How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States

Globalization “depended on key technologies devised or perfected by the US military during the Second World War” (278). In addition to logistics and the invention of synthetics to replace raw materials, developments included communication and transportation. Medical developments were another, because people ended up with serious illnesses like malaria in other parts of the world.

Logistics changed during World War II as “commanders grew accustomed to speaking of tonnage, inventory levels, and supply lines” (282). Such innovation “enabled the United States to move through places without carefully preparing the ground first” (282). Japan prevented China from receiving Allied materiel by blocking the Burma Road. In turn, the US used planes to aid China along the “Fireball Express” that went through Cairo to the Himalayan Mountains (284). The US had more than 4,000 B-29s by the end of World War II in contrast to the novelty of airplanes in World War I. Another important development was the shrinking of cargo: dehydration of portable food and transporting parts enabled the transport of larger loads (284). Airplanes “changed the laws of geopolitics” which meant that “[c]ontiguous access no longer mattered so much” (286). Island hopping used by Nimitz and MacArthur during World War II attested to this fact.