# How did the axis powers last so long in WW2 **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 14, 2015, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858 "2015-01-14T23:37:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![WillFarnaby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/willfarnaby/32/514_2.png) [@WillFarnaby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillFarnaby)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/41 "2015-01-16T18:52:53Z")
It really didn’t take that long if you consider the extent of the physical damage done to accomplish the victory. It takes a long time to systematically destroy that many things, then consider the fact that the things were fighting back. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/42 "2015-01-16T19:58:33Z")
> [@bump](#): > > My point was that it was better/longer officer training and doctrinal differences, not cultural militarism that made the difference. > > I mean, we had millions of farm boys who’d grown up shooting. That had to be some kind of advantage on our side, but it didn’t seem to pan out that way. > > The German military, on a tactical level, was much more flexible and better-led than the Allied troops they faced, UNLESS they were facing similarly well-led troops such as US Airborne and British Commandos/Airborne. But facing some garden-variety US infantry division composed of draftees and 90-day wonders(junior officers trained in 90 days), the Germans handed them their asses. The one, though, leads to the other. You don’t get a whole nation sending its kids through compulsory “Hitler Youth” training, or pouring a huge amount of its GDP into the army in peacetime and without any particular external threats, unless it has a sense of cultural militarism. OTOH, a society lacking such a sense is more likely to have to drastically expand its army from civilian life folks with no military or paramilitary training at all - and you get more “… division[s] composed of draftees and 90-day wonders (junior officers trained in 90 days) …”. In short, it’s a feature built-in to Nazism to take the social effort necessary to create a nation with a higher percentage of trained soldiers - an advantage above and beyond the tactics employed (though even there, having highly trained soldiers allows for different tactics - more reliance on initative etc.). Of course, having better soldiers did not allow them to actually win … ---
**Author:** ![DrCube](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@DrCube](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrCube)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/43 "2015-01-16T20:41:36Z")
> [@bump](#): > > The German doctrine emphasized flexibility, initiative and independent action- This is interesting because I had always heard the opposite. When I was in the Army it was taken as gospel that we won the war because our soldiers could take initiative and were afforded flexibility in accomplishing objectives, while Nazis and the Japanese practically couldn’t take a crap without direct orders from Hitler or Tojo. Not that I entirely believed it, but I figured there was a grain of truth in there. ---
**Author:** ![Wakinyan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wakinyan/32/352_2.png) [@Wakinyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wakinyan)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/44 "2015-01-16T20:46:55Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > The Russians?? Seriously? The Russians invaded Finland and Poland. Annexed the Baltic States and Bessarabia. The Russians never \*invaded \*Finland. Not in the thirties or the forties. It attacked Finland, but didn’t succeed/choose to invade it. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/45 "2015-01-16T21:04:40Z")
> [@Wakinyan](#): > > The Russians never \*invaded \*Finland. Not in the thirties or the forties. It attacked Finland, but didn’t succeed/choose to invade it. I am curious as to how Russia attacked Finland without invading it. Did they stand on their side of the border and just shoot across? ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/46 "2015-01-16T21:33:39Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > This is interesting because I had always heard the opposite. When I was in the Army it was taken as gospel that we won the war because our soldiers could take initiative and were afforded flexibility in accomplishing objectives, while Nazis and the Japanese practically couldn’t take a crap without direct orders from Hitler or Tojo. The way I understood it is force commanders had to get clearance from the top for any strategic, or major tactical, deviation from the plan however urgent or obvious and it was like pulling teeth to get approval, but once the decision came down one way or the other, the line leaders had flexibility in \*how \*to execute. ISTM the regimes in Germany and Japan took advantage of a preexisting martial culture in society, a reverence for the military, a notion of a warrior class; a romantic notion of how exalted it is to be part of a greater cause, of the holiness of the People and Land and of cosmic or divine annointment; and \*then \*cranked it all up to eleven. