How did the US get [historically] so powerful?

27 comments

1. Geography makes us secure from invasion. We have abundant national resources. Our founders set up a central government able to harness the productive energies of an expanding population.

2. The main thing that made the US so powerful was that we got to sit out most of World War II. Which meant that after the war concluded, and most of the rest of the world was recovering from wartime, rebuilding cities and factories, the US was able to just dominate industrially and economically. Over the decades, that competitive edge eventually wore off as the rest of the world recovered, but the US was still able to use that time where we had a clear advantage to become a major player internationally.

3. Geography + not having all of our factories bombed to shit in WW2.

4. Geography is a big one, but what really catapulted us ahead was being able to avoid most of the destruction of WWI and WWII.

5. There are a ton of factors, but here are some of the bigger ones:

   1: The US has a huge landmass with plentiful natural resources, which is a perfect ground for for developing heavy industry and technology, as well as having large numbers of people to drive the economy to support said industry.

   2: America’s distance from Europe and Asia allowed it to avoid the majority of the devastation of the two world wars, giving it a chance to springboard past the European and Asian powers while they were still rebuilding their countries. The US lost a good amount of men and war materiel, but their army infrastructure was nearly untouched, and its civilian infrastructure was completely untouched. In addition, its position as one of the major winners of WWII gave it the global respect and clout needed to be taken very seriously on the world stage.

   3: It’s emphasis on personal freedom and industry made it very attractive for high level scientists and engineers to both work and even immigrate there, especially during the WW2-era when experts were fleeing Germany and Europe in general to escape the Nazis.

6. We span a continent and have access to massive amounts of natural resources on our own soil. Then the homeland was largely untouched by war, while much of the rest of the world had their cities flattened a couple times, their militaries destroyed, and huge chunks of their population wiped out a couple times.

7. Our geography is unparalleled. We have 3 natural deepwater ports at SF, Puget Sound, and the Chesapeake. We have more coastline than the whole continent of Africa. We have a natural highway (Mississippi River) that stretches deep into the interior of the US and able to be ship goods around the eastern US without a train. Then you can take into account the canals we’ve created as well as the Great Lakes. We have 2 peaceful neighbors who can pose no threat to us as their geography is more of a hindrance to them. We have every resource we need with the exception of bauxite. Then you take all that into account to go along with a free capitalist society and we BOOMED big time as modern technology started to unlock in the late 19th century.

8. Geography: Great trading partner in Canada to the North. Great trading partner in Latin America in the South + as much as I hate to say it, Mexico serves as a filter to keep a lot of crazy shit from reaching up here.

   We have major cities along our southern border (San Antonio, San Diego, etc). and culturally, the states along our southern border like New Mexico, Texas, California, etc. share a lot of cultural values with our southern neighbor – Mexico. Same can be applied for states along our Northern border sharing a lot culturally with our northern neighbor, Canada. Also helps that literally ALL of Canada’s major cities are very close to our border: Vancouver, B.C. is only 3 hours away from Seattle, WA – Toronto is only 1.5 hours away from Buffalo, NY – Montreal is very close to Vermont.

   Now that I’ve covered our geographic neighbors, there’s also the fact that we have (the almost way too OP) geographic advantage of having access to Europe and Africa via our Atlantic coast (which has many major cities and ports set up), and we also have access to Asia via our Pacific coast (which also has major cities and ports set up). Basically we can trade (and have fairly good relations with countries) north, south, east, and west.

   Then there’s also the fact that we have a fairly large population of 330m. And there’s plenty of tax money to support both State and Federal infrastructure (military, etc etc). Then there’s also the fact that we are raised to be fairly proud of our country from an early age (I think this is slowly changing with Gen Z) and to die for our country so a lot of young people are willing to give up their life serving in the military.

   And then arguably the most important – from LA to New York we are a united country – the *United* States. You can drive across the country thanks to our great Interstate system. You can go to any state and speak the same language as the one you came from (or not, we don’t really give a fuck.. or at least most non-ignorant Americans should recognize that we are a country of immigrants). You can go to any state and it is still home.

