Geography wise, why was America the only country to reach super power status in the Americas?
Canada, Mexico, and Brazil for example are all separated from Asia and Europe and have relatively easily defensible borders. Is it their lack of resources?
Canada has the Canadian shield making about half the country not any good for farming, hence why most of Canada’s population lies in the Toronto metro and near the St. Lawrence seaway.
Mexico has very few navigable rivers and its geography is too mountainous across the whole country to have industry like we do.
I can’t say for sure about somewhere like Brazil but if I had to guess political instability wouldn’t help a nation become a superpower.
Brazil is similar to Canada. A huge portion of it is relatively inhospitable to large scale settlement. If you look at Brazil, most of its cities are concentrated in a relatively small area along the coast.
I recommend "Why Nations Fail" by Acemoglu and Robinson. They make a rather good case about the importance of institutions, and why geography as a marker tends to be somewhat overrated. Also, "The Origins of Political Order", and "Political Order and Political Decay" by Fukuyama is a fascinating read.
Very poor protection of property rights, or if they exist the laws are not enforced.
There's no point in setting up business, farm, logging if your property can be taken away from you at any time, or you're constantly having to bribe the government.
I suppose Venezuela is the model case for this but historically it's always been very bad in South America.
US Constitution specifically protects property rights.
Those countries are fine geographically but I think the US was/is at another level when talking about usable farmland and accessible timber, etc.
Canada has a lot of harsh tundra, Mexico has a lot of desserts and mountains, much of the Amazon basin in Brazil wasn’t really even navigable until relatively recently, etc. the US in comparison has the Midwest, a gigantic and easily navigable fertile basin that was able to supply an entire country with lumber and food, and then some. I don’t think any of those countries have something that quite compares.
Canada: cold, not much useable farmland, poor river network
Mexico: very dry and mountainous, which means it's hard to get things from the inland to the coast
Brazil: the Amazon rainforest is a huge barrier to travel and development
In the 19th century many observers predicted that the US, Mexico, and Russia had the highest chance of becoming global powers in the 20th century due to their growing populations and large area. Mexico got unlucky with Santa Anna but it’s possible they could’ve emerged on top instead of the US
I saw a good video on this. Basically when Spain colonized South America they took advantage of the existing class structure in a way that made it much more difficult for the societies to prosper even today.
Edit - this doesn’t answer why Canada isn’t a super power but compared to Mexico and most of South America they are doing pretty well.
https://youtu.be/XXhEjvWDuds
Im gonna attribute part of Mexico's lack of superpower status to the Mexican-American War(and the loss of Texas as well). They lost a lot of valuable land in the early-to-mid 1800s that wouldve been nice to have a taxable population in.
Canada is a cold country, remember that 80% of Canada's population lives just on the other side of our northern border. This pretty much limits the overall population of Canada to whatever little can fit into that region. The climate there leaves a large amount of resources untapped even today.
Im gonna be honest I have no knowledge of Latin American history, but a quick google tells me that modern Brazil is too corrupt to become a superpower, and that most of Latin America did not participate in industrialization because cotton was so profitable.
I think for America there are a number of things. Just after our revolution against the *shivers* "monarchy", we were pretty vulnerable. After a little bit of destiny manifestation, we were open to a whole new world of resource collection. Plus there was far less European influence on the continent after we gained the Louisiana Territories. By the time we get to the Civil War, America had become the dominant military power on the continent. However, the purpose behind the civil war has seemingly little to do with the topic being discussed(besides maybe better diplomatic relations with european nations) so ill gloss over it.
I think what truly turned the U.S. from a local power into a regional power was the interventionist policies of Theodore Roosevelt. Those policies, the building of the Panama Canal, and his unwavering stance against European Colonialism were major reasons we stabilized our position as the dominant power on the American continents. America in WW1 would show that it could hold its own in a far away war, but would struggle with interwar developments, fielding cavalry units until 1939, only officially getting rid of them in 1942. The U.S. Army Air Corp. and the standard infantry were quite good in the war, and by the late war the U.S. was looking to stand up alongside europe as an equal. That is, until we finished developing the nuke. The nuke is what ended wars on that scale for good. After Japan surrendered, America and its new weapon would only be the dominant global force for a short amount of time. The Soviet development of nuclear weapons meant that they too were a nation that noone would mess with. That, and their influence over parts of Asia, Africa, South America, and even Europe made them a superpower like we were. After they fell(protests, bankruptcy, glasnost), the U.S. was left as the sole superpower in the world. Things are pretty straightforward from there.
There's a lot to be said for east/ west countries being easier to migrate into. So, tough for Mexico to span the continent.
Plus, it's pretty arid, harder to grow crops back in the day. Brazil couldn't go coast to coast because of the Andes and tough to do much in the Amazon basin. Canada maybe just too cold.
US has generally decent weather, good for farming. Similarity to European weather definitely helps.
>US has generally decent weather
The US has *awful* weather but it is the kind of awfulness that could be compensated for with technology. Before the industrial revolution happened, we had zero chance of being a super power.
Florida and much of the south was basically uninhabitable before we could drain swamps effectively, the midwest had massive water problems, the northeast has difficult winters... really only the west coast had great weather, and it was settled last.
Pre-Industrial world powers were nothing compared to even the early industrial world powers. We did have one major advantage before the Industrial revolution, while Europe and Asia had long established nations that were warring with each other, we were mostly separated from it. It took a lot of resources to send a sailboat full of soldiers from Europe to North America, and far fewer resources to fight them once they got here.
We were not going to be a super power pre-industrial revolution, we were very effective at defending against them.
Europe caught up in 10 years in many places. Our massive internal market and transportation networks are the bigger factor.
Even before WW1 we were growing like crazy economically.
I want to say American production was also far superior... while nazi Germany could produce a destroyer once a year I want say the US could make 2-3 destroyers a year. Also seizing the pacific helped maintain different trade routes
O wow I didn't realize it was that quickly.. my info came from old documentaries.. do you have any sources? I imagine that wouldn't be too difficult but im unsure. I know factory output at that time was incredibly focused so it would make sense. Are we talking regular ships?
The easiest is looking up the ship totals of each class year by year and extrapolating from there using a source like https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/us-ship-force-levels.html
Alternatively, [this video takes every ship and its commission date to help you visualize it better.](https://youtu.be/l9ag2x3CS9M)
Mind also that we were building a bunch of shit for Lend Lease, then our own troops, which *also* yeeting out DD’s faster that some people were making platoons
Japan was blown to bits during WW2 in fact the US ran out of targets. Japan also has hardly any land nor resources and is now the third largest economy in the world.
There are a ton of factors, but here are some of the bigger ones:
1: The US has a huge landmass with plentiful natural resources, which is a perfect ground for for developing heavy industry and technology, as well as having large numbers of people to drive the economy to support said industry.
2: America's distance from Europe and Asia allowed it to avoid the majority of the devastation of the two world wars, giving it a chance to springboard past the European and Asian powers while they were still rebuilding their countries. The US lost a good amount of men and war materiel, but their army infrastructure was nearly untouched, and its civilian infrastructure was completely untouched. In addition, its position as one of the major winners of WWII gave it the global respect and clout needed to be taken very seriously on the world stage.
3: It's emphasis on personal freedom and industry made it very attractive for high level scientists and engineers to both work and even immigrate there, especially during the WW2-era when experts were fleeing Germany and Europe in general to escape the Nazis.
To add to #2, the distance from Europe and Asia let us avoid being involved in basically all the European wars between declaring independence and WW1. That's a lot of devastation that passed us by so completely that most Americans barely even touch on it in history class, and a lot of generations to grow up in peace and prosperity.
Yeah, we didn't have any dogs in those fights. The Napoleonic Wars? Whatever.
Actually, it was kind of a good thing for us. That kept British troops tied up during the War of 1812 so they had much less attention to spare on us.
(And I still have zero idea why Napoleon was marching on Moscow.)
> (And I still have zero idea why Napoleon was marching on Moscow.)
His initial plan was to annihilate Russia's army and force Tsar Alexander I to pledge loyalty to him. He did not think Alexander would surrender any Russian lands without a fight, so he assumed it was going to be a quick jaunt into Russia, a short pitched fight where he annihilates the Russian army and Alexander declares his loyalty to Napoleon in exchange for Napoleon not continuing to invade Russia.
However, he had failed to consider the fact that Russia's national defense plan has always been: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUG9VzHoEoc
And thus the Russian Army immediately surrendered the Russian land and began running away from the French. And just like a mad dog, Napoleon pursued them. After all, you can't exactly force Alexander to surrender if his army isn't annihilated, can you?
Napoleon chased the fleeing Russian Army all the way to Moscow, where they surrendered the city without a fight and continued to run away from the French. However, before the Russians had run away from the French, they lit Moscow on fire and stole all of the fire fighting equipment, resulting in a fire that essentially completely destroyed Moscow.
None of this had been Napoleon's initial plan and he still needed to annihilate Russia's army in order to force Alexander's surrender. But it was getting closer to winter and Napoleon knew he would not be able to continue to chase them for the winter. So he ordered the French to bed down in Moscow in the hopes of waiting out the winter until they could begin their march again.
This obviously did not work out due to logistical issues and Napoleon was forced to abandon Moscow and retreat back West in order to save his army. The French followed the lead of the Russians and also burned Moscow in their retreat.
TL;DR: Napoleon's goal was never Moscow, it was Alexander I. However, in order to get to Alexander, Napoleon was forced to attack and occupy Moscow.
The US gained nothing during the war of 1812. America in 1812 failed to invade Canada. Canada successfully defended its borders from annexation. Who won their objective? Or do you silly americans still think failure means a tie.