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2015, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/47 "2015-01-16T21:43:17Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > This is interesting because I had always heard the opposite. When I was in the Army it was taken as gospel that we won the war because our soldiers could take initiative and were afforded flexibility in accomplishing objectives, while Nazis and the Japanese practically couldn’t take a crap without direct orders from Hitler or Tojo. > > Not that I entirely believed it, but I figured there was a grain of truth in there. There are elements of truth in this. But as is often the case, it was complicated. In the Japanese system there was minimal governmental control over the military. The Japanese army and navy acted almost autonomously. It was more a case of the military telling the government what it was going to do rather than the reverse. So Tojo didn’t really rule Japan like Hitler did Germany. Tojo was basically the general who the Japanese military appointed to run the country. The Emperor had absolute authority but he was more or less a symbol. If Hirohito had pushed the military to go in a direction it didn’t want to go, he would have either been placed in captivity “for his own good” or replaced by a new Emperor. Hirohito was only able to really exert his own power in 1945 when the country was on the verge of collapse and the military had lost much of its prestige. Within the Japanese armed forces, power was held by officers. Enlisted men were expected to blindly obey orders and show no initiative. But within the officers there was some degree of freedom. There was a tradition that officers could disobey orders if the orders were wrong or dishonorable. So a general that gave unpopular orders might face a mutiny and be killed by his subordinate officers. Because the younger officers tending to be the most radical, this meant the Japanese military tending to go in a radical direction. In Germany, the complicating factor was that there were essentially two competing systems vying for power and influence. There was the military tradition which had its origins back in the Kingdom of Prussia. This tradition placed the army at the pinnacle of public prestige and said that the army should be allowed to run its own affairs without government interference. But the Prussian military was not mindless. It expected its officers, and even its enlisted men to some degree, to think. The basic principle was that the commander would outline the mission and the people under him were expected to figure out the best way the perform that mission. So it was a system that encouraged initiative and flexibility rather than blind obedience. But then the Nazis took over. They had a whole different idea about the relations between the government and the military. The Nazis controlled the government. They needed the military but they did not like the idea that the military had any independence. They wanted the German military to be blindly obedient to the Nazi regime. The German military, meanwhile, wanted to maintain its independence as much as possible. This conflict remained a struggle throughout the Nazi era until Germany lost the war and rendered it moot. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/48 "2015-01-17T00:02:03Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > As others have noted, this was history by the 1930s. The Western Allies at least had no intention of making _further_ conquests, particularly of First World neighbours - the resulst of WW1 had scared them too profoundly. > > The way I see it is as follows: > > 1. After WW1, the Western Allies were uninterested in conquest. They attempted in various ways to limit spending and controll aggression (such as through the Naval Treaty and the League of Nations). > > 2. Some powers did not buy into this - the Axis powers, and also the Soviets. > > 3. The Nazis in particular created a whole world-view in which conquest and domination of others was _the_ important criterion of national ‘worth’. > > 4. In pursuit of that, and building on their already-excellent military traditions, they prepared their whole society for war - with indoctrination, sure, but also with paramilitary prep for the kiddies, and with lots of investment and prep in tech and training. > > 5. The Western Allies did not want to pay to keep up with this - particularly as they were clawing their way out of the Depression. Moreover, their ideological mind-set was now all about how aggressive warfare was a bad idea. > > 6. The Nazis and Japanese both built up formidable forces and started using them - the Japanese earlier, in carving an empire in China/Manchuria. > > 7. The Soviets too created a substantial force - but the purges and show-trials crippled its effectiveness. The Soviets, just like the Nazis and Japanese, had no compunctions against using this force to steal from others - only, in its crippled state, it wasn’t very effective: even tiny Finland was able to defy them (for a time). > > 8. The Western Allies belatedly begain to rearm, but this is not so easily done in societies which have not been indoctrinated with the notion that warfare is a positive ideal. The Nazis and Japanese had created militarized societies which inculcated solderly discipline and training almost from childhood, which the Western Allies in particular found hard to beat, soldier for soldier. Moreover, in some cases, they had actual experience - for example, the Japanese army had already been fighting in China for years, and so some soldiers, officers and NCOs had actual wartime experience. > > 9. However, the Western Allies had a huge preponderence of power - particularly after the US was joined. Moreover, the initial superiority of Axis soldiers was a depreciating advantage to them - most noticable when the war started. Again, the Western Allies werent interested in expansion in the thirties because there was nowhere left to expand. The Allies did not ‘belatedly’ begin to rearm as they were heavily involved in the development of modern military tech like tanks and aircraft throughout the interwar years. The French and German armies were quite similar: > [@](#): > > With the exception of communications, however, the French > Army was not badly equipped in 1940. In fact, they > possessed good guns, good tanks for the era, and several > armored and motorized divisions. The French Army of 1940 > can be said to have had a modern level of motorization. In > their approach to motorization, the German and French armies > were actually very similar. [http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/doctrine/research/cmc.pdf](http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/doctrine/research/cmc.pdf) The USA was a quite different animal. ---
**Author:** ![Wakinyan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wakinyan/32/352_2.png) [@Wakinyan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wakinyan)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/49 "2015-01-17T10:24:22Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I am curious as to how Russia attacked Finland without invading it. Did they stand on their side of the border and just shoot across? Further investigation shows that the word “invasion” seems to have slightly different meanings in English and my native language. Sorry. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/50 "2015-01-17T13:01:39Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Finland managed to beat back the Russians in 1939 so I don’t know if beating the Russians alone counts for much if a small but organized nation like Finland can do it. > > Also according to this. > > [List of regions by past GDP (PPP) per capita - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_%28PPP%29_per_capita#World_1.E2.80.932003_.28Maddison.29) > > Japan’s GDP in 1913 was on par with Latin America, and about 1/3 the size of western Europe or the US. Japanese per capita income in 1950 was half that of Germany in 1950, and less than 1/3 of the UK in 1950, under 1/4 the US in 1950. So japanese GDP stats from both 1913 and 1950 show them having a per capita GDP about 1/2 to 1/4 the size of industrialized nations. Mexico’s per capita GDP was higher in 1913 and 1950 than Japan, and Mexico was not an industrialized nation. I suspect that looking at per capita GDP gives a false impression. I found another site (in Japanese, so I won’t link it) that uses the same source but gives the overall GDP. It has $169 billion as Japanese GDP in 1938, which compares well to $185 billion for France, $140 billion for Italy, and $220 billion for Germany. On the question of Japanese defense spending as a % of GDP, [this page](http://homepage1.nifty.com/SENSHI/data/zaisei.htm) has a rather staggering graph which claims that Japan reached 85% at the height of the war and about 30% in peacetime. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2015, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/51 "2015-01-17T15:21:37Z")
> [@cckerberos](#): > > I suspect that looking at per capita GDP gives a false impression. I found another site (in Japanese, so I won’t link it) that uses the same source but gives the overall GDP. It has $169 billion as Japanese GDP in 1938, which compares well to $185 billion for France, $140 billion for Italy, and $220 billion for Germany. > > On the question of Japanese defense spending as a % of GDP, [this page](http://homepage1.nifty.com/SENSHI/data/zaisei.htm) has a rather staggering graph which claims that Japan reached 85% at the height of the war and about 30% in peacetime. I didn’t even consider how Japan had 2x the population of many european nations. I’m surprised a society sustained itself at 85% military spending. Maybe like I was saying earlier a democracy can’t get spending that high because the people will revolt. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/52 "2015-01-19T14:59:21Z")
> [@madsircool](#): > > Again, the Western Allies werent interested in expansion in the thirties because there was nowhere left to expand. Funny then, the Axis came to the exact opposite conclusion - that there was plenty of room to expand … at the expense of the status quo. What, exactly, was stopping the Western Allies from being of the same mind, and deciding they would like a slice of Germany? In fact, France did make some moves in this direction, and ‘reoccupied’ the Ruhr when Germany reneged on its payments. > **[Occupation of the Ruhr](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_the_Ruhr)** > > Germany > The occupation of the Ruhr (German: Ruhrbesetzung) was the period from 11 January 1923 to 25 August 1925 when French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr region of Weimar Republic Germany. > The occupation of the heavily industrialized Ruhr district came in response to Germany's repeated defaults on the reparations payments required under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. The French and Belgians intended to force Germany to supply the coal and other raw materials that were part of ... A decade later, it was the German’s turn to ‘militarize’ the Rhineland: > **[Remilitarisation of the Rhineland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remilitarization_of_the_Rhineland)** > > The remilitarisation of the Rhineland (German: Rheinlandbesetzung, .mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}pronounced \[ˈʁaɪ̯nlantˌbəˈzɛtsʊŋ\]) began on 7 March 1936, when military forces of Nazi Germany entered the Rhineland, which directly contravened the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties. Neither France nor Britain was prepared ... The issue is really quite simple: the French found that they could not afford aggression in Europe, while the Germans found that they could. > [@](#): > > The Allies did not ‘belatedly’ begin to rearm as they were heavily involved in the development of modern military tech like tanks and aircraft throughout the interwar years. The French and German armies were quite similar: > > [http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/doctrine/research/cmc.pdf](http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/doctrine/research/cmc.pdf) > > The USA was a quite different animal. Whlie France had some nice tanks, the economic reality of the situation was that France was broke in the 30s and cound not afford much in the way of military aggression. Historians used to think that ‘Hitler could have been stopped’ in 1936 when Germany marched into the Rhineland - more recent studies have shown that this was unlikely. > **[Remilitarisation of the Rhineland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remilitarization_of_the_Rhineland#France)** > > The remilitarisation of the Rhineland (German: Rheinlandbesetzung, .mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}pronounced \[ˈʁaɪ̯nlantˌbəˈzɛtsʊŋ\]) began on 7 March 1936, when military forces of Nazi Germany entered the Rhineland, which directly contravened the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Treaties. Neither France nor Britain was prepared ... AS for the British, it is quite simply contrary to known facts to assert that Britian did not belatedly & grudgingly rearm because of the Japanese & German threat in the 1930s [http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarProduction/UK-Civil-WarProduction-2.html](http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/UN/UK/UK-Civil-WarProduction/UK-Civil-WarProduction-2.html) ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/53 "2015-01-19T16:47:59Z")
> [@DrCube](#): > > This is interesting because I had always heard the opposite. When I was in the Army it was taken as gospel that we won the war because our soldiers could take initiative and were afforded flexibility in accomplishing objectives, while Nazis and the Japanese practically couldn’t take a crap without direct orders from Hitler or Tojo. > > Not that I entirely believed it, but I figured there was a grain of truth in there. Maybe the Japanese, but the Germans were notoriously flexible and initiative-based in ways that even modern-day NATO armies envy. They called it [“aufragstaktik” or “mission type tactics”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission-type_tactics). **Little Nemo’s** fifth paragraph alludes to this. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2015, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/54 "2015-01-19T19:49:16Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I’m surprised a society sustained itself at 85% military spending. It didn’t. Japan lost the war and would have fallen apart long before it surrendered had it not done so. That level of military expenditure was a last gasp, and could not have been continued without Japanese society collapsing. ---
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/55 "2015-01-23T16:49:34Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > I am curious as to how Russia attacked Finland without invading it. Did they stand on their side of the border and just shoot across? I think that was rather uncalled for. The Finns, although almost hopelessly outnumbered held their own against the Red Army. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/56 "2015-01-24T00:27:15Z")
> [@bump](#): > > Maybe the Japanese, but the Germans were notoriously flexible and initiative-based in ways that even modern-day NATO armies envy. They called it [“aufragstaktik” or “mission type tactics”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission-type_tactics). And to make that happen they had the best non-com corps in the business, which made them awfully good in a fighting retreat as well as an advance. ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/57 "2015-01-24T00:45:54Z")
> [@mascaroni](#): > > I think that was rather uncalled for. The Finns, although almost hopelessly outnumbered held their own against the Red Army. What was uncalled for? I didn’t see **RickJay** casting any aspersions. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/58 "2015-01-24T02:09:55Z")
