I cannot recommend to your notice measures for the fulfillment of our duties to the rest of the world without again pressing upon you the necessity of placing ourselves in a condition of complete defense and of exacting from them the fulfillment of their duties toward us.We sure did fall rapidly from what we were in WWII.
The United States ought not to indulge a persuasion that, contrary to the order of human events, they will forever keep at a distance those painful appeals to arms with which the history of every other nation abounds.
There is a rank due to the United States among nations which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.
The documents which will be presented to you will show the amount and kinds of arms and military stores now in our magazines and arsenals; and yet an addition even to these supplies cannot with prudence be neglected, as it would leave nothing to the uncertainty of procuring warlike apparatus in the moment of public danger. …
“We sure did fall rapidly from what we were in WWII.”
After the war, with the rest of the industrialized world destroyed, America, untouched by the destruction of war was on top.
However, after a couple decades in which Europe and Japan could rebuild and re-tool, the US was left with an old manufacturing infrastructure.
Had we modernized our factories in the 1950’s and 1960’s we would have remained a manufacturing power.
IOW, "If you would have peace, prepare for war". It's an old idea, but always applicable.