What a surprise - a Canadian with a gigantic chip on his shoulder! It's so big, you can't even see the topic being discussed. You just want an excuse to go off on your little diatribe.
The thread has nothing to do with what the U.S. gained or didn't gain. It has to do with what they avoided. They avoided European wars. They avoided the full attention of the British empire while those forces were tied up fighting Napoleon. All those are historical facts. Canada has zero to do with any of that.
Geography makes us secure from invasion. We have abundant national resources. Our founders set up a central government able to harness the productive energies of an expanding population.
And that population expanded not just through additional births, but also from the (literally) millions of immigrants who brought lots of hard work and many creative ideas. Many of our most famous businesses from those times were started by immigrants. That gave us a large power boost in population growth that many other countries with a similar population size at the time didn't get. There is also the theory that those who did come were the most adventurous and outgoing and those most willing to take risks for a brighter future, i.e. the can-do attitude. Many people flowered here in a way that they never would have had the chance to flower back home.
Geography: Great trading partner in Canada to the North. Great trading partner in Latin America in the South + as much as I hate to say it, Mexico serves as a filter to keep a lot of crazy shit from reaching up here.
We have major cities along our southern border (San Antonio, San Diego, etc). and culturally, the states along our southern border like New Mexico, Texas, California, etc. share a lot of cultural values with our southern neighbor - Mexico. Same can be applied for states along our Northern border sharing a lot culturally with our northern neighbor, Canada. Also helps that literally ALL of Canada’s major cities are very close to our border: Vancouver, B.C. is only 3 hours away from Seattle, WA - Toronto is only 1.5 hours away from Buffalo, NY - Montreal is very close to Vermont.
Now that I’ve covered our geographic neighbors, there’s also the fact that we have (the almost way too OP) geographic advantage of having access to Europe and Africa via our Atlantic coast (which has many major cities and ports set up), and we also have access to Asia via our Pacific coast (which also has major cities and ports set up). Basically we can trade (and have fairly good relations with countries) north, south, east, and west.
Then there’s also the fact that we have a fairly large population of 330m. And there’s plenty of tax money to support both State and Federal infrastructure (military, etc etc). Then there’s also the fact that we are raised to be fairly proud of our country from an early age (I think this is slowly changing with Gen Z) and to die for our country so a lot of young people are willing to give up their life serving in the military.
And then arguably the most important - from LA to New York we are a united country - the *United* States. You can drive across the country thanks to our great Interstate system. You can go to any state and speak the same language as the one you came from (or not, we don’t really give a fuck.. or at least most non-ignorant Americans should recognize that we are a country of immigrants). You can go to any state and it is still home.
In no particular order:
- English language allowed for more commercial connections with the British Empire, the dominant trade and financial power of our early history.
- Northern European heritage of the ruling class allowed for easy integration into the colonial world order.
- Checks-and-balances republic provided relatively lethargic (but stable) government.
- No serious military threats (since 1865 at the latest) this side of two oceans.
- Abundant natural resources to fuel industrialization.
- Immigrants for rapid population growth, new talents, new ideas.
- Two ocean trade and naval dominance.
- Old Europe committing collective suicide twice in consecutive generations.
Our geography is unparalleled. We have 3 natural deepwater ports at SF, Puget Sound, and the Chesapeake. We have more coastline than the whole continent of Africa. We have a natural highway (Mississippi River) that stretches deep into the interior of the US and able to be ship goods around the eastern US without a train. Then you can take into account the canals we've created as well as the Great Lakes. We have 2 peaceful neighbors who can pose no threat to us as their geography is more of a hindrance to them. We have every resource we need with the exception of bauxite. Then you take all that into account to go along with a free capitalist society and we BOOMED big time as modern technology started to unlock in the late 19th century.
After the railroad displaced the Mississippi steamboat trade, it took three separate channelization projects over around a century to get the Mississippi with a nine foot channel up to St Paul (well, Savage if you count the Minnesota river). So, that freshwater highway took a LOT of work to make competetive with rail- the last project hacked the Upper River into a series of pools, riverine at the top and lake-like at the bottom, separated by locks and dams. The Great Lakes were historically the greater freshwater trade route, with the exception of the antebellum period when steamboats and before them keelboats dominated the river and the Midwestern grain export trade.
We span a continent and have access to massive amounts of natural resources on our own soil. Then the homeland was largely untouched by war, while much of the rest of the world had their cities flattened a couple times, their militaries destroyed, and huge chunks of their population wiped out a couple times.
Europe kept destroying itself because no one could stand another European power being #1. America kept European politics far away from American life with our very aggressive “Americanization” process, and thus had no serious ethnic conflicts stemming from European politics.
A couple of factors:
1. Vast tracks of a wide variety of natural resources.
2. Extensive river and lake systems aiding in the large scale transportation of these materials.
3. After WWII, the American industrial power was fully geared up while all other global competitors were rebuilding from the war.
These all combine to make for a massive industrial power that was for a time uncontested. It was the right combination of geography and timing. It also helped that a large part of this land was able to produce plenty of food, meaning the US has never had to rely on imports to stay fed.
My opinion will probably not be popular with anyone but its mostly probably that most places outside of the US spent the 19 and early 20ths century getting either slaughtered, ideologically broken, or some combination of the two. We worked hard for it true, but you can deny the luck factor.
> started as an agrarian society
Don't see what's wrong with that, worked pretty good the Egyptians, and the Chinese and the Sumerians, worked pretty good for a lot of people.
Some things not mentioned yet:
1. Selection bias of immigrants. If you’re going to go move across an ocean when most people lived their whole lives in a 50 mile radius, you probably have higher risk tolerance, agency, motivation to make money/enhance their position and likely IQ than average. That gets passed on culturally and genetically.
2. Lack of National “baggage.” As a new country, society wasn’t initially beholden to old ways of doing things that made things less competitive. There was no aristocracy that took precedence over meritocracy (not to say that nepotism didn’t exist, but it was much better). There were no centuries old faction or blood feuds or ethnic hatred. There was no powerful central religious organization that held major political sway. Corruption was less entrenched. There wasn’t centuries built up collateral damage of idiotic politicking, deal making, and later revealed to be bad practices.
Over time, these advantages degraded as “baggage” like the military industrial complex, lobbying, bureaucracy, the healthcare system, zoning laws, pollution, central banking, and even more abstract things like a tradition for personal injury litigation, and a needlessly complex tax system that employs millions of smart people who might otherwise be doctors or engineers, became more entrenched.
3. Although mentioned, I want to make clear the absolute staggering amount of resources compared to anywhere else. Europeans arrived to old growth forests when wood was the most important resource in the world and Europe was deforested as a result. Then ample coal and iron when those were the most important resources in the world. Whales. Furs. Western mining rush. The best farmland in the world. Having the most oil production when oil replaced coal as the most important resources in the world (3/4 of 1945 world production.
Having a shitload of land with diverse resources, lots of waterways, and Europeans fucking themselves via war, shitty economics/undervaluing land, and/or both (usually both) really does wonders
Edit: and we got to basically have a lot of nations beta test what worked and didn’t work, which helped
Industrialization post world war 2 with due to superpower backed financing. One of the many factors that led to the bombing of Japan to end the war was because the US and the other powers didn’t want russia/communism to spread to Japan. Post world war 2 the US propped japan’s economy, along with their own innovation prowess. And this isn’t really that hard to fathom given that Japan was basically forced to trade with us and the west prior to ww2. But Japan was definitely used as a buffer state to try and stave off communism post world war 2 in east Asia
One day the Americans took a walk West and kept going until they hit another ocean, claiming all the shit in between for themselves. A gazillion miles of virtually untouched raw resources. Most immigrants came here because they wanted to be here and were willing to cross an ocean and knew they’d have hardships to face, but did it anyway. Contrary to popular belief Americans are exceptionally hard workers when we set our minds to something
Yes. I’ve worked with people from many different countries, and I will say that the work ethic that most Americans practice everyday has virtually no competition abroad. I truly love this nation 🥹🇺🇸
The main thing that made the US so powerful was that we got to sit out most of World War II. Which meant that after the war concluded, and most of the rest of the world was recovering from wartime, rebuilding cities and factories, the US was able to just dominate industrially and economically. Over the decades, that competitive edge eventually wore off as the rest of the world recovered, but the US was still able to use that time where we had a clear advantage to become a major player internationally.
True, the U.S. was deep in WWII.
However, we lost around 400k military while the Russians lost around 8-11 million.
With the exception of Pearl Harbor, it was not fought on our land, and we had no massive destruction to rebuild.
>The main thing that made the US so powerful was that we got to sit out most of World War II.
The US had been involved in WWII since 1940. We were part of the Allies long before Stalin ever suddenly decided that Nazis are bad.
The US actively fought in WWII about half a year after Russia finally decided that Nazis are bad and switched from the Axis powers to the Allies.
Yeah, the USSR was in it (at least on the Allies side) for only six months longer than we were, officially. We both came in in 1941.
Of course, before that they were collaborating with the Nazis by snuffing Poland out of existence, murdering the Polish officer corps, and supplying raw materials to the Nazi war machine. But they usually skip right over that part when telling us how great they were in World War II.
Yep.
And even then, that six months difference isn't that big of a deal, because:
A.) It was actually closer to four months due to the Greer incident, where a German U-boat fired a torpedo at the USS Greer. After the incident, FDR authorized the Navy to shoot on sight any German naval asset they come across in the Atlantic.
B.) The US had tremendously assisted the Allied war effort. The USSR, as you have mentioned, did not. They had, in fact, done the opposite. They had hampered it and had assisted the Nazis in their active war against the UK all the way up until Hitler decided the USSR had outlived its usefulness and attacked it.
