Im really lost and need help…I understand that there were a lot of factors that helped the us become a stronger economy such as establishing trade with Japan or annexing Hawaii so that we could trade with china, but i dont understand how a strong economy was important for the US to become a world power..
June 17th, 2009 at 9:19 am
Because military power costs MONEY — ships, tanks, guns, a standing Army & Navy, etc.
Without a strong economy there isn’t enough tax base on which to depend to pay for all that expensive stuff. Taxes are based on imports, exports, income, excise charges, tariffs, etc — and if there is a lot of economic activity it brings in a lot of taxes.
That’s why the US military fell into such a sad state during the Great Depression, and left us in disastrous military shape when we were attacked by Japan.