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Teaching Paradox: Hearts of Iron IV, Part IVa: The Fires of Industry

Bret Devereaux · 23 Oct 2026

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Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

  1. Our reading

    The aggressor powers' aims in World War II were fundamentally economic: it was a war for resources.

    Their wordsthe strategic ends of the aggressor nations were fundamentally rooted in economic objectives. To put it in the classic formulation, World War II was a war for resources.

  2. Our reading

    The outcome of World War II and the Cold War refuted the beliefs that centralized state direction is efficient, that autarky is viable, that domination beats trade, and that a highly militarized economy can durably sustain national power.

    Their wordsthe rather resounding verdict of the war (and the subsequent Cold War period) was that these assumptions - that centralized state direction was efficient, that autarky was a viable economic strategy, that it was better to dominate than to trade, that highly militarized economies could durably sustain national power - were false.

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