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Economic costs of war

watson.brown.edu

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Re: Economic costs of war

#471

Post by Godel_unicode »

sdenton4 wrote: post #379
adventured wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Members of congress are getting obscenely rich from the Military Industrial Complex and their "campaign contributions". Please explain for me how that is so, without diverting into claiming that they're being handed tens of millions of dollars secretly under the table. I'm familiar with how campaign contributions work and the legal regulations involved, including what they're allowed to do - and not do - with the m…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics)

That's definitely a problem, although the examples in the US are things like the SEC and the FCC, i.e. unelected officials.

Re: Economic costs of war

#472

Post by rayiner »

heresie-dabord wrote: post #261
mc32 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever since we reneged on the decision Kennedy made to pull out of VietNam by Johnson, we've thought continually we were dealing with another defeated Japan or defeated Germany --the enemy population would just comply to our wishes, so we kept on thinking we could "turn them into replicas of American government" This thinking has undermined our actions in every major war since then, with the exception of GWI. Gulf War…

> A nation has to work out its own problems for itself. This point being raised, it is time for the US to spend money on education to support its own democracy.

The U.S. spends among the most on education of any developed country, both in absolute terms and a percentage of GDP. Our education spending is over 6% of GDP: https://waterpedia.wiki/image/education-spending-share-gdp-s....

All of the people involved in these foreign war debacles were highly pedigreed. (Fun fact: the President of Afghanistan, who fled Kabul yesterday, is an Ivy League-educated professor who "literally wrote the book on fixing failed states.")

The education, in fact, the problem. Universities is where people learn hare-brained ideas like Wilsonianism. It's where people learn to view government as a set of laws and policies and boxes on org charts, rather than the manifestation of the culture and political tradition of people.

Coming from a traditional Muslim country ourselves, my family knew in 2001 that nation building in Afghanistan was an absurd idea. Our own country has a thousand-year head start on Afghanistan in terms of civilization, and has still struggled with democracy. It's not in the people. But Americans are so far separated from their culture--that is to say, their village won't die of starvation if they indulge in cultural experimentation--they can't even locate the wellspring of democracy in culture and traditions.

Re: Economic costs of war

#474

Post by dc443 »

el_jay wrote: post #118

To those here riffing on the theme of “this misrepresents the volume and beneficiaries of the transactions involved” - you’re not wrong. Accurate representation of public info like this is a top organisational problem for our species at the moment. But I do think you miss the point, so aptly put by Mr Eisenhower: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a thef…

It's hard for me to believe that a modern brick school costs the same as 1.667 miles of concrete pavement, but it does not change the point he makes. It just makes concrete pavement sound really, really expensive.

Re: Economic costs of war

#475

Post by sgregnt »

smegger001 wrote: post #446
sgregnt wrote: post #382

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lobbying is only so much effective as the benefits outweigh the damage to a politician. In our tight election cycles the marginal differences are important, I would believe that politicians would jump to grab as much votes as possible to tilt the balance only even slightly. Maybe there is actually more support for large military spending than it appears to you?

Nope its not a wedge issue so they wont fight over it especally as they profit from it. The left will pay lip service to halting forever wars, but will sign the next military procurement bill because it ostensibly brings in vague nonspecific 'jobs' to their district. The right on the other hand, just gets hard at the idea of more and bigger guns and signs it without needing a excuse.

So to summarize: your are saying on the one hand, for one or the other reason, the voters decide not to punish politicians that support military spending, on the other hand, politician rely onobbist to help them get elected and so don't do much about spending.

I think we agree.

Re: Economic costs of war

#476

Post by mannykannot »

mc32 wrote: post #429
aiisjustanif wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not interested in intervening with infantry and all the necessary materiel unless it's to defend ourselves from grave danger. Especially avoid stupid the boondoggle of "nation-building". Not everyone wants democracy right now. It may come later. This short sightedness might cost more in lives globally and money loss from trade and resources being restricted.

While it seems crude, the way we used to do it, the way the Soviets used to do it, the way China does it now, seems to work best for this kind of interest. You invest in a despot let them have their little fiefdom and you let them run what's theirs and you get to take what you think is yours. Nation-building is hubris. Work with someone local who fits hand-in-glove. Is the unstable "stability" worth 6T and thousands…

Bringing Saddam Hussein and the invasion of Iraq into the discussion is a distraction, as this is most clearly regarded as a separate conflict launched under the cover of an invasion of Afghanistan which was, unlike that in Iraq, a response to an actual attack and continuing threat. In addition, and per my previous comment, the acquiescence of Congress further demonstrated the limitations of its nominal power to veto such actions.

Re: Economic costs of war

#478

Post by new_realist »

el_jay wrote: post #118

To those here riffing on the theme of “this misrepresents the volume and beneficiaries of the transactions involved” - you’re not wrong. Accurate representation of public info like this is a top organisational problem for our species at the moment. But I do think you miss the point, so aptly put by Mr Eisenhower: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a thef…

Total U.S. assets amount to about $225 trillion. Spending 1/700th of that per year for the past 20 years to protect those assets seems a reasonable investment. That’s not to say this money was spent wisely, in hindsight (which is always 20/20).

Re: Economic costs of war

#479

Post by rayiner »

rjzzleep wrote: post #273
heresie-dabord wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A nation has to work out its own problems for itself. This point being raised, it is time for the US to spend money on education to support its own democracy.

One could argue that the seeds of destruction are so far entrenched, that there might only be 1-3 cycles left before the destruction of its own democracy is ensured. The Iranian clerical leadership was rejoicing on twitter about Trumps election claims and January 6th. This has also been cannonfodder for the Chinese leadership and countless other countries. I'd say the US elites are still somewhat in denial of what ac…

> Remember that Bill Barr had the unitary executive theory in mind long before Trump came into power, but previous Republican leadership considered it too radical for the American public to accept.

The unitary executive dates back to the Federalists: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_executive_theory#Adopt....

You're invoking an anachronism--it wasn't until the 20th century that we even got the idea of "independent" bureaucrats insulated from accountability to the elected President. George Washington's original cabinet consisted of just four members: Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of Treasury Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of War Henry Knox, and Attorney General Edmund Randolph. All of those were plainly intended to be subordinate to Washington as the President.

Re: Economic costs of war

#480

Post by fomine3 »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #302
baybal2 wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we've thought continually we were dealing with another defeated Japan or defeated Germany --the enemy population would just comply to our wishes, so we kept on thinking we could "turn them into replicas of American government" You though, but you did not did. In both prior cases US ran moderately competent occupation government, and by some accounts one better than their own. The model US followed in Vietnam was no…

Those countries knew they would be treated as equals on the economic world forum, not puppet states for resource extraction. The only remarkable thing is that we treated Japan so well, considering how its fellow far east countries were treated as client states or worse for so long. I think it was latent guilt of using the nuke on them.

Those treatment is thanks to fear of communism, and war vs communism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_Course
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