Originally Posted by Mikebert

(Isn't Jordan) assuming that the GOP will continue to be the party of people consider as "white" today, after they cease to be dominant politically? Why cannot the GOP expand the definition of white? That is leave the blacks, poor people and liberals for the Democrats while they take the rich, most of what we call "whites" today and middle-class Latinos and Asians, who by this time will be seen as "white" themselves. "White" (i.e. nonblack) will still be a majority, the GOP will still be the "white" party, its just that the definition of white becomes enlarged, as it has before.

Poor white people have heavily gone Republican.

Among Asians (especially Japanese-Americans) is much intermarriage with middle-class whites. The cultural assimilation can go either way; the white spouse might adopt much of the Asian culture as his or hers. Among middle-class non-black Latinos one sees much the same. But as a rule the two people intermarrying probably have much in common to begin with -- like similar levels of education (probably even the same college), attitudes toward learning, politics, and cultural tastes. But where do the political loyalties go?

Anything hostile to the non-white spouse's group is likely to offend the white spouse. For middle-class Hispanics and practically all Asian-American groups, anti-intellectualism characteristic of the current GOP can only hurt among white spouses of Asians or white Anglo spouses of Latinos.

As the American working class becomes poorer and poorer, living standards for those in entry-level position will lessen serve less of a draw for immigrants; the number of new immigrants will diminish. The children of existing immigrants will grow up speaking English and will in time become "white"* and those would manage to escape for poverty will vote for the GOP. The majority of Americans who are poor will mostly not vote, like today, and the GOP will remain the dominant party.

I don't know about that. Silicon Valley is heavily Democratic. Most college cities are heavily Democratic. Southeastern Kentucky is heavily Republican. Unless a huge realignment of the Parties occurs, the idea that people becoming more economically successful becoming more Republican is no longer common wisdom. If anything, people may become more connected to Democratic politics if they find themselves connected to institutions (especially labor unions) as their economic positions improve. On the other side, Republicans will surely seek to exploit resentment against people who 'fail' to play by the rule "if you aren't white, remain in poverty".

Why can't that happen? The whole strategy of the antebellum Southern Democrats was that through comparison to slaves, non-slaves came to see themselves as part of an unified "white" class. Poor and rich "whites" were on the same team, naturally under the leadership of the rich, who made economic policy that benefited themselves. After the Civil War the Democrats were able to build a coalition of very conservative, union-hating, anti-Catholic Southern Protestants along with Catholic Northern union supporters in the same party for more than half a century. Under FDR they managed to operate a coalition for a while that included Klan members and blacks (now THAT's a trick). Well the Democratic political know-how that made that possible now resides in the GOP and there is no reason why they cannot do this through a suitable coat change when the time comes. Right now their current strategy is working. In a decade or two they can begin to shift to this a strategy like this.

The trick was that the Southern Democrats and Northern Democrats very rarely met, at least before the era of superhighways. Klan and blacks? By the 1930s northern blacks drifted into the New Deal Coalition; southern blacks did not vote. As for the Klan -- the dangerous 1915 Klan (1) was associated with the Republican Party in the North, and (2) practically died in the late 1920s.

*Race is an invented concept and as such is quite flexible.

Ask Rachel Dolezal about that.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

That period was not nirvana but it had a reasonably well tuned feel. Interest rates were high enough to incent and reward savers, growth was reasonable and although you mentioned jobs going overseas, that really did not kick in at most companies until the 90s.

It's weird that interest rates were obscene for borrowers, but only half-way decent for lenders ... unless you owned a bank. The middle men raked it in for a decade and then some. Meanwhile, the move of industrial production was a process - first south, then into Mexico and finally to the Pacific. The rust belt has been hurting since the late '60s, and some of it has never even started the recovery process.

Originally Posted by JordanGoodspeed

What do you mean, "actually"? I just said that the '70s (Presidents: Nixon/Ford/Carter) were a transitional period. You can start it at '68 if you like, just as you can start this decade off with the financial crisis/Obama's election, too. Plenty of stuff is going on overseas, Obama is even attempting a realignment with Iran (albeit without the ideological cover of Nixon, who safely occupied the far right of the Overton Window), the economy is on auto-pilot with the improvements in earnings stemming from cost-cutting, we're seeing the first signs of on-shoring... Shall I go on? I think we are in agreement that the analogy is apt, even if the specifics differ.

