>P.S. Somewhere recently -- one one of these lists? -- I saw reference to
>the inability of u.s. troops in europe to defeat the germans except
>through overwhelming numerical superiority. Whenever they were in equal
>numbers, the Germans beat them. If so, the Road to Hell has deep
>origins.
And then there's the argument from the economic historian, Gavin What's-His-Name, that US economic dominance was not the result of particular cleverness but of the availability of a broad array of cheap natural resources - which made us quite wasteful, even in the fat days.
Doug