What was France, Germany, Italy, Britain and Russia comparatively to one another as they did back in WW2?

Question

eg. during WW2, Italy and France are weakest among all, while Germany, Britain and USSR were doing fine.

how about now, in terms of military and economical?

Answer 1

Where to start with this question? I guess Germany had built up itself to have the strongest, most modern military in its' quest to create the Third Reich and its' dream to dominate the world; on the other hand Germany probably had the worst economy of the nations you mentioned(although most of Europe was suffering from an economic depression and Russia/Soviet Union has/had always been far behind the rest of the "Western" European nations mentioned in terms of standard of living) relative to what it had traditionally enjoyed partially due to the war reparations they were to pay the British, French, Russians, etc after being defeated in WWI (the poor economy also destabilized the German government and allowed Hitler and the Nazi party to gain power while scapegoating Jews for the economic ills of the nation) and from the devestation left in Germany following WWI. Britian most likely had the strongest economy of any of the nations mentioned- it had been on the winning side of the first WWI, was left undamaged by the first world War unlike the other nations, and still enjoyed a world-wide empire; I would say Britian had a military second to Germany. Russia's greatest asset was its' sheer size of territory and population; not to mention a leader (Stalin)/government(Communist Party) bent on "modernizing" itself often at the expense of their own citizenry. On the other hand, Russia's military technology was, in general, far behind that of Germany and Britian; Russians also lived meager lifes and had a very low standard of living. France's and Italy's economies would probably rank as somewhere in the middle of European nations which, at that the time before WWII began in the 1930's, was still not too good due to the worldwide depression occuring. France may have also have still been suffering (along with other European nations mentioned or not) from the devestation caused in its' borders during the first World War; France (along with England and many other European nations) also had no desire for war since WWI was still fresh in their memory and desired to negotiate/appease Germany's militaristic advances instead of trying to rebuild their military to match them and probably felt to do so would only create further economic trouble for itself. As in Germany, the depression in Italy also led to the rise of a dictator in Mussolini bent on restoring the glory of previous times as he envisioned creating a new Italian/Roman empire; Italy's military, however, never came close to developing anywhere near that of the Germans and the Italians relied heavily on their German allies during the war (similar to how the French relied heavily on their British- and then American- allies)

Answer 2

After the war, USA and USSR emerged as the only two superpowers.

After 1991, The USA is the worlds only superpower.

Germany,Japan,USA and South Korea have some of the biggest world economies.

Answer 3

Because Obama is for taxing US citizens the equivalent of .7% of the Gross National Product and that money is to be dished out by a global governance whereas McCain is a spendthrift. McCain does not like us to spend money unless it is deemed appropriate. (Most of McCain battles with bills have been over the addition of "pork" -- unrelated expenses added to the bill just to get the money spent on other Senators' pet projects.)

Answer 4

all but italy and germany have nuclear weapons..so no matter how large their armies are the bomb is the equalizer