Fair comments all around. Yes, the period occupied by Nixon/Ford/Carter is notable in how little is said of it today. Other than Watergate and China, the rest is swept aside ... yet is was very eventful. Even stagflation is referenced only as the giant killed by Saint Ronald. The causes seem to be ignored by almost everyone.

Originally Posted by JordanGoodspeed

On the contrary, it was a gainful change for many, my parents included. It wasn't called "Morning in America" because everybody was uniformly miserable. Bill Clinton and the rest of the DLC didn't swipe their playbook for nothing. Of course, the changes instituted to address the excesses of the post-war order (crime, stagflation, etc.) have in turn caused their own maladies (financialization, mass incarceration, stagnant wages for increasing numbers, etc.) which need to be addressed.

Saint Ronald presided over a period of general improvement, about that there's no argument. Of course, it wasn't ideal, but it beat what came before.

Originally Posted by JordanGoodspeed

I'm still not sure what you think we're arguing about.

I got the idea that you believed the Republicans were going to become sufficiently non competitive in the future and that the non-GOP left would be so large that it could break into two factions, one of which would be large enough to be dominant over the Right.

It seemed that you were called for the rise of a more economically left, but socially moderate party that are either of the parities today because such a party should appeal to a majority. I do not see how that can happen given the world of today as a starting point and the mechanics of politics.

Elites control both parties and they have the whip hand. A third party would also have to have leaders (by definition, anyone who leads a political party is an elite) and so elites would control all three parties and nothing can change, unless factions arise within the elite class that causes conflict amongst them.

A good example is the Civil War 4T. A new moral issue arose out of the Transcendental 2T that led some elites to become convinced that slavery was the great moral evil of our time. These "social" elites joined with economic elites in the Northern states where slavery was already illegal or generally not practiced to form a coalition. This coalition was expanded by getting non-elites opposed to the spread of slavery to regions outside of the South because they opposed race-mixing and other racist and xenophobic non-elites to form the Republican party, which then triumphed in 1860, giving the Southern elites and their party (Democrats) no choice but to go to war. The Southern elites were defeated and stripped of 60% of their wealth, sending most of them out of the elite category and making the elite class (and so the state) totally dominated by the Northern capitalist elite. This transition was accompanied by a large, but short-live drop in economic inequality, mostly due to to the destruction of Southern elite wealth.

The next episode is much more murky. I am writing a paper on this, it has a number of moving parts. Basically, I posit inequality caused problems with how capitalism worked following the Panic of 1907 that were detrimental to capitalists. Business and government responded to the problem with a variety measures until to was finally solved in the early 1940's The problem began in 1907 and led to a variety of responses and outcomes, until it was finally solved during WW II. It was more than just the stimulus provided by the war. WW I had provided enough stimulus to get full employment and significant (but temporary) decreases in inequality, but it had no lasting impact on the problem. WW II was different in important ways that made the difference. There were other things done before WW II that did or may have played an important role in the inequality reversal and solution to the capitalist crisis.

I put the secular cycle downphase as 1916-1946. 4T's tend to end secular cycle downphases, e.g. the WotR 4T over 1457-1487 comes at the end of the Plantagenet cycle downturn 1316-1485, the Glorious Rev crisis 1675-1704 comes at the end of the Tudor-Stuart cycle downphase (ca. 1620-1688).

Two of the key factors in achieving this involved the creation of two new categories of elites: labor leaders, and what I call mandarins. Mandarins came from educated professionals that found employment in government service (Federal payroll rose from 0.5 to 3 million during WW II, and stayed at 3 million after); from new government programs providing funds for university research (creating more mandarins). Specific mandarin work projects like NASA and the National Laboratories provided more support for mandarins. The first generation of mandarins were distinct from the capitalist elites whom they joined in the elite class, reflecting their non-elite origins. There soon was intermixing, offspring of mandarins going into business, business managers become more and more educated, and today the mandarins and capitalist elites are sort of blended together into a single elite class.