9. A couple of factors:

   1. Vast tracks of a wide variety of natural resources.

   2. Extensive river and lake systems aiding in the large scale transportation of these materials.

   3. After WWII, the American industrial power was fully geared up while all other global competitors were rebuilding from the war.

   These all combine to make for a massive industrial power that was for a time uncontested. It was the right combination of geography and timing. It also helped that a large part of this land was able to produce plenty of food, meaning the US has never had to rely on imports to stay fed.

10. Europe kept destroying itself because no one could stand another European power being #1. America kept European politics far away from American life with our very aggressive “Americanization” process, and thus had no serious ethnic conflicts stemming from European politics.

11. – we stayed one country while we covered the most desirable parts of a continent

    – Europe decided to do a bunch of bullshit and blew itself up twice

12. Mainly geography the US is separated from the mass majority of countries so its hard for an enemy to invade the USA. part of the reason I think is the people, America was a small group of Colonies that rebelled and defeated what was probably the greatest Empire the world has ever seen. Even that wouldn’t have happened if the British didn’t have to sail reinforcements across the ocean

13. My opinion will probably not be popular with anyone but its mostly probably that most places outside of the US spent the 19 and early 20ths century getting either slaughtered, ideologically broken, or some combination of the two. We worked hard for it true, but you can deny the luck factor.

    > started as an agrarian society

    Don’t see what’s wrong with that, worked pretty good the Egyptians, and the Chinese and the Sumerians, worked pretty good for a lot of people.

14. In no particular order:

    – English language allowed for more commercial connections with the British Empire, the dominant trade and financial power of our early history.

    – Northern European heritage of the ruling class allowed for easy integration into the colonial world order.

    – Checks-and-balances republic provided relatively lethargic (but stable) government.

    – No serious military threats (since 1865 at the latest) this side of two oceans.

    – Abundant natural resources to fuel industrialization.

    – Immigrants for rapid population growth, new talents, new ideas.

    – Two ocean trade and naval dominance.

    – Old Europe committing collective suicide twice in consecutive generations.

15. 2 oceans, massive amounts of land, massive amounts of resources, no major geopolitical threats within our hemisphere, free market economy, massive river system/ Great Lakes, massive amounts of fertile land.

16. Having a shitload of land with diverse resources, lots of waterways, and Europeans fucking themselves via war, shitty economics/undervaluing land, and/or both (usually both) really does wonders

    Edit: and we got to basically have a lot of nations beta test what worked and didn’t work, which helped

17. Geography (lots of rivers to facilitate trade, tons of arable land, oceans on both sides, no major powers to the north/south to stand against us, etc) along with open borders, high birth rate (at least historically) to give a large population, and few internal wars to disrupt trade. Or, at least, few wars relative to Europe at the time. Meanwhile allowing tons of immigrants from Europe and elsewhere to drain them of their skilled and unskilled workers. An emphasis on free markets to facilitate innovation and an emphasis on free speech to allow for contributions to the arts mean greater soft power too.

    Edit: I’d recommend looking at any of Peter Zeihan’s lectures to get more info, but between 1776 and 1945 Europe was involved in a colonial system that meant if a nation wanted a resource it had to go out and take it. If their colonies didn’t have it, they had to expand their colonial influence to new areas. This inevitably lead to lots of wars. WW1 and 2 were the culmination of this global economic system. Because the USA was so far removed from European colonialism it wasn’t as affected by wars in that time period, allowing for more uninterrupted population and economic growth.

18. Geography, natural resources, influx of capital and labor

19. WW2 destroyed most of the previous hegemony. US filled the void

20. Expanding on the geography aspect others have mentioned….

    -We live in a ‘quiet’ neighborhood so we can devote more of our resources into projecting power to other continents / hemispheres. Any aspiring power in Eurasia needs to be more mindful of larger local threats than we do.

