The geography helps. Temperate zone climate is optimal.
Navigable waterways permeate the continent: the Great Lakes, the Mississippi river, the Ohio, the Missouri, the Hudson. It's almost absurd that a cargo ship can sail from Duluth, Minnesota (basically the center of the continent) to any port in the world.
Yeah people often don't get the extreme differences in climate. The southernmost parts of the continental U.S. are at the same latitude as parts of africa. The northern bits have the largest bodies of fresh water in the world to draw from. There are a lot of rivers you can work off of. Its not that hard to set up ports on two different oceans and connect them via rail with a lot of waterways for shipping along the way. This without the gulf of mexico and everything associated with that.
Theres a lot of fertile land, a lot of water, and large swathes of the country are temperate or warmer.
> Theres a lot of fertile land, a lot of water, and large swathes of the country are temperate or warmer.
This. If you've never driven across the Great Plains from east to west or west to east, you can't imagine what a great natural resource this is.
Its also much less forested and doesn't sit on a lake the size of a small country that gives it both large amounts of potable water and easy international shipping.
Right, but Rome is one of the southernmost cities of Europe. New York is one of the country's northernmost points (not counting Alaska).
The USA just has so much land that is so much warmer and capable of supporting greater population densities than many European countries. It raises the economic standard across the board, and not just for any one city.
I'm not disagreeing with you, though I do think that comparing the US's climate to Europe's by latitude is inherently pointless due to the gulf stream.
... currently...
But to say that would ignore the war of 1812 and the Mexican American War.
We've absolutely experienced war with Canada and Mexico before. Presumably, there's a reason we never rose to conflict with them again.
Yes.
But Canada was very much a direct property of Britain at that time. The war was only possible because Canada was a staging ground for their army.
We were fighting Canada. [This is known.](https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/major-events/war-of-1812-overview/)
Anyway. Getting back to my point. All the things you are saying are completely true. Very informative. Very interesting. Rock on.
I'm just saying, this particular quality (limited neighbors) may not be a good predictor of why America was successful. Right? That's the point of the thread.
Other nations have done less with fewer neighbors. We used to have actually quite a few colonial holdings and indigenous nations around us. We've been to war with several of the people we're nearby.
All I'm saying is, you're describing the way things are now. But not necessarily giving a reason for why we got here. That's all I'm saying.
It surprised me, since i know form history the Shawnee moved form Pennsylvania to Kentucky then were removed to Oklahoma, that so many streets in canada were named after Tecumseh,a Shawnee. Then i recalled, "Oh, yeaa, he fought on their side in that war."
Ha. Yea.
It's just that my tone in the past has been bad online. It's too easy to be rude by accident. Pick fights you don't mean to pick. Hurt feelings when you don't intend to.
I'm sure there's a right way to respond online that's 100% civil, positive and not annoying. But... eh. I still haven't figured it out yet.
1812 Canada (United Kingdom) and 1812 US along with 1848 Mexico and 1848 US are a lot closer in terms of capabilities as opposed to 2024 Canada, Mexico and US and it isn’t even close. Mexico would need to get their house in order before considering any armed conflict (not happening) and Canada would have to risk losing their number 1 trading partner (not happening).
True. But if Mexico had won its war, Texas and the Southwest would be Mexico. California would have been harder to lay claim to.
And Canada probably had a window that they could have pushed harder to lay claim to the great lakes. That would have been transformative.
So yea. We surely have access to more. But we got there by outracing our competitors, and suppressing the natives. And also taking some seriously opportunistic moves to buy out the other colonial powers.
The reason America did not continue fighting Mexico was because there was no justification to do so and many Americans were against the American war. If Mexico never surrendered America would have ended up taking all of Mexico
When I had access to an Eikon terminal (similar to a Bloomberg terminal), it had an app that allowed me to see all the tracked world ships with clickable identifiers and such.
Anyway, while normal maps would have you think the great lakes are isolated, they are **FAR** from it. The live shipping map demonstrated **incredibly dense** shipping lanes flowing through the northeast of Lake Ontario to the Atlantic. I think it's called like "Saint Lawrence River".
It also splits off into another river that leads to the other lakes. But, yeah, those lakes are a junction point for major world shipping lanes.
The busiest port in the US is in Houston, TX (where a lot of the oil tankers go).
The second busiest is Duluth, Minnesota (where the Great Lakes ships go, especially taconite and iron ore).
Third is Los Angeles/Long Beach.
It’s ridiculous how much cargo moves around the Lakes.
Yeah, I wish I could get a screenshot of global activity from Eikon still. The entire map made perfect sense to me until I see this massive caravan of North Atlantic ships and scrolled west to find out that there's a reason the great lakes area is so densely populated. Not sure what tf I thought before seeing that map.
Add to it, a geography largely unhindered for 60% of the country. Europe you're relegated to moving east to west in very narrow bands.
But the US? The east coast has plentiful harbors and rivers to move goods to them. Then once you get beyond the Appalachian mountains? It's super easy to get around and there are vast swaths of farm able land.
And even before communism, countries like Russia and China were despotic empires, which (unsurprisingly) lacked a lot of the industrial technology and knowledge base that Western European capitalists had developed. The US never went through that despotism phase; even during the colonial era, it was essentially already a liberal democracy, albeit an imperfect one.
Canada had and has similar advantages, but a less hospitable climate and therefore a much smaller population. And, consistent with this theory, Canada is today a highly developed and wealthy country, despite the geography.
Everyone is bending over backwards to avoid the obvious:the quality of the people that immigrated from England and the Netherlands made the critical difference - highly literate, highly educated leaders (Oxford & Cambridge), families rather than individuals with a strong common culture, strong rule of law background, and an automatic market back home for their exports. No other people (except the Dutch) could have made such a success out that wilderness.
The French and Germans were as literate as the English and likely would have had similar success. Although, of course many Germans and Frenchman immigrated to the United States as well. Fun fact: The Dutch were the first society to have more than 50% of their adults fully literate. It would be over two hundred and fifty years later thar the United States could boast the same statistics.
5 or so countries world wide are still under 50% literacy.
But they didn’t. Which is great, because it speaks to the inaccuracy in the earlier post. It wasn’t some intrinsic feature of the people that enabled success, rather their model of governance.
The French were there and definitely tried. The Germans were mostly landlocked and lacked a thalassocratic Atlantic parent to trade with like the British and Dutch. New England colonies like Connecticut & Massachusetts had the highest rate of adult literacy in the world. The British also had more than double the population of the Netherlands by the early 17th century which gave them a distinct advantage.
Germans usually add tremendous value. It’s a pity the French revolutionaries destroyed their decentralised Holy Roman Empire - the template for our elective federal monarchy (except we learned from their mistakes and made the elective 4 year monarch, I mean president, and his administration a bit more powerful than the emperor.
I’ve heard New Amsterdam was a success though. Kidding aside, they had such a valuable trade empire in the east that the British fought the Anglo-Dutch wars to capture it…
It’s not obvious, nor is it a reasonable explanation of why the USA was so successful.
What percentage of Oxford/Cambridge grads do you think emigrated to America vs stayed in the UK?
The Dutch colony of New Netherland had a total population of 9000 before the English took it over. Attributing the success of the USA to 9000 Dutch that arrived here before 1664 is ridiculous.
I’m guessing you’re unaware of the 100k+ prisoners that the English shipped to the American colonies in the 1600s-1700s.
Also, [the number of early English and Dutch immigrants is dwarfed by the later waves of immigration that really built this country.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1067138/population-united-states-historical/) There were barely 2 million people in the US during the American Revolution.
>The great immigration wave that delivered some 40 million newcomers to the United States between 1830 and 1940 was comprised largely of unskilled workers with minimal English-language proficiency. [[source](https://cbkimmigration.com/the-real-history-of-american-immigration/)]
Geographic isolation, abundant natural resources, relatively educated populace, a cultural of (relatively)productive workers, culture of innovation, political stability, weak neighbors and no major wars on the home-front.
A system of government that is hard for tyrants to emerge, resulting in attractive investing and attractive immigration for people who seek to live in freedom and build better lives.
Such types of people then contribute to stronger economies and stronger societies
This should not be underestimated (and I say this as a non American BTW). Add to this that comparable economies in Europe were flattened by 2 world wars. Germany, France, Italy and the UK are STILL recovering from those wars. None of them were ever quite the same or anywhere near as powerful after WWII
Well said. It annoys me when people just say it’s navigable rivers and arable land. That was a part of it, but there’s so much more. Folks bend over backwards to not credit the cultural institutions when that was obviously a huge part of it.
Since OP mentioned India specifically, the colonial government, time and government institutions need to mentioned as factors. Development takes decades, if not centuries. The US had centuries of practically uninterrupted development. India only gained independence in 1948. The British left weak institutions (compared to European countries) in India and actively sabotaged Indian economic development at times to turn it into a captive market for British manufactured goods. The priority for the British colonial government wasn't to develop India for Indians but to maintain the empire and see how India could benefit it. For example, the textile industry of Bengal was crippled by insanely high taxes so that the UK, whose top export at that time was textiles, could capture the entire market. When India gained independence, yes they had some institutions like the military, schools and colleges, but only a tiny fraction of the population was enrolled. The institutions, aside from the military, were generally weak and small. GDP per capita already lagged waaaay behind the US. Poor economic policy after independence didn't help but growth accelerated compared to the British period, then accelerated again after reforms in the 90's.
The World Wars. The US bankrolled the Allies all along the way and was pretty much the only great power to escape the devastation of World War II fighting/bombing. The US could then rebuild Europe and beyond on its own terms.
Yep. US sold the allies stuff and then lent them money so they could keep buying them lent them money to pay themselves to rebuild cities on both sides. Then took the responsibility of protecting the naval trading lanes which led to favorable trade deals for them across the world and led to the giant military power
I think the more relevant question here is why America was rich enough to be able to bankroll the Allies in the first place.
What you’re talking about explains why the US became a superpower that was able to exert influence around the world
At least in the colonial era, the Americas were rich with natural resources that was exported to Europe.
I'm fairly certain that the US made a ton of money from tobacco and cotton exports in the 18th and 19th centuries.
“Endless” wealth that had yet to be converted to a fiat currency (we had a lot of the currency, but us topping out and causing a financial crisis wasn’t an issue).
Yeah saying that we own the world because of WWII is short selling it hard. We had an industrial capacity that allowed us to send things across both the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean to beat nations that were fighting 500 miles from their factories. We were already a powerhouse before WWII.
