"The Problem of U.S. Military Surplus After World War II"

This is a history of military waste and reinvention after World War II, when billions of dollars and heretofore uncalculated tons of surplus goods shaped nations’ economies and environments around the globe. Learning from the glut of surplus goods following World War I, which drove down prices domestically in the early 1920s, American military officials took considered approach to domestic and international demobilization—reconverting to a civilian economy—after World War II. They deliberated about what to do with the millions of items left behind in the European theater, Pacific Ocean and Far East, Africa and Middle East theaters, and around the Western Hemisphere in 1945. At stake, as they saw it, was the economic and political future of the U.S. and the world. Could the U.S. possibly recover a small percentage of what these goods had cost, in the few short years before the goods decayed or became obsolete? Could they plausibly create new markets with the technologies they left behind? And who, exactly, would do the surplus disposal work given the cries to bring American soldiers home as soon as possible after the war’s end? This presentation will trace how U.S. governmental officials and industry representatives debated about the problem of surplus disposal and offered possible solutions.