The US side had an economic advantage against the other of about 4 to 1. The war was easily won, requiring only a half decade.
Tell that to anyone who fought in that war...
Nazi Germany conquered, or held off, the British empire, the French, the Russians, AS WELL as the United States, for each of those 5 years.
The US alone put 12 million men and women under arms, almost 10% of our population at the time (140 million).
The Russians lost between 20-40 million soldiers/civilians during that war..
The Germans lost 6-8 million..
As for symmetrical warfare, tell that to the Germans who fought Soviet, French, and Italian partisans, each of which conducted uncounted acts of sabotage, terrorism (against collaborators), and espionage against the German occupiers.
And then should we discuss the Japanese experience in French Indo-China, as well as China?
And tell it to the US soldiers who fought the Japanese to the death.. Who fought off soldiers, sailers, and pilots intent on taking the lives of their American enemies via suicidal attacks...
Yeah... tell them that war was easy and "symmetrical"....
And tell those US occupation forces, who were sniped at, and attacked by Nazi diehards for years afterward, just how "easy" it was to win that war..
This is in comparison to WW2, where the victory conditions were symmetrical between the allies and the axis. That is, you win by capturing the other side's homeland.
Two points here.. 1.) Merely capturing the enemy's homeland was not sufficient. The US spent tremendous amounts of money reconstructing and protecting Germany and Japan, as well as many of their former conquered and devastated territories.
2.) The US "encouraged" the form of government IT preferred, democracy, or in the case of Japan, constitutional monarchy.
I'll answer the "10 questions" in another post.
Hawk |
