Ever since reading about World War I in my AP U.S. History class, I learned how significantly different the U.S. was in a wartime economy than it is during peacetime. For the past 50 years, and possibly since World War II, the U.S. hasn't been in a wartime economy (from what I've observed), so what would a wartime economy look like now?

Originally Posted by millst98

Ever since reading about World War I in my AP U.S. History class, I learned how significantly different the U.S. was in a wartime economy than it is during peacetime. For the past 50 years, and possibly since World War II, the U.S. hasn't been in a wartime economy (from what I've observed), so what would a wartime economy look like now?

Non-nuked areas: Massive investments in underground infrastructure to create new factories and other "must have" places.

Nuked areas: Salvage, remediation, medical services, beginnings of underground infrastructure.

Originally Posted by millst98

Ever since reading about World War I in my AP U.S. History class, I learned how significantly different the U.S. was in a wartime economy than it is during peacetime. For the past 50 years, and possibly since World War II, the U.S. hasn't been in a wartime economy (from what I've observed), so what would a wartime economy look like now?

You're looking at it. We've been at war constantly for the last 15 years and for many intermittent periods in the post-WWII years before that, such as the Korean War and the Vietnam War. It's been so long since we've had a peacetime economy I've almost forgotten what that's like. I mean, sure in the 1990s we had Kosovo but that doesn't count. For the most part, my childhood consisted of the years between the end of the Cold War and 9/11. That was a peacetime economy, and we haven't had anything like that since.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Non-nuked areas: Massive investments in underground infrastructure to create new factories and other "must have" places.

Nuked areas: Salvage, remediation, medical services, beginnings of underground infrastructure.

Nuked areas: dead people.

Non-nuked areas: people who envy the dead.

Originally Posted by Normal

You're looking at it. We've been at war constantly for the last 15 years and for many intermittent periods in the post-WWII years before that, such as the Korean War and the Vietnam War. It's been so long since we've had a peacetime economy I've almost forgotten what that's like. I mean, sure in the 1990s we had Kosovo but that doesn't count. For the most part, my childhood consisted of the years between the end of the Cold War and 9/11. That was a peacetime economy, and we haven't had anything like that since.

This is a limited war economy. Total war would be very different. And would depend on whether we were fighting an outside war or a civil war and whether we were winning or losing. Honestly, I think all sides might avoid strategic bombing and missiles, if not tactical nukes, at least for the opening phases of such a war. Cyber warfare that might take down our power grid would be a distinct possibility and that would lead to widespread disease and hunger. Strategic bombing if it started might start slow for both sides, especially since anti-missle defenes have evolved to the point that it might take several sorties for one to get through. This would give citizens time to evacuate cities.
And there is a definite possibility, if for example, China succeeded in neutralising US naval battle groups of the US suing for a disadvantegeous peace. The US might well quit the fight while it still has a relatively intact country if it became apparent that one way or another, the US was going to have to stay in it's own hemisphere after a total war. Believe it or not it IS possible for the US to lose a war. Read http://www.amazon.com/The-Hundred-Ye.../dp/1627790101 to get some idea of China's thinking along these lines. But be careful to feel out your teacher before putting anything like this in a paper. The idea that the US can lose a war is neither popular nor politically correct and could cause you a lot of heat mills98.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Non-nuked areas: Massive investments in underground infrastructure to create new factories and other "must have" places.

Nuked areas: Salvage, remediation, medical services, beginnings of underground infrastructure.

Non-nuked areas: the equivalent of witch-hunts for persons seen culpable. Retribution for real and imagined war criminals.

Technology, politics, and culture revert to the norms of the Agrarian Era. Cities and military targets will be nuked. In America, that implies an unintended ethnic cleansing, as ethnic and religious minorities are heavily concentrated in urban areas. So are the leading universities: farewell Harvard, MIT, Yale (fallout from Long Island), Princeton (fallout from Philadelphia), Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Case Western Reserve, Duke, Rice, University of Chicago, Cal Tech, and such giant State universities as the Universities of California (Berkeley, UCLA, San Diego, and Davis included), Michigan, Texas, Georgia, Wisconsin, Washington, and Minnesota) are ravaged. Figure that giant universities will be dedicated heavily to training officers and developing weapons, and that a not-so-renowned school that now churns out multitudes of K-12 teachers (let us say Southern Illinois University) could be a target in itself. There will be odd anomalies as Interstate Highways that might be passable for even hundreds of miles, but leading seemingly nowhere, like I-10 in western Texas... because El Paso and San Antonio have become "nowhere" because the people have been wiped out.

