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You forgot about Russia and China in the statement above. You can't make an absolute statement that every gun comes at the expense of the poor, because if we h

You forgot about Russia and China in the statement above. You can't make an absolute statement that every gun comes at the expense of the poor, because if we hadn't had guns, I can assure you we all (including the poor) would have been worse off under a Nazi or Russian Communist regime.

astrodust 8y ago
In every major historical engagement the US has fought it went in woefully under-equipped, under-manned, and out-gunned. It prevailed because it can tool up quickly and out-produce. You can't tell me that if the entire US fleet was sunk, every tank blown up, that the US couldn't rebuild in a year or two if the public was all-in on support. Instead the US has this enormous force that, by virtue of merely existing, it feels compelled to use now and then.
- octopoc 8y ago
  > In every major historical engagement the US has fought it went in woefully under-equipped, under-manned, and out-gunned. It prevailed because it can tool up quickly and out-produce. It doesn't seem wise to rely on that always being true. The U.S. has not been involved in wars for very long (considering the history of war) and war has changed so much recently that assuming things won't change in the future seems like a bad plan.
  - mdpopescu 8y ago
    Er what? The US has been at war for 222 years -- https://freakonometrics.hypotheses.org/50473 https://freakonometrics.hypotheses.org/50473
    - digi_owl 8y ago
      Since WW2, the "wars" have been mismatched to the extreme (never mind that in both world wars USA came in late, and never had its industrial capacity threatened). The closest to a symmetrical war was in Korea, after China sent troops. And that war has never really been resolved.
- digi_owl 8y ago
  Also went in late in both wold wars, when the other side was basically exhausted. Never mind never having had to operate the industry under 24/7 bombardment.
  - astrodust 8y ago
    The US is just too fucking big to be subject to 24/7 bombardment. The US military, which is ridiculous, couldn't even keep a lid on Iraq and it's not even as big as Texas. There's no adversary that could possibly mount a bombing campaign that big, not even the US itself.
empthought 8y ago
Conquering North America was not a goal of Nazi Germany nor of the Soviet Union.
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Eventually conquering North America was a long term goal of Adolph Hitler, which is a part of the reason why Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. (Though the overwhelming short term need had to do with gaining the oil resources of the Soviet Union. A big part of the reason why the P-51 Mustang could outperform the German fighters was the availability of better fuel to the allies.) The Soviet Union's ideology originally included the long term goal of promulgating the dictatorship of the proletariat worldwide. However, even Lenin's ideology changed a lot when faced with the actual challenges of ruling a country.

astrodust 8y ago

In every major historical engagement the US has fought it went in woefully under-equipped, under-manned, and out-gunned. It prevailed because it can tool up quickly and out-produce. You can't tell me that if the entire US fleet was sunk, every tank blown up, that the US couldn't rebuild in a year or two if the public was all-in on support. Instead the US has this enormous force that, by virtue of merely existing, it feels compelled to use now and then.

octopoc 8y ago
> In every major historical engagement the US has fought it went in woefully under-equipped, under-manned, and out-gunned. It prevailed because it can tool up quickly and out-produce. It doesn't seem wise to rely on that always being true. The U.S. has not been involved in wars for very long (considering the history of war) and war has changed so much recently that assuming things won't change in the future seems like a bad plan.
- mdpopescu 8y ago
  Er what? The US has been at war for 222 years -- https://freakonometrics.hypotheses.org/50473 https://freakonometrics.hypotheses.org/50473
  - digi_owl 8y ago
    Since WW2, the "wars" have been mismatched to the extreme (never mind that in both world wars USA came in late, and never had its industrial capacity threatened). The closest to a symmetrical war was in Korea, after China sent troops. And that war has never really been resolved.
digi_owl 8y ago
Also went in late in both wold wars, when the other side was basically exhausted. Never mind never having had to operate the industry under 24/7 bombardment.
- astrodust 8y ago
  The US is just too fucking big to be subject to 24/7 bombardment. The US military, which is ridiculous, couldn't even keep a lid on Iraq and it's not even as big as Texas. There's no adversary that could possibly mount a bombing campaign that big, not even the US itself.

empthought 8y ago

Conquering North America was not a goal of Nazi Germany nor of the Soviet Union.

stcredzero 8y ago
Eventually conquering North America was a long term goal of Adolph Hitler, which is a part of the reason why Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. (Though the overwhelming short term need had to do with gaining the oil resources of the Soviet Union. A big part of the reason why the P-51 Mustang could outperform the German fighters was the availability of better fuel to the allies.) The Soviet Union's ideology originally included the long term goal of promulgating the dictatorship of the proletariat worldwide. However, even Lenin's ideology changed a lot when faced with the actual challenges of ruling a country.