Lessons from the Previous Century, 1

War:

Two countries’ potential to wage war was underestimated and proved dire consequences for those who did it.

One was the Russians running the collective known as the USSR. Of the participants in WWII, Russia was more prepared for war than Ethiopia, and that’s about it. Armies thought they could roll over them. By the end of the war, they had created the best battle tank of the war, and an army only victory and peace could stop. Russia may have been a backward nation, but Russians are not a backward people.

The other is the Americans. Armies thought the Americans’ good life had made them soft and incapable fighting a war. Those raised in strict discipline and harsh environment believe their conditioning better prepares them for the rigors of war than those raised in freer societies. By the end of the war, the Americans had the largest mechanized army in the world and was about to send it into the final battle when another American war fighting innovation ended it.