undefined | Better HN

0 pointsmikeash11y ago0 comments

It's tough to dispute that this stuff is useful while in a major war, but I think the relevant question here is whether you need to have it all in place ahead of time, or whether you can spin it up on demand, as it were.

In any case, SIGINT certainly helped a great deal, but what really won the war for the allies was the roughly order of magnitude difference between the size of the economy of the United States and those of the countries it was fighting.

0 comments

tormeh11y ago

The US didn't have that much of an effect. By D-day, Germany was already running out of people to feed the meat grinder. The Soviet Union, Britain and France basically won the war in Europe. I'm grateful for not being born in the Soviet Union and all, but won the war, the US didn't. Also, the US is about 2.5 times as big as Japan and 4 times as big as Germany today. I don't know what the historical data is, but "order of magnitude" sounds way unrealistic.

I think it would be very hard to spin up on demand. There's not a catalogue of talented SIGINTs lying around. These people need to be found and hired. A whole organization as big as Google would have to be built overnight. It would be a nightmare. Not to mention that this organization would be starting from scratch while its counterparts might have taps into American society already.

mikeashOP11y ago

Don't forget that the US extensively supplied the Soviets and other allies for some time before officially entering the war. They mostly used their own weapons, but a huge amount of Soviet logistical support was American trucks and trains.

As for the disparity in GDP, an order of magnitude is a bit of an exaggeration for Germany, only slightly for Japan at the beginning of the war and not at all by the end. Wikipedia has figures:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_Worl...

The US's advantage in the long term became enormous because it was so far removed from the fighting. Germany and Japan's economies were mostly flat, while the US's nearly doubled in that time period. By the end of the war, the economic disparity was almost 5x over Germany and over 10x for Japan. Even in 1941, the disparity between the US and Japan was well over 5x, which makes one wonder WTF they were thinking.

tormeh11y ago

I knew there were some supplies coming from the US, but was it really of a war-winning magnitude? I would like to know.

GDP is not really that good a measure of a nation's war-fighting ability. Only some types of production is useful for near-total war. A nation needs solid institutions, natural resources, logistics, roads, factories and heavy equipment. The service sector goes out the window, ditto with all luxury/entertainment production and the construction business. The European Coal and Steel Community didn't focus on those two because they were good indicators of GDP, but because they were good indicators of war capabilities.

As for what the Japanese were thinking? That they were the natural rulers of the world and everyone else should tremble before them. Everyone else were worthless barbarians in their opinion.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

tormeh11y ago

mikeashOP11y ago

As for the disparity in GDP, an order of magnitude is a bit of an exaggeration for Germany, only slightly for Japan at the beginning of the war and not at all by the end. Wikipedia has figures:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_production_during_Worl...

tormeh11y ago

I knew there were some supplies coming from the US, but was it really of a war-winning magnitude? I would like to know.

As for what the Japanese were thinking? That they were the natural rulers of the world and everyone else should tremble before them. Everyone else were worthless barbarians in their opinion.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse