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Comment by axguscbklp | Hacker News Reader

US citizens' desire to fight in WW2 perhaps largely came from propaganda to begin with - maybe in the absence of propaganda most of them would have been fine with doing nothing to help Britain, France, etc. About 60% of US WW2 soldiers were drafted, not volunteers. So it is not so much a question of no propaganda in the past versus propaganda today, it is more of a question of more tightly controlled propaganda in the past versus more diverse propaganda today.

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But that is my point. Most people got the latest war news from the government sanctioned newsreels playing in the movie theaters. Any photos of the war were approved by the government before they were run in printed media. Letters home were famously read individually to cross out unacceptable content under the pretext of protecting frontline strategies.

The government had a very strong stranglehold on what information the population received. Today that is not the case, and there are very good reasons for it, but in the event that world war three occurred, it would put the West at a severe disadvantage.

World War Three is a dramatic thought, but it isn't even happening and the West is already feeling the pain of this situation. Destabilizing election and covid misinformation being spewed by China and Russia are prime examples.

Got it, thanks for explaining so clearly. The way I see it, because of nuclear weapons, no other country can actually conquer the US, so I much prefer free speech to any sort of propaganda initiatives meant to strengthen the US against other countries. We are already basically almost completely protected from other countries by our nuclear weapons. We do not need censorship and propaganda to add any sort of meaningful further protection.

> We are already basically almost completely protected from other countries by our nuclear weapons.

US nuclear weapon stockpile will only be enough to neutralise just one military superpower.

A country with resources, and economy to survive the first strike, can realistically rebuild, and come back with vengeance.

I always retold my own variation on the Einstein's quote on WW3 as "WW3 will be started with nuclear weapons, but will be ended with trench warfare"

>US nuclear weapon stockpile will only be enough to neutralise just one military superpower

Well that's not true. And it's especially not true with the new ICBM fuses and bomber launched stand-off missiles. The newly equipped icbms are an approx. 3x multiplier compared to having the same number of weapons a decade ago.

Which frees up weapons to be shifted either to new targets, or from strategic use to potential tactical use, with the new lower adjustable yields.

So even WW3 trench warfare has a good chance of still being nuclear warfare.

>US citizens' desire to fight in WW2 perhaps largely came from propaganda to begin with - maybe in the absence of propaganda most of them would have been fine with doing nothing to help Britain, France, etc.

The attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitler foolishly declaring war against the US were the main reasons there was a great deal of support for the war.

>...About 60% of US WW2 soldiers were drafted, not volunteers.

It is misleading to put out that statistic without giving the context. The reason there weren't more volunteers is that the US stopped allowing most volunteers and just told people to wait to be called for the draft:

>...On December 5, 1942, presidential Executive Order 9279 closed voluntary enlistment for all men from the ages of 18 to 37 for the duration of the war, providing protection for the nation's home front manpower pool.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_Sta...

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