A Short Summary Of World War II

The Archdruid Report:

The war that followed is usually called the Second World War, but it might more usefully be given a different name: the Gasoline War. That’s partly because the stunning initial victories of the two Axis powers that counted came from a grasp of what gasoline engines could do in war – Mussolini’s Italy never did figure out the revolution in warfare that petroleum made possible, and so got the stuffing pounded out of it early and often. It’s partly, also, because a great deal of the strategy of the war on all sides focused on access to petroleum – the two Allied powers that counted, the United States and the Soviet Union, had immense petroleum reserves, while the Axis had none, and the attempts of the latter to seize oilfields and the former to prevent that from happening shaped much of the war. Finally, it’s because victory in that war went to those who were able to bring the most petroleum-based energy to bear on the battlefield. While Germany and Japan could manage that, they remained in the ascendant; once the United States and Soviet Union applied the same methods using their much more abundant oil supplies, the Axis was doomed.

Good point. The whole post is excellent.