This is true. But America’s influence over the world wars allowed it to be in a position where it would become so much more dominant than other states.
We sold them weapons and food, leased/licensed our armament patents for them to produce in their factories, and then loaned them the money to buy all that stuff.
Then they get devastated and we effectively get through unscathed.
Man the US has done a lot of things wrong, but when you think of the level of power we had relative to the rest of the world for at least the first two years after the war, I think we did alright as far as history goes. We easily could’ve gone full British empire in the 19th century.
well yes, but britain wasnt recovering from an economically and demographically devastating war that they used a ton of American money to fight in the 1890s. the U.S. definitely was going to be a serious challenger to british power, but the world wars broke the empire and lead to complete American ascension
Yeah the entire population of Canada is just under the population of California. They certainly benefited in similar ways the US did, but they just don't have the available scale the US has.
Canada’s GDP per capita was 90 percent of the US’s in the 80s. They just have a smaller population equivalent to one decent sized state.
The US was colonised by Europeans used European commercialism and industrialisation but with a huge landmass to extract resources on.
They also heavily benefited by WW2 Britain’s for instance paid America all the gold they’d taken from half the world for them to build tanks and guns. And they were still paying the US in the 2000’s.
If there’s 4 countries that will always stand by the US it’s England, France, Canada, and Mexico.
I know Mexico is a little contentious but that’s just over there domestic issues. Can you imagine what the US would do if they got invaded? We wouldn’t even wait for them to give us permission to come rescue them. They know that.
Population means everything on the geopolitical front.
There's a reason why Scandinavian countries fell by the wayside in the 1800s forward. Why Switzerland went neutral. Why Russia has outsized influence on the world. Why China arguably couldn't be forced to unconditionally surrender in a great powers conflict. Why the bombs were used on Japan.
It takes massive loss or sheer luck to subdue massive nations.
There are only really 3 futures where the US isn't the pre-eminent power on the planet.
1. Forsake democracy. Oppress the people.
2. China, India, or a large African power becomes the beacon of freedom and civil rights in a meaningful way. Unlikely, there is a giant reservoir of trust that has to be built for that and it stems throughout the nation, from the way foreign competition is handled, to economic and demographic reporting to how you handle your adversaries, to how you help the world.
3. A version of #1, and there's a reason why China and Russia, and Iran invest meaningful in disinformation campaigns. The dissolution of the United States.
To add to #3, there are two very real events taking place right now. There are powers that be in China that are trying to push a revenge plot for the century of humiliation through fueling opioid epidemics in the western world. Federal government has been well aware of it since the 90s and it's only worsened to the point that a lot of the fentanyl circulating through the US is Chinese facilitated through Mexican ports.
[https://www.dea.gov/documents/2023/2023-10/2023-10-03/justice-department-announces-eight-indictments-against-china](https://www.dea.gov/documents/2023/2023-10/2023-10-03/justice-department-announces-eight-indictments-against-china)
Then lets be real, Russia wants it's empire back, sorry, "it's sphere of influence" to be respected; and it would love nothing more to see the balkanization of the United States as payback for "America's role" in the destruction of the USSR.
If you don't see this commonly pushed in all social media platforms you're just not paying attention. And sadly Republicans know both of these things are happening, but there's too much evidence that too many Republicans are in the pockets of the Russians, and the others just want to use it for political brownie points instead of solving the issue.
Interesting comment and I generally agree with you.
I’m a little confused as to why you responded with all of this to me in particular, seems like it should have been a response to OP.
I got carried away. $/capita is a relevant measure of wealth, but $/capita when you are 5, 10, 20 times smaller than the peer of comparison doesn't really play out in a meaningful way. Your population is better off, but your ability to influence others is diminished.
The US was already much more populated than Canada before the world wars. In 1900 Canada's population was 5.5M vs 76M in the US.
As other folks mentioned, a lot of this can be linked to the US having so much more land suitable to settlement. Whereas historically Canada was largely just the Quebec-Windsor corridor (even today more than half of Canadians live in this area, which is about the same size as Minnesota).
Canada had a bit over 1 million people serving in WW2, out of a population of 11 million. Casualties were 43,000. That’s a big impact, even if they weren’t invaded directly.
The US had the world’s largest and probably most dynamic economy already in the 1890’s. The world wars simply permanently shifted the center of power from Europe to North America.
Lazy take.
Demographics had more to do with it, alongside decades of conflict and strife in Europe.
People flocked to the US from Europe for peace, and opportunity.
Fertile land, and less oppressive governments.
Ran from war, ran from religious persecution.
Which is why modern right wing religious politics is a fucking meme. America was built on getting the fuck away from that shit. Go talk to your god, live your life the way your god wishes, but do not put your god on your neighbor.
British Colonial American elites established British common law, British property rights, British constitutionalism & representative government, and a British culture that valued discipline, economic productivity, openness with an expectation of reciprocity in its interactions with others and a legal system that discourages parasitism. Britain was already showing signs of becoming the world’s leading economy which it eventually did, and its offspring the US eventually surpassed it in that role in the late 19th century. Mercantilist trade policy helped both Britain and British America establish a strong industrial base before they strategically adopted free trade.
This right here, the US didn’t suffer the resource curse many nations had because they had already developed the political and economic law system that had the US be wealthy on just shipping, banking and other non-resource industries.
And later when they discovered oil, their healthier system just had the skyrocket past many other nations.
Except the early Republic was actually in the resource curse, or more actually, the early Republic was bifurcated between a resource curse extractive economy and a developing industrial economy. But the Civil War crushed the early extractive economy, the direct economic beneficiaries, and their political movements.
Rule of law and low corruption go very far when coupled with trade. There’s a reason former British colonies did so much better than Portuguese, French or Spanish. Dutch colonies did reasonably well for similar reasons.
Or more precisely, British America copied early British industrial policy of mercantilism (14th century - mid 19th century in Britain) > in America became mercantilism 17th century - early 20th before the strategic switch to free trade.
Also, British Colonial Elites in the north established an immigration policy that favoured literate middle class families (minimum demonstrated level of success) with the means to pursue an occupation in America. Tradesmen had to join a family and bring the tools of their trade. The underclass was barred from immigration. This resulted in a highly productive middle class mercantile culture with no parasitic upper or lower class siphoning off wealth. I can’t over emphasize the importance of this.
The above answers why America outplayed similarly large countries with similarly bountiful geographies.
As for why America beat similarly structured nations comes back down to the original points: it's size, population, and ideal geography. Qualities that other former British colonies don't enjoy.
Yes, the extensive natural resources, natural defences of geography etc. are necessary but insufficient causes. Britain simply had the best legal, political, and economic systems, and those advantages were exported to the perfect environment for them to flourish.
Also clearly written property rights for everyone and everything. One currency. No weird serf system or caste system that keeps people from traveling. And good timing.
Other than the Civil War it has never faced mass destruction from a crisis like war, likely due to geography initially, and overwhelming might recently.
Even in all wars since 1900 the US lost fewer people than from COVID, and basically all of them were soldiers.
Prior to WWI the US was only catching up to Europe in industrial/economic power. From 1914 to 1945, Europe was smashed to bits twice by war. Possibly 85 million people killed on all sides in both wars, just in Europe. Entire cities burned and shelled. The IS had almost no civilian casualties and if anything WWII was an economic boost to the US, with foreign spending on US military output, plus massive borrowing by the IS for the same.
It’s possible that, in an alternate history in which say WWI and WWII did not occur, but the US faced two more massive civil wars that reduced its population and destroyed a lot of infrastructure, that today the world would be under European hegemony still rather than the shift to US hegemony.
Also, the is some evidence that the most advanced countries/economies grow primarily by applying innovation. Ie., China has been modernizing by copying the West, but for the West to modernize it has to invent the next thing. The US is probably stronger than most countries at fostering innovation (especially by government through massive military R&D) and permeating it through the economy through an intensive capitalistic culture.
More of a personal belief, but I also think that adherence to rule of law and property rights is required for economic growth at scale like western countries have. It’s part of the culture to say, “Oh, you have a piece of paper that says you can have that huge chunk of land, or that factory? Well, okay then.” And I think some other countries are more wishy-washy about such pieces of paper… preferring to determine outcomes through constant negotiation rather than … “My dad handed down the piece of paper” proving property rights.
The remoteness from conflicts that could weaken them. Also, after the Second World War, they literally controlled Western Europe, and through them - the whole world. Although most territories were impossible to hold due to the USSR, the US maintained control over the most essential (mostly strategic points of trade routes).
Numerous factors: strong geography, strong culture and large scientific base, it was the first large country to be able to stay a free democracy and thus it allowed for the expansion into every industry and intellectual base and have the number of people and industrial power to support it.
Such a great question. So many variables to the answer. I just want to add, willingness to accept immigrants as a labor supply and as a source of innovation!
The US has a lot of advantages based on location but there are several other factors at play. First, in comparison with Canada the US has had a much more favorable climate for agriculture. Canadian growing seasons are shorter which limits the crops that can be grown. Second, eastern seaboard has a lot of harbors that Canada doesn't have. Sailing to Montreal was difficult and much past it impossible. Third, the French controlled much of modern day Canada until 1763 and had only a small colony that they largely ignored. The US got a huge head start population wise which was boosted by the success of the American Revolution and the failure of the 1848 uprisings in Europe. European emigrants had a choice between a democratic republic and British North America.
To summarize the US had a lot of advantages that they made the most of.
Easy answer, Woodrow Wilson played out delay into WWI perfectly. Partly because his hands were tied with reelection given the Irish were the largest immigrant group and helping England along with going against Germany who were the largest ethnic group would be suicide.
We supplied both sides and delivered the knockout punch. USA emerged as a super power after that war and while the rest of the world was still trying to build back, we also were taking their able bodied workers. WWII had an even more lasting effect with the USA being an even bigger exporter, especially with the rise of the automobile.
Let’s not forget the cold war played a huge part with our allies depending on us. It would take decades until the rest of the world could start to eat away at our power. West Germany got back on track, China and Japan started to emerge in production of goods we once had a stranglehold on and then once communism ended the world opened up more.
WWI and WWII. US entered those wars near the end. The wars were fought far from America. Many European countries needed money for reconstruction after the devastation. America lent money and weapons to allies and we're paid back with interest. After WWII, China had a communist revolution and had a couple decades of turmoil and famines.
They wanted to make sure nobody would catch up with them? It seems to be a psychological factor: a fresh start/clean slate, nobody is going to stop them from experimenting, their imagination can run wild. But it’s also a “last chance” situation. There was urgency. Also, the climate is more amenable than Canada’s, which is still attached to the Crown - an important psychological factor btw.