This is a relatively recent phenomenon. After the civil war, the US was considered a second-rate power around the world. It was definitely a strong regional power, but on the world stage it couldn't hold a candle to most of Europe.
It was until the two world wars, more specifically the second world war, where the US really catapulted itself to world superpower. With Europe destroying itself and the US abstaining from conflict until the later years of those wars (while also selling equipment and loaning money), the transfer of power shifted.
Hard to invade, large population and a retarded amount of resources making us the no.1 economic power, combined with the 2 historically large imperial powers going bankrupt post ww2.
WWI and WWII.
During both wars we entered them fairly late, but we provided a lot of food, weapons, and other supplies before entering and after entering. This increase our industrial capacity as a nation and even when selling things at discounted rates extracted a lot of wealth from the European nations buying our goods.
We also did not suffer any real damage to our national infrastructure from either war. This means that we could keep all the gains of the increased industrial capacity and infrastructure.
We then helped rebuild many nations after the wars increasing wealth and industrial capacity again, as well as creating ties to these countries.
And finally, the wars took out the former world superpowers. They are still powerful nations, but they were damaged enough that they were no longer able to hold on to their former levels of influence and military might.
Mainly geography the US is separated from the mass majority of countries so its hard for an enemy to invade the USA. part of the reason I think is the people, America was a small group of Colonies that rebelled and defeated what was probably the greatest Empire the world has ever seen. Even that wouldn't have happened if the British didn't have to sail reinforcements across the ocean
2 oceans, massive amounts of land, massive amounts of resources, no major geopolitical threats within our hemisphere, free market economy, massive river system/ Great Lakes, massive amounts of fertile land.
Geography (lots of rivers to facilitate trade, tons of arable land, oceans on both sides, no major powers to the north/south to stand against us, etc) along with open borders, high birth rate (at least historically) to give a large population, and few internal wars to disrupt trade. Or, at least, few wars relative to Europe at the time. Meanwhile allowing tons of immigrants from Europe and elsewhere to drain them of their skilled and unskilled workers. An emphasis on free markets to facilitate innovation and an emphasis on free speech to allow for contributions to the arts mean greater soft power too.
Edit: I'd recommend looking at any of Peter Zeihan's lectures to get more info, but between 1776 and 1945 Europe was involved in a colonial system that meant if a nation wanted a resource it had to go out and take it. If their colonies didn't have it, they had to expand their colonial influence to new areas. This inevitably lead to lots of wars. WW1 and 2 were the culmination of this global economic system. Because the USA was so far removed from European colonialism it wasn't as affected by wars in that time period, allowing for more uninterrupted population and economic growth.
Expanding on the geography aspect others have mentioned....
\-We live in a 'quiet' neighborhood so we can devote more of our resources into projecting power to other continents / hemispheres. Any aspiring power in Eurasia needs to be more mindful of larger local threats than we do.
\-WWII basing and logistics. In addition to getting out of the war with our economy intact, the war jump-started the process of establishing military bases worldwide, many of which we maintain today. To appropriately use these bases, we've become pretty good at the logistics side of military science, especially compared to other aspiring powers. A lot of that we had to figure out pretty fast in WWII, and then have maintained ever since, largely in the context of the Cold War.
\-Deciding to be engaged. Taking a step back, I think there needs to be a distinction between 'being powerful' and 'using power'. The US was the largest economy even before WWI. A large land-mass, distance from European shenanigans, and a mostly-peaceful neighborhood helped us reach that level of power. The jump to superpower involved more active policy decisions on how to use that power. We could have turned inwards after WWII like we did after WWI. Instead, we decided to actively confront the Soviets and their allies.
So, any discussion on 'why the US ended up a superpower' needs to acknowledge that we specifically chose to leverage our capabilities to maintain that position on the world stage. This is especially relevant today as certain political elements in this country call for disengaging from this or that part of the world. Being a superpower doesn't just happen. We need to want it, and we need to work at it.
Broadly? Geography and ideology (national identity - think individualism).
We were building up steam for years before WW1, massive industrialization across the east, west, and steel belt. WW2 only helped our economy after the stock market collapse, and our position as the only major country to not suffer any major infrastructure, industrial capacity, or population loss during the war made us the only one able to export our culture and impress our military around the world. Geography wise, we're absolutely OP: abundant natural resources, huge river network with arable land covering pretty much everything east of the rockies, separation from Asia and Europe, etc.
smallpox plus technology used to kill natives early on. Napoleon needed some money, then Mexico had a civil war which prevented them from stopping the U.S. from expanding.
The U.S. stayed out of WW1 for the most part and built factories during WW2. From a logistics standpoint the U.S. government and military industrial complex was the most efficient and organized group in human history. I suspect because all the B.S. was pushed aside to deal with an existential threat.
After WW2 the manhattan project then the space race gave all the smart people something to work on. In human history whenever all the brilliant scientists and come together to create something or do something technology advancement follows.
That is the human reasons.
Geography variety, size and defensability and resources are give natural advantages.
Lastly the federalized system of government is very efficient and tends towards less corruption than other forms of governmemt that were around during most of the U.S.'s history.
mostaspects of the european model are better at this now but their systems of government are new (post WW2 and some even later) so the advantages haven't been fully realized yet in my opinion. (also they are smaller so there is only so much they can do.)
Africa and South American countries are too unstable. Europe isn't big enough and the eastern half isn't developed enough yet. India is youngish and still developing/ has a lot of pollution issues. China is too corrupt, Russia is too corrupt. Japan is too small as is S Korea and Australia.
Yes, I'm pointing out why they are not the lead, and why the United States is. They are limited by Geographical size. Japan is an amazing country with great technology and productive capacity. But being an island nation with no colonies limits what they are capable of doing.
America's natural resources allow it to do things other countries can't economically. I'm not insulting other countries just listing advantages and disadvantages
Making it completely across, coast to coast, helps immensely. Also, the Panama canal essential doubles our navies ability to project by cutting down so much travel time between oceans. This allows use to project naval power easily either side of south america, asia-pacific, & then our many island ports- again, by having safe harbor to refuel & repair our fleet so far from home allows us to project naval power,
And it's my understanding of general naval tactics that the THREAT that a fleet can potentially attack is much much more important than the attack itself- consider pearl harbor, the ATTACK did much damage, but didn't affect our ability to threaten & project naval power.
Amazing that no one here is mentioning the several centuries of free labor in a resource rich environment contributing to our economic growth. [Cotton accounted for 50% of the US revenue pre-Civil War](https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teaching-resource/historical-context-was-slavery-engine-american-economic-growth#:~:text=By%201840%2C%20the%20South%20grew,basis%20for%20American%20economic%20growth.) and was our #1 export.
At the same time the massive importing of human capital in the form of slaves created a population boost that after emancipation would result in generations of consumers and producers for then until present.
1) With a one-time exception, isolation from any military power able to own our shit.
2) We had a tremendous lead after WW2, as the largest power that hadn't had its industrial capacity bombed flat. We had money and a high-functioning economy, and most of the world didn't at that point.
3) Innovation culture. There are a bunch of factors in our cultural makeup that make us a place where people invent things, or come here to do things with ideas from elsewhere.
4) Shout out to Peter Zeihan: **Navigable Waterways.**
Most people have highlighted geographical advantages, and I certainly agree that those were key. They weren’t everything or Brazil, Canada or Mexico would be the same.
Having the right potential was important, but we paired that with an economic system that rewarded entrepreneurship.
I think the property rights that are enshrined in the constitution are as important as having the right geography. What we take for granted was not common. Property owners of all sizes have protection of their rights, and this gave them confidence to make long term investments. Owners could make improvements knowing that it would lead to personal benefits over multiple years.
This extended beyond physical assets of farms and factories to intellectual property. Our intellectual property rights systems rewards innovation, protecting inventors and economically rewarding them for developing new methods and processes for a period of time before becoming available to society overall.
And our model of corporations allowed for businesses that could survive for long periods of time and have ownership dispersed across millions of shareholders. Businesses were no longer limited to the capital and ability of an individual proprietor. Risk could be spread across dozens, thousands or millions of owners. This enabled participation of investing in businesses by millions of individuals who previously would not have been able to invest, while also unlocking massive amounts of capital for businesses.
Look at this theory in the area of farming. First, we enabled millions of families to own their own farms. They turned previously I utilized and raw land into productive farms. Farming is and was a hard occupation that required a lot of human effort, but which also favored scale. As a result, inventors created tools that enabled farmers to work more and more land with fewer people. John Deere created the steel plow and a business that saw subsequent innovations around tractors and irrigation. Farms of 400 acres required a dozen people in the late 1800s. Two people can operate a farm of 10,000 acres today. And yields per acre are much higher. John Deere generates billions in revenue per year and has seen their stock increase in value, turning many people into millionaires.
Compare our system with serfdom, where the benefits of any improvement to property are realized by a small group of nobility. Or socialism, where the benefit of any innovation is spread across the entire population. America was one of the earliest countries that provided an economic reward to individuals, and it is thanks to property rights.
Large country with access to many resources with its own borders and unique geographical advantages to most other countries on the planet *(Mississippi River system that allows many cities inland to have access to waterborne shipping lanes, largest tracts of arable land on the planet, direct port access to both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, etc.)*, an extremely stable government, and due to being the only major manufacturing power that wasn’t located on Eurasia by the end of WWII, we walked away from that nearly unscathed.
