[shevy-java]

But that is historically not quite true.

World War 2 was not won due to the economy. And while it is true that the USSR "lost" the Cold War, they actually spent too much and entered a recurring debt from which they could no longer get out. There was no direct war here, which is different to e. g. world war 2 (at the least USA versus Germany). USSR and USA only fought some proxy wars.

[nradov]

World War 2 was won due to the economy. Only the Allied side had the economic strength to replace all of their material war losses and more. In some categories of munitions the USA out produced Japan by a factor of >1000. US Navy gunners could afford to fill the sky with steel because they had unlimited supplies. The enemy had to count every shot.

[wiseowise]

> World War 2 was not won due to the economy.

It was literally won due to the economy. The moment Germans failed to knock out Soviets and Japanese pulled Americans into the fight their days were numbered due to insane industrial base of the both countries. Soviet meat waves, industry + lend lease won Europe and US finished Japanese.

[torginus]

> meat waves

sigh

[benterix]

>> meat waves

> sigh

I agree it's an unfortunate way of presenting it but Stalin was a guy who didn't care for anyone's life and was literally sending people in waves to die with the NKVD sadists shooting scared young boys whenever they tried to run away from the horror of war. Dead if you go, dead if you don't. It's romanticized an celebrated today, but it was a mass tragedy incomparable to one that happened to ny other country in recent history.

[nicbou]

Didn't their war in Afghanistan precipitate their downfall?

So many pivotal decisions in WW2 were economic in nature. Lend lease? Germany's late switch to a war economy? The Allies' much larger manufacturing capabilities?

You could also argue that the cold war stayed cold because of the West's economic might. It set a military and living standard that the USSR bankrupted itself trying to match.