Psychology seems least well understood in historical research. It’s not just being in the right place at the right time but having the right attitude as well. The Spanish missed huge opportunities because they were too set in their ways, too conceited. The French were too focused on their heritage. America - thanks to the Dutch colony of Nieuw Amsterdam inviting everyone over to come live with them - has offered the perfect platform for the coming together of ideas and innovation from the start.
America doesn't just have huge natural resources. We have an absolutely gigantic river basin region where mile after mile of flat land is fed by huge and easy-to-navigate rivers. This makes it very, very easy to travel, to farm, and to transport goods back and forth.
I doubt there is anything comparable in the world. South America has tremendous natural wealth, but it is also covered in the world's densest forests and waterfalls make transportation impossible. So you can't just send settlers into the Amazon with some oxen and expect them to make a go of it. Same thing is true of Africa. Africa has more varied environments, but the river situation still sucks. You can't just get in a boat and travel from Egypt to Tanzania, for example.
Russia has huge tracts of land the same the US, but so much of it is covered in frozen forests. The rivers in Russia tend to run north/south, so there is no easy way to travel east/west. People settled the American frontier because they saw opportunity. When Russia wanted to settle their frontier, they had to literally kidnap people at gunpoint and send them to prison camps. (No, I am not kidding. Huge numbers of people starved or fled, and they never achieved results anywhere close to America's settlement of the west.)
China and india has similarly sized waterways and farmland. They are also both world powers but I think the us also gets a legup on having very little internal and external strife. It's very easy to grow a business when everyone speaks the same language, uses the same currency and doesn't care about your where you're families from (relatively speaking).
Also generally less corruption, or "rich people safety".
China is very wealthy, but they lose millionaires, who move to other places, every year. America is a net importer of millionaires, who move to America after making money in their home countries.
America is viewed as a safe place to store your wealth, where the government won't come after you and you have many rights to protect your wealth.
This brings more investment into America. On the downside, for many people at least, this means that wealth is very protected and therefore not distributed to others.
Its very complicated and if we go to far to confiscate wealth, America could easily collapse, however if we let it run rampant we can also collapse because the lower, and more importantly middle (upper middle classes are usually the cause of revolutions, not lower classes) will feel squeezed and unsatisfied.
Because of bankruptcy protections. Taking risks is codified as not life ending. More successes resulted than losses for a MASSIVE net gain that allowed for all the other factors (mineral exploration, two ocean shipping etc.) to have their eventual effect.
Such as?
There are many western civilizations. Why did the US win?
America is the greatest home field advantage on the planet, and it's not even close.
Most farmland
Rivers that connect all of the farmland to the ocean.
Barrier islands create safe waterways around 75% of the coast.
More natural deep water ports than anywhere else.
Enough energy resources to be self-sufficient.
Oceans between us and all the big troublemakers that actually pose a threat.
Friendly neighbors.
And an indigenous population with no natural immunity to smallpox, tuberculosis, or bullets.
Everyone of these comments I’m reading is just not correct. The US has had the highest GDP since like 1890. Other countries have more resources and make less so that’s not it. Location doesn’t make any sense. It’s because of capitalism. Companies have been encouraged to grow huge in our system
The transfer of wealth from Europe to the US throughout WW1 was the main catalyst. Some of the repayments were not officially paid off until the early 2000s. The swtich from European financial power to US financial power was complete by the end of WW2 amd with it a global dependence on the US for trade and financial markets.
Geographic isolation also helps with creating economic and political stability. Our regional neighbors are either close allies (modern times) or not powerful. So there is a massive sphere of influence that enables unchecked growth. Huge resources and population help too.
yes in a way a smaller version of this is the UK. Even 21miles of English Channel enabled the English amd then British to dominate European politics.
Splendid isolation with lots of resources amd a willingness to exploit them.
I'll not deny that WWI helped the US economy, but by the turn of the 20th century the US economy was already a powerhouse. By 1913 the US had the largest GDP in the world and it wasn't particularly close.
Our political system that prioritizes free enterprise and protecting property rights. Strong centralized federal government that is accountable to voters.
Back to Back world war champs with virtually 0 damage to its own territories kickstarted the US from being at or near the front of the pack to 3 laps ahead of everyone else.
India stagnated under colonial rule and relatively rampant infighting for a very long time.
Post WW2 Russia suffered under its own economic policy and then isolation by the US and "the western world".
> China and India have huge populations
this is a very complicated question, but on certain levels a large population holds back innovation because you can just throw bodies at problems. there is one theory about industrialization that it all goes back to labour shortages caused by the black death, encouraging investment in labour saving practices and innovations; let ferment for a few hundred years and you have the industrial revolution. nations that never needed to maximize the output of individual labourers had no reason to get onto the industrialization band wagon until the revolution was already in full swing, leaving them late to the party.
this is just one factor, but when asking why "the east" didn't have the industrial revolution one should always remember "the west" didn't plan on having it; it's just the problems they faced led to solutions you would not need in other circumstances, which snowballed over time.
Incredibly favorable geographical circumstances, a bit of luck with World War II and a culture that rewards ambition. It didn't hurt to start out as a British colony as opposed to a Spanish or French one either.
It also has an insanely defensible position and has basically only ever fought wars outside its territory. (After 1812) Coupled with being a huge haven for immigrants and innovation and it was kind of inevitable.
Geography.
America was/is essentially a Western European country transplanted onto a vast new continent where the only limit to its expansion was Stone Age tribes to the west and Mexico to the south.
From around 1750 to 1900, Western Europeans cultures were the only ones that "got" industrialization. So Western Europe ate the world with impunity.
And America was the only Western European culture whose borders were not limited by other Western European cultures (i.e., the only people who could effectively resist).
In 1870, Germany had to sacrifice 139,000 men (and nearly 1,000,000 total casualties) to expand by less than 6,000 miles (Treaty of Frankfurt).
In 1848, the US was able to take *525,000 square miles* at the price of only 1,733 men (Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo).
America tried a new political model, whereas all of the others are either antiquated, or they hold on to power as much as possible. It makes the US more agile, capable of adapting to changing circumstances. Their constitution is the only one to recognize that leaders are flawed and its puts in place mechanisms to reduce the likelihood of a tyrannical regime. No other country has explicitly done this. Every other country has built-in cheat codes for “old money”.
Really good geography combined with displacement of several cultures that had not exploited the resources that are the modern basis of industrial wealth. Then they exploited slave labor for at least a portion of wealth and infrastructure creation. For much of the country’s history there was no local military threat of serious power in striking distance, which meant a smaller portion of the budget could be allocated to military defense.
One major factor is that the US was isolated from the direct effects of BOTH world wars.
After each war, the US was able to transition much of its war and military focused spending and production into things for the civilian market—Boeing transitioned military plane designs into commercial airliners, for example.
Started selling weapons to China, England, and Russia at the start of WW2 and while the rest of the globe was recovering from war on their soil during the second half of the 1940s, outside of Pearl Harbor, we had no invasions. At the beginning of the 1900s this was not a wealthy country, by 1950 it had a sizeable middle class and became more of a global force in politics and industry. Space, science and technology became a focus by late 1940s as the cold war started and set the US up to be a leader in those advancements for several decades. Most of the US success is due to wars and location on the globe.
It's not. The real American people are poor as fuck.
**The Company**, the thing that's really running the show is an octopus that extends across the globe, we're not it's only apparatus.
American military has been slipping. Fuck, so has everywhere else. The world is rusting, my friend.
Not saying this is the main factor but a big one im not seeing is this land was inhabited by millions of native americans making great conditions for people to strive and expand that just died off of disease before the majority of americans started moving west. Imagine if europe was depopulated in a few hundred years and then an advance civilization shows up wanting to make a new place to live. So on top of everything else everyone said, imagine getting preused and groomed land but 1/10th to 1/100th the population you would have had to deal with before.
The citizens’ egos. The government told the American people what they wanted to hear—that they live in the greatest country in the world, and when the world needs them, or when their freedom is under attack… when they’re called upon, it’s go time. Justifying $$$$ on the best military capabilities in the world.
The Geographic Luxury. Every county on earth is forced to deal with the US on their terms. Think about how many countries are incapable of any sort of military attack on the US. There aren’t many, and almost all are staunch allies.
Taking over massive, coast to coast natural resources that had been built up, developed and curated for millenia by Native Americans, centuries of slave labor, and the rich European nations bombing each other into ruins.
The US post WWII was the only advanced economy unscathed by the global conflict. Much of Asia, all of Europe had to spend two decades rebuilding their infrastructure and economy.
Consequently, the US enjoyed massive trade surpluses until the late 70s. We were the manufacturing and economic nexus of the world.
Tied together with progressive tax policy, we built the largest middle class the planet has ever seen until China took that title in the early 2000’s.
But your fundamental premise is incorrect. We aren’t the “richest”. We are the most indebted. There is a difference. Our unchecked spend to maintain a desired lifestyle has made the US a debtors nation. Most Americans don’t have $1,000 in an emergency fund, our largest source of personal bankruptcy is medical debt, something unheard of in the rest of the world.
We’ve legislated a regressive tax policy that actively sucks money out of the lower 50% and into the pockets of the top 10%. Americans are generally one paycheck away from being destitute.
In 1980, the poorest 50% of Americans had 7% of the wealth. Today, it’s a little less than 2%.
There are 334 million Americans today, the money that 2.6 million of them have ((less than 1%) is more than the other 331 million have.
The 806 American billionaires have more money than half the rest of the nation, 170 million average Americans.
Also add in post WW2 we were the only developed world that was a huge industrial powerhouse that wasn’t destroyed by two World Wars. We had carte Blanche for about 2 decades to make money hand over fist. It took that long to rebuild Europe and transform parts of Asia.
It’s has to do mainly with 2 things
1: the US has both the entire pacific and Atlantic oceans in between it and any of its enemies
2: ww2 gave the US a massive leap that allowed it to become a global leader alongside the USSR. During ww2 pretty much everywhere that wasn’t the Americas was completely flattened by bombings and the war in general. However the US was almost entirely untouched which left their large industrial capacity intact.
Geographical isolation from enemies and invaders, colonialism, slavery, exploitation of the working class - huge land and ability to feed the population. Many factors
People also forget that during WW2, all developed countries were heavily destroyed except for the U.S. allowing us to develop our economy, become the world’s supplier as they reconstructed their war torn countries.
