Command economies are good at waging war. Free market economies are good at peace and standard of living. When no major war occurred, the Soviet Union was forced to play the game that capitalism was better at, rather than the game they were better at.
this is a myth. command economies are not particularly good at waging war, because morale is absolutely key to fighting- people have to be enthusiastic and willing to fight and produce for their country and that kind of spirit is lacking in a command economy. the utter shambles that soviet military was in is a reasonable reflection of this; it was only because germany's aims were so grandiose that national spirit kicked in that the soviet union was able to win. nazi germany which was not a command economy was quite good at fighting as well.
though people don't really like to admit such things (either because its 'boring' or because they aren't big fans of america), america was the nation with the greatest military potential even then, simply because of the combined strength of its industry and the general support of the population for the system of government.
Suppose the Western and Mediterranean fronts never open. The whole war is just Germany against Russia.
this is a scenario i've pondered a lot. i think that germany would eventually lose, simply because hitler's aims were so expansive. germany only had 80 million or so people and given that it in a true 1 v 1 it wouldn't be getting extra manpower from its allies (obviously that is less important than allied aid in the west, but it isn't trivial by any means) i think the losses would be too great in the end.
The biggest issue re: the troops in France was that everyone assumed France could hold its own for a long time if attacked. They were considered to have one of the finest militaries in the world, and the Maginot Line was incredibly formidable. Well, it turns out France's military was actually fairly shitty and poorly equipped. And although the Maginot Line really was as formidable has it was billed, the Germans were able to sidestep it in a way that was (foolishly) not predicted. It is one of the most famous, and most costly, military blunders in history.
They did take Hitler seriously, but the fall of France in such extraordinarily quick fashion was not predicted, and basically unprecedented in the history of these European wars.
france's military was decently equipped, it was just woefully behind the times when it came to military doctrine, far behind the germans and even well behind their british allies who didn't care much for military matters. as for the maginot line, the basic error was not realizing the importance of motorized and armored divisions. if technology had remained static, it would have been a reasonable way of ensuring that french troops could focus on where the germans were most likely to attack, but in reality german tanks rolled through the ardennnes quickly enough to catch the french almost by surprise.
Something I've always wondered. People say it would have been impossible for the British air force to commit air strikes over Berlin in the early stages of the war, yet they were perfectly able and did airdrop leaflets over Germany while Chamberlain was still in charge, so what gives? Also, why so few men in France and why such piss-poor planning in Norway during the critical early stages of the war? It seems like no one took Hitler seriously or something
bombers, at least in theory, need targets and they need to try and hit those targets (unlike leaflets)! area bombardment requires quite a few bombers to be effective and britain needed to focus on air defense above all else anyway.
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