Why did the U.S. become such a dominant superpower?

The U.S. had the largest economy in the world well before the world wars, anons. It has literally nothing to do with the World Wars.

Economy, population, influx of ideas, land, and natural resources.
The US became the strongest nation by the end of the 19th century, and after the Spanish-American war, European powers recognized the US as such, Spain was weak compared to the other powers, but the outcome of the war was relevant anyway. After WWII, the US and USSR became the first superpowers.

The World Wars were key in allowing the United States to turn its economic power into political power.

By the end of them, the US was the de facto financial and military leader of the west, at the beginning of them they were considered to be on par with Belgium or Portugal in terms of global military relevance.

True, the US was the strongest nation economically speaking early 20th century, but during both wars, and especially WWII they had to mobilize a lot, army was small compared to other nations.

Freedom.

Geography, economy, World War II, agriculture, great amount of scientists, immigration, population, and more.

Yes, hence why I mentioned that WWII fucked everyone else. It's not like the US wasn't powerful before then, but after that point nobody could really impose a threat, and they were able to wield their economic power almost entirely unchallenged.

In proportion to their populations Canada, New Zealand, and Australia did grow at the same levels of the American economy. The US had a quality economy that happened to have lots of consumers, more than any other modernized nation up to the modern era

Abundance of natural resources and arable land + they were never successfully invaded by anyone. Plus they were white.

Interestingly enough the U.S. is not supposed to have a standing military. This caused problems with mobilisation and certain doctrine and tactics, for example we didn't have a permanent sniper school till after Vietnam. I remember reading somewhere about how the guy who recuted Carlos Hathcock for the sniper program based a large amount of his ideas from a single book about a Canadian sniper from ww1.

>the U.S. is not supposed to have a standing military

It's more like Congress didn't want to pay for a standing military until WW2 and the Cold War convinced them that the alternative was getting rekt.

While this is true, everyone was well aware of America's militarism potential. The US civil war was arguably the bloodiest in the 19th century and trounced Spain.

Only the United States hit all 4 of the "Necessary to be Powerful" requirements.

1. Your nation must be protected from threats.
The United States is incredibly difficult to invade, currently, impossible. No outside nation could feasibly invade the US after 1840. Coupled with the large and well funded navy, the United States also boasted a large and armed population that could quickly be assembled into an army. Even during the Civil War Europe had little desire to get involved. For one, there was little to gain, but there was so much to lose by direct interference. The American Civil War was one of the bloodiest wars in the world at that point in time, the bloodiest Western war even.
Due to the relatively minor gain versus the incredibly high cost of gaining it in the first place, the United States enjoyed a unique position of everybody wanting a piece of the New World but nobody wanting to fight America for it.

2. Resources
The United States has an immense amount of resources, much of it still untapped even today.

3. Trade
The United States, due to its large amounts of raw resources and great location, immediately became a major trading country. As time when on, it quickly became an industrialized trading country, producing vast quantities of goods. As time went on, it became a country connected to two oceans, even further increasing its trading potential. The Panama Canal was constructed at considerable expense because the amount of money to be made off a faster sea route was limitless.

4. Education
Unlike much of the New World, the United States was formed around solely European settlers who displaced, rather than mixed and lorded over the natives. Almost immediately the United States was a very educated and cultured place relative to what passed for education and culture.

Mileage may vary on that, but there is a reason the US has led scientific advancement and been a haven for scientists abroad to flock to when their home country becomes unstable.

Thanks to payroll taxes. If they can't be drafted, they'll still pay for it.

Yeah, but America didn't have much margin to muscle in on existing powers, or any inclination to pay for foreign adventures.

Then Europe crapped the bed and the US had to come rescue them.

>inb4 butthurt

Fuck the Americans. We'd better off if we had a German and Austrian empire today.

Not entirely true, I believe the idea of no standing army is way older, I believe Jefferson was the one saying it was unconstitutional or so, but everyone else disagreed, because they knew a standing army was essential for a nation.

Just look at a fucking map. The US has a HUGE population of over 300 million people, and controls a vast amount of territory which is loaded with fertile soil, useful minerals, oil, and natural gas.

>We'd better off if we had a German and Austrian empire today.