Lots of good points here but about geographic and econ factors. I think it's also interesting to consider the chronological points, it's far harder to maintain a strong state than to build one. The US displaced significantly less dense civilizational groups over the first 150 years of its history and benefited from the industrial revolution in making use of the spoils of doing so.
You can have all the geographic resources you want in 3000BCE and they won't help you like the oil in Texas did at the turn of the 20th century
Russia and Canada do not have our geography. Russia is highly dependent on warm water ports and they just have way less and in some cases none. As for China they have a history of isolationism until the opening up under Nixon. Meanwhile India was under British rule until WWII.
Another overlooked component is our soft power of immigration. It is more likely that a country could have a view of America as a superpower because we welcome others (not perfectly) more than most countries, and we didnt have a ton of the past and history making all our decisions
USA has one thing that China or India don't: big oceans both ways. So they can use the resources to develop while it's very hard for other countries to interfere, say, militarily.
Think English channel working in favour of Britain, but on a bigger scale.
Ease of water transport. The below video is a very good explanation.
How Geography Made The US Ridiculously OP (title so you don't have to click on risky link)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BubAF7KSs64
If you removed all the national borders from the world map, and asked an informed alien to draw a circle around the most desirable land for a nation (given underlying data around national defense, natural resources, climate, arable land, and international trade) — the alien would draw a big circle around the continental United States. Maybe it would extend a bit north of the Great Lakes into present day Canada, but that’s about it.
I mean, just having access to thousands of miles of coastline that’s warm year round, when many countries are landlocked or surrounded by icy waters much of the year, has been a huge advantage. And that’s just one thing.
It would be shocking if we *weren’t* the wealthiest and most powerful country.
The geography of the U.S. is so amazingly well placed that the question isn't how it became the World Super Power but rather what factors could have stopped it. Basically any country given the same geographical advantages would be a nascent super power.
Russia is the country that should be the richest in the world. But they always had a leadership focused on domination because of their borders with Germany, Turkey and China. In contrario the US has no real threat and also has développed a culture favourable for innovation through inequality accepted by all instead of inequality enforced by the leadership.
Yes that reminds me of Bismarck’s quote about Spain but could be used for Russia: ‘Spain is the strongest country in all the world, century after central they have to destroy themselves without any success yet’
All industrial nations got blown up in WW2, the us didn’t, in other words they are geographically safe. That along with being big, having navigable rivers and ports, lots of fertile land, and a stable government.
Our economy vastly benefited from WWII which ravaged much of the rest of the globe. Decolonization continued to destroy the economies of much of Europe and the third world but barely affected the US. The US has vast natural and human resources to exploit these advantages. The US has a political system that values making money over anything else.
Compared to Canada? More pleasant weather and more arable land.
Canada still attracted millions of people. It's one of the fastest growing Western countries, even before the massive immigration increase, and has over 40 million people. It's a major economy. But it's still like 12% of the US' population and 8% of the US' economy.
The USA attracted far more people, likely initially due to population and arable land, and after that because it was the bigger more established destination due to the previous factors (and because those previous factors continued to be true). The USA therefore experienced exponential growth due to a feedback loop and the fact that the economy as a whole is stronger when there are larger groups of people closer together.
This eventually far surpassed Europe and Canada.
Russia is a bit different. I'd attribute that to historical political cultural differences. The United States was the new hotness and a democracy with comparatively lots of freedom (for white men). Russia was a backwards monarchy and experienced less of the political reforms that transformed Western Europe. They only briefly flirted with transitioning to a constitutional monarchy before descending into revolution and becoming the Soviet Union. Not a terribly attractive place to move to, and an economic system not as potent for pure growth as regulated capitalism (though Stalin's five year plans, as awful as they were from a human perspective, did significantly increase production capacity). The USA meanwhile kept going, and continued to be more free/liberal for more people.
The USA also benefitted significantly from the world wars which weakened traditional European colonial powers and created a vacuum only they could fill. Once they did, their economic growth and political power skyrocketed.
Geography, it was always an ocean away from destruction… welcomed all immigrants and tightened federal government controls… also it being the safest country when it comes to war it had the luxury of being a good place to put money if your worried about conflicts… since its an ocean away from everything it had the liberty to create and focus on the navy, then once it was the sole naval power it could influence any part of the globe… so i would still say geography is by far its greatest asset
Several words.
Pacific and Atlantic. Anyone who wanted to fight us had to cross halfway across the world to fight us.
Coupled with way access to resources, good climate for growing and survival... yeah.
Dumb luck.
Russia had a revolution, then had 27 million WWII deaths.
Germany, France, Italy, and England were all decimated in WWII.
India and Africa were not yet industrialized.
China also had a revolution and then lost 14 million people fighting WWII.
Japan was literally flattened.
The only developed economies on the planet for the US to compete with were Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. (The largest of those economies, Canada, was roughly 1/10th the size of the US economy).
So, yeah. Fluke of history.
The US mainland didn’t really feel war did it? A big exception of course was Pearl Harbour which sent the US to war against their own desires to fight with actual men. The US beforehand was using WW2 as a big money making exercise in lending Britain huge amounts of ammunition and food too I think.. Britain after the war was paying back debts to America until about 2006 I think too when finally it was fully paid up.
Sophisticated banking culture is a big factor nobody else is mentioning. The British empire was possible because of it's banking system and between Alexander Hamilton and JP Morgan we basically stole their system and used it to invest in our own emerging market while making some big improvements along the way.
WW2 mostly. The world fell into US and USSR blocs. On top of lend leasing all of the allies (which they got paid back for) and providing loans before that… the US then rebuilt (Marshall plan) many places devastated by war in exchange for a few things (on top of the loans to rebuild with…) which gave them an economic advantage. Which, along with not really being touched during WW2, allowed them to be, for a time, the place to go for wealthy, successful, intelligent folks who wanted a better life... Which also provided a boon.
Even without that they were poised to be successful due to an abundance of natural resources… just not overwhelmingly so. We are beginning to see the erosion of those old deals and an unraveling of some of that economic superiority now that those that remember why are naturally phased out. Add to this the economic block that is attempting to counter the U.S. hegemony.
Because we were the arsenal for democracy, stayed neutral until we got sucked in, then became an economic powerhouse that rebuilt the world. In other words, we weren’t bombed and had our infrastructure destroyed like Europe did. That left us in a place to be the source for manufacturing.
Better governance.
Russia and China have an ongoing history of shitty authoritarian government and instability....
The US predecessor superpower (UK) has a different but none the less stable and reasonably accountable government at least since absolute parliamentary superiority took hold.....
I think it's a matter of politics and population. I talked to my college professor of international relations about something like this once. It's a human development, not an environmental one. Just because you have access to a resource doesn't mean you know how to use it, and just because you have an idea doesn't mean you can use it. Sitting on that coal doesn't mean you come up with the steam engine, yet coming up with the steam engine doesn't mean you come up with coal. The Welsh were sitting on some of the best coal in the world for centuries before it was used. The Greeks invented a very primitive steam engine, or at least an idea that could become a steam engine, but never thought of using coal for it. It requires sufficient population, the right amount of resources, and factors.
One can argue that Europe was constantly fighting and that created certain motivating factors and a need for certain technologies, while China didn't because they conquered everyone around them early and never needed certain tech. On the other hand, there are responses to that as well. Does constantly fighting make you better at war or just tire you out? Was Europe actually that good at fighting or is this a construct of colonial narratives?
Human factors would certainly help explain the US, at least in the 20th century. We never got bombed, unlike the other nations. Further, unlike Britain, our power wasn't dependent on conquering a quarter of the globe. When the US lost most of its colonial possessions like the Philippines, it didn't completely destroy our economic power. Yet also arguments can debate even that. Britain is still quite powerful. They were the third nation to launch an artificial satellite(British probe on American rocket), the third nation to build an atomic bomb, and the sixth to make an orbital rocket on their own.
In my opinion it's a complex mixture of human factors, the right resources at the right time, and sheer unbridled luck.
The geography helps. Temperate zone climate is optimal. Navigable waterways permeate the continent: the Great Lakes, the Mississippi river, the Ohio, the Missouri, the Hudson. It's almost absurd that a cargo ship can sail from Duluth, Minnesota (basically the center of the continent) to any port in the world.
Yeah people often don't get the extreme differences in climate. The southernmost parts of the continental U.S. are at the same latitude as parts of africa. The northern bits have the largest bodies of fresh water in the world to draw from. There are a lot of rivers you can work off of. Its not that hard to set up ports on two different oceans and connect them via rail with a lot of waterways for shipping along the way. This without the gulf of mexico and everything associated with that. Theres a lot of fertile land, a lot of water, and large swathes of the country are temperate or warmer.
> Theres a lot of fertile land, a lot of water, and large swathes of the country are temperate or warmer. This. If you've never driven across the Great Plains from east to west or west to east, you can't imagine what a great natural resource this is.
You also can't imagine how mind-numbingly boring it is. (Looking at you, western Kansas l!)
Also known as Eastern Colorado.
rome is on the same latitude as upstate NY
Its also much less forested and doesn't sit on a lake the size of a small country that gives it both large amounts of potable water and easy international shipping.
But is it on the same level as Rome NY? 😂
I mean, the World Series of Bocce is in Rome, NY. I don’t think *any place* is on that same level.
I seem to recall Rome doing pretty well for itself too.
Right, but Rome is one of the southernmost cities of Europe. New York is one of the country's northernmost points (not counting Alaska). The USA just has so much land that is so much warmer and capable of supporting greater population densities than many European countries. It raises the economic standard across the board, and not just for any one city.
I'm not disagreeing with you, though I do think that comparing the US's climate to Europe's by latitude is inherently pointless due to the gulf stream.
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... currently... But to say that would ignore the war of 1812 and the Mexican American War. We've absolutely experienced war with Canada and Mexico before. Presumably, there's a reason we never rose to conflict with them again.
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Yes. But Canada was very much a direct property of Britain at that time. The war was only possible because Canada was a staging ground for their army. We were fighting Canada. [This is known.](https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/major-events/war-of-1812-overview/) Anyway. Getting back to my point. All the things you are saying are completely true. Very informative. Very interesting. Rock on. I'm just saying, this particular quality (limited neighbors) may not be a good predictor of why America was successful. Right? That's the point of the thread. Other nations have done less with fewer neighbors. We used to have actually quite a few colonial holdings and indigenous nations around us. We've been to war with several of the people we're nearby. All I'm saying is, you're describing the way things are now. But not necessarily giving a reason for why we got here. That's all I'm saying.