Will the cities be rebuilt? Probably -- as there will again need to be harbors.

Originally Posted by Normal

You're looking at it. We've been at war constantly for the last 15 years and for many intermittent periods in the post-WWII years before that, such as the Korean War and the Vietnam War. It's been so long since we've had a peacetime economy I've almost forgotten what that's like. I mean, sure in the 1990s we had Kosovo but that doesn't count. For the most part, my childhood consisted of the years between the end of the Cold War and 9/11. That was a peacetime economy, and we haven't had anything like that since.

Sorry but this is not a real war. When we talk about a war time economy, we ought to use the modifier "total." Total war(time) economy. We certainly have not had that since 1945.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Nuked areas: dead people.

Non-nuked areas: people who envy the dead.

I want to be in a non-nuked area building the new underground factories to produce the weapons we will use to try and win the total war.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Non-nuked areas: the equivalent of witch-hunts for persons seen culpable. Retribution for real and imagined war criminals.

Technology, politics, and culture revert to the norms of the Agrarian Era. Cities and military targets will be nuked. In America, that implies an unintended ethnic cleansing, as ethnic and religious minorities are heavily concentrated in urban areas. So are the leading universities: farewell Harvard, MIT, Yale (fallout from Long Island), Princeton (fallout from Philadelphia), Johns Hopkins, Columbia, Case Western Reserve, Duke, Rice, University of Chicago, Cal Tech, and such giant State universities as the Universities of California (Berkeley, UCLA, San Diego, and Davis included), Michigan, Texas, Georgia, Wisconsin, Washington, and Minnesota) are ravaged. Figure that giant universities will be dedicated heavily to training officers and developing weapons, and that a not-so-renowned school that now churns out multitudes of K-12 teachers (let us say Southern Illinois University) could be a target in itself. There will be odd anomalies as Interstate Highways that might be passable for even hundreds of miles, but leading seemingly nowhere, like I-10 in western Texas... because El Paso and San Antonio have become "nowhere" because the people have been wiped out.

Will the cities be rebuilt? Probably -- as there will again need to be harbors.

Adding to this: Like the 1930s I am inclined to believe we will keep any serious Fascists out of any true power. The lesser ones might be tolerated in places where they can do no harm, the crazy ones will be either locked up or watched closely, and never allowed near the levers of power. We will likely fall into an New Deal / FDR-like coalition, where even some overt Communists or their modern equivalents are allowed inside the big tent.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Sorry but this is not a real war. When we talk about a war time economy, we ought to use the modifier "total." Total war(time) economy. We certainly have not had that since 1945.

And I really don't think that we will again for the simple fact that when one side knows that it is going to lose, leading to Nurenberg style trials for the ;leaders then they really have no reason not to go nuclear. At that point they are going to die anyway, why not take as many would be executioners with them as possible?

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

This is a limited war economy. Total war would be very different. And would depend on whether we were fighting an outside war or a civil war and whether we were winning or losing. Honestly, I think all sides might avoid strategic bombing and missiles, if not tactical nukes, at least for the opening phases of such a war. Cyber warfare that might take down our power grid would be a distinct possibility and that would lead to widespread disease and hunger. Strategic bombing if it started might start slow for both sides, especially since anti-missle defenes have evolved to the point that it might take several sorties for one to get through. This would give citizens time to evacuate cities.
And there is a definite possibility, if for example, China succeeded in neutralising US naval battle groups of the US suing for a disadvantegeous peace. The US might well quit the fight while it still has a relatively intact country if it became apparent that one way or another, the US was going to have to stay in it's own hemisphere after a total war. Believe it or not it IS possible for the US to lose a war. Read http://www.amazon.com/The-Hundred-Ye.../dp/1627790101 to get some idea of China's thinking along these lines. But be careful to feel out your teacher before putting anything like this in a paper. The idea that the US can lose a war is neither popular nor politically correct and could cause you a lot of heat mills98.