One of the best short summaries of the grim realities Japan faced is on [combinedfleet.com](http://combinedfleet.com) on [this page](http://www.combinedfleet.com/economic.htm). > [@](#): > > By the time World War II began to rear its ugly head (formally in 1939 in Poland, informally in China in 1937), America had been in the grips of the Great Depression for a decade, give or take. The net effect of the Depression was to introduce a lot of ‘slack’ into the U.S. economy. Many U.S. workers were either unemployed (10 million in 1939) or underemployed, and our industrial base as a whole had far more capacity than was needed at the time. In economic terms, our ‘Capacity Utilization’ (CapU), was pretty darn low. > > To an outside culture, particularly a militaristic one such as Japan’s, America certainly might have appeared to be ‘soft’ and unprepared for a major war. Further, Japan’s successes in fighting far larger opponents (Russia in the early 1900’s, and China in the 1930’s) and the fact that Japan’s own economy was practically ‘superheating’ (mostly as the result of unhealthy levels of military spending – 28% of national income in 1937) probably filled the Japanese with a misplaced sense of economic and military superiority over their large overseas foe. However, a dispassionate observer would also note a few important facts. America, even in the midst of seemingly interminable economic doldrums, still had: > > Nearly twice the population of Japan. > Seventeen time’s Japan’s national income. > Five times more steel production. > Seven times more coal production. > Eighty (80) times the automobile production. > > Furthermore, America had some hidden advantages that didn’t show up directly in production figures. For one, U.S. factories were, on average, more modern and automated than those in Europe or in Japan. Additionally, American managerial practice at that time was the best in the world. Taken in combination, the per capita productivity of the American worker was the highest in the world. > > Furthermore, the United States was more than willing to utilize American women in the war effort: a tremendous advantage for us, and a concept which the Axis Powers seem not to have grasped until very late in the conflict. The net effect of all these factors meant that even in the depths of the Depression, American war-making potential was still around seven times larger than Japan’s, and had the ‘slack’ been taken out in 1939, it was closer to nine or ten times as great! In fact, accroding to Kennedy, a breakdown of total global warmaking potential in 1937 looks something like this: > > Country % of Total Warmaking Potential > United States 41.7% > Germany 14.4% > USSR 14.0% > UK 10.2% > France 4.2% > Japan 3.5% > Italy 2.5% > Seven Powers (total) (90.5%) > > When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, the sleeping giant was awakened and came looking for trouble. And even though the majority of America’s war-making potential was slated for use against Germany (which was by far the most dangerous of the Axis foes, again for reasons of economics), there was still plenty left over for use against Japan. By mid-1942, even before U.S. force of arms was being dramatically felt globally, American factories were nevertheless beginning to make a material effect in the war’s progress. > > The U.S. churned out seemingly endless quantities of equipment and provision which were then funnelled to not only our own forces, but to those of Great Britain and the USSR as well. By 1944, most of the other powers in the war, though still producing furiously, were beginning to max out their economies (i.e. production was stabilizing or plateauing). This resulted from destruction of industrial bases and constriction of resource pools (in the case of Germany and Japan), or through sheer exhaustion of manpower (in the case of Great Britain and, to an extent, the USSR). By contrast, the United States suffered from none of these difficulties, and as a consequence its economy grew at an annual rate of 15% throughout the war years. As scary as it sounds, by the end of the war, the United States was really just beginning to get ‘warmed up.’ It is perhaps not surprising that in 1945, the U.S. accounted for over 50% of total global GNP. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/59 "2015-01-24T03:12:12Z")
> [@mascaroni](#): > > I think that was rather uncalled for. The Finns, although almost hopelessly outnumbered held their own against the Red Army. What on earth are you talking about? ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2015, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858/60 "2015-01-24T04:24:24Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Dude, you are more intelligent that that surely. The Nazi’s did not create the German military machine. The Germans had a military tradition and a very successful one, when the Nazi’s were just a bunch of Bavarian Beer Bullys. It was not “fanaticism” or “ideology” which won them so much success, it was that tradition, married with one of the worlds most advanced scientific and technological bases. They absolutely created the German military machine and it was absolutely based on ideology. They entered the war with inferior equipment and built the machines of war from conquered resources which included factories fed by an inexhaustible source of human labor. The people were literally disposable labor. Work them until they die and throw them out. that’s a massive advantage to work with. The ideology side of it was handled by the the Waffen SS. They used political prison camps as a training ground for this ideology which was ruthless and absolute in it’s execution. They were the front line warriors in the early part of the war and grew in size as it progressed. What followed was a recipe that repeated itself. Conquer and use free resources as a multiplier to their technology. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-the-axis-powers-last-so-long-in-ww2/709858.md?page=4)