If the United States had stayed out of the war, Germany would be the world hegemon, with a monopoly on the atomic bomb. Moscow and much of eastern Russia would probably have disintegrated in a fire ball, and the United States would probably be full of labor camps full of ethnic minorities and political dissidents.
The stats show that the economy was bolstered, in the first instance, by spending for military preparation, and, later, the war effort. You are right, such a high degree of deficit spending was unsustainable, and we are fortunate to have had our industrial plant intact at the end of the war, to garner an unusually high share of world business. But the war helped to prime the pump. Again, I am not speculating, nor do I care, about the alleged economic benefits of a war with Iraq...... |