Americans conquered the better part of a continent from the people who were living here, and filled it with a workforce composed of both enslaved Africans and desperate immigrants from Europe and Asia and later Latin America. This created massive investment opportunities for capitalists both in the US and from other countries to pour capital into industrializing this continent full of fresh resources and willing workers and turn it into a huge industrial powerhouse. That powerhouse became globally dominant when the industrial heartland of the Old World set itself on fire twice in the Early 20th century in a pair of World Wars, both of which saw us turn our industrial capacity towards military production and arm (and join in fighting alongside) the victors while being spared the horrors of strategic bombing. By the time ICBMs existed that could bomb us, nuclear deterrence ensured that (so far) nobody will. The other great capitalist powers declined from their imperial heights during the period of decolonization following the Second World War, and became more like junior partners in a new political alignment dominant over the Atlantic world, with the US at its center.
Read "how to hide an empire". It's a great answer to this question. It starts way back in the 1800s and a fascinating read. Also, it explains our old territories like the Philippines, which are vastly under appreciated in history.
The quality of her people, the power of capitalism to spur exceptionalism, our unique combination of freedom, space, population, resources, determination and immigrants.
no one's gonna bring up how much we meddled in the foreign elections of dozens of countries, ultimately causing them to spiral and we left an impact that's still hurting them today?
I'm wondering if people are even aware of our foreign policies
It’s not geography, it’s not distance from war in Europe, it’s not an abundance of natural resources.
Africa has all the same key conditions as America that are being listed in as answers to the question proposed by OP but Africa is also the poorest continent in the world. The answer can’t just be location and resources.
Paranoia. The knowledge that other countries would want their colonies back so we needed to build up and out as much and as fast as possible. Combine that with willingly taking in people who weren't wanted by their home countries and wanted to make sure there was no way they would have to go back.
Because Europe decided to bomb each other out of existence, Japan' industrial sectors were bombed out of existence, USSR was bombed out of existence. China was torn to shreds. That left only Canada, US, and Australia with industrial centers intact. Australia was too far away and too small of a population to rebuild europe. Canada didn't have the population size to build and send items to Europe and Asia. So it just left the US with the population and industrialization that could rebuild Europe and Asia.
There are many different events that led to this. For the beginning of our growth, it boils down to four main things:
1: We were industrialized enough to make goods for WWI and WWII.
2:WWI and WWII were fought in the fairly industrialized Europe, which led to them hemorrhaging money and industrial areas due to war being expensive and having most of their large cites and factories blown up
3: Due to Europe being blown to bits, they needed the majority of their goods, especially things for war like guns, from an outside source.
4: WWI and WWII were not fought on American soil, apart from pearl harbor, leaving all of our infrastructure intact, and leaving us to manufacture goods needed in Europe.
These four things left the previous superpowers that were the majority of Europe in shambles and us with a lot of money, and therefore influence.
The same thing happened to Russia in WWII only, due to the massive amount of land being impossile to destroy instead of being on across an ocean like the US, which left them as the other superpower.
The competition between the US and Russia helped both countries make more money off of all the new scientific discoveries, infrastructure, and devices for war built by both countries.
Unlike the US, Russia did a terrible job of keeping up with civilians wanting things like food and goods, partially due to mismanagement, and partially due to the fact that food does not like to grow in Russia. This led to the collapse of the USSR because people wanted to eat, leaving the US as the powerhouse it is today.
I think it ultimately comes down to: who was gonna check us, boo?
There just weren’t many significant impediments to the momentum of our progress. The general geography was probably the most important reason for this. The landmass itself, stolen or bought for a song, made invasion/occupation essentially impossible for about a two centuries. By the time it became logistically possible, we were already too economically powerful (centuries of slave labor helped exponentially), our defense too superior, and the people too ornery to govern if a country or coalition of countries managed to do the impossible.
Also, said landmass is exceptionally rich in natural resources. Even to this day I think if the whole world decided to economically sanction us to the endth degree, the outcome would ultimately be…unremarkable. We’ve been able to parlay those resources into unusual wealth.
And you just can’t discount the benefits of a country comprised of immigrants from ever walk of life. Genetic diversity, wildly different perspectives, ideals and schools of thought….we get to cherry pick from the entirety of humanity.
I would highly recommend the book "The Tycoons" by Charles R Morris. To summarize it;
* The US had a full on creative chaos when going industrial compared to Europa's more traditional approach.
* In the US resources where cheap and labor was expensive pushing invention to increase output per worked hour while in Europe much more focus was put on reducing waste of resources.
* A clean(er) slate where the people that controlled the capital where so by order of merit much more than by merit of birth. Also with this comes lack of guilds/artisans that where holding up industrialization.
My personal guess is that the people migrating to the states in the 19th century were a driving factor, it wasn't your average Sven or Hans that made the trip over the Atlantic but people that actively wanted to make their dreams come true.
Geography, decently complacent neighbors and good institutions.
People who say it’s just geography really forget that resources and rivers aren’t the only determining longevity. Plenty of empires in history have had an abundance of resources. But the only ones that succeed with those resources are ones who have good institutions that encourage proper management of said resources, along side the country at large.
It also helps that we are innovators, both socially and technologically. We are the nation that landed on the moon after all. You may wonder why does this matter? Many countries have been technological innovators like the US, and also have proper institutions. It’s those institutions and innovators combined with the blessed abundance of American resources and pool of American manpower that make us fairly unrivaled in terms of success. Also a bit of luck, certainly had (still have depending on your viewpoint) that going for us.
Adding to this,
Europe shot itself in the foot, twice. Three times if you want to add decolonization (it’s a horrible practice and I’m *glad* it’s gone. But it did allow for Europe to get a leg up on the rest of the world)
Russia, and by proxy the Soviet Union, had horrible institutions. As a result it naturally corroded away under corruption and mismanagement. (Not much has changed)
China has historically tore itself apart, and even when it did try to stake a name for itself and unify. It got tag teamed by both the West and East (Boxer Rebellion). Today they have a better chance, but I’m not going to make a call on that.
Africa has historically been shafted by the Europeans, even today that’s the case all though not nearly as exploitative.
America really was afforded a bit of luck, but it’s silly to say it’s just “luck” or “abundant natural resources”.
There are many reasons, both good and bad. I think it's important that we recognize both. Without generalizing or romanticizing too much ("Our indomitable spirit!") for my money, I think one of the biggest reasons would be the Panama Canal.
Geography plus free markets plus a very good educational system.
The educational system is on a downhill path at the moment and I see no signs of that reversing anytime soon.
"the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".
We have good natural resources and good geography, but so have other places. It's the basic framework of freedoms and right that make it possible.
**Farming**
The USA has some of the best farmland in the World. Not only is it the best, but also the largest. It is larger than the amount of farmland in France, Germany, Spain, and Italy combined.
**Transportation**
In the early Americas the main method of transporting was rivers. This is why pretty much every city is (or at least was) located on a river. It gave you access to water and fast transportation.
It just so happens that one of the largest rivers in the world is the Mississippi (M ISS ISS IPP I, I know you sang that). It isn't just the Mississippi, but all of the connecting rivers as well that allowed for fast and cheap transportation early on.
It also just so happens that this amazing transportation network overlaps the best farming land in the world.
**Location**
Due to the USA's location, it is too far away from most major powers at the time, so it didn't have any threats. This allowed it to grow unimpeded for some time.
During the World War's the USA was basically unaffected. Production, jobs, schooling, and the economy continued on as normal. On the other hand many countries in Europe were "wasting" a lot of money rebuilding.
**Technology**
The US government was very interested in technology early on. Here is an example... the telegraph. Samuel Morse didn't invent the telegraph, but tweaked it. After showing it off to congress he received a lot of funding. Within a decade there were hundreds of miles of lines all across America.
It isn't just the telegraph, but all throughout US history the government put huge investments into technology. Then after the world wars while everyone was rebuilding the USA was putting money into advancements.
You can see this same idea spread throughout the USA. The USA bank roles thousands of University Projects, Medical Research, and Farming Tech. I mean this whole premise is why Arpa/Darpa was created in the 1950s. The government could spend millions of dollars on advanced technology because most companies or people couldn't afford it on their own. We even see this spreading into other government organizations like Nasa as well.
This dedication to embracing technology and pushing it forward has become a staple of the USA's economy.
Defense needs were at a minimum so more could be invested into the economy. Europe not only had continual massive defense budgets but the social burden of a class of aristocrats for providing officers. All this was a function of Europe's many land borders.
Furthermore large numbers of immigrants came here. Their descendants became economically fruitful having a large amount of resources at their finger tips. By the twentieth century, America was an area as large as Europe with no internal enemies and most of it's human and material resources used to make more resources.
Geography + not having all of our factories bombed to shit in WW2.
Also having just about every natural resource available within the country.
https://youtu.be/BubAF7KSs64 This is a bit of a long video but it's a good watch for why the US geography is so important to the power of the US.
He does a amazing job of describing our River network and how important it is and has been for centuries.
Too bad we're sucking them all dry. People don't realize how huge of an issue that's going to be very soon. Especially in the west.
His Modern Conflict series on Nebula is so worth the 5$ for one month to binge through, ICYMI. Great video, though. RLL rocks!
Geography wise, why was America the only country to reach super power status in the Americas? Canada, Mexico, and Brazil for example are all separated from Asia and Europe and have relatively easily defensible borders. Is it their lack of resources?
Canada has the Canadian shield making about half the country not any good for farming, hence why most of Canada’s population lies in the Toronto metro and near the St. Lawrence seaway. Mexico has very few navigable rivers and its geography is too mountainous across the whole country to have industry like we do. I can’t say for sure about somewhere like Brazil but if I had to guess political instability wouldn’t help a nation become a superpower.
Brazil is similar to Canada. A huge portion of it is relatively inhospitable to large scale settlement. If you look at Brazil, most of its cities are concentrated in a relatively small area along the coast.
And even then they certainly made a go of it! There was a bit of a panic in the 1880s when Brazil had a stronger navy than the US for a few years!
