Wartime production

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by swaghauler

THIS! This is the reason why my timeline results in a "come as you are" war. I start the serious hostilities in Poland AFTER the 1996 Elections and things escalate in 1997.

That's pretty much the timing for wider NATO involvement too in all editions - Germans don't ask for help until later in November 96, so after the US election.
The German/Poland war had kicked off properly on the 27th of July though, or the 7th of October in the 1st ed timeline. Either way, the US (and majority of NATO) were not actively involved early enough for the war to be a major political issue leading up to the election.

2nd ed actually allows the west a longer period of preparation than 1st ed, provided of course anyone was awake enough to see the signs of imminent conflict. Given there was an election campaign under way, I'm pretty damn sure neither side would have been very happy to be publicly supporting or advocating increasing military spending. Vietnam was only a generation earlier, and we all know how public opinion effected that little conflict and the political scalps it claimed....

That said, increasing production my private companies to supply the Chinese may have been promoted by one side or the other as "job creation", although I'm not convinced the country as a whole would have been very happy to be supplying a communist country with weapons and ammo, even if they were fighting another communist country. Too much publicity during the election campaign could have spelt political death.

My thoughts are laws may have been altered to allow easier export to China, but that's probably about as far as the Government would have been willing to go.