The creation of Labor elite seems partial deliberate since it makes good political sense for the party that legitimized them. Mandarin creation was probably a side effect, I don't think it was necessarily intentional. Some of these things just happen as a consequence of economic development.

If this model is valid (and the test is the stock market decline that has to happen or the model is invalidated) there needs to be some new kind of elite in order than this 4T (like the last one) does not involve massive violence like most of historical ones did. Hence my interest in the Black Lives Matter movement. A black president suggests that a category of minority elites is possible who could ally with elements of current elites against other elements in a (hopefully political) conflict that would constitute this 4T's episode of the "state collapse" that is a feature of secular cycle downphases.

State collapse in America today might be thought of as the end of one republic and the beginning of a new one. State collapse is a secular cycle term, new republic is Lindian, turnings are S&H, so this is another synthesis. One can also plug in Schlesinger cycles and critical election theory, in which another hard and fast prediction can be made. If this plug in is valid, then Democrats MUST win the 2016 election, which right now I do not see as all that unlikely. If this doesn't happen it does not invalidate the basic model, but it does invalidate the political plugin, and removes another source of predictions useful for field tests.

In other words if both the big stock drop and a Democratic victory occur the probability of the model being valid goes up, and I gain more confidence that it is on track. At that point we could insert the Leadership cycle plug in and see if that can used to make a prediction for field test.

Originally Posted by JordanGoodspeed

Unless you're arguing that we're heading into a permanent one party state, in which case we are actually in disagreement. As long as election laws are what they are, we will continue to have two parties at rough parity.

Damn I should have kept going instead of first responding to your previous post. I guess we are on the same page, but it didn't seem that way. Our difference might be in the mechanism that drives the nature of coat changes. What does not happen is some new coalition emerges that offers a better solution to the nation's problem and so become dominant for a little while to enact it. What does happen is elites on both sides behave in selfish and short-sighted ways in order to augment their own power and glory. Through a process of Darwinian cultural evolution, behavioral variants that survive must minimally address the nation's problems. But the outcome is kind of random and haphazard. Just as biological evolution evolves new species, political evolution in democratic societies evolves new categories of elites to fill new political environments.

Most of the general improvement was provided by the price of oil falling from around $40 a barrel in 1980 to $9 by 1986. That's why to many the eighties seemed to beat what came before. Of course those high seventies oil prices are what encouraged all of that exploration and drilling.

In terms of government policy, such as loosening the anti trust laws and turning student grants into loans for the benefit of the finance industry, Saint Ronnie set up most of the domestic problems that threaten to create an austere 1T now. For example the Millies should be posed to create a GI like like boom in home creation in the 2020's. But it looks like student debt is going to eat up most of their income in what should their prime earning and spending years. And few would argue today that the finance industry has become too big to fail.

If it was a golden age only a small number of people got the real gold. The rest of us got iron pyrite.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Saint Ronald presided over a period of general improvement, about that there's no argument. Of course, it wasn't ideal, but it beat what came before.

It was better for a very small proportion of the people.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Most of the general improvement was provided by the price of oil falling from around $40 a barrel in 1980 to $9 by 1986. That's why to many the eighties seemed to beat what came before. Of course those high seventies oil prices are what encouraged all of that exploration and drilling.

In terms of government policy, such as loosening the anti trust laws and turning student grants into loans for the benefit of the finance industry, Saint Ronnie set up most of the domestic problems that threaten to create an austere 1T now. For example the Millies should be posed to create a GI like like boom in home creation in the 2020's. But it looks like student debt is going to eat up most of their income in what should their prime earning and spending years. And few would argue today that the finance industry has become too big to fail.

If it was a golden age only a small number of people got the real gold. The rest of us got iron pyrite.

The earliest foreseeable onset of the 1T is 2028 or 2029. Most of the 2020s will be hard core 4T. Could be very, very hard core, making the past 4T look like child's play. Billions dead, massive infrastructure losses. Take the worst of what happened in Europe and Japan, and multiply by 100s or even 1000s.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

The earliest foreseeable onset of the 1T is 2028 or 2029. Most of the 2020s will be hard core 4T. Could be very, very hard core, making the past 4T look like child's play. Billions dead, massive infrastructure losses. Take the worst of what happened in Europe and Japan, and multiply by 100s or even 1000s.