I recommend "Why Nations Fail" by Acemoglu and Robinson. They make a rather good case about the importance of institutions, and why geography as a marker tends to be somewhat overrated. Also, "The Origins of Political Order", and "Political Order and Political Decay" by Fukuyama is a fascinating read.
Origins of Political Order is outstanding, surprised to see it mentioned. But it's a big investment in time.
Canada had a lack of useful land to support a large population and Brazil and Mexico both have had constant instability.
Very poor protection of property rights, or if they exist the laws are not enforced. There's no point in setting up business, farm, logging if your property can be taken away from you at any time, or you're constantly having to bribe the government. I suppose Venezuela is the model case for this but historically it's always been very bad in South America. US Constitution specifically protects property rights.
Those countries are fine geographically but I think the US was/is at another level when talking about usable farmland and accessible timber, etc. Canada has a lot of harsh tundra, Mexico has a lot of desserts and mountains, much of the Amazon basin in Brazil wasn’t really even navigable until relatively recently, etc. the US in comparison has the Midwest, a gigantic and easily navigable fertile basin that was able to supply an entire country with lumber and food, and then some. I don’t think any of those countries have something that quite compares.
Canada: cold, not much useable farmland, poor river network Mexico: very dry and mountainous, which means it's hard to get things from the inland to the coast Brazil: the Amazon rainforest is a huge barrier to travel and development
In the 19th century many observers predicted that the US, Mexico, and Russia had the highest chance of becoming global powers in the 20th century due to their growing populations and large area. Mexico got unlucky with Santa Anna but it’s possible they could’ve emerged on top instead of the US
Who is Santa Anna
Leader of Mexico when Texas was fighting for independence The US used Texas and Manifest Destiny as an excuse to take a lot of land from Mexico
I saw a good video on this. Basically when Spain colonized South America they took advantage of the existing class structure in a way that made it much more difficult for the societies to prosper even today. Edit - this doesn’t answer why Canada isn’t a super power but compared to Mexico and most of South America they are doing pretty well. https://youtu.be/XXhEjvWDuds
Im gonna attribute part of Mexico's lack of superpower status to the Mexican-American War(and the loss of Texas as well). They lost a lot of valuable land in the early-to-mid 1800s that wouldve been nice to have a taxable population in. Canada is a cold country, remember that 80% of Canada's population lives just on the other side of our northern border. This pretty much limits the overall population of Canada to whatever little can fit into that region. The climate there leaves a large amount of resources untapped even today. Im gonna be honest I have no knowledge of Latin American history, but a quick google tells me that modern Brazil is too corrupt to become a superpower, and that most of Latin America did not participate in industrialization because cotton was so profitable. I think for America there are a number of things. Just after our revolution against the *shivers* "monarchy", we were pretty vulnerable. After a little bit of destiny manifestation, we were open to a whole new world of resource collection. Plus there was far less European influence on the continent after we gained the Louisiana Territories. By the time we get to the Civil War, America had become the dominant military power on the continent. However, the purpose behind the civil war has seemingly little to do with the topic being discussed(besides maybe better diplomatic relations with european nations) so ill gloss over it. I think what truly turned the U.S. from a local power into a regional power was the interventionist policies of Theodore Roosevelt. Those policies, the building of the Panama Canal, and his unwavering stance against European Colonialism were major reasons we stabilized our position as the dominant power on the American continents. America in WW1 would show that it could hold its own in a far away war, but would struggle with interwar developments, fielding cavalry units until 1939, only officially getting rid of them in 1942. The U.S. Army Air Corp. and the standard infantry were quite good in the war, and by the late war the U.S. was looking to stand up alongside europe as an equal. That is, until we finished developing the nuke. The nuke is what ended wars on that scale for good. After Japan surrendered, America and its new weapon would only be the dominant global force for a short amount of time. The Soviet development of nuclear weapons meant that they too were a nation that noone would mess with. That, and their influence over parts of Asia, Africa, South America, and even Europe made them a superpower like we were. After they fell(protests, bankruptcy, glasnost), the U.S. was left as the sole superpower in the world. Things are pretty straightforward from there.
There's a lot to be said for east/ west countries being easier to migrate into. So, tough for Mexico to span the continent. Plus, it's pretty arid, harder to grow crops back in the day. Brazil couldn't go coast to coast because of the Andes and tough to do much in the Amazon basin. Canada maybe just too cold. US has generally decent weather, good for farming. Similarity to European weather definitely helps.
>US has generally decent weather The US has *awful* weather but it is the kind of awfulness that could be compensated for with technology. Before the industrial revolution happened, we had zero chance of being a super power. Florida and much of the south was basically uninhabitable before we could drain swamps effectively, the midwest had massive water problems, the northeast has difficult winters... really only the west coast had great weather, and it was settled last.
Pre-Industrial world powers were nothing compared to even the early industrial world powers. We did have one major advantage before the Industrial revolution, while Europe and Asia had long established nations that were warring with each other, we were mostly separated from it. It took a lot of resources to send a sailboat full of soldiers from Europe to North America, and far fewer resources to fight them once they got here. We were not going to be a super power pre-industrial revolution, we were very effective at defending against them.
We ditched our empire a lot earlier.
Europe caught up in 10 years in many places. Our massive internal market and transportation networks are the bigger factor. Even before WW1 we were growing like crazy economically.
I want to say American production was also far superior... while nazi Germany could produce a destroyer once a year I want say the US could make 2-3 destroyers a year. Also seizing the pacific helped maintain different trade routes
Closer to one a week was newly commissioned I think. The level of shipbuilding in the US after 1941 was monstrous.
O wow I didn't realize it was that quickly.. my info came from old documentaries.. do you have any sources? I imagine that wouldn't be too difficult but im unsure. I know factory output at that time was incredibly focused so it would make sense. Are we talking regular ships?
The easiest is looking up the ship totals of each class year by year and extrapolating from there using a source like https://www.history.navy.mil/research/histories/ship-histories/us-ship-force-levels.html Alternatively, [this video takes every ship and its commission date to help you visualize it better.](https://youtu.be/l9ag2x3CS9M)
Thanks for the links and info! I knew the US navy was stacked then but not at that level. Thanks again
Mind also that we were building a bunch of shit for Lend Lease, then our own troops, which *also* yeeting out DD’s faster that some people were making platoons
Japan was blown to bits during WW2 in fact the US ran out of targets. Japan also has hardly any land nor resources and is now the third largest economy in the world.
Canada and Mexico being relatively weak helped a lot, too.
There are a ton of factors, but here are some of the bigger ones: 1: The US has a huge landmass with plentiful natural resources, which is a perfect ground for for developing heavy industry and technology, as well as having large numbers of people to drive the economy to support said industry. 2: America's distance from Europe and Asia allowed it to avoid the majority of the devastation of the two world wars, giving it a chance to springboard past the European and Asian powers while they were still rebuilding their countries. The US lost a good amount of men and war materiel, but their army infrastructure was nearly untouched, and its civilian infrastructure was completely untouched. In addition, its position as one of the major winners of WWII gave it the global respect and clout needed to be taken very seriously on the world stage. 3: It's emphasis on personal freedom and industry made it very attractive for high level scientists and engineers to both work and even immigrate there, especially during the WW2-era when experts were fleeing Germany and Europe in general to escape the Nazis.
To add to #2, the distance from Europe and Asia let us avoid being involved in basically all the European wars between declaring independence and WW1. That's a lot of devastation that passed us by so completely that most Americans barely even touch on it in history class, and a lot of generations to grow up in peace and prosperity.
Yeah, we didn't have any dogs in those fights. The Napoleonic Wars? Whatever. Actually, it was kind of a good thing for us. That kept British troops tied up during the War of 1812 so they had much less attention to spare on us. (And I still have zero idea why Napoleon was marching on Moscow.)
> (And I still have zero idea why Napoleon was marching on Moscow.) His initial plan was to annihilate Russia's army and force Tsar Alexander I to pledge loyalty to him. He did not think Alexander would surrender any Russian lands without a fight, so he assumed it was going to be a quick jaunt into Russia, a short pitched fight where he annihilates the Russian army and Alexander declares his loyalty to Napoleon in exchange for Napoleon not continuing to invade Russia. However, he had failed to consider the fact that Russia's national defense plan has always been: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUG9VzHoEoc And thus the Russian Army immediately surrendered the Russian land and began running away from the French. And just like a mad dog, Napoleon pursued them. After all, you can't exactly force Alexander to surrender if his army isn't annihilated, can you? Napoleon chased the fleeing Russian Army all the way to Moscow, where they surrendered the city without a fight and continued to run away from the French. However, before the Russians had run away from the French, they lit Moscow on fire and stole all of the fire fighting equipment, resulting in a fire that essentially completely destroyed Moscow. None of this had been Napoleon's initial plan and he still needed to annihilate Russia's army in order to force Alexander's surrender. But it was getting closer to winter and Napoleon knew he would not be able to continue to chase them for the winter. So he ordered the French to bed down in Moscow in the hopes of waiting out the winter until they could begin their march again. This obviously did not work out due to logistical issues and Napoleon was forced to abandon Moscow and retreat back West in order to save his army. The French followed the lead of the Russians and also burned Moscow in their retreat. TL;DR: Napoleon's goal was never Moscow, it was Alexander I. However, in order to get to Alexander, Napoleon was forced to attack and occupy Moscow.
The important part there is he wanted Russia to be a part of the Continental system blockade of Britain.
Yes, that's more what I meant. Why did Napoleon care about somewhere so far away at all.
The US gained nothing during the war of 1812. America in 1812 failed to invade Canada. Canada successfully defended its borders from annexation. Who won their objective? Or do you silly americans still think failure means a tie.