    -WWII basing and logistics. In addition to getting out of the war with our economy intact, the war jump-started the process of establishing military bases worldwide, many of which we maintain today. To appropriately use these bases, we’ve become pretty good at the logistics side of military science, especially compared to other aspiring powers. A lot of that we had to figure out pretty fast in WWII, and then have maintained ever since, largely in the context of the Cold War.

    -Deciding to be engaged. Taking a step back, I think there needs to be a distinction between ‘being powerful’ and ‘using power’. The US was the largest economy even before WWI. A large land-mass, distance from European shenanigans, and a mostly-peaceful neighborhood helped us reach that level of power. The jump to superpower involved more active policy decisions on how to use that power. We could have turned inwards after WWII like we did after WWI. Instead, we decided to actively confront the Soviets and their allies.

    So, any discussion on ‘why the US ended up a superpower’ needs to acknowledge that we specifically chose to leverage our capabilities to maintain that position on the world stage. This is especially relevant today as certain political elements in this country call for disengaging from this or that part of the world. Being a superpower doesn’t just happen. We need to want it, and we need to work at it.

21. Broadly? Geography and ideology (national identity – think individualism).

    We were building up steam for years before WW1, massive industrialization across the east, west, and steel belt. WW2 only helped our economy after the stock market collapse, and our position as the only major country to not suffer any major infrastructure, industrial capacity, or population loss during the war made us the only one able to export our culture and impress our military around the world. Geography wise, we’re absolutely OP: abundant natural resources, huge river network with arable land covering pretty much everything east of the rockies, separation from Asia and Europe, etc.

22. smallpox plus technology used to kill natives early on. Napoleon needed some money, then Mexico had a civil war which prevented them from stopping the U.S. from expanding.

    The U.S. stayed out of WW1 for the most part and built factories during WW2. From a logistics standpoint the U.S. government and military industrial complex was the most efficient and organized group in human history. I suspect because all the B.S. was pushed aside to deal with an existential threat.

    After WW2 the manhattan project then the space race gave all the smart people something to work on. In human history whenever all the brilliant scientists and come together to create something or do something technology advancement follows.

    That is the human reasons.

    Geography variety, size and defensability and resources are give natural advantages.

    Lastly the federalized system of government is very efficient and tends towards less corruption than other forms of governmemt that were around during most of the U.S.’s history.

    mostaspects of the european model are better at this now but their systems of government are new (post WW2 and some even later) so the advantages haven’t been fully realized yet in my opinion. (also they are smaller so there is only so much they can do.)

    Africa and South American countries are too unstable. Europe isn’t big enough and the eastern half isn’t developed enough yet. India is youngish and still developing/ has a lot of pollution issues. China is too corrupt, Russia is too corrupt. Japan is too small as is S Korea and Australia.

23. Making it completely across, coast to coast, helps immensely. Also, the Panama canal essential doubles our navies ability to project by cutting down so much travel time between oceans. This allows use to project naval power easily either side of south america, asia-pacific, & then our many island ports- again, by having safe harbor to refuel & repair our fleet so far from home allows us to project naval power,

    And it’s my understanding of general naval tactics that the THREAT that a fleet can potentially attack is much much more important than the attack itself- consider pearl harbor, the ATTACK did much damage, but didn’t affect our ability to threaten & project naval power.

24. Check brain4breakfast’s videos and anything from Peter Zeihan. They explain the geopolitics/geoeconomics pretty well.

25. Theft; murder and rape.

26. This is a relatively recent phenomenon. After the civil war, the US was considered a second-rate power around the world. It was definitely a strong regional power, but on the world stage it couldn’t hold a candle to most of Europe.

    It was until the two world wars, more specifically the second world war, where the US really catapulted itself to world superpower. With Europe destroying itself and the US abstaining from conflict until the later years of those wars (while also selling equipment and loaning money), the transfer of power shifted.

27. People, resources, and being in a place that is hard to wage war agaisnt.