The Constitution says that Congress may not make appropriations for a military for a period of longer than two years.

There was political opposition to a standing military on ideological grounds, but it turns out militias suck at fighting.

I suppose there is one fifth thing you need, which didn't fit in my original post, which is population.
Many other countries have large amounts of resources, are highly educated, engage in trade, are geographically isolated and/or politically protected (Switzerland).

But they have small populations for one reason or another. You could say this ties back into Resources, because a country rich in ore but poor in top soil will use much of the money it makes off ore to purchase foodstuffs, and its population will be heavily limited to the few areas that can support agriculture until industrialization allows for mass food transport over long distances.
Either way, the country ends up with a smaller population than one with lots of tillable land but not much mineral wealth.

Mineral wealth is only valuable once it's out of the ground. The United States can actually access its resources, without outside help.
Russia has vast quantities of resources, and a large population, but it cannot access most of its land or resouces due to the weather being fucking awful.

Canada has large amounts of land and resources but farmland is limited. New Zealand and Australia share the same issues.

Thank you for the contribution. Fuck, I need to go back and reread the constitution. I´ve been busy reading on the CIA, and war on drugs.

>I´ve been busy reading on the CIA, and war on drugs.

TL;DR America got really stupid at some point in the 70s and it still hasn't recovered fully.

hey there's the butthurt

CIA was/is completely retarded, their actions attempted to solve problems, disregarding the long term effects. Truly the stupidest agency

>Plus they were white

Thanks for your input Curtis

Are you denying this wasn't important? That if they were a bunch of blacks and natives, the US would become just as successful? And I don't know who Curtis is.

Define white. Blacks, and latinos were essential in US economy during the great migration towards the North, and WW2.

But he's right.

Those of European descent.

>essential during great migration towards the North
This is nonsense. They were just a cheap workforce, it can in fact be argued that they made cities like Detroit, NYC, Cleveland or Chicago much worse, not better.

>This is nonsense.
>They were just a cheap workforce

You can't even argue they didn't. Those cities are objectively worse now that they're multicultural than when they were just white.

elites making contact with interdimensional beings
silicon valley

These are more relevant points than just "they were white but still along the same lines.
Basically, their ethnic background is relevant insofar as it effected their choices of how to settle the continent, how to form institutions to govern, how to invest and develop an economy, etc. Due to a shitload of historical, geographic (de facto economic in premodern times), and cultural factors, white Europeans were able to create the physical and social institutions in America which worked really well.

Literally God.

Up until recently we've remained very religious, and God has blessed us and given us dominion over all living things on the earth.

But lately, this turning away from God has corresponded with our decline from absolute greatness.

There are several answers
>population
America is easily the largest first world nation with nearly three times the next largest country Japan.
>Resources
america due its large size and dominence of its imediate neigbors has access to pretty much every resource it needs. This level of of natural resources is not found in any other first world nation.
>not the worst government and economic system
The only other nations that could match the united states were hurt by a number of factors. The Soviets economic system was rotten to its core and government corrupt on scale only surpassed in Africa. China was a third world nation that experienced a 100 years of war and strife before coming into the modern world. However, despite rampant corruption it seems to be run by conpentant people currently. This makes it the only real threat. India is still stuck the third world with corruprion, extreme internal divisions and poor economic policies.
>Geography
America is centrally located between the two major population and economic centers of the world. This allows it to easily trade with almost every nation.
America has a great system of traversable rivers that allow for easy transport.
America is basically an island with no major military threat in the western hemisphere. This allows for much less money spent on deffense amd more on power projection.
>stability
American lands havent seen major amounts of violence and destruction since the civil war. This gave them a huge edge on the other major powers of the time that were recovering from two major wars

NYC was always like that but it's much much better now in all it's history.
Other cities got fucked by De-industrialization and Americans losing jobs to other countries as well as bad desiccation by Americans companies and cities over reliant on manufacturing.

Both are correct. Literally anyone can work at the assembly line but the blacks weren't the scientists, the generals, the inventors, the tycoons who turned America into a superpower.

Rest of the world twice murdered eachover from 1914 to 1945, plenty of room to easily fill.

This. The US is basically the Last Man of Western civilization.