War & Peace Quote by Arthur Hays Sulzberger

Thirteen billion dollars is doing two jobs here: it’s a history lesson and a moral lever. Sulzberger, a publisher who spent his career translating power into print, frames wartime production not as heroic myth but as a ledger entry with geopolitical consequences. The precision of “1939 and 1945,” the accountant’s clarity of “valued at,” the blunt “70 per cent,” all push the reader away from romance and toward infrastructure: war as supply chain, alliance as distribution network.

The intent is quietly coercive. By invoking Canada’s World War II output and emphasizing that most of it was “shipped,” he reminds Canadians of a proven national role: indispensable but largely offstage, an arsenal with borders. It’s praise, but also a nudge - you’ve done this before; you can be counted on again. The phrase “the same process is going on today” does the real work. “Process” sterilizes politics, turning rearmament into something almost automatic, as if industrial momentum has replaced democratic choice.

The subtext is Cold War anxiety without naming it: a warning that Canada’s expanding industrial base is already being absorbed into a larger strategic choreography, likely oriented toward allied needs rather than domestic priorities. In a single sentence, he captures how modern power travels: not through speeches, but through production capacity, shipping routes, contracts, and the quiet normalization of militarized growth.