That all depend on when you think that the 4T started and what you think might happen over the next decade or so. Right now I find China's devaluation to be very interesting. Just how interesting I can't say yet. But as of now I am agnostic about when the 4T started. I could make arguments for 2001,2003,2005 or 2008. I see element in our culture such as how sensitive middle schoolers seem to be about making sure that even the handicapped kids ''get to be in the school play'' as a sign of a new artist gen. This indicates to me that the 4T is getting deeper and 1T is getting closer. OTOH, much of our elite and mass media still often behave in a 3T manner, as if the the 4T just started. But ot the larger point, I see an austere recovery as much more likely right now than a high recovery.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

That all depend on when you think that the 4T started and what you think might happen over the next decade or so. Right now I find China's devaluation to be very interesting. Just how interesting I can't say yet. But as of now I am agnostic about when the 4T started. I could make arguments for 2001,2003,2005 or 2008. I see element in our culture such as how sensitive middle schoolers seem to be about making sure that even the handicapped kids ''get to be in the school play'' as a sign of a new artist gen. This indicates to me that the 4T is getting deeper and 1T is getting closer. OTOH, much of our elite and mass media still often behave in a 3T manner, as if the the 4T just started. But ot the larger point, I see an austere recovery as much more likely right now than a high recovery.

After WW3 hits, an austere recovery is the only possible kind of recovery.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

The earliest foreseeable onset of the 1T is 2028 or 2029. Most of the 2020s will be hard core 4T. Could be very, very hard core, making the past 4T look like child's play. Billions dead, massive infrastructure losses. Take the worst of what happened in Europe and Japan, and multiply by 100s or even 1000s.

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that if the 2020s portion of this 4T is about a major war, wars are good for the economy. So the lingering great recession will end, and there won't be another crash, if some kind of world war three happens in the 2020s. Of course, though I don't think it will be as bad as XYMOX says, it won't be good for the economy in the hardest-hit areas. Recovery there will depend on the victorious nations doing what America did after WWII in Europe and Japan.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

One thing to keep in mind, though, is that if the 2020s portion of this 4T is about a major war, wars are good for the economy.

Don't count on it.
WWII was the last time that worked out. War is mostly about technology now. We won't have 12 million men in uniforms 1944 style with Rosie riveting her way to immortality on a poster if 2024 follows 1944 that closely. No, war will be what it has been since computers became more than a game. Smart bombs operated by remote control killing the masses. And the masses that remain will not have several years of war bonds to cash in as the war will financed by large institutions taking government paper. Meet the new MIC, same as the old MIC.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Don't count on it.
WWII was the last time that worked out. War is mostly about technology now. We won't have 12 million men in uniforms 1944 style with Rosie riveting her way to immortality on a poster if 2024 follows 1944 that closely. No, war will be what it has been since computers became more than a game. Smart bombs operated by remote control killing the masses. And the masses that remain will not have several years of war bonds to cash in as the war will financed by large institutions taking government paper....

Maybe, although they may ask for war bonds too if the government paper source seems tapped out due to huge deficits. And even so, QE and money creation can stimulate the economy too. You may be right about tech, but a high-tech version of Rosie may still be needed to make all those new gismos.

So far though in this 4T, war still requires huge masses of soldiers on the ground. Bombing campaigns still don't work. Afghan soldiers still fight the Taliban on the ground. Fanatic young radicals are flocking to the IS army to keep the IS going despite massive bombing by 60 nations, and we see separatist armies supported by Russia keeping the war going in Eastern Ukraine. These will be the most-likely areas of combat if the great war gets up and running after Dec.2020. So I'm not so sure that things will change all that much from before. Meet the new MIC, same as the old MIC.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

It was better for a very small proportion of the people.