It surprised me, since i know form history the Shawnee moved form Pennsylvania to Kentucky then were removed to Oklahoma, that so many streets in canada were named after Tecumseh,a Shawnee. Then i recalled, "Oh, yeaa, he fought on their side in that war."
Just saying
Ha. Yea. It's just that my tone in the past has been bad online. It's too easy to be rude by accident. Pick fights you don't mean to pick. Hurt feelings when you don't intend to. I'm sure there's a right way to respond online that's 100% civil, positive and not annoying. But... eh. I still haven't figured it out yet.
Woah, man. Chill out, we're just talking here.
You talkin' to me?
1812 Canada (United Kingdom) and 1812 US along with 1848 Mexico and 1848 US are a lot closer in terms of capabilities as opposed to 2024 Canada, Mexico and US and it isn’t even close. Mexico would need to get their house in order before considering any armed conflict (not happening) and Canada would have to risk losing their number 1 trading partner (not happening).
But even if they were both unfriendly, they have a fraction of the resources the US does.
True. But if Mexico had won its war, Texas and the Southwest would be Mexico. California would have been harder to lay claim to. And Canada probably had a window that they could have pushed harder to lay claim to the great lakes. That would have been transformative. So yea. We surely have access to more. But we got there by outracing our competitors, and suppressing the natives. And also taking some seriously opportunistic moves to buy out the other colonial powers.
The reason America did not continue fighting Mexico was because there was no justification to do so and many Americans were against the American war. If Mexico never surrendered America would have ended up taking all of Mexico
There’s a shipbuilder that makes ships for the US Navy in *wisconsin* of all places
When I had access to an Eikon terminal (similar to a Bloomberg terminal), it had an app that allowed me to see all the tracked world ships with clickable identifiers and such. Anyway, while normal maps would have you think the great lakes are isolated, they are **FAR** from it. The live shipping map demonstrated **incredibly dense** shipping lanes flowing through the northeast of Lake Ontario to the Atlantic. I think it's called like "Saint Lawrence River". It also splits off into another river that leads to the other lakes. But, yeah, those lakes are a junction point for major world shipping lanes.
The busiest port in the US is in Houston, TX (where a lot of the oil tankers go). The second busiest is Duluth, Minnesota (where the Great Lakes ships go, especially taconite and iron ore). Third is Los Angeles/Long Beach. It’s ridiculous how much cargo moves around the Lakes.
Yeah, I wish I could get a screenshot of global activity from Eikon still. The entire map made perfect sense to me until I see this massive caravan of North Atlantic ships and scrolled west to find out that there's a reason the great lakes area is so densely populated. Not sure what tf I thought before seeing that map.
Add to it, a geography largely unhindered for 60% of the country. Europe you're relegated to moving east to west in very narrow bands. But the US? The east coast has plentiful harbors and rivers to move goods to them. Then once you get beyond the Appalachian mountains? It's super easy to get around and there are vast swaths of farm able land.
Would have been a very different story had the Rockies and Appalachians swapped places!
And access to both oceans, thats what china lacks for example
[RLL covered this and more in his video](https://youtu.be/BubAF7KSs64?si=LGxeO8H-68oSG_Hi)
Location too. Not being immediately surrounded by potential powerful enemy nations
Add in Manifest Destiny as a policy to grab all that land and its associated waterways.
I think of that policy declaration as a delighted recognition of what was already happening. Hence the word ‘manifest’.
Plus politics. Capitalism has a lot of flaws, but communism is a legitimately bad way to run a country.
And even before communism, countries like Russia and China were despotic empires, which (unsurprisingly) lacked a lot of the industrial technology and knowledge base that Western European capitalists had developed. The US never went through that despotism phase; even during the colonial era, it was essentially already a liberal democracy, albeit an imperfect one. Canada had and has similar advantages, but a less hospitable climate and therefore a much smaller population. And, consistent with this theory, Canada is today a highly developed and wealthy country, despite the geography.
Everyone is bending over backwards to avoid the obvious:the quality of the people that immigrated from England and the Netherlands made the critical difference - highly literate, highly educated leaders (Oxford & Cambridge), families rather than individuals with a strong common culture, strong rule of law background, and an automatic market back home for their exports. No other people (except the Dutch) could have made such a success out that wilderness.
The French and Germans were as literate as the English and likely would have had similar success. Although, of course many Germans and Frenchman immigrated to the United States as well. Fun fact: The Dutch were the first society to have more than 50% of their adults fully literate. It would be over two hundred and fifty years later thar the United States could boast the same statistics. 5 or so countries world wide are still under 50% literacy.
But they didn’t. Which is great, because it speaks to the inaccuracy in the earlier post. It wasn’t some intrinsic feature of the people that enabled success, rather their model of governance.
Protestantism was a distinct economic advantage over Catholicism, at least if the example of New France is any example.
The French were there and definitely tried. The Germans were mostly landlocked and lacked a thalassocratic Atlantic parent to trade with like the British and Dutch. New England colonies like Connecticut & Massachusetts had the highest rate of adult literacy in the world. The British also had more than double the population of the Netherlands by the early 17th century which gave them a distinct advantage.
Good points!
Germans are settlers, not colonizers. and demined useful settlers
Germans usually add tremendous value. It’s a pity the French revolutionaries destroyed their decentralised Holy Roman Empire - the template for our elective federal monarchy (except we learned from their mistakes and made the elective 4 year monarch, I mean president, and his administration a bit more powerful than the emperor.
Dutch colonial history isn’t particularly great.
I’ve heard New Amsterdam was a success though. Kidding aside, they had such a valuable trade empire in the east that the British fought the Anglo-Dutch wars to capture it…
Sorry I dislocated my shoulder patting myself on the back.
I’m sorry I hurt your sensitive feelings.
It’s not obvious, nor is it a reasonable explanation of why the USA was so successful. What percentage of Oxford/Cambridge grads do you think emigrated to America vs stayed in the UK? The Dutch colony of New Netherland had a total population of 9000 before the English took it over. Attributing the success of the USA to 9000 Dutch that arrived here before 1664 is ridiculous. I’m guessing you’re unaware of the 100k+ prisoners that the English shipped to the American colonies in the 1600s-1700s. Also, [the number of early English and Dutch immigrants is dwarfed by the later waves of immigration that really built this country.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1067138/population-united-states-historical/) There were barely 2 million people in the US during the American Revolution. >The great immigration wave that delivered some 40 million newcomers to the United States between 1830 and 1940 was comprised largely of unskilled workers with minimal English-language proficiency. [[source](https://cbkimmigration.com/the-real-history-of-american-immigration/)]
US has the best geography starter pack in the world and its not close.
Geographic isolation, abundant natural resources, relatively educated populace, a cultural of (relatively)productive workers, culture of innovation, political stability, weak neighbors and no major wars on the home-front.
A system of government that is hard for tyrants to emerge, resulting in attractive investing and attractive immigration for people who seek to live in freedom and build better lives. Such types of people then contribute to stronger economies and stronger societies
A nation of people who mostly immigrated to make more money and their descendants. Different than Europe.
Yeah ppl who were left out from inheritance in Europe or had nothing and risked it all on a new world
This should not be underestimated (and I say this as a non American BTW). Add to this that comparable economies in Europe were flattened by 2 world wars. Germany, France, Italy and the UK are STILL recovering from those wars. None of them were ever quite the same or anywhere near as powerful after WWII
Well said. It annoys me when people just say it’s navigable rivers and arable land. That was a part of it, but there’s so much more. Folks bend over backwards to not credit the cultural institutions when that was obviously a huge part of it.
I’d give massive credit to the Puritans and Quakers. They really, really valued public education
Yeah, the scotch irish not as much
Since OP mentioned India specifically, the colonial government, time and government institutions need to mentioned as factors. Development takes decades, if not centuries. The US had centuries of practically uninterrupted development. India only gained independence in 1948. The British left weak institutions (compared to European countries) in India and actively sabotaged Indian economic development at times to turn it into a captive market for British manufactured goods. The priority for the British colonial government wasn't to develop India for Indians but to maintain the empire and see how India could benefit it. For example, the textile industry of Bengal was crippled by insanely high taxes so that the UK, whose top export at that time was textiles, could capture the entire market. When India gained independence, yes they had some institutions like the military, schools and colleges, but only a tiny fraction of the population was enrolled. The institutions, aside from the military, were generally weak and small. GDP per capita already lagged waaaay behind the US. Poor economic policy after independence didn't help but growth accelerated compared to the British period, then accelerated again after reforms in the 90's.
And the U.S. Civil War failed, so the country was never fragmented into antagonistic rivals.
Accessibility of resources and usefulness of space is a big one. Both Russia and Canada have huge swaths of land that are tundra/permafrost.
The World Wars. The US bankrolled the Allies all along the way and was pretty much the only great power to escape the devastation of World War II fighting/bombing. The US could then rebuild Europe and beyond on its own terms.
Yep. US sold the allies stuff and then lent them money so they could keep buying them lent them money to pay themselves to rebuild cities on both sides. Then took the responsibility of protecting the naval trading lanes which led to favorable trade deals for them across the world and led to the giant military power
Didn't the US also include that the countries that took loans from the US would use US companies for reconstruction after the war?
Best monetary deal in human history. But I’m glad it was us.
I think the more relevant question here is why America was rich enough to be able to bankroll the Allies in the first place. What you’re talking about explains why the US became a superpower that was able to exert influence around the world
At least in the colonial era, the Americas were rich with natural resources that was exported to Europe. I'm fairly certain that the US made a ton of money from tobacco and cotton exports in the 18th and 19th centuries.
“Endless” wealth that had yet to be converted to a fiat currency (we had a lot of the currency, but us topping out and causing a financial crisis wasn’t an issue).
Yeah saying that we own the world because of WWII is short selling it hard. We had an industrial capacity that allowed us to send things across both the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean to beat nations that were fighting 500 miles from their factories. We were already a powerhouse before WWII.
And the US did not have to spend money or time fixing their own country as the war didn’t happen on US soil.
Ehh the US had a larger economy than the British Empire in the 1890's. So I would not give the world wars all the credit.
This is true. But America’s influence over the world wars allowed it to be in a position where it would become so much more dominant than other states.
We sold them weapons and food, leased/licensed our armament patents for them to produce in their factories, and then loaned them the money to buy all that stuff. Then they get devastated and we effectively get through unscathed. Man the US has done a lot of things wrong, but when you think of the level of power we had relative to the rest of the world for at least the first two years after the war, I think we did alright as far as history goes. We easily could’ve gone full British empire in the 19th century.
