[Spooky23]

From the US Civil War to the atomic age, there was no such thing as a non-combatant. Industrialization meant that a modern society could indefinitely sustain mobilization and fight until economic collapse.

World War 1 was where his really came to roost. The machine gun and artillery turned the western front into an industrial scale killing machine that only ended when the German economy ground to a halt. Technology improvements in WW2 enabled destruction at a scale never witnessed in history and incomparable on a relative scale to nothing except Caesar’s Gallic campaign.

The way to win was about metrics — building more arms and killing as many people as possible. Japan was no different than cavalrymen in WW1, who believed that elan and decisive victory in the field would carry the day. Sociopaths like Curtis Lemay figured that out.