No, it was actually better in general, as HT noted above, due in the greatest part to gains unrelated to policy. It just had too few pluses for most of us so that the few could have a whole lot more. That WAS policy.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

That all depend on when you think that the 4T started and what you think might happen over the next decade or so. Right now I find China's devaluation to be very interesting. Just how interesting I can't say yet. But as of now I am agnostic about when the 4T started. I could make arguments for 2001,2003,2005 or 2008. I see element in our culture such as how sensitive middle schoolers seem to be about making sure that even the handicapped kids ''get to be in the school play'' as a sign of a new artist gen. This indicates to me that the 4T is getting deeper and 1T is getting closer. OTOH, much of our elite and mass media still often behave in a 3T manner, as if the the 4T just started. But ot the larger point, I see an austere recovery as much more likely right now than a high recovery.

Agreed, especially on the austere 1T. We don't seem poised to fix the inequality problem, but we know it has to be fixed. How long will that take? Then there's the AGW issue, which is being ignored while the last profits are squeezed from the old way, but with no firm plan to get to a new way. This far into a 4T, we should be getting serious ... even assuming the latest start date. I don't see it. Instead, we're listening to The Donald blather on about the most tangential issues, while proudly refusing to address ones that will negatively impact people like him. And cheers all around.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Agreed, especially on the austere 1T. We don't seem poised to fix the inequality problem, but we know it has to be fixed. How long will that take? Then there's the AGW issue, which is being ignored while the last profits are squeezed from the old way, but with no firm plan to get to a new way. This far into a 4T, we should be getting serious ... even assuming the latest start date. I don't see it. Instead, we're listening to The Donald blather on about the most tangential issues, while proudly refusing to address ones that will negatively impact people like him. And cheers all around.

I guess I have to repeat myself again. Oh woe is me. 1850s redux! We're early 1850s at that! Give it time; domestic 4Ts may take time to rev up, since the deadlock/frustration IS the crisis; repeat, that IS the crisis!

The 2020s will be boom times, unless we have the destructive war that XYMOX expects. Count on it.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

No, it was actually better in general, as HT noted above, due in the greatest part to gains unrelated to policy. It just had too few pluses for most of us so that the few could have a whole lot more. That WAS policy.

Better in general? Only to the degree that incomes did not actually FALL for the majority of us, though they did fall for the poor. Unemployment rates fell, but those who were employed did not gain in any income, unless you were in the top 10%. No, no gains for most of us, unless you consider merely having a job as a gain.

Again, repeating myself. That was already covered in the Rachel Maddow video I posted here many times. We waited for the trickle that never came. "And now we know what happened the last time somebody promised us a trickle." Do I need to post it again?

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

The earliest foreseeable onset of the 1T is 2028 or 2029. Most of the 2020s will be hard core 4T. Could be very, very hard core, making the past 4T look like child's play. Billions dead, massive infrastructure losses. Take the worst of what happened in Europe and Japan, and multiply by 100s or even 1000s.

Just imagine one ring of suburbs after another becoming barricades in civil or international war; such will leave millions of Americans dead and little trace of the prosperity of the post-WWII era left. Most survivors would find themselves in a world that resembles the 1780s more than the 1980s. Agriculture would recover first because of the obvious priority of food. Such is possible if hatred and dread displace rational thought on anything other than the technologies and logistics of warfare.

I am not convinced of the likelihood of nuclear war. Even the worst actors of WWII ensured that there would be something to loot and steal. The hydrogen bomb means that nothing remains -- no supplies to feed troops, no buildings or businesses to take over, and (which may be most disgusting) no women to rape. Don't overlook the latter concern -- horny, hateful young men rape. Men who have lost their wives to war and who are ill-paid and frustrated will take it out on the vanquished -- women that they will see as whores for being on the wrong side of history. Think of German cities as the Soviet Army closed in on Berlin, and Berlin itself.

At best, I hope that my side will be more scrupulous and principled. Such is better for giving the Other Side less reason to resist after it is defeated, better for smoothing out old enmities, and better for allowing the rise of a new, sane, and humane social order. We would punish the evil-doers who will be culpable for everything and not blame "the Hun" as after World War II, much as Americans generally quit speaking of and thinking of people as "Kr---ts" and "J-ps" after 1945. And, yes, if our side finds itself finds itself with young war-widows who lost their husbands or unmarried women who lost their sweethearts to what will soon be seen as a mad and inexcusable war, our victorious soldiers will come back with war brides.

