a much smarter Hitler then it is radically different. A reasonably rational person, with a decent knowledge of the history of the time could probably fight the allies to a standstill, commencing Dec 41, having declared war on the US.
Sorry, but I have to differ on this. Objectively, for a German leader in the WWII, it would be much easier not to get into a war with the USA in the first place, moreover, there is no benefit for Germany from this war. Hence, the rational choice is to avoid the war.
Such an action would need naval power, which they are short of, air power, which is pretty difficult for them and the amphibious assualt capacity they totally lacked during the entire war.
There's the Turkey route.
Yes as German losses will continue to be very heavy during this scenario. They might outlast the Soviets but likely to be a broken-back victory.
Nowhere as heavy as they were in OTL '43. Besides the losses in the Stalingrad pocket, what consumed the Whermacht were the rigid defenses and the attacks against heavy fortifications and lack of surprise at Zitadelle. If they consistently use mobile defense and counterattacks, they won't cause so much attrition to them.
The US forces were still the junior partner and the naval and air strength is present.
A junior partner is still a partner, even if admittedly they can redirect forces from Overlord here. The
UK naval and air forces you mean. Nowhere the same thing, even with L-L. Anyway, I guess we'll have to agree to disagree here.
Might do, but might not. A near miss might well encourage the continued view of irresisible supemercy. 'We keep pulling off those miracles so we can keep doing it'.
It is a possibility.
Also, if you wait for a Manstein counter-strike things will go very late in 43 as the Soviets were waiting for the German attack. They would strike 1st if it became clear the Germans won't but probably delay matters for several months. Which gives them more time to apply their industrial superiority and delays any Soviet collapse even further. With winter close at hand they are going to last with borders largely unchanged from 43 into 44 at least.
This is also a possibility, but would Stalin give up any offensive in summer and autumn ? Such a prolonged stalemate might cause the armistice to look actual. Anyway, I concede the scenario is a possibility, but will only move the armistice to '44.
True but there is a long, thinly defended coastline and a friendly population. Little infrastructure for defencive operations and a backwater in terms of top rank forces and air power for instance.
Granted, it is a toss-up.
It did send 'volenteers' but withdrew them when casulties grew too large. With an exhausted and still bitterly divided country there was no reason for Franco to pick a fight with anyone and he knew it.
Nonetheless, without Canaris' persuasion, he might have entered the war if the Allies looked like losing. Like Mussolini, he was an opportunist.
That would probably work, at least in the short term. If they are seen to intervene directly in the Chinese civil war they will enable the KMT to win big battle victories but poison their relations with the bulk of the population.
I would largely agree. Only a little contrary point: such poisoning didn't happen in Korea. But maybe the conditons were different.
Both because they will be associated with another foreign conquerer and because it removes the incentive for the KMT to broaden their base and actually pay more attention to the wants and needs of the ordinary people.
Ok, then hearts and minds, a lot of training and supplies for the KMT forces. Maybe a lot of bombings of Communist strongholds. Little ground forces.
I think they will have far too much on their plates if the US is throwing everything at them.
True in the scenario that we discussing, when total German victory isn't much likely. OTOH, if it looked the Russians were really losing (Germans on the Volga), why shouldn't they make a land-grab in Eastern Siberia. There won't be nowhere near enough Soviet forces to defend it, and Japanese had lot of ground forces in Manchuria.
Furthermore, since Hitler didn't declare war on the US they will very much see it as two separate wars.
They still very much wanted Eastern Siberia for their own reasons.
They will not want another power, especially a western one, dominating them. If the US is heavily involved in China that would alienate them further. Given that the German empire is still a long way away and the US is unwilling to face up to it anyway I don't think India would see any advantage in having close ties to the US.
This is reasonable.
For the reasons I mention above I can't see the Germans, post dec-41, forcing a decisive defeat of the SU by military means before 45 at earliest.
So in the end, we disagree over an year and some. Since I see the Germans being able to force the Brest-Litovsk deal in '44 at worst, and possibly the Soviets being disheartned enough to accept it in late '43.
Its a question of national survival not a crusade against even something as revolting as Nazism.
The crusade was the war goal of Churchill.
provided that it was accepted by the bulk of the country that it was a truce and the war would have to be resumed in a few years.
I'm still thoroughly and honestly persuaded that far better results can be acheived with a clevaer "cold war" strategy of underminding the Nazi Empire with ideological infiltration, military containment, economic and technological competition, which would target the real soft point of the Nazi Empire, its economic mismangement and political ham-handedeness, rather than with renewal or continuation of the endless "hot war".
The USA would also be more willing to help with the former strategy, opening up markets without bloodshed.
Probably something more like Finland in terms of a heavily defended region that over time would come under increasing influence from the continent.
Unless the Nazi Empire would get enough internal trouble that it doesn't look like an appealing model. The USSR didn't for Finland.
Let me see. The Canadian counter attack liberates the mid-west and Cascadia. The convicts claim California. While the Marois want a word with you about the abuse of the hawalians.
Heretic. The British Empire belongs to its rightful inheritors.

We must build Oceania... err, Freedonia.
That was because he didn't think there would be time before then.
Not sure about this. He planned a victory against URSS and UK/France by the mid-40s, and a confrontation with the USA in the 1980s, in his masterplan where he assumed everything turned up right.
One of the reasons he declared war in dec 41 I have read is that because it gave him a fleet, the Japanese one, which was what he thought was needed to fight the US.
The man was really nuts.
Not saying it will happen because after a defeat of the SU Germany is going to be a mess,
Not in a crippling sense, but there will still be all that lovely Eastern insurgency, and economic mismanagement, and military overextension...
That was partly because there was much sympathy for them, for their wartime resistance. Also widespread support for what many thought they stood for.
Not after the war was over, and anti-communism took wing again.
Your now talking about American, in a weaker military position
Beacuse they are outside of Western Europe, sure. Not that we chicken Western Europeans have ever been of much help in scaring away Ivan
facing off against a much larger and more successful [apparently] empire than the Soviets by a long way.
Apparently, indeed. The Nazi Empire has feets of clay just like the Soviet one. Americans have just help it to self-destruct, then they can swoop in, capture the hearts and minds of everyone with their uberpowerful cultural hegemony, and pick the pieces. It worked nicely with the Soviet Empire, it would work nicely with the Nazi Empire. No need to turn Europe into a radioactive wastreland to accelerate its eventual demise by a decade or two. In twenty years at most, the Nazi Empire will be on its knees from its own internal problems.