The public just believes otherwise because of 70 years of US propaganda [1]. The only thing US soldiers left us europeans with are a massive influx of refugees of which we have to take care of and for which we are ridiculed by US politicians and their citizens alike.
[1]: https://www.vox.com/2014/6/16/5814270/the-successful-70-year...
Don't forget the military bases and the half-secret spy networks linked to terrorist attacks.
The role of the US and Russia are inextricably linked at the end of WWII and to pretend either was irrelevant, or either "really did all the work", is to simply ignore history.
You're responding to another human, such that its a locality sensitive sentiment. To a French, Belgian or Dutch national the US is the savior of that war - the Soviets being uninvolved in their liberation.
As an aside, I wonder if there exist an Slavic-language HN where Eastern Europeans argue that American steel was the true winner in the war and the Soviets don't deserve glory...
At least it is sure that many of them wished the Americans had liberated them, not Soviet.
The USSR for all its achievements was a harsh place to be for everyone except the luckiest ones.
"In America there is huge differences between rich and poor - in USSR everyone is equally poor".
While the Soviet Union obviously never fought in Western Europe, the article that the person you are replying to quotes numbers from right after the war, where the majority of French people said that the soviets were the ones who were the most responsible for the outcome of the war. And that does make sense, considering for how long they bore the brunt of Nazi aggression, and the number of casualties speak for themselves.
There is a comparison with now, where of course most people would give most of the credit to the Americans. I think a lot of people in Western Europe aren't aware what the costs of the War in Russia were.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_during_the_occupation_o...
To be fair, the major reasons for this were that the Russian military leadership was utterly incompetent during the earlier stages of the war [1], and that they suffered from a serious lack of equipment and material. "Number of casualties" and "years spent fighting" aren't good indicators of military effectiveness.
[1] That's what happens when you liquidate your military elite or put them into gulags because they are on the wrong side of your class war.
WW2 was started by Germany and USSR hand in hand.
'Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939. Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered the Soviet invasion of Poland on 17 September'
At least US tried to make a difference. EU is very passive in that sense (I'm from EU).
the mainy problem in afghanistan is the fact that not many people feel a common sense of being an afghani. The country is extremely decentralised and rural. Most people only look at their villages and community, not at the bigger picture.
Only thing is that when they left, we made sure the Nazi's didn't come back.
Right now they were training Afghans to have their own military, but it's all so corrupt that it is just an impossible task. Those who can will flee the country instead of fighting for it.
Initially, Taliban offered surrender. US denied their terms. So they kept on fighting and rebuilding.
They took over the country in less than a month. They never left. They were always there.
Chinese approach to radical islam will work. But West will never admit that.
Chinese see islam as totalitarian ideology that is incompatible with Chinese values and competing communist totalitarianism.