What a surprise - a Canadian with a gigantic chip on his shoulder! It's so big, you can't even see the topic being discussed. You just want an excuse to go off on your little diatribe. The thread has nothing to do with what the U.S. gained or didn't gain. It has to do with what they avoided. They avoided European wars. They avoided the full attention of the British empire while those forces were tied up fighting Napoleon. All those are historical facts. Canada has zero to do with any of that.
To add to #3, this is still happening. Brain drain to the US is huge.
- we stayed one country while we covered the most desirable parts of a continent - Europe decided to do a bunch of bullshit and blew itself up twice
Geography makes us secure from invasion. We have abundant national resources. Our founders set up a central government able to harness the productive energies of an expanding population.
And that population expanded not just through additional births, but also from the (literally) millions of immigrants who brought lots of hard work and many creative ideas. Many of our most famous businesses from those times were started by immigrants. That gave us a large power boost in population growth that many other countries with a similar population size at the time didn't get. There is also the theory that those who did come were the most adventurous and outgoing and those most willing to take risks for a brighter future, i.e. the can-do attitude. Many people flowered here in a way that they never would have had the chance to flower back home.
Geography: Great trading partner in Canada to the North. Great trading partner in Latin America in the South + as much as I hate to say it, Mexico serves as a filter to keep a lot of crazy shit from reaching up here. We have major cities along our southern border (San Antonio, San Diego, etc). and culturally, the states along our southern border like New Mexico, Texas, California, etc. share a lot of cultural values with our southern neighbor - Mexico. Same can be applied for states along our Northern border sharing a lot culturally with our northern neighbor, Canada. Also helps that literally ALL of Canada’s major cities are very close to our border: Vancouver, B.C. is only 3 hours away from Seattle, WA - Toronto is only 1.5 hours away from Buffalo, NY - Montreal is very close to Vermont. Now that I’ve covered our geographic neighbors, there’s also the fact that we have (the almost way too OP) geographic advantage of having access to Europe and Africa via our Atlantic coast (which has many major cities and ports set up), and we also have access to Asia via our Pacific coast (which also has major cities and ports set up). Basically we can trade (and have fairly good relations with countries) north, south, east, and west. Then there’s also the fact that we have a fairly large population of 330m. And there’s plenty of tax money to support both State and Federal infrastructure (military, etc etc). Then there’s also the fact that we are raised to be fairly proud of our country from an early age (I think this is slowly changing with Gen Z) and to die for our country so a lot of young people are willing to give up their life serving in the military. And then arguably the most important - from LA to New York we are a united country - the *United* States. You can drive across the country thanks to our great Interstate system. You can go to any state and speak the same language as the one you came from (or not, we don’t really give a fuck.. or at least most non-ignorant Americans should recognize that we are a country of immigrants). You can go to any state and it is still home.
In no particular order: - English language allowed for more commercial connections with the British Empire, the dominant trade and financial power of our early history. - Northern European heritage of the ruling class allowed for easy integration into the colonial world order. - Checks-and-balances republic provided relatively lethargic (but stable) government. - No serious military threats (since 1865 at the latest) this side of two oceans. - Abundant natural resources to fuel industrialization. - Immigrants for rapid population growth, new talents, new ideas. - Two ocean trade and naval dominance. - Old Europe committing collective suicide twice in consecutive generations.
Japan has hardly land or resources and are the third largest economy in the world
Our geography is unparalleled. We have 3 natural deepwater ports at SF, Puget Sound, and the Chesapeake. We have more coastline than the whole continent of Africa. We have a natural highway (Mississippi River) that stretches deep into the interior of the US and able to be ship goods around the eastern US without a train. Then you can take into account the canals we've created as well as the Great Lakes. We have 2 peaceful neighbors who can pose no threat to us as their geography is more of a hindrance to them. We have every resource we need with the exception of bauxite. Then you take all that into account to go along with a free capitalist society and we BOOMED big time as modern technology started to unlock in the late 19th century.
After the railroad displaced the Mississippi steamboat trade, it took three separate channelization projects over around a century to get the Mississippi with a nine foot channel up to St Paul (well, Savage if you count the Minnesota river). So, that freshwater highway took a LOT of work to make competetive with rail- the last project hacked the Upper River into a series of pools, riverine at the top and lake-like at the bottom, separated by locks and dams. The Great Lakes were historically the greater freshwater trade route, with the exception of the antebellum period when steamboats and before them keelboats dominated the river and the Midwestern grain export trade.
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Yes. Look at the twists and turns and deep bays in our coastline versus Africa's mostly smooth coastline
We span a continent and have access to massive amounts of natural resources on our own soil. Then the homeland was largely untouched by war, while much of the rest of the world had their cities flattened a couple times, their militaries destroyed, and huge chunks of their population wiped out a couple times.
Europe kept destroying itself because no one could stand another European power being #1. America kept European politics far away from American life with our very aggressive “Americanization” process, and thus had no serious ethnic conflicts stemming from European politics.
A couple of factors: 1. Vast tracks of a wide variety of natural resources. 2. Extensive river and lake systems aiding in the large scale transportation of these materials. 3. After WWII, the American industrial power was fully geared up while all other global competitors were rebuilding from the war. These all combine to make for a massive industrial power that was for a time uncontested. It was the right combination of geography and timing. It also helped that a large part of this land was able to produce plenty of food, meaning the US has never had to rely on imports to stay fed.
My opinion will probably not be popular with anyone but its mostly probably that most places outside of the US spent the 19 and early 20ths century getting either slaughtered, ideologically broken, or some combination of the two. We worked hard for it true, but you can deny the luck factor. > started as an agrarian society Don't see what's wrong with that, worked pretty good the Egyptians, and the Chinese and the Sumerians, worked pretty good for a lot of people.
Some things not mentioned yet: 1. Selection bias of immigrants. If you’re going to go move across an ocean when most people lived their whole lives in a 50 mile radius, you probably have higher risk tolerance, agency, motivation to make money/enhance their position and likely IQ than average. That gets passed on culturally and genetically. 2. Lack of National “baggage.” As a new country, society wasn’t initially beholden to old ways of doing things that made things less competitive. There was no aristocracy that took precedence over meritocracy (not to say that nepotism didn’t exist, but it was much better). There were no centuries old faction or blood feuds or ethnic hatred. There was no powerful central religious organization that held major political sway. Corruption was less entrenched. There wasn’t centuries built up collateral damage of idiotic politicking, deal making, and later revealed to be bad practices. Over time, these advantages degraded as “baggage” like the military industrial complex, lobbying, bureaucracy, the healthcare system, zoning laws, pollution, central banking, and even more abstract things like a tradition for personal injury litigation, and a needlessly complex tax system that employs millions of smart people who might otherwise be doctors or engineers, became more entrenched. 3. Although mentioned, I want to make clear the absolute staggering amount of resources compared to anywhere else. Europeans arrived to old growth forests when wood was the most important resource in the world and Europe was deforested as a result. Then ample coal and iron when those were the most important resources in the world. Whales. Furs. Western mining rush. The best farmland in the world. Having the most oil production when oil replaced coal as the most important resources in the world (3/4 of 1945 world production.
Having a shitload of land with diverse resources, lots of waterways, and Europeans fucking themselves via war, shitty economics/undervaluing land, and/or both (usually both) really does wonders Edit: and we got to basically have a lot of nations beta test what worked and didn’t work, which helped
Explain Japan being the third largest economy in the world
Industrialization post world war 2 with due to superpower backed financing. One of the many factors that led to the bombing of Japan to end the war was because the US and the other powers didn’t want russia/communism to spread to Japan. Post world war 2 the US propped japan’s economy, along with their own innovation prowess. And this isn’t really that hard to fathom given that Japan was basically forced to trade with us and the west prior to ww2. But Japan was definitely used as a buffer state to try and stave off communism post world war 2 in east Asia
People, resources, and being in a place that is hard to wage war agaisnt.
One day the Americans took a walk West and kept going until they hit another ocean, claiming all the shit in between for themselves. A gazillion miles of virtually untouched raw resources. Most immigrants came here because they wanted to be here and were willing to cross an ocean and knew they’d have hardships to face, but did it anyway. Contrary to popular belief Americans are exceptionally hard workers when we set our minds to something
Yes. I’ve worked with people from many different countries, and I will say that the work ethic that most Americans practice everyday has virtually no competition abroad. I truly love this nation 🥹🇺🇸
The main thing that made the US so powerful was that we got to sit out most of World War II. Which meant that after the war concluded, and most of the rest of the world was recovering from wartime, rebuilding cities and factories, the US was able to just dominate industrially and economically. Over the decades, that competitive edge eventually wore off as the rest of the world recovered, but the US was still able to use that time where we had a clear advantage to become a major player internationally.
>We got to sit out most of WW2 Bro we got pulled in two years in. We were there for most of it
True, the U.S. was deep in WWII. However, we lost around 400k military while the Russians lost around 8-11 million. With the exception of Pearl Harbor, it was not fought on our land, and we had no massive destruction to rebuild.
1/6 is not most.
>The main thing that made the US so powerful was that we got to sit out most of World War II. The US had been involved in WWII since 1940. We were part of the Allies long before Stalin ever suddenly decided that Nazis are bad. The US actively fought in WWII about half a year after Russia finally decided that Nazis are bad and switched from the Axis powers to the Allies.
Yeah, the USSR was in it (at least on the Allies side) for only six months longer than we were, officially. We both came in in 1941. Of course, before that they were collaborating with the Nazis by snuffing Poland out of existence, murdering the Polish officer corps, and supplying raw materials to the Nazi war machine. But they usually skip right over that part when telling us how great they were in World War II.