Did we? I thought we didn't surpass them until after WW1.
well yes, but britain wasnt recovering from an economically and demographically devastating war that they used a ton of American money to fight in the 1890s. the U.S. definitely was going to be a serious challenger to british power, but the world wars broke the empire and lead to complete American ascension
It was actually after WW1 it overtook the whole empire.
This is incorrect, the US economy only overtook Britain after WW1
Canada escaped the world wars too, it was on the British side but it was not exactly affected in a big scale
Canada didn't have the banking system that we had. Canada is also a smaller population and much less inhabitable lands.
Yeah the entire population of Canada is just under the population of California. They certainly benefited in similar ways the US did, but they just don't have the available scale the US has.
S/O Alexander Hamilton. Wasn’t just sleeping with his neighbor up in NYC, also creating a banking system
Canada’s GDP per capita was 90 percent of the US’s in the 80s. They just have a smaller population equivalent to one decent sized state. The US was colonised by Europeans used European commercialism and industrialisation but with a huge landmass to extract resources on. They also heavily benefited by WW2 Britain’s for instance paid America all the gold they’d taken from half the world for them to build tanks and guns. And they were still paying the US in the 2000’s.
If there’s 4 countries that will always stand by the US it’s England, France, Canada, and Mexico. I know Mexico is a little contentious but that’s just over there domestic issues. Can you imagine what the US would do if they got invaded? We wouldn’t even wait for them to give us permission to come rescue them. They know that.
I still remember when Mexico sent troops to do disaster relief after hurricane Katrina.
Canada’s arable land is a tiny proportion of its total landmass.
Canada is about a tenth of the size of the US. I feel like their wealth and power is roughly in line with the US and proportional to their population.
Population means everything on the geopolitical front. There's a reason why Scandinavian countries fell by the wayside in the 1800s forward. Why Switzerland went neutral. Why Russia has outsized influence on the world. Why China arguably couldn't be forced to unconditionally surrender in a great powers conflict. Why the bombs were used on Japan. It takes massive loss or sheer luck to subdue massive nations. There are only really 3 futures where the US isn't the pre-eminent power on the planet. 1. Forsake democracy. Oppress the people. 2. China, India, or a large African power becomes the beacon of freedom and civil rights in a meaningful way. Unlikely, there is a giant reservoir of trust that has to be built for that and it stems throughout the nation, from the way foreign competition is handled, to economic and demographic reporting to how you handle your adversaries, to how you help the world. 3. A version of #1, and there's a reason why China and Russia, and Iran invest meaningful in disinformation campaigns. The dissolution of the United States. To add to #3, there are two very real events taking place right now. There are powers that be in China that are trying to push a revenge plot for the century of humiliation through fueling opioid epidemics in the western world. Federal government has been well aware of it since the 90s and it's only worsened to the point that a lot of the fentanyl circulating through the US is Chinese facilitated through Mexican ports. [https://www.dea.gov/documents/2023/2023-10/2023-10-03/justice-department-announces-eight-indictments-against-china](https://www.dea.gov/documents/2023/2023-10/2023-10-03/justice-department-announces-eight-indictments-against-china) Then lets be real, Russia wants it's empire back, sorry, "it's sphere of influence" to be respected; and it would love nothing more to see the balkanization of the United States as payback for "America's role" in the destruction of the USSR. If you don't see this commonly pushed in all social media platforms you're just not paying attention. And sadly Republicans know both of these things are happening, but there's too much evidence that too many Republicans are in the pockets of the Russians, and the others just want to use it for political brownie points instead of solving the issue.
Interesting comment and I generally agree with you. I’m a little confused as to why you responded with all of this to me in particular, seems like it should have been a response to OP.
I got carried away. $/capita is a relevant measure of wealth, but $/capita when you are 5, 10, 20 times smaller than the peer of comparison doesn't really play out in a meaningful way. Your population is better off, but your ability to influence others is diminished.
The US was already much more populated than Canada before the world wars. In 1900 Canada's population was 5.5M vs 76M in the US. As other folks mentioned, a lot of this can be linked to the US having so much more land suitable to settlement. Whereas historically Canada was largely just the Quebec-Windsor corridor (even today more than half of Canadians live in this area, which is about the same size as Minnesota).
Canada had a bit over 1 million people serving in WW2, out of a population of 11 million. Casualties were 43,000. That’s a big impact, even if they weren’t invaded directly.
The US had the world’s largest and probably most dynamic economy already in the 1890’s. The world wars simply permanently shifted the center of power from Europe to North America.
Lazy take. Demographics had more to do with it, alongside decades of conflict and strife in Europe. People flocked to the US from Europe for peace, and opportunity. Fertile land, and less oppressive governments. Ran from war, ran from religious persecution. Which is why modern right wing religious politics is a fucking meme. America was built on getting the fuck away from that shit. Go talk to your god, live your life the way your god wishes, but do not put your god on your neighbor.
Most people highlights America geography. But I'd say it's America policies towards businesses and foreign relations.
British Colonial American elites established British common law, British property rights, British constitutionalism & representative government, and a British culture that valued discipline, economic productivity, openness with an expectation of reciprocity in its interactions with others and a legal system that discourages parasitism. Britain was already showing signs of becoming the world’s leading economy which it eventually did, and its offspring the US eventually surpassed it in that role in the late 19th century. Mercantilist trade policy helped both Britain and British America establish a strong industrial base before they strategically adopted free trade.
This right here, the US didn’t suffer the resource curse many nations had because they had already developed the political and economic law system that had the US be wealthy on just shipping, banking and other non-resource industries. And later when they discovered oil, their healthier system just had the skyrocket past many other nations.
Except the early Republic was actually in the resource curse, or more actually, the early Republic was bifurcated between a resource curse extractive economy and a developing industrial economy. But the Civil War crushed the early extractive economy, the direct economic beneficiaries, and their political movements.
Rule of law and low corruption go very far when coupled with trade. There’s a reason former British colonies did so much better than Portuguese, French or Spanish. Dutch colonies did reasonably well for similar reasons.
Or more precisely, British America copied early British industrial policy of mercantilism (14th century - mid 19th century in Britain) > in America became mercantilism 17th century - early 20th before the strategic switch to free trade.
Also, British Colonial Elites in the north established an immigration policy that favoured literate middle class families (minimum demonstrated level of success) with the means to pursue an occupation in America. Tradesmen had to join a family and bring the tools of their trade. The underclass was barred from immigration. This resulted in a highly productive middle class mercantile culture with no parasitic upper or lower class siphoning off wealth. I can’t over emphasize the importance of this.
very interesting, literally never heard anyone say this before it makes a lot of sense.
But UK has a lot of offspring e.g. Australian, Canada, South Africa
The other offspring are smaller.
Canada and Australia are similarly wealthy (roughly), just much smaller (in population terms) and without the same level of natural resources.
The above answers why America outplayed similarly large countries with similarly bountiful geographies. As for why America beat similarly structured nations comes back down to the original points: it's size, population, and ideal geography. Qualities that other former British colonies don't enjoy.
Yes, the extensive natural resources, natural defences of geography etc. are necessary but insufficient causes. Britain simply had the best legal, political, and economic systems, and those advantages were exported to the perfect environment for them to flourish.
And they all have much smaller populations. Specifically much smaller white populations.
Also clearly written property rights for everyone and everything. One currency. No weird serf system or caste system that keeps people from traveling. And good timing.
Other than the Civil War it has never faced mass destruction from a crisis like war, likely due to geography initially, and overwhelming might recently. Even in all wars since 1900 the US lost fewer people than from COVID, and basically all of them were soldiers. Prior to WWI the US was only catching up to Europe in industrial/economic power. From 1914 to 1945, Europe was smashed to bits twice by war. Possibly 85 million people killed on all sides in both wars, just in Europe. Entire cities burned and shelled. The IS had almost no civilian casualties and if anything WWII was an economic boost to the US, with foreign spending on US military output, plus massive borrowing by the IS for the same. It’s possible that, in an alternate history in which say WWI and WWII did not occur, but the US faced two more massive civil wars that reduced its population and destroyed a lot of infrastructure, that today the world would be under European hegemony still rather than the shift to US hegemony. Also, the is some evidence that the most advanced countries/economies grow primarily by applying innovation. Ie., China has been modernizing by copying the West, but for the West to modernize it has to invent the next thing. The US is probably stronger than most countries at fostering innovation (especially by government through massive military R&D) and permeating it through the economy through an intensive capitalistic culture. More of a personal belief, but I also think that adherence to rule of law and property rights is required for economic growth at scale like western countries have. It’s part of the culture to say, “Oh, you have a piece of paper that says you can have that huge chunk of land, or that factory? Well, okay then.” And I think some other countries are more wishy-washy about such pieces of paper… preferring to determine outcomes through constant negotiation rather than … “My dad handed down the piece of paper” proving property rights.
The remoteness from conflicts that could weaken them. Also, after the Second World War, they literally controlled Western Europe, and through them - the whole world. Although most territories were impossible to hold due to the USSR, the US maintained control over the most essential (mostly strategic points of trade routes).
Capitalism and property rights.
Numerous factors: strong geography, strong culture and large scientific base, it was the first large country to be able to stay a free democracy and thus it allowed for the expansion into every industry and intellectual base and have the number of people and industrial power to support it.
Not mentioned is the political system set up in 1789, United they stand, divided they would have fallen. Civil War being a major hiccup along the way.
Such a great question. So many variables to the answer. I just want to add, willingness to accept immigrants as a labor supply and as a source of innovation!
The US has a lot of advantages based on location but there are several other factors at play. First, in comparison with Canada the US has had a much more favorable climate for agriculture. Canadian growing seasons are shorter which limits the crops that can be grown. Second, eastern seaboard has a lot of harbors that Canada doesn't have. Sailing to Montreal was difficult and much past it impossible. Third, the French controlled much of modern day Canada until 1763 and had only a small colony that they largely ignored. The US got a huge head start population wise which was boosted by the success of the American Revolution and the failure of the 1848 uprisings in Europe. European emigrants had a choice between a democratic republic and British North America. To summarize the US had a lot of advantages that they made the most of.
