D&D and the rising pandemic

[Hussar]

Blew out the national debt though fueling inflation.

You got rid of the draft after Vietnam similar reasons we did.

US couldn't deal with Covid how you gonna draft millions. Even if you did the USA can't manufacture the resources they could 70 years ago.

Look at vaccines a few decades ago vs polio and smallpox.

Kinda moot point US doesn't need large amounts of manpower to win a war. They do to win the peace though but what's a couple of trillion wasted dollars here and there huh?

NZ had the thought censorship in the allies in WW2 that's gone the government doesn't gave those powers anymore and society won't accept it.

What?

They developed and distributed a Covid vaccine within what, three years of it becoming a problem? To the point where the vast majority of the population has been vaccinated. And resources? Are you kidding? The manufacturing capacity of the US now compared to 70 years ago isn't even in the same league. Additionally, the Americans have never gotten rid of the draft. They just haven't used it.

But, yes, I do agree with you on one point. The Americans have never really tried to win the world through direct power. They are just buying their way to the top and it's worked surprisingly well.

I think the most telling statistic is that, up to a couple of years ago when China caught up a bit, the US spent more on its military than the entire world COMBINED. Without raising taxes or instituting a draft system. And they did this for a very, very long time.

 

[Zardnaar]

What?

They developed and distributed a Covid vaccine within what, three years of it becoming a problem? To the point where the vast majority of the population has been vaccinated. And resources? Are you kidding? The manufacturing capacity of the US now compared to 70 years ago isn't even in the same league. Additionally, the Americans have never gotten rid of the draft. They just haven't used it.

But, yes, I do agree with you on one point. The Americans have never really tried to win the world through direct power. They are just buying their way to the top and it's worked surprisingly well.

I think the most telling statistic is that, up to a couple of years ago when China caught up a bit, the US spent more on its military than the entire world COMBINED. Without raising taxes or instituting a draft system. And they did this for a very, very long time.

Counter argument August 2021.

USA very good at kicking the crap out of whoever. Then what is the messy details.

 

[niklinna]

A UV Lamp That’s Bad for COVID but Not for You

Researchers are testing lights that have the early potential to transform the pandemic.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[CapnZapp]

Fundamentals of the US economy were different back then. Modern USA could not redo WW2 for example they can't produce the steel or aluminum anymore.

Similar thing here we couldn't do what our grandparents did. Local manufacturing is gone, and the government can't actually use the same measures they did back then. They made things like that illegal in 1990/93.

Everything has less room for crisis management. Look at shocks to gas or oil back then the biggest oil producers were Venezuela and USA middle eastern oil.

With double the population we couldn't mobilize half the men these days for war or anything else.

Pretty much rest of OECD is in the same boat. Look what happens if a single ship blocks the Suez and proportionally the Spanish flu was way worse than Covid.

Governments can't really enforce their will like they could back then. That's assuming the government has a plan and us vaguely competent that's rare these days.

This assumes the government plays by the rules it itself has set.

You're absolutely right - Western democracies can't do today what they did in, say, 1942.

If they don't change the rules, that is.

But what makes you think they won't or can't.

America in 2022 is an absolute behemoth, only a sleeping one. If, I dunno, the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor or something , the US of A would absolutely do everything it did back then and much more.

All that's needed is a crisis that makes the public accept the government throwing out the rulebook.

 

[Umbran]

All that's needed is a crisis that makes the public accept the government throwing out the rulebook.

Or at least rapidly changing the rulebook.
Or, turning back to some of the parts of the rulebook that have not been relevant for a while.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Fundamentals of the US economy were different back then. Modern USA could not redo WW2 for example they can't produce the steel or aluminum anymore.

We’re actually 4th in steel production, globally, and tied with Iceland for 9th in annual aluminum prodiction.

And if things really hit the fan, I’m sure current research & investment into recycling metals from our dumps and landfills would get a HUGE cash injection from Uncle Sam.

 

[Zardnaar]

This assumes the government plays by the rules it itself has set.