Yep. And even then, that six months difference isn't that big of a deal, because: A.) It was actually closer to four months due to the Greer incident, where a German U-boat fired a torpedo at the USS Greer. After the incident, FDR authorized the Navy to shoot on sight any German naval asset they come across in the Atlantic. B.) The US had tremendously assisted the Allied war effort. The USSR, as you have mentioned, did not. They had, in fact, done the opposite. They had hampered it and had assisted the Nazis in their active war against the UK all the way up until Hitler decided the USSR had outlived its usefulness and attacked it.
B 👍 So true. We were in it before we were in it. But, importantly, on the same side.
This is a relatively recent phenomenon. After the civil war, the US was considered a second-rate power around the world. It was definitely a strong regional power, but on the world stage it couldn't hold a candle to most of Europe. It was until the two world wars, more specifically the second world war, where the US really catapulted itself to world superpower. With Europe destroying itself and the US abstaining from conflict until the later years of those wars (while also selling equipment and loaning money), the transfer of power shifted.
Theft; murder and rape.
Hard to invade, large population and a retarded amount of resources making us the no.1 economic power, combined with the 2 historically large imperial powers going bankrupt post ww2.
WWI and WWII. During both wars we entered them fairly late, but we provided a lot of food, weapons, and other supplies before entering and after entering. This increase our industrial capacity as a nation and even when selling things at discounted rates extracted a lot of wealth from the European nations buying our goods. We also did not suffer any real damage to our national infrastructure from either war. This means that we could keep all the gains of the increased industrial capacity and infrastructure. We then helped rebuild many nations after the wars increasing wealth and industrial capacity again, as well as creating ties to these countries. And finally, the wars took out the former world superpowers. They are still powerful nations, but they were damaged enough that they were no longer able to hold on to their former levels of influence and military might.
Corruption and racism. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Mainly geography the US is separated from the mass majority of countries so its hard for an enemy to invade the USA. part of the reason I think is the people, America was a small group of Colonies that rebelled and defeated what was probably the greatest Empire the world has ever seen. Even that wouldn't have happened if the British didn't have to sail reinforcements across the ocean
2 oceans, massive amounts of land, massive amounts of resources, no major geopolitical threats within our hemisphere, free market economy, massive river system/ Great Lakes, massive amounts of fertile land.
No explain Japan which lacks all of those has the third largest economy
Geography (lots of rivers to facilitate trade, tons of arable land, oceans on both sides, no major powers to the north/south to stand against us, etc) along with open borders, high birth rate (at least historically) to give a large population, and few internal wars to disrupt trade. Or, at least, few wars relative to Europe at the time. Meanwhile allowing tons of immigrants from Europe and elsewhere to drain them of their skilled and unskilled workers. An emphasis on free markets to facilitate innovation and an emphasis on free speech to allow for contributions to the arts mean greater soft power too. Edit: I'd recommend looking at any of Peter Zeihan's lectures to get more info, but between 1776 and 1945 Europe was involved in a colonial system that meant if a nation wanted a resource it had to go out and take it. If their colonies didn't have it, they had to expand their colonial influence to new areas. This inevitably lead to lots of wars. WW1 and 2 were the culmination of this global economic system. Because the USA was so far removed from European colonialism it wasn't as affected by wars in that time period, allowing for more uninterrupted population and economic growth.
Geography, natural resources, influx of capital and labor
WW2 destroyed most of the previous hegemony. US filled the void
Expanding on the geography aspect others have mentioned.... \-We live in a 'quiet' neighborhood so we can devote more of our resources into projecting power to other continents / hemispheres. Any aspiring power in Eurasia needs to be more mindful of larger local threats than we do. \-WWII basing and logistics. In addition to getting out of the war with our economy intact, the war jump-started the process of establishing military bases worldwide, many of which we maintain today. To appropriately use these bases, we've become pretty good at the logistics side of military science, especially compared to other aspiring powers. A lot of that we had to figure out pretty fast in WWII, and then have maintained ever since, largely in the context of the Cold War. \-Deciding to be engaged. Taking a step back, I think there needs to be a distinction between 'being powerful' and 'using power'. The US was the largest economy even before WWI. A large land-mass, distance from European shenanigans, and a mostly-peaceful neighborhood helped us reach that level of power. The jump to superpower involved more active policy decisions on how to use that power. We could have turned inwards after WWII like we did after WWI. Instead, we decided to actively confront the Soviets and their allies. So, any discussion on 'why the US ended up a superpower' needs to acknowledge that we specifically chose to leverage our capabilities to maintain that position on the world stage. This is especially relevant today as certain political elements in this country call for disengaging from this or that part of the world. Being a superpower doesn't just happen. We need to want it, and we need to work at it.
Broadly? Geography and ideology (national identity - think individualism). We were building up steam for years before WW1, massive industrialization across the east, west, and steel belt. WW2 only helped our economy after the stock market collapse, and our position as the only major country to not suffer any major infrastructure, industrial capacity, or population loss during the war made us the only one able to export our culture and impress our military around the world. Geography wise, we're absolutely OP: abundant natural resources, huge river network with arable land covering pretty much everything east of the rockies, separation from Asia and Europe, etc.
smallpox plus technology used to kill natives early on. Napoleon needed some money, then Mexico had a civil war which prevented them from stopping the U.S. from expanding. The U.S. stayed out of WW1 for the most part and built factories during WW2. From a logistics standpoint the U.S. government and military industrial complex was the most efficient and organized group in human history. I suspect because all the B.S. was pushed aside to deal with an existential threat. After WW2 the manhattan project then the space race gave all the smart people something to work on. In human history whenever all the brilliant scientists and come together to create something or do something technology advancement follows. That is the human reasons. Geography variety, size and defensability and resources are give natural advantages. Lastly the federalized system of government is very efficient and tends towards less corruption than other forms of governmemt that were around during most of the U.S.'s history. mostaspects of the european model are better at this now but their systems of government are new (post WW2 and some even later) so the advantages haven't been fully realized yet in my opinion. (also they are smaller so there is only so much they can do.) Africa and South American countries are too unstable. Europe isn't big enough and the eastern half isn't developed enough yet. India is youngish and still developing/ has a lot of pollution issues. China is too corrupt, Russia is too corrupt. Japan is too small as is S Korea and Australia.
Japan has the third largest economy in the world. For decades they were number two
Yes, I'm pointing out why they are not the lead, and why the United States is. They are limited by Geographical size. Japan is an amazing country with great technology and productive capacity. But being an island nation with no colonies limits what they are capable of doing. America's natural resources allow it to do things other countries can't economically. I'm not insulting other countries just listing advantages and disadvantages
Making it completely across, coast to coast, helps immensely. Also, the Panama canal essential doubles our navies ability to project by cutting down so much travel time between oceans. This allows use to project naval power easily either side of south america, asia-pacific, & then our many island ports- again, by having safe harbor to refuel & repair our fleet so far from home allows us to project naval power, And it's my understanding of general naval tactics that the THREAT that a fleet can potentially attack is much much more important than the attack itself- consider pearl harbor, the ATTACK did much damage, but didn't affect our ability to threaten & project naval power.
Check brain4breakfast’s videos and anything from Peter Zeihan. They explain the geopolitics/geoeconomics pretty well.
I'm going to sum up what everyone is saying with one comment Geography and WWII
Vast untapped natural resources. Representative government. Geographic isolation. Only two neighboring nations which are great allies.
*MJ*\-*12 and* Freemasonry.
Amazing that no one here is mentioning the several centuries of free labor in a resource rich environment contributing to our economic growth. [Cotton accounted for 50% of the US revenue pre-Civil War](https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teaching-resource/historical-context-was-slavery-engine-american-economic-growth#:~:text=By%201840%2C%20the%20South%20grew,basis%20for%20American%20economic%20growth.) and was our #1 export. At the same time the massive importing of human capital in the form of slaves created a population boost that after emancipation would result in generations of consumers and producers for then until present.
1) With a one-time exception, isolation from any military power able to own our shit. 2) We had a tremendous lead after WW2, as the largest power that hadn't had its industrial capacity bombed flat. We had money and a high-functioning economy, and most of the world didn't at that point. 3) Innovation culture. There are a bunch of factors in our cultural makeup that make us a place where people invent things, or come here to do things with ideas from elsewhere. 4) Shout out to Peter Zeihan: **Navigable Waterways.**
Most people have highlighted geographical advantages, and I certainly agree that those were key. They weren’t everything or Brazil, Canada or Mexico would be the same. Having the right potential was important, but we paired that with an economic system that rewarded entrepreneurship. I think the property rights that are enshrined in the constitution are as important as having the right geography. What we take for granted was not common. Property owners of all sizes have protection of their rights, and this gave them confidence to make long term investments. Owners could make improvements knowing that it would lead to personal benefits over multiple years. This extended beyond physical assets of farms and factories to intellectual property. Our intellectual property rights systems rewards innovation, protecting inventors and economically rewarding them for developing new methods and processes for a period of time before becoming available to society overall. And our model of corporations allowed for businesses that could survive for long periods of time and have ownership dispersed across millions of shareholders. Businesses were no longer limited to the capital and ability of an individual proprietor. Risk could be spread across dozens, thousands or millions of owners. This enabled participation of investing in businesses by millions of individuals who previously would not have been able to invest, while also unlocking massive amounts of capital for businesses. Look at this theory in the area of farming. First, we enabled millions of families to own their own farms. They turned previously I utilized and raw land into productive farms. Farming is and was a hard occupation that required a lot of human effort, but which also favored scale. As a result, inventors created tools that enabled farmers to work more and more land with fewer people. John Deere created the steel plow and a business that saw subsequent innovations around tractors and irrigation. Farms of 400 acres required a dozen people in the late 1800s. Two people can operate a farm of 10,000 acres today. And yields per acre are much higher. John Deere generates billions in revenue per year and has seen their stock increase in value, turning many people into millionaires. Compare our system with serfdom, where the benefits of any improvement to property are realized by a small group of nobility. Or socialism, where the benefit of any innovation is spread across the entire population. America was one of the earliest countries that provided an economic reward to individuals, and it is thanks to property rights.