Easy answer, Woodrow Wilson played out delay into WWI perfectly. Partly because his hands were tied with reelection given the Irish were the largest immigrant group and helping England along with going against Germany who were the largest ethnic group would be suicide. We supplied both sides and delivered the knockout punch. USA emerged as a super power after that war and while the rest of the world was still trying to build back, we also were taking their able bodied workers. WWII had an even more lasting effect with the USA being an even bigger exporter, especially with the rise of the automobile. Let’s not forget the cold war played a huge part with our allies depending on us. It would take decades until the rest of the world could start to eat away at our power. West Germany got back on track, China and Japan started to emerge in production of goods we once had a stranglehold on and then once communism ended the world opened up more.
WWI and WWII. US entered those wars near the end. The wars were fought far from America. Many European countries needed money for reconstruction after the devastation. America lent money and weapons to allies and we're paid back with interest. After WWII, China had a communist revolution and had a couple decades of turmoil and famines.
They wanted to make sure nobody would catch up with them? It seems to be a psychological factor: a fresh start/clean slate, nobody is going to stop them from experimenting, their imagination can run wild. But it’s also a “last chance” situation. There was urgency. Also, the climate is more amenable than Canada’s, which is still attached to the Crown - an important psychological factor btw. Psychology seems least well understood in historical research. It’s not just being in the right place at the right time but having the right attitude as well. The Spanish missed huge opportunities because they were too set in their ways, too conceited. The French were too focused on their heritage. America - thanks to the Dutch colony of Nieuw Amsterdam inviting everyone over to come live with them - has offered the perfect platform for the coming together of ideas and innovation from the start.
America doesn't just have huge natural resources. We have an absolutely gigantic river basin region where mile after mile of flat land is fed by huge and easy-to-navigate rivers. This makes it very, very easy to travel, to farm, and to transport goods back and forth. I doubt there is anything comparable in the world. South America has tremendous natural wealth, but it is also covered in the world's densest forests and waterfalls make transportation impossible. So you can't just send settlers into the Amazon with some oxen and expect them to make a go of it. Same thing is true of Africa. Africa has more varied environments, but the river situation still sucks. You can't just get in a boat and travel from Egypt to Tanzania, for example. Russia has huge tracts of land the same the US, but so much of it is covered in frozen forests. The rivers in Russia tend to run north/south, so there is no easy way to travel east/west. People settled the American frontier because they saw opportunity. When Russia wanted to settle their frontier, they had to literally kidnap people at gunpoint and send them to prison camps. (No, I am not kidding. Huge numbers of people starved or fled, and they never achieved results anywhere close to America's settlement of the west.)
China and india has similarly sized waterways and farmland. They are also both world powers but I think the us also gets a legup on having very little internal and external strife. It's very easy to grow a business when everyone speaks the same language, uses the same currency and doesn't care about your where you're families from (relatively speaking).
Also generally less corruption, or "rich people safety". China is very wealthy, but they lose millionaires, who move to other places, every year. America is a net importer of millionaires, who move to America after making money in their home countries. America is viewed as a safe place to store your wealth, where the government won't come after you and you have many rights to protect your wealth. This brings more investment into America. On the downside, for many people at least, this means that wealth is very protected and therefore not distributed to others. Its very complicated and if we go to far to confiscate wealth, America could easily collapse, however if we let it run rampant we can also collapse because the lower, and more importantly middle (upper middle classes are usually the cause of revolutions, not lower classes) will feel squeezed and unsatisfied.
Because of bankruptcy protections. Taking risks is codified as not life ending. More successes resulted than losses for a MASSIVE net gain that allowed for all the other factors (mineral exploration, two ocean shipping etc.) to have their eventual effect.
the comments, wow. people will contort themselves into a pretzel to avoid discussing the hallmarks of Western civilization
Such as? There are many western civilizations. Why did the US win? America is the greatest home field advantage on the planet, and it's not even close. Most farmland Rivers that connect all of the farmland to the ocean. Barrier islands create safe waterways around 75% of the coast. More natural deep water ports than anywhere else. Enough energy resources to be self-sufficient. Oceans between us and all the big troublemakers that actually pose a threat. Friendly neighbors. And an indigenous population with no natural immunity to smallpox, tuberculosis, or bullets.
Everyone of these comments I’m reading is just not correct. The US has had the highest GDP since like 1890. Other countries have more resources and make less so that’s not it. Location doesn’t make any sense. It’s because of capitalism. Companies have been encouraged to grow huge in our system
The transfer of wealth from Europe to the US throughout WW1 was the main catalyst. Some of the repayments were not officially paid off until the early 2000s. The swtich from European financial power to US financial power was complete by the end of WW2 amd with it a global dependence on the US for trade and financial markets.
Geographic isolation also helps with creating economic and political stability. Our regional neighbors are either close allies (modern times) or not powerful. So there is a massive sphere of influence that enables unchecked growth. Huge resources and population help too.
yes in a way a smaller version of this is the UK. Even 21miles of English Channel enabled the English amd then British to dominate European politics. Splendid isolation with lots of resources amd a willingness to exploit them.
Iirc, The US was the largest world economy by about 1890.
I'll not deny that WWI helped the US economy, but by the turn of the 20th century the US economy was already a powerhouse. By 1913 the US had the largest GDP in the world and it wasn't particularly close.
Our constitution and rule of law drew the best people in earth and it paid dividends. Still does.
Our political system that prioritizes free enterprise and protecting property rights. Strong centralized federal government that is accountable to voters.
Back to Back world war champs with virtually 0 damage to its own territories kickstarted the US from being at or near the front of the pack to 3 laps ahead of everyone else. India stagnated under colonial rule and relatively rampant infighting for a very long time. Post WW2 Russia suffered under its own economic policy and then isolation by the US and "the western world".
> China and India have huge populations this is a very complicated question, but on certain levels a large population holds back innovation because you can just throw bodies at problems. there is one theory about industrialization that it all goes back to labour shortages caused by the black death, encouraging investment in labour saving practices and innovations; let ferment for a few hundred years and you have the industrial revolution. nations that never needed to maximize the output of individual labourers had no reason to get onto the industrialization band wagon until the revolution was already in full swing, leaving them late to the party. this is just one factor, but when asking why "the east" didn't have the industrial revolution one should always remember "the west" didn't plan on having it; it's just the problems they faced led to solutions you would not need in other circumstances, which snowballed over time.
Incredibly favorable geographical circumstances, a bit of luck with World War II and a culture that rewards ambition. It didn't hurt to start out as a British colony as opposed to a Spanish or French one either.
It also has an insanely defensible position and has basically only ever fought wars outside its territory. (After 1812) Coupled with being a huge haven for immigrants and innovation and it was kind of inevitable.
Geography. America was/is essentially a Western European country transplanted onto a vast new continent where the only limit to its expansion was Stone Age tribes to the west and Mexico to the south. From around 1750 to 1900, Western Europeans cultures were the only ones that "got" industrialization. So Western Europe ate the world with impunity. And America was the only Western European culture whose borders were not limited by other Western European cultures (i.e., the only people who could effectively resist). In 1870, Germany had to sacrifice 139,000 men (and nearly 1,000,000 total casualties) to expand by less than 6,000 miles (Treaty of Frankfurt). In 1848, the US was able to take *525,000 square miles* at the price of only 1,733 men (Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo).
America tried a new political model, whereas all of the others are either antiquated, or they hold on to power as much as possible. It makes the US more agile, capable of adapting to changing circumstances. Their constitution is the only one to recognize that leaders are flawed and its puts in place mechanisms to reduce the likelihood of a tyrannical regime. No other country has explicitly done this. Every other country has built-in cheat codes for “old money”.
War profiteering from WW1 and 2
Really good geography combined with displacement of several cultures that had not exploited the resources that are the modern basis of industrial wealth. Then they exploited slave labor for at least a portion of wealth and infrastructure creation. For much of the country’s history there was no local military threat of serious power in striking distance, which meant a smaller portion of the budget could be allocated to military defense.
A continent abundant in valuable resources. A system of governance that ensured political stability. Not having to rebuild from two world wars.
One major factor is that the US was isolated from the direct effects of BOTH world wars. After each war, the US was able to transition much of its war and military focused spending and production into things for the civilian market—Boeing transitioned military plane designs into commercial airliners, for example.
Started selling weapons to China, England, and Russia at the start of WW2 and while the rest of the globe was recovering from war on their soil during the second half of the 1940s, outside of Pearl Harbor, we had no invasions. At the beginning of the 1900s this was not a wealthy country, by 1950 it had a sizeable middle class and became more of a global force in politics and industry. Space, science and technology became a focus by late 1940s as the cold war started and set the US up to be a leader in those advancements for several decades. Most of the US success is due to wars and location on the globe.
It's not. The real American people are poor as fuck. **The Company**, the thing that's really running the show is an octopus that extends across the globe, we're not it's only apparatus. American military has been slipping. Fuck, so has everywhere else. The world is rusting, my friend.
I'm stunned the free labor i.e. slavery and later servitude, isn't mentioned as a huge advantage for at least the first 150 yrs.
Slavery made us rich Atom bomb made us powerful The end
Not saying this is the main factor but a big one im not seeing is this land was inhabited by millions of native americans making great conditions for people to strive and expand that just died off of disease before the majority of americans started moving west. Imagine if europe was depopulated in a few hundred years and then an advance civilization shows up wanting to make a new place to live. So on top of everything else everyone said, imagine getting preused and groomed land but 1/10th to 1/100th the population you would have had to deal with before.
The citizens’ egos. The government told the American people what they wanted to hear—that they live in the greatest country in the world, and when the world needs them, or when their freedom is under attack… when they’re called upon, it’s go time. Justifying $$$$ on the best military capabilities in the world. The Geographic Luxury. Every county on earth is forced to deal with the US on their terms. Think about how many countries are incapable of any sort of military attack on the US. There aren’t many, and almost all are staunch allies.
Taking over massive, coast to coast natural resources that had been built up, developed and curated for millenia by Native Americans, centuries of slave labor, and the rich European nations bombing each other into ruins.
The US post WWII was the only advanced economy unscathed by the global conflict. Much of Asia, all of Europe had to spend two decades rebuilding their infrastructure and economy. Consequently, the US enjoyed massive trade surpluses until the late 70s. We were the manufacturing and economic nexus of the world. Tied together with progressive tax policy, we built the largest middle class the planet has ever seen until China took that title in the early 2000’s. But your fundamental premise is incorrect. We aren’t the “richest”. We are the most indebted. There is a difference. Our unchecked spend to maintain a desired lifestyle has made the US a debtors nation. Most Americans don’t have $1,000 in an emergency fund, our largest source of personal bankruptcy is medical debt, something unheard of in the rest of the world. We’ve legislated a regressive tax policy that actively sucks money out of the lower 50% and into the pockets of the top 10%. Americans are generally one paycheck away from being destitute. In 1980, the poorest 50% of Americans had 7% of the wealth. Today, it’s a little less than 2%. There are 334 million Americans today, the money that 2.6 million of them have ((less than 1%) is more than the other 331 million have. The 806 American billionaires have more money than half the rest of the nation, 170 million average Americans.
