My Econ professor likes to mention little facts during lectures that are related to what we are talking about in the class. Today it was arguments for and against protectionism. One argument that is used for protectionism is national security. Some people argue that we shouldn't become reliant on other countries for goods that we need to protect ourselves. My professor argued against that (kind of complex so it's too long to go into here, but it makes a lot of sense) and, among others things, said that we should, if anything, restrict exports that other countries could use against us.
Now, here's the scary part. As an example he told us about the early 1930's when Japan first started invading other countries in Asia. Even then they realized that the US would become a problem for them. But they decided to take advantage of our then neutral position and buy scrap metal from us in huge quantities (which they later turned into battleships used to kill American soldiers, but anyways...) They also were stockpiling huge quantities of biological weapons like anthrax. They developed a jet airplane to deliver the weapons to US coastal cities like LA and San Diego. But they couldn't get the engines to work correctly (and so the plane would not be able to make it there and back to Japan). So they enlisted the help of Boeing to build those engines (not telling them what they were for). But the process was difficult (remember, jet engines were experimental technology back then) and Boeing was having trouble keeping costs down. They were thinking about moving production to another country to lower costs, but apparently Japan thought this was taking too long and attacked Pearl Harbor instead.
If it wasn't for the delays in producing the engines at a reasonable cost, the Japanese might have been able to deliver huge quantities of anthrax and other bio weapons to major US coastal cities and infect millions of people (something those dumbass terrorists can only dream about). That would not have turned out so good.
Just wanted to share this interesting tidbit with everyone.
Now, here's the scary part. As an example he told us about the early 1930's when Japan first started invading other countries in Asia. Even then they realized that the US would become a problem for them. But they decided to take advantage of our then neutral position and buy scrap metal from us in huge quantities (which they later turned into battleships used to kill American soldiers, but anyways...) They also were stockpiling huge quantities of biological weapons like anthrax. They developed a jet airplane to deliver the weapons to US coastal cities like LA and San Diego. But they couldn't get the engines to work correctly (and so the plane would not be able to make it there and back to Japan). So they enlisted the help of Boeing to build those engines (not telling them what they were for). But the process was difficult (remember, jet engines were experimental technology back then) and Boeing was having trouble keeping costs down. They were thinking about moving production to another country to lower costs, but apparently Japan thought this was taking too long and attacked Pearl Harbor instead.
If it wasn't for the delays in producing the engines at a reasonable cost, the Japanese might have been able to deliver huge quantities of anthrax and other bio weapons to major US coastal cities and infect millions of people (something those dumbass terrorists can only dream about). That would not have turned out so good.
Just wanted to share this interesting tidbit with everyone.
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