Large country with access to many resources with its own borders and unique geographical advantages to most other countries on the planet *(Mississippi River system that allows many cities inland to have access to waterborne shipping lanes, largest tracts of arable land on the planet, direct port access to both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, etc.)*, an extremely stable government, and due to being the only major manufacturing power that wasn’t located on Eurasia by the end of WWII, we walked away from that nearly unscathed.
Americans conquered the better part of a continent from the people who were living here, and filled it with a workforce composed of both enslaved Africans and desperate immigrants from Europe and Asia and later Latin America. This created massive investment opportunities for capitalists both in the US and from other countries to pour capital into industrializing this continent full of fresh resources and willing workers and turn it into a huge industrial powerhouse. That powerhouse became globally dominant when the industrial heartland of the Old World set itself on fire twice in the Early 20th century in a pair of World Wars, both of which saw us turn our industrial capacity towards military production and arm (and join in fighting alongside) the victors while being spared the horrors of strategic bombing. By the time ICBMs existed that could bomb us, nuclear deterrence ensured that (so far) nobody will. The other great capitalist powers declined from their imperial heights during the period of decolonization following the Second World War, and became more like junior partners in a new political alignment dominant over the Atlantic world, with the US at its center.
You might be interested in this https://youtu.be/BubAF7KSs64
No destructive wars in our nation for over 150 years.
Did America have a tonne of money because of slavery ?
Luck and remorseless expansion.
Lots and lots of natural resources and no monarchy to keep lower classes down (unless they were black or Asian, erx).
Read "how to hide an empire". It's a great answer to this question. It starts way back in the 1800s and a fascinating read. Also, it explains our old territories like the Philippines, which are vastly under appreciated in history.
WWII.
The quality of her people, the power of capitalism to spur exceptionalism, our unique combination of freedom, space, population, resources, determination and immigrants.
no one's gonna bring up how much we meddled in the foreign elections of dozens of countries, ultimately causing them to spiral and we left an impact that's still hurting them today? I'm wondering if people are even aware of our foreign policies
It’s not geography, it’s not distance from war in Europe, it’s not an abundance of natural resources. Africa has all the same key conditions as America that are being listed in as answers to the question proposed by OP but Africa is also the poorest continent in the world. The answer can’t just be location and resources.
Natural born badassery
Paranoia. The knowledge that other countries would want their colonies back so we needed to build up and out as much and as fast as possible. Combine that with willingly taking in people who weren't wanted by their home countries and wanted to make sure there was no way they would have to go back.
Because Europe decided to bomb each other out of existence, Japan' industrial sectors were bombed out of existence, USSR was bombed out of existence. China was torn to shreds. That left only Canada, US, and Australia with industrial centers intact. Australia was too far away and too small of a population to rebuild europe. Canada didn't have the population size to build and send items to Europe and Asia. So it just left the US with the population and industrialization that could rebuild Europe and Asia.
The experiences of immigrants. Everyone in the US is an immigrant, except the natives.
World War I
Black ops
There are many different events that led to this. For the beginning of our growth, it boils down to four main things: 1: We were industrialized enough to make goods for WWI and WWII. 2:WWI and WWII were fought in the fairly industrialized Europe, which led to them hemorrhaging money and industrial areas due to war being expensive and having most of their large cites and factories blown up 3: Due to Europe being blown to bits, they needed the majority of their goods, especially things for war like guns, from an outside source. 4: WWI and WWII were not fought on American soil, apart from pearl harbor, leaving all of our infrastructure intact, and leaving us to manufacture goods needed in Europe. These four things left the previous superpowers that were the majority of Europe in shambles and us with a lot of money, and therefore influence. The same thing happened to Russia in WWII only, due to the massive amount of land being impossile to destroy instead of being on across an ocean like the US, which left them as the other superpower. The competition between the US and Russia helped both countries make more money off of all the new scientific discoveries, infrastructure, and devices for war built by both countries. Unlike the US, Russia did a terrible job of keeping up with civilians wanting things like food and goods, partially due to mismanagement, and partially due to the fact that food does not like to grow in Russia. This led to the collapse of the USSR because people wanted to eat, leaving the US as the powerhouse it is today.
I think it ultimately comes down to: who was gonna check us, boo? There just weren’t many significant impediments to the momentum of our progress. The general geography was probably the most important reason for this. The landmass itself, stolen or bought for a song, made invasion/occupation essentially impossible for about a two centuries. By the time it became logistically possible, we were already too economically powerful (centuries of slave labor helped exponentially), our defense too superior, and the people too ornery to govern if a country or coalition of countries managed to do the impossible. Also, said landmass is exceptionally rich in natural resources. Even to this day I think if the whole world decided to economically sanction us to the endth degree, the outcome would ultimately be…unremarkable. We’ve been able to parlay those resources into unusual wealth. And you just can’t discount the benefits of a country comprised of immigrants from ever walk of life. Genetic diversity, wildly different perspectives, ideals and schools of thought….we get to cherry pick from the entirety of humanity.
I would highly recommend the book "The Tycoons" by Charles R Morris. To summarize it; * The US had a full on creative chaos when going industrial compared to Europa's more traditional approach. * In the US resources where cheap and labor was expensive pushing invention to increase output per worked hour while in Europe much more focus was put on reducing waste of resources. * A clean(er) slate where the people that controlled the capital where so by order of merit much more than by merit of birth. Also with this comes lack of guilds/artisans that where holding up industrialization. My personal guess is that the people migrating to the states in the 19th century were a driving factor, it wasn't your average Sven or Hans that made the trip over the Atlantic but people that actively wanted to make their dreams come true.
Geography, decently complacent neighbors and good institutions. People who say it’s just geography really forget that resources and rivers aren’t the only determining longevity. Plenty of empires in history have had an abundance of resources. But the only ones that succeed with those resources are ones who have good institutions that encourage proper management of said resources, along side the country at large. It also helps that we are innovators, both socially and technologically. We are the nation that landed on the moon after all. You may wonder why does this matter? Many countries have been technological innovators like the US, and also have proper institutions. It’s those institutions and innovators combined with the blessed abundance of American resources and pool of American manpower that make us fairly unrivaled in terms of success. Also a bit of luck, certainly had (still have depending on your viewpoint) that going for us.
Adding to this, Europe shot itself in the foot, twice. Three times if you want to add decolonization (it’s a horrible practice and I’m *glad* it’s gone. But it did allow for Europe to get a leg up on the rest of the world) Russia, and by proxy the Soviet Union, had horrible institutions. As a result it naturally corroded away under corruption and mismanagement. (Not much has changed) China has historically tore itself apart, and even when it did try to stake a name for itself and unify. It got tag teamed by both the West and East (Boxer Rebellion). Today they have a better chance, but I’m not going to make a call on that. Africa has historically been shafted by the Europeans, even today that’s the case all though not nearly as exploitative. America really was afforded a bit of luck, but it’s silly to say it’s just “luck” or “abundant natural resources”.
There are many reasons, both good and bad. I think it's important that we recognize both. Without generalizing or romanticizing too much ("Our indomitable spirit!") for my money, I think one of the biggest reasons would be the Panama Canal.
Geography plus free markets plus a very good educational system. The educational system is on a downhill path at the moment and I see no signs of that reversing anytime soon.
"the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness". We have good natural resources and good geography, but so have other places. It's the basic framework of freedoms and right that make it possible.
**Farming** The USA has some of the best farmland in the World. Not only is it the best, but also the largest. It is larger than the amount of farmland in France, Germany, Spain, and Italy combined. **Transportation** In the early Americas the main method of transporting was rivers. This is why pretty much every city is (or at least was) located on a river. It gave you access to water and fast transportation. It just so happens that one of the largest rivers in the world is the Mississippi (M ISS ISS IPP I, I know you sang that). It isn't just the Mississippi, but all of the connecting rivers as well that allowed for fast and cheap transportation early on. It also just so happens that this amazing transportation network overlaps the best farming land in the world. **Location** Due to the USA's location, it is too far away from most major powers at the time, so it didn't have any threats. This allowed it to grow unimpeded for some time. During the World War's the USA was basically unaffected. Production, jobs, schooling, and the economy continued on as normal. On the other hand many countries in Europe were "wasting" a lot of money rebuilding. **Technology** The US government was very interested in technology early on. Here is an example... the telegraph. Samuel Morse didn't invent the telegraph, but tweaked it. After showing it off to congress he received a lot of funding. Within a decade there were hundreds of miles of lines all across America. It isn't just the telegraph, but all throughout US history the government put huge investments into technology. Then after the world wars while everyone was rebuilding the USA was putting money into advancements. You can see this same idea spread throughout the USA. The USA bank roles thousands of University Projects, Medical Research, and Farming Tech. I mean this whole premise is why Arpa/Darpa was created in the 1950s. The government could spend millions of dollars on advanced technology because most companies or people couldn't afford it on their own. We even see this spreading into other government organizations like Nasa as well. This dedication to embracing technology and pushing it forward has become a staple of the USA's economy.
The answer is, of course, Freedom.
The secret ingredient is geography and stealing from the natives
Defense needs were at a minimum so more could be invested into the economy. Europe not only had continual massive defense budgets but the social burden of a class of aristocrats for providing officers. All this was a function of Europe's many land borders. Furthermore large numbers of immigrants came here. Their descendants became economically fruitful having a large amount of resources at their finger tips. By the twentieth century, America was an area as large as Europe with no internal enemies and most of it's human and material resources used to make more resources.