[grobbyy]

World War II was won because of US and (less advertised) Soviet manufacturing capacity.

Ukraine is more constrained by weapon supplies, especially drones and artillery, than by manpower.

I'm not sure both sides are playing the same game. In the game I think might be afoot, if your economy is management consultants, therapists, and hair stylists, that's "bad" GDP. Resources and manufacturing are "good" GDP. Resources are complex in that stone are renewable, and some go away when you export them.

I'm not even going to talk about education or, related, R&D capacity.

[whimsicalism]

high finance/management can be quite valuable when you’re trying to plan a conflict. this is how you get the industries developed that are capable of designing a system to turn sand into missile-targeting systems.

i’m extremely skeptical of people’s ability to view the economy from on high and pick out the “good, productive gdp” and the “bad, makework gdp”.

[ramblenode]

> i’m extremely skeptical of people’s ability to view the economy from on high and pick out the “good, productive gdp” and the “bad, makework gdp”.

Maybe in general, but rent-seeking is a pretty large part of the economy by estimates I've seen.

[grobbyy]

That's not quite my point. "Productive" is for a reason. Is manufacturing perfume productive? Making video games?

It depends on your goals.

However, in a great power conflict, they're much less productive than tanks, drones, fighter jets, and guns.

Conversely, money thrown into weapons can't be used for quality-of-life improvements.

Neither of these is "good" or "bad" per se.

Some industries are hybrid. A ship yard is dual purpose.

If two hypothetical countries are playing this game, and one exports movies to buy ships and vice versa, when war breaks out, one country might be stuck without movies and the other without ships.