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The Soviet Armies had already broken the back of the German invasion of Russia and ended Germanys ability to wage offensive war on 90% of the Russian front by February 1943 at Stalingrad.The USSR was highly dependent on rail transportation, but the war practically shut down rail equipment production: only about 92 locomotives were produced. 2,000 locomotives and 11,000 railcars were supplied under Lend-Lease. The UK got around 40 billion dollars of lend-lease aid the USSR got 11.2 billion so you see it was a much smaller portion of the total and the French received a great deal after Normandy to reconstitute their military which had no impact on the outcome of the war.So worst case they would have had to devote the resources from one major tank factory over to locomotive production. You must remember that the Russians produced 84,000 T-34 Tanks while the Germans only produced about 8,000 Panthers and Tigers their only tanks that could standup to the T-34. So they could have given up a quarter of there tank production to locomotive production and not been hindered in there ability to defeat the Germans.Have no doubt that the Russians won the second world war against Germany with or without the west that would remain the same.Addendum:Another statistic described in The Storm of War: A New History of the Second World War by Andrew Roberts is that when looking at German Soldiers killed in ground combat 4 out of 5 deaths occurred on the Eastern front. A staggering figure.Second Addendum:If the Germans had not launched Barbarossa when they did and devoted some of those troops and supplies to Rommel in North Africa it is foreseeable that Germany could have taken the Suez canal and push Britain out of North Africa. Then they could have launched a move from Egypt through Palestine allied with Syria move into northern Iraq and enter the USSR from Georgia capture the Caucasus oil fields then move on to take Stalingrad from the rear. Thus have a duel attack into Russia one from Georgia and one from the German and Polish frontiers.As for Japan on 15 September 1939, Stalin concluded a durable ceasefire with Japan, to take effect the following day (it would be upgraded to a formal armistice in April 1941). This was the result of Japans first contact with Russian troops and the stunning defeat Japan suffered in that battle. So while Japan would have been free in the Pacific from Russian interference I can see no set of circumstances that possibly could prevent the US from declaring war on Japan once Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.

Any peace deal between Israel and Syria would require several conditions:Bashar al-Assad (or whoever is in power at the time) would have to stop demanding the unconditional withdrawal of all Israelis, military and civilian, from the Golan Heights as a precondition for negotiations.Safeguards would have to be put in place, rendering the Golan Heights unusable as a shooting gallery to harass and murder Israeli civilians, as was done between 1948 and 1967. this means safeguards with teeth, not just words on paper.Syrian persecution of the Druse in Syria must stop. Druse living in the Golan must not be persecuted as “collaborators”.Syria would have to prove its peaceful intent over a period of time, while withdrawal would be in stages, subject to reversal if Syria violates the terms of any treaty signed.I don’t think this is going to happen within the lifetime of anyone reading this.Addendum (26/8/2020):The Golan Heights as we know it was originally part of the Mandate for Palestine (Britain). It was illegally ceded to the Mandate for Syria (France) in violation of Article 5 of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine in 1923.“Article 5. The Mandatory (Great Britain) shall be responsible for seeing that no Palestine territory shall be ceded or leased to, or in any way placed under the control of the Government of any foreign Power.”If France wasn’t a “foreign power”, then I don’t know what was.Syria held the Golan for a total of 44 years, from 1923 to 1967. During that time, no effort was made to develop the area, and it was considered an exclusive military area from 1948 to 1967, used top harass Israeli civilians in the Galilee Basin and as a jumping-off base for terrorist actions against Israel.Under Israeli control, there are cities and farms, growing apples, wheat, cattle, cherries and much more… wineries producing wines that have won medals in international competitions, factories producing consumer goods and much more.Under the classic concept of “proving the land” (showing the intention of long-term development and improvement), the only country that can meet the criteria is Israel.

Let’s rephrase this slightly. The question is WHO, not what, the German military feared the most in World War Two. The answer was given by Adolf Hitler himself, in 1942 (and he was following declarations from several of his own generals and marshals).At Bir Hakeim in May June 1942, 3,750 French prevented the entire Afrika Korps and Italian armor to encircle the British army. The stakes were so high, Rommel went to the front line and exposed himself to French fire. He said: “The fate of my army depended upon it!”. Actually, it was the fate of the entire Thousand Year Reich: if Rommel had encircled the British Eight army, there was no significant allied force all the way to eastern India. The Nazis planned to seize Palestine, kill all the Jews, and then grab Iraqi oil: the Nazis needed oil desperately, be it only to have enough to train their pilot and motorize their armies.French Legionnaires counterattacking at Bir Hakeim. The entire French army had burrowed in the sandy desert.The resistance of general Koenig at Bir Hakeim lasted three weeks, long enough for the British army to escape. Bir Hakeim was more crucial than the battle of Thermopylae: the Eight Army lived to fight another day, and crushed an extended Afrika Korps a few months later, on the border of Egypt.Hitler told his cabinet that Bir Hakeim was one more demonstration that the French were the second best soldiers after the Germans, and that is why France should be completely destroyed. (His cabinet pointed out that doing this would guarantee that Germany would lose the war. Hitler had to agree.) After the war, Generalmajor Friedrich von Mellenthin wrote, “In the whole course of the desert war, we never encountered a more heroic and well-sustained defence“As the Nazis kept on pointing out, especially after they got defeated, it is the French who attacked the Nazis in 1939, not the other way around. French diplomacy stiffened the Polish spine and then persuaded the British to add an addendum to the Franco-Polish Treaty (Britain had sobered up from the fall of the Spanish Republic). The Nazis replied by making their alliance with the Soviets official. When the Nazis attacked France, in May 1940, they were using Soviet oil. Prior, they had used US/Texaco oil…Why is this so important? First, the Jews and the nascent reborn Israel would have extinguished. Second, with Iraqi oil and the entire Arab world to help them out, the Nazis could well have cut off the US Lend Lease line to the Soviet Union, crucial to Stalin. Third, the performance of the Luftwaffe would have climbed considerably, with enough oil to train pilots, and the main problem with Nazi jets, gas guzzling, would have been less of a consideration (and more importantly getting some rare minerals the Nazis needed for jet engines’ alloys). Fourth, Stalingrad would not have happened as its strategic importance, holding the left flank of the drive to Baku oil fields, would have been irrelevant.The Second World War would have taken a very different turn… 3,750 heroes (and one woman!) prevented this.Patrice Ayme