At this point in time, and for the foreseeable future, the US will dominate at the strategic level. We have Ohio-class submarines, that are still capable of being nowhere and striking anywhere. If any war goes nuclear, these weapons are capable of doing all the damage we need to do with no assistance from any other force. This is not a secret. Every potential adversary knows that we can do this if and when we wish.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Adding to this: Like the 1930s I am inclined to believe we will keep any serious Fascists out of any true power. The lesser ones might be tolerated in places where they can do no harm, the crazy ones will be either locked up or watched closely, and never allowed near the levers of power. We will likely fall into an New Deal / FDR-like coalition, where even some overt Communists or their modern equivalents are allowed inside the big tent.

That is the American political heritage. Maybe we are simply lucky that the 1915 Klan imploded just before the Great Depression.

The most satisfying result of the 2016 election will be that Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination and then loses in a landslide, taking a raft of GOP legislators down with him. The Republican Party then spends the next ten or so years having to clean up its act. Then people on the fringe discover that they are irrelevant in American politics. Maybe some of those will act up violently and get put away or blown away. But all in all politics again becomes an activity of rational service as has long been what our civics text books suggest is how things work and how things usually work in American history.

We will go back to what works, with an allowance for demographic change and technological progress. It won't be rainbows and flying unicorns; it will be better as well as achievable and workable.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

I want to be in a non-nuked area building the new underground factories to produce the weapons we will use to try and win the total war.

You and the others in the non-nuked area will not be able to do that. You will all just be waiting to die.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

I want to be in a non-nuked area building the new underground factories to produce the weapons we will use to try and win the total war.

When the cities and military bases are nuked, then the total war is over. The means for waging war of any kind will no longer exist. We will be back in a situation in which the electrical grids no longer transmit energy. The oil pipelines leading from oil fields (which might not be nuked) and refineries (which will be obliterated) will go dormant. Land lines become irrelevant, and cell phones become worthless once their energy is drained.

Rebuilding the cities? Tough luck in subtropical locations, where the absence of working sewers will make going into the site of a place like Houston dangerous in itself. In places like Minneapolis and Boston that have real winters, the burnt-out equivalents of Sodom and Gomorrah will have no heat in the winter. Places like Kansas City, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and Philadelphia on the borderline between Cfa and Dfa climates (freezing in January) will have the worst of both worlds. Malaria, frostbite, or both. Survivors will be ill-prepared.

Cheap real estate in a place like San Francisco won't be much of a bargain when the population of the USA is cut to a tenth of what existed before the nuclear war. That's "to" and not "by". That is roughly the percentage of German or Polish Jews surviving the Holocaust. There won't be much of a community left.

Financial assets, including cash, stocks, and bonds, will largely be worthless. Relying on a pension or annuities? They stop. People will truly be on their own. If you are old or disabled you will be prey. Food and water will be precious. Need a prescription? Lots of luck. If you are a diabetic you die when the insulin spoils or becomes unavailable.

Culture? The disks and tapes will no longer work when the electricity goes. Your DVD of Rudolf Nureyev performing in Swan Lake will contain precious, yet unaccessible data. Don't expect much new stuff, for the live theater, symphony, opera, and ballet in the once-great and now destroyed cities will be no more.

Welcome to a new, but exceedingly-dangerous frontier, one in resembles at best the trailhead and mining towns of the Old West.

I just finished A Woman in Berlin: Eight weeks in a conquered city, translated by Philip Boehm. It's a striking day-to-day account of a woman in her early thirties, living in Berlin at the end of World War II.

Originally Posted by Earl and Mooch

I just finished A Woman in Berlin: Eight weeks in a conquered city, translated by Philip Boehm. It's a striking day-to-day account of a woman in her early thirties, living in Berlin at the end of World War II.

Woman in Berlin, May and June 1945. That must have been Hell... until you think of Nazi "labor" and extermination camps.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Woman in Berlin, May and June 1945. That must have been Hell... until you think of Nazi "labor" and extermination camps.

The prospect of losing the power grid is a good reason in itself to go to onsite solar and wind generation if one can afford it. Underground essential infrastructure is also desirable--something the Chinese are doing, and we, who privatise everything are not.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Woman in Berlin, May and June 1945. That must have been Hell... until you think of Nazi "labor" and extermination camps.

Part of her hell was finding out about the camps. (Another part was being raped repeatedly by Russian soldiers.)