The Second World War

I'm reading The Second World War by John Keegan. It's an excellent book (I picked it up after reading The First World War, also by John Keegan), and contains tons of interesting information. Like this:

at the end of the war, the Soviet forces held 665,000 motor vehicles, of which 427,000 were Western, most of them American, and a high proportion the magnificent 2.5-ton Dodge trucks... American industry also supplied 13 million Soviet soldiers with their winter boots, American agriculture 5 million tons of food, sufficient to proved each Soviet soldier with half a pound of concentrated rations every day of the war. The American railroad industry supplied 2000 locomotives, 11,000 freight carriages and 540,000 tons of rails... American supplies of high-grade petroleum were essential to Russian production of aviation fuel, while three-quarters of Soviet consumption of copper in 1941-4 came from American sources.

And that's not all:

Wartime Russia survived and fought on American aid. So too did wartime Britain... The percentage of military equipment supplied to the British armed forces from American sources in 1941 was 11.5, in 1942 16.9, in 1943 26.9 and in 1944 28.7; and the percentage of American-supplied food consumed in Britain in 1941 was 29.1, a proportion which continued at that level throughout the war.

This outpouring of aid, combined with the equipment and maintenance of armed forces which increased in size thirtyfold between 1939 and 1945, was achieved at no damage to the United States economy at all. On the contrary: though annual Federal expenditure rose from 13 billion dollars in 1939 to 71 billion in 1944, inflation was easily contained by tax increases and successful war-loan campaigns. The gross national product more than doubled during the same period, and industrial production also nearly doubled.

It goes on like that for another paragraph, explaining how all this spelled doom for Germany and Japan. The next interesting part is this: "In 1945 the United States was to find itself not only the richest state in the world, as in 1939, but the richest there has ever been, with an economy almost equal in productivity to that of the rest of the world put together." This is still essentially true. The United States is at this moment one of (or perhaps the only) the only countries in the world that is not only self-sufficient in terms of staple foods but also an exporter. The United States is still the richest nation the world has ever known, and every time our economy grows (aka, whenever we're not in a recession), it sets a new record. This is my response to those who claim we do not have to resources to fight a war by ourselves. We most definately do. We could conquer the world. But as of right now, we lack the political will. I believe that is changing, and it would behoove both major parties to realize it. Being that I prefer left-liberal domestic policies, I'd like to see a return to the Democratic Party of FDR. Others out there still (foolishly) hold out hope that the Shrub in Chief will awaken to the new political reality. Whatever happens, though, the next ten years should be interesting times, indeed...