Ok before you start to flame, read this story.

Short background: I'm an american stuck in Wales, UK learning/teaching at a University.

So I'm with all my friends, few beers later we all start to get patriotic. I hear guys gloryifying the portugal marines, an irish guy talking about the special forces in his country. Everyone knows im from the US, so I just sit back at the club with a beer listening to all of this. Debates are flying, people are claiming that their country is the best at >'insert military/political subject here'<.

Enough with this.

I get up and tell them 'Listen, United States of America we own the world.

Now im expecting someone to throw a right hook up at me so I sort of brace myself. Now two things come out of their mouths that completely shocked me.

1.) They all agreed. There was no debate.

2.) They made one very important statement, one so profound that I really couldnt say anything else:

''But the US was nothing before WWII''

Before we were waring with ourselves, enslaving people, rebelling against Britain, fighting Mexico. What the hell were we doing before WWII and how did we gain so much power in so little time? Industrial revolution?

[edit on 11/11/2004 by Simulacra]

After the First World War America took an isolationist view of the world. We had the 17th largest military, not exactly a military for a superpower. We were still feeling the effects of the great depression. So America was not a military or an economic superpower from the late twenties until the forties. World War 2 changed all of that. We reaped the rewards of being victorious in battle and changed ours policies on isolationism.

I believe that the combinations of so many different ethnic influences combined with, as you say, the industrial revolution allowed a unique attitude and drive for innovation to develop which, coming out of the Depression, found focus and purpose in the economic boom caused by WWII. The best cultural and socal aspects of each ethnic group could be nurtured here and this has always been a great strength of America. Until this time, the United States was not able to fully exploit it's vast natural and intelectual resources. Having the A-bomb probably didn't hurt our ranking on the World Power scale either.

Of course I suppose it's possible that we were lucky enough to have the opportunity to reverse engineer alien tecnology, too. I guess anything is possible on that score, huh?

militarily the U.S. was nothing before WWII, but we did help win WWI, and it may not have ended at all if we hadnt interviened.

but your right we were constantly stuck in diffrent problems for most of our history before then. in the early 1800's america almost went bankrupt. then there was the state soverignty battle of the 1860's that massivly ruined the economy of the south (shermans march of destruction could still be seen by air in rural georgia in the 1930's) the civil war debt had to be payed by our own country entirly.

and depression continued to happen in th 1930's right up to WWII

most problems were economic, which is why we lacked militarily, in my opinion.

Maybe it was the bomb. I know we did not have to our selfs for long, but maybe it is why.

LOL! Myopic thinking. The fact of the matter is, we were something long before WWII. Were that not so, we would have been no good when we answered the calling during WWII.

To put it another way, this nation was a great nation long before it was a wealthy nation, or a powerful nation. An understanding of electricity (capacitance, inductance) will help you understand where I'm going with that.

America was number one world power already after WWI. The reason why they had no big military was because they didn't need it. Already Hitler stated in Mein Kampf there are 2 superpowers USA and British empire and he wanted the Germany to become 3rd one. That was also the reason why he was so afraid of torpedoing american ships.

Unlike Europe, the US did not have to suffer the War at home, and suffered no damage from occupying forces, air-raids etc. That's why the US was the only economy to grow during the Second World War. The US, unlike Europe, did not have its economic growth stunted.

We slapped up the Spanish pretty good at the turn of the century...

[edit on 12-11-2004 by magical communications]

There is also the not so small matter of the USA insisting on the 'aid' sent to the UK being - initially at least - paid for at top dollar and in gold and other substantive means.

Understandable I suppose as everyone thought the UK would never be capable of withstanding the nazi German onslaught.

Also huge tracts of territory from the empire were demanded/used as payment.

Then when the UK did survive German attacks the rebuilding of the merchant fleet along with the vast amount of muntions supplied meant the USA had a significant income from the repayment of the credit used for this for decades.....to this very day and for many more years yet to come, IIRC.

This never happened in WW1 as much of our own productive capacity was not destroyed and survived intact....although WW1 also caused the UK enormous material and financial loss too, obviously.

Roosevelt detested the British empire and used our 'over a barrel' position to strip the UK of much wealth and enrich the USA enormously.
At the time we had no choice but to agree but it caused enormous suffering later post-war.
Rationing did not disappear until the 1950's for instance.
WW2 broke the UK and our 'friends' were part of why that happened.



[edit on 12-11-2004 by sminkeypinkey]

[edit on 12-11-2004 by magical communications]

As with some of our posters I agree the United States was a major power well before WWII and even WWI. However, because of the Monroe doctrine, it did not activly involve itself in the various goings on in the world. It could have mind you but did not. Given the fact that it had an indigenous supply of oil pretty much sealed the deal.

FredT

I agree that WW2 nearly broke Britain. This is what happens when you face a mighty threat practically alone. By alone, I mean including their commonwealth brothers and sisters.

As for America being so great in WW2, of course they were. After 2 years of defending Europe it would have been a relief to see the US finally enter, all fresh and green.

The U.S. grew like crazy after WWII because they were among one of the only countries who didn't have to fight at ALL on their own land. No infrastructure to fix.



j

The war was an extremely good motivator for the entire country. We united under a singular threat and worked together, a utopia with a twist of war if you will. Just look at the development of the Atomic Bomb, neccesity truely is the mother of all invention; if we do have an another great War, the one positive effect will be tremendous leaps in technology.