You're absolutely right - Western democracies can't do today what they did in, say, 1942.

If they don't change the rules, that is.

But what makes you think they won't or can't.

America in 2022 is an absolute behemoth, only a sleeping one. If, I dunno, the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor or something , the US of A would absolutely do everything it did back then and much more.

All that's needed is a crisis that makes the public accept the government throwing out the rulebook.

When Japan hit USA the industrial plant was there although they built factories. They just turned on the money taps for the most part.

These days the plants aren't there any more and it takes to long to build new ones and it takes a long time manufacture moder planes for example.

 

[Zardnaar]

We’re actually 4th in steel production, globally, and tied with Iceland for 9th in annual aluminum prodiction.

And if things really hit the fan, I’m sure current research & investment into recycling metals from our dumps and landfills would get a HUGE cash injection from Uncle Sam.

Back then number 1 at basically everything.

Rebuilding can't be done in any reasonable timeframe though see previous reply.

Things were different in 1942 or whatever the population won't go along with what governments got away with back then Vietnam changed that.

Look at vaccination drives vs polio and smallpox vs modern day efforts recently.

Imagine a single submarine in Indian Ocean or South China Sea sinking oil tankers vs hundred of ships in WW2 being sunk.

A single tanker blocking Suez caused all sorts of havoc.

The fundamentals have changed with globizatiin/trade etc. The world's not as resilient economically. We're getting economic crisis every decade or so vs 1929-87.

I don't think any country could enforce a national draft to the same effect they did back then.

 

[Mirtek]

Lately I read about a "black day for the Russian air force" due to four planes being shot down over Ukraine in a single day. Four. During WW2 they'd send out hundreds of planes in a single raid, lost 50 and called it a success.

Would any modern nation be able to bear the losses of a full fledged WW2 style war anymore? Adding Russian and Ukrainian losses over the eight months of invasion and it's much less than the casualties just from the one month (and a little) long Battle of the Bulge.

But I think we now so far off topic it's getting hard to spot the original thing this thread was supposed to be about. Maybe it's natural after over 500 pages,

 

[Umbran]

Back then number 1 at basically everything.

So, I'm going to burst a little bubble here.

At the height of WWII, the US produced about 80 million metric tons of steel.

Spoiler: citation - Wikipedia

(History of the iron and steel industry in the United States - Wikipedia The graph stops at 2014 because that's as far as data went when it was made, not because our production plummeted to zero) But, yeah, or peak steel production wasn't in the war - it was in the 1970s.

Wanna guess how much steel the US produced in 2021? About 80 million metric tons - with capacity to do about 100 million.

Spoiler: citation - Congressional report on US steel production

(https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R47107)

The US capacity to produce steel as a portion of overall world production has dropped. But absolute production capacity is at WWII levels currently! We have maintained (well, gained and lost) capacity - other nations have increased theirs.

The real way we managed so much wartime production wasn't so much in outright steel production as it was in strict rationing. As an example, in 1941, in the US, we produced about 3 million consumer automobiles. During the war, apparently that number dropped to... 139. We basically completely halted new car production.

Rebuilding can't be done in any reasonable timeframe though see previous reply.

Well, your previous reply was based on an erroneous premise. We haven't actually lost capacity.

Things were different in 1942 or whatever the population won't go along with what governments got away with back then Vietnam changed that.

Don't bet on that. The issue with the Vietnam War was that the American public saw little point in it, while the government pursued it. This has been similar for most wars since that time. But then, nobody's actually tried to take control of Europe in a full offensive either.

Look at vaccination drives vs polio and smallpox vs modern day efforts recently.

A bit of cherrypicking of a unique case there. We cannot get into the politics of it, but under a different administration, it could have gone quite differently.

The fundamentals have changed with globizatiin/trade etc. The world's not as resilient economically. We're getting economic crisis every decade or so vs 1929-87.

So, wait a minute - you say we have become less resilient since WWII.... but use an example that starts before WWII? That doesn't say what you think it does.