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I was into warfare history recently and read, among others, The Guns of August, The Rise & Fall of the Third Reich, and biographies of FDR and Truman. A thought

I was into warfare history recently and read, among others, The Guns of August, The Rise & Fall of the Third Reich, and biographies of FDR and Truman. A thought that emerged from that reading was... should we ever again have an all-encompassing war effort, if that should come to pass, what would be the role of the San Francisco Bay Area and of the tech community nationwide? There will certainly be an insatiable need for applied engineering skills as Machinists, CNC fabricators, and process engineers of all sorts. So certainly many software engineers could gravitate towards that sort of work. But in what ways would and could software systems contribute, how would that happen, and how could it be organized and scaled-up. What, for example, would 10,000 engineers at Google be working on? Because in a WWII-mobilization-style event, it wouldn't be business as usual. These are hypothetical issues and there isn't an answer, but I think answering the question "what can we do today" is a great start and I'm cautiously optimistic.

snowwrestler 12y ago
At the beginning of WWII, the U.S. did not have a large standing army or significant defense contracting industry. That's why the full-nation effort was needed. Today we have the most well-funded and technologically advanced standing military in the world. We would not need a full-nation mobilization.
- encoderer 12y ago
  The first part of what you said is entirely correct. But a look at the production numbers from WWII provides some elucidation on the second point. We produced 100k aircraft in just one year. Over 60k tanks. Certainly the changing face of warfare alters the math here -- we have many force multipliers to our advantage -- but I think without question in a WWII style, fully mobilized engagement, the US is by no means fully equipped. I mean, even if we were, how could we be? That's actually a great lesson in The Guns of August: Every general is fighting the last war.

snowwrestler 12y ago

At the beginning of WWII, the U.S. did not have a large standing army or significant defense contracting industry. That's why the full-nation effort was needed. Today we have the most well-funded and technologically advanced standing military in the world. We would not need a full-nation mobilization.

encoderer 12y ago
The first part of what you said is entirely correct. But a look at the production numbers from WWII provides some elucidation on the second point. We produced 100k aircraft in just one year. Over 60k tanks. Certainly the changing face of warfare alters the math here -- we have many force multipliers to our advantage -- but I think without question in a WWII style, fully mobilized engagement, the US is by no means fully equipped. I mean, even if we were, how could we be? That's actually a great lesson in The Guns of August: Every general is fighting the last war.