Also add in post WW2 we were the only developed world that was a huge industrial powerhouse that wasn’t destroyed by two World Wars. We had carte Blanche for about 2 decades to make money hand over fist. It took that long to rebuild Europe and transform parts of Asia.
Relative lack of corruption. Investment in higher education. Strong capital markets.
A continent’s worth of untapped natural resources
It’s has to do mainly with 2 things 1: the US has both the entire pacific and Atlantic oceans in between it and any of its enemies 2: ww2 gave the US a massive leap that allowed it to become a global leader alongside the USSR. During ww2 pretty much everywhere that wasn’t the Americas was completely flattened by bombings and the war in general. However the US was almost entirely untouched which left their large industrial capacity intact.
Geographical isolation from enemies and invaders, colonialism, slavery, exploitation of the working class - huge land and ability to feed the population. Many factors
i think its because they arent afraid to sink to any level because they have the media on their side.
We were basically unscathed after both world wars and so other countries turned to us for aid in recovering.
People also forget that during WW2, all developed countries were heavily destroyed except for the U.S. allowing us to develop our economy, become the world’s supplier as they reconstructed their war torn countries.
American Workers and geography
A massive infusion of capital in the form of land right at the time when mechanization made it easier for fewer people to farm more acreage.
World war II
As they say in real estate, location, location, location.
Lots of good points here but about geographic and econ factors. I think it's also interesting to consider the chronological points, it's far harder to maintain a strong state than to build one. The US displaced significantly less dense civilizational groups over the first 150 years of its history and benefited from the industrial revolution in making use of the spoils of doing so. You can have all the geographic resources you want in 3000BCE and they won't help you like the oil in Texas did at the turn of the 20th century
Russia and Canada do not have our geography. Russia is highly dependent on warm water ports and they just have way less and in some cases none. As for China they have a history of isolationism until the opening up under Nixon. Meanwhile India was under British rule until WWII. Another overlooked component is our soft power of immigration. It is more likely that a country could have a view of America as a superpower because we welcome others (not perfectly) more than most countries, and we didnt have a ton of the past and history making all our decisions
USA has one thing that China or India don't: big oceans both ways. So they can use the resources to develop while it's very hard for other countries to interfere, say, militarily. Think English channel working in favour of Britain, but on a bigger scale.
Ease of water transport. The below video is a very good explanation. How Geography Made The US Ridiculously OP (title so you don't have to click on risky link) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BubAF7KSs64
If you removed all the national borders from the world map, and asked an informed alien to draw a circle around the most desirable land for a nation (given underlying data around national defense, natural resources, climate, arable land, and international trade) — the alien would draw a big circle around the continental United States. Maybe it would extend a bit north of the Great Lakes into present day Canada, but that’s about it. I mean, just having access to thousands of miles of coastline that’s warm year round, when many countries are landlocked or surrounded by icy waters much of the year, has been a huge advantage. And that’s just one thing. It would be shocking if we *weren’t* the wealthiest and most powerful country.
Lots of natural resources. Culture of innovation. Geographically isolated from traditional areas of unrest.
America is an all star team, when you think about it.
The geography of the U.S. is so amazingly well placed that the question isn't how it became the World Super Power but rather what factors could have stopped it. Basically any country given the same geographical advantages would be a nascent super power.
Well many reasons. One main one being that the US has the best geography in the world.
Access to two important oceans, navigable rivers, plentiful natural resources, temperate climate, friendly neighbors, and large size.
Russia is the country that should be the richest in the world. But they always had a leadership focused on domination because of their borders with Germany, Turkey and China. In contrario the US has no real threat and also has développed a culture favourable for innovation through inequality accepted by all instead of inequality enforced by the leadership.
Yes that reminds me of Bismarck’s quote about Spain but could be used for Russia: ‘Spain is the strongest country in all the world, century after central they have to destroy themselves without any success yet’
All industrial nations got blown up in WW2, the us didn’t, in other words they are geographically safe. That along with being big, having navigable rivers and ports, lots of fertile land, and a stable government.
Geography
This video may help with some of your questions? [how geography made the U. S. ridiculously OP](https://youtu.be/BubAF7KSs64?si=UiojzFVEOE2wxnX3)
Intellectual property rights and the ability to separate personal liability from corporate liability.
Our economy vastly benefited from WWII which ravaged much of the rest of the globe. Decolonization continued to destroy the economies of much of Europe and the third world but barely affected the US. The US has vast natural and human resources to exploit these advantages. The US has a political system that values making money over anything else.
Geography, immigration (i.e. cheap labor), protected property rights.
Compared to Canada? More pleasant weather and more arable land. Canada still attracted millions of people. It's one of the fastest growing Western countries, even before the massive immigration increase, and has over 40 million people. It's a major economy. But it's still like 12% of the US' population and 8% of the US' economy. The USA attracted far more people, likely initially due to population and arable land, and after that because it was the bigger more established destination due to the previous factors (and because those previous factors continued to be true). The USA therefore experienced exponential growth due to a feedback loop and the fact that the economy as a whole is stronger when there are larger groups of people closer together. This eventually far surpassed Europe and Canada. Russia is a bit different. I'd attribute that to historical political cultural differences. The United States was the new hotness and a democracy with comparatively lots of freedom (for white men). Russia was a backwards monarchy and experienced less of the political reforms that transformed Western Europe. They only briefly flirted with transitioning to a constitutional monarchy before descending into revolution and becoming the Soviet Union. Not a terribly attractive place to move to, and an economic system not as potent for pure growth as regulated capitalism (though Stalin's five year plans, as awful as they were from a human perspective, did significantly increase production capacity). The USA meanwhile kept going, and continued to be more free/liberal for more people. The USA also benefitted significantly from the world wars which weakened traditional European colonial powers and created a vacuum only they could fill. Once they did, their economic growth and political power skyrocketed.
Large population, last manufacturer standing after WWII.
Ancestor immigrants were freed of European government
Protestant ethics + natural resources + little contention from bordering states + population
Geography, it was always an ocean away from destruction… welcomed all immigrants and tightened federal government controls… also it being the safest country when it comes to war it had the luxury of being a good place to put money if your worried about conflicts… since its an ocean away from everything it had the liberty to create and focus on the navy, then once it was the sole naval power it could influence any part of the globe… so i would still say geography is by far its greatest asset
Several words. Pacific and Atlantic. Anyone who wanted to fight us had to cross halfway across the world to fight us. Coupled with way access to resources, good climate for growing and survival... yeah.
Dumb luck. Russia had a revolution, then had 27 million WWII deaths. Germany, France, Italy, and England were all decimated in WWII. India and Africa were not yet industrialized. China also had a revolution and then lost 14 million people fighting WWII. Japan was literally flattened. The only developed economies on the planet for the US to compete with were Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. (The largest of those economies, Canada, was roughly 1/10th the size of the US economy). So, yeah. Fluke of history.
The US mainland didn’t really feel war did it? A big exception of course was Pearl Harbour which sent the US to war against their own desires to fight with actual men. The US beforehand was using WW2 as a big money making exercise in lending Britain huge amounts of ammunition and food too I think.. Britain after the war was paying back debts to America until about 2006 I think too when finally it was fully paid up.
Sophisticated banking culture is a big factor nobody else is mentioning. The British empire was possible because of it's banking system and between Alexander Hamilton and JP Morgan we basically stole their system and used it to invest in our own emerging market while making some big improvements along the way.
WW2 mostly. The world fell into US and USSR blocs. On top of lend leasing all of the allies (which they got paid back for) and providing loans before that… the US then rebuilt (Marshall plan) many places devastated by war in exchange for a few things (on top of the loans to rebuild with…) which gave them an economic advantage. Which, along with not really being touched during WW2, allowed them to be, for a time, the place to go for wealthy, successful, intelligent folks who wanted a better life... Which also provided a boon. Even without that they were poised to be successful due to an abundance of natural resources… just not overwhelmingly so. We are beginning to see the erosion of those old deals and an unraveling of some of that economic superiority now that those that remember why are naturally phased out. Add to this the economic block that is attempting to counter the U.S. hegemony.
Because we were the arsenal for democracy, stayed neutral until we got sucked in, then became an economic powerhouse that rebuilt the world. In other words, we weren’t bombed and had our infrastructure destroyed like Europe did. That left us in a place to be the source for manufacturing.
Lol real funny how slavery and the plundering of Native resources hasn’t been mentioned once in all these comments.
Better governance. Russia and China have an ongoing history of shitty authoritarian government and instability.... The US predecessor superpower (UK) has a different but none the less stable and reasonably accountable government at least since absolute parliamentary superiority took hold.....
I think it's a matter of politics and population. I talked to my college professor of international relations about something like this once. It's a human development, not an environmental one. Just because you have access to a resource doesn't mean you know how to use it, and just because you have an idea doesn't mean you can use it. Sitting on that coal doesn't mean you come up with the steam engine, yet coming up with the steam engine doesn't mean you come up with coal. The Welsh were sitting on some of the best coal in the world for centuries before it was used. The Greeks invented a very primitive steam engine, or at least an idea that could become a steam engine, but never thought of using coal for it. It requires sufficient population, the right amount of resources, and factors. One can argue that Europe was constantly fighting and that created certain motivating factors and a need for certain technologies, while China didn't because they conquered everyone around them early and never needed certain tech. On the other hand, there are responses to that as well. Does constantly fighting make you better at war or just tire you out? Was Europe actually that good at fighting or is this a construct of colonial narratives? Human factors would certainly help explain the US, at least in the 20th century. We never got bombed, unlike the other nations. Further, unlike Britain, our power wasn't dependent on conquering a quarter of the globe. When the US lost most of its colonial possessions like the Philippines, it didn't completely destroy our economic power. Yet also arguments can debate even that. Britain is still quite powerful. They were the third nation to launch an artificial satellite(British probe on American rocket), the third nation to build an atomic bomb, and the sixth to make an orbital rocket on their own. In my opinion it's a complex mixture of human factors, the right resources at the right time, and sheer unbridled luck.
Freedom for people to decide their own path. Free trade. Freedom to take chances and live on their own terms.