The 1T begins when the berserkers settle down to normal lives, when people rebuild a better world that works for more people, when needs of the common man come before elite indulgence, and when people quit blaming the masses of a defeated side for the crimes of elites. I have suggested that the post-Crisis world will look like America in the 1950s in many respects, except that the technology will be better, and such institutional reforms missed before the end of World War II remain in place, and the bad behavior that led to a Crisis will be rejected. Even something so superficial as the visual austerity of American life, which will reflect technologies that require fewer material inputs and thus less need for books and video storage devices, will resemble that of the 1950s for a different reason (that the electronics of the 1950s were extremely expensive). One e-reader (in many ways a limited computer) instead of hundreds of books, records, and recorded movies? The Multiversity, the sexual revolution (other than the acceptance of interracial and same-sex marriage), neocon politics, supply-side economics, propaganda characteristic of FoX "News", and the I've-got-mine-$crew-you ethos go to the dustbin of history.

There could be much rebuilding, but it will be done with more rationality -- and such rebuilding will itself be opportunity for all but the prissy elitists who may be doing time as war criminals. That's if things go somewhat well.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Don't count on it.
WWII was the last time that worked out. War is mostly about technology now. We won't have 12 million men in uniforms 1944 style with Rosie riveting her way to immortality on a poster if 2024 follows 1944 that closely. No, war will be what it has been since computers became more than a game. Smart bombs operated by remote control killing the masses. And the masses that remain will not have several years of war bonds to cash in as the war will financed by large institutions taking government paper. Meet the new MIC, same as the old MIC.

This time it will be the workers who will be targeted. Industrial workers are heavily clustered around the work that they do, so one could be targeted just for working at a munitions plant... or maybe some activity essential to the war effort, like fuel refining.

Governments will be obliged to send in one mass of workers exterminated in a raid on workers' dwellings near a munitions plant after another until the governments will be broken with strikes and riots.

In a war like the American Civil War, civilians were comparatively safe. Soldiers endured almost the full carnage. In World War II it was about as dangerous to be a civilian as a soldier, except in America and Canada. Had the Nazis gotten jet bombers, then Detroit and Houston would have been wrecked as badly as Hamburg.

Stop the flow of weapons and food to soldiers and fuel to the tanks and aircraft, and the opposing armies, navies, and air forces fold. That is how I see World War III. I have no connection to the Pentagon, by the way; it is only self-evident.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

In a war like the American Civil War, civilians were comparatively safe. Soldiers endured almost the full carnage. In World War II it was about as dangerous to be a civilian as a soldier, except in America and Canada. Had the Nazis gotten jet bombers, then Detroit and Houston would have been wrecked as badly as Hamburg.

There are two problems with that idea. First the Germans would need the oil for both the jets and the aircraft carriers to pull that off, and that is assuming that they could break the might of the Royal and US Navies which they likely couldn't. Germany has traditionally been a land power anyway. Hitler and Napoleon marched east because once you hit the North Sea you either build ships or turn around and march the other way because there is nowhere else to go. Neither had the patience to build ships in the quantity necessary to take on Britain which is a necessary stepping stone to invade North America from Europe.

Otherwise this sounds like your typical ACW/WWII shrieking.

Stop the flow of weapons and food to soldiers and fuel to the tanks and aircraft, and the opposing armies, navies, and air forces fold. That is how I see World War III. I have no connection to the Pentagon, by the way; it is only self-evident.

This is not new. It is as old as warfare itself. It was not uncommon for spy networks to blow up railways in WWII, or for the troops themselves to mess up enemy infrastructure in the ACW. I imagine if they could put a huge crater in a road in Napoleonic times (or before for that matter) that armies would. It 1) slows down the enemy, and 2) may deprive the enemy to access to a valuable resource.

I would highly recommend you play Sid Meir's civilization sometime to see my point. I personally like Civ IV the best but others will have other opinions.

