Marshall here. Welcome back to the Realignment.

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The team in the United States has to take a quick post-mortem weekend break,

so it's great to be back with a full episode this Thursday.

Today's episode is with the author Craig Nelson, who has recently released a new book,

V is for Victory, Franklin Roosevelt's American Revolution, and the triumph of World War II.

I wanted to speak with Craig because his retelling of how in FDR's phrasing,

the quote, Arsenal democracy played a humongous role in winning World War II,

is incredibly relevant to the challenges we face today.

Just to run through the stats during the World War II period,

the American Heartland produced 2.5 million trucks, 500,000 jeeps, 286,000 aircraft,

86,000 tanks, 14,400 naval and merchant vessels,

41 billion runs ammunition, and 2.6 million machine guns that constituted

two-thirds of the Allies' war supplies.

Now, the debate about whether or not the quote, Arsenal democracy is up to the task today

is one of the central defense policy issues of the 2020s.

For example, a key argument made by Ukraine aid skeptics like previous guest,

Albert Scobri, for prioritizing Asia over Europe,

is the belief that America doesn't have the inherent manufacturer potential

it possessed during the 1939-1941 pre-war period.

And as I discussed with Elite Akerman last week,

the defense industrial base has shown that it's been strained to its near-limits

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