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Russia is not part of "the anglosphere."
Further, all war since the industrial revolution has been trending against the concept of numerical superiority. "Whatever happens, we have got the Maxim gun and they have not." Modern warfare has repeatedly generated completely lopsided kill ratios.
China evidently does real well in the IQ games, and they didn't have the disadvantage of discovering the industrial revolution fifty years late. Yet they were a complete basket-case, and spent world war 2 primarily in the role of "victim". Japan does real well in the IQ games, and they got absolutely wrecked. India has no shortage of high-IQ individuals, but their society was a mess then and is still quite a mess now.
IQ: "70% of the time, it works every time." Is that meant to be the takeaway? It's decisive except in those situations where it isn't decisive which can't be predicted in advance?
Sorry, what? Mass production of guns is what enables mass armies, it's a lot faster to learn to use gun than sword or bow (which required life dedication to efficiently use).
Completely lopsided kill ratios existed well before Maxium gun. Historically horses chariots were a big game changer too. Battle of Otumba, etc.
that's both unkind and untrue. The Soviets had numerical advantage but not that much. 170 million USSR in 1939 vs 80 million Third Reich (and what if you count only ethnic Russians)? . Considering how much better was German war machine than Soviet (in part, because of Stalin cleansed nearly all military leadership and officers) it wasn't impossible target.
For country of 1.5 billion, they do have a shortage.
Mass armies matter when you have rough parity in technology and tactics. Sure, lopsided victories have existed for much of human history, but the industrial revolution really turbocharged the process to an absurd degree. Notably, technology and tactics are areas where we would naively expect IQ to deliver outsized results.
...It also doesn't seem to be a claim I made. The post above was conflating "The Allies" with "The Anglosphere", as though the former were equivalent to the later.
Is the per-capita number what's important, or the absolute numbers?
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