Originally Posted by Kinser79

There are two problems with that idea. First the Germans would need the oil for both the jets and the aircraft carriers to pull that off, and that is assuming that they could break the might of the Royal and US Navies which they likely couldn't. Germany has traditionally been a land power anyway. Hitler and Napoleon marched east because once you hit the North Sea you either build ships or turn around and march the other way because there is nowhere else to go. Neither had the patience to build ships in the quantity necessary to take on Britain which is a necessary stepping stone to invade North America from Europe.

Hitler greatly underestimated the value of jet fighters that could have flown where prop aircraft still in use by the Allies were the norm. Germany was ahead of the Allies in designing jet fighters.

This is not new. It is as old as warfare itself. It was not uncommon for spy networks to blow up railways in WWII, or for the troops themselves to mess up enemy infrastructure in the ACW. I imagine if they could put a huge crater in a road in Napoleonic times (or before for that matter) that armies would. It 1) slows down the enemy, and 2) may deprive the enemy to access to a valuable resource.

The Union won the Civil War in part because slaves fled the plantation and became good laborers paid to build fortifications . To starve the enemy is to defeat it. The slave system depended upon slaves to do the farm labor. No labor, no planting or harvest. The other part was that the Union side took the foundries of Chattanooga and basically stopped the supply of Confederate ammunition, especially to artillery.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Hitler greatly underestimated the value of jet fighters that could have flown where prop aircraft still in use by the Allies were the norm. Germany was ahead of the Allies in designing jet fighters.

The early jet fighters were fuel hogs. To do intercontinental bombing required a plane like the B 29, which the Germans never developed. Even today's planes require tankers for intercontinental runs. For a jet you'd need mid air refueling (not available during World War II) or aircraft carriers (which Germany didn't do, and which would have the same problems as the Bismarck getting past the Royal Navy. Carriers are also soft targets against strategic bombing. They wouldn't be as likely to survive as long as the Tirpitz.)

Also note the number of large bombers required in those days to put a dent in a city. The US 8th Air Force and RAF would do thousand plain raids from England. While the B 29s over Japan were fewer in number, the made up for it with payload. Even then it took months to years to really make an impact on an economy.

Nukes delivered by submarine would be an easier threat to implement, if you call developing a nuke easy.

This is all beginning to sound a bit like that old Saturday Night Live skit where the question was asked ''Could Napoleon have won the Battle of Waterloo if he had motorized armor.''

Me, I'd much rather ''Feel the Bern.'' :

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Hitler greatly underestimated the value of jet fighters that could have flown where prop aircraft still in use by the Allies were the norm. Germany was ahead of the Allies in designing jet fighters.

Strangely I'm going to say that Hitler overestimated the value of jet fighters (for that time and place). The allies were able to shoot down what Jets the Germans had even with 10 to 1 loss ratios because the Allies were able to produce 15 prop planes to the German's 1 jet. It is mathematics that determines the outcome here. Also note that early jets were extreme fuel hogs and fuel was in short supply at the time. The ME262 was classified as Wunderwaffen. It was expected to be a magical breakthrew, and had Hitler had ten years to develop it, it would have been. But time wasn't on his side.

The Union won the Civil War in part because slaves fled the plantation and became good laborers paid to build fortifications . To starve the enemy is to defeat it. The slave system depended upon slaves to do the farm labor. No labor, no planting or harvest. The other part was that the Union side took the foundries of Chattanooga and basically stopped the supply of Confederate ammunition, especially to artillery.

This is largely not true. In general the slaves that fled slowed down the union army, and made a nuisance of themselves. Their use in building fortifications was limited because quite frankly the ACW was for the most part a stand up war of maneuver much like 18th century combat. It wasn't until the later stages that trench warfare became the norm...and even then the work was done primarily by soldiers not human contraband.Which is what runaway slaves were classified as.

The greatest effect that slaves escaping had was that able-bodied men could run off to join the union army, and the chaos insured that running away was likely to be more successful dragging down the economy of the South.

The supply of southern produced ammunition was limited already due to a lack of saltpeter. Taking the foundries meant that replacement cannons could not be produced even if powder was available. Most of the ammunition used by the CSA was either scavenged from Union corpses or came over on blockade runners.