[Rain Man]

Great question.

My theory is as follows:

First, there would still have been an air war on the western front by the British, but there wouldn't have been an invasion of North Africa, which led to the invasion of Italy. The British alone couldn't have mounted a D-Day-type invasion for years, if at all.

This would have freed up quite a bit of German resources. I read once (don't know if it's true) that 70 percent of Germany's armed forces were tied up in Russia. If it was only Britain on the western front instead of Britain and America, I'll bet that two-thirds of the 30 percent on the western front could have shifted east, increasing Germany's forces by almost 30 percent (90/70).

Add to that the fact that Italy would have still been contributing their shoddy soldiers and equipment to the war.

I would next initially surmise that Egypt would be a key, but in the long run it might not have mattered.

If Germany shifted some of the western front forces to Africa, Rommel would likely have taken Egypt, opening the door to the Arabian peninsula and maybe (a big maybe) a takeover of the oil fields to the east, which Britain could not possibly have protected.

A takeover of the oil-producing areas would probably have kept Hitler from the disastrous splitting of the forces in southern Russia, because he wouldn't have needed the Caucasus oil fields.

At a minimum, this means that Stalingrad would have fallen, with a domino effect up to Moscow. (Leningrad probably would've held out - tough SOBs.) The war would've then seen a second blitz assault to the Urals.

And if Germany didn't move the forces south to take Egypt? They would've moved them straight to the Soviet Union and accomplished the same thing.

Now switch to Asia. If Japan hadn't attacked Pearl Harbor, I still think we would've ended up in the war somehow. Assuming that we didn't, Japan would've continued pressing south and west. There's no doubt that Australia would've fallen, and probably all of southeast Asia.

China would just keep sucking up Japanese resources, though. It was too big a frog to swallow, so I think that Japan would've resisted German requests to attack the Soviets from the east, and they wouldn't have had the reach to take India. I also think that they had no political motiviation to attack the Soviet Union, either. Let 'em keep Siberia and bleed the Russians.

I think that Japan's natural expansion would've stopped at the borders of India and the Soviet Union, and they would've just spun their wheels against China for the next ten years.

Back to the Soviets, then. They're backed up to the Urals, and it just becomes a big bloody stalemate. Germany has more oil and natural resources in this version of reality, though, so I honestly think it would have just become a big meat grinder, and whoever has the most bodies to throw in will eventually win. If Germany had treated their occupied peoples well, they would've had more bodies. As it stood, though, they would've lost good will over time, which is a problem when you've got a 4,000 mile overland supply line.

I think that without a U.S. presence the Soviets would've eventually ended up in Berlin anyway, but we'd be talking triple the number of deaths that we actually had. Japan would've been the same way until they and China agreed to a peace treaty in about 1952, and Japan and Russia would've become the two great world powers for the next fifty years.

Just my opinion.