I've always been interested when historians mention a pivotal battle and then say something, e.g. that after losing the Battle of Midway, the Japanese were destined to lose the Pacific theater in WWII to the US because the US had too many resources. I guess the idea is that the US natural resources were just too great and whether it took 5 or 10 years, eventually the United States would win.

The same holds true for the North eventually beating the South during the Civil War.

Has anyone read an easily accessible study/book on this matter?
It might be just as interesting to look at the stats and read wikipedia:
In 1940, the US had ~130 million pop. while Japan had 70 mil. So the US was double the size.
I didnt realize that the US had a 10 fold larger GDP than Japan toward the later stages of the war compared to Japan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militar...duct_.28GDP.29

Lastly, has anyone ever come up with an algorithm/formula that finds the principal components of winning wars?

I don´t have the algorithm, but I do agree the resources are more important than bravery for achieving a win. Without bravery it´s of course possible you accept a bad peace agreement, however great your resources.

There's a short series that deals in part with this called The Ascent of Money

I think it was a Chinese Emperor who was asked how to win battles and he replied with "By using overwhelming force".

The more overwhelming the force is (within reason, IE, no nukes), the less net cost to human life there should be.

Napoleon Bonaparte: "The three most important things in war are money, money, and money."