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according this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War, the direct spend
by taobility 8y ago
according this link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War, the direct spending of DoD on Iraq war is about $757.8 billion, do you think most of that spending on the labor?
- rgbrenner 8y agoI think to look at any particular war and ask that question leads to an inaccurate answer... since there are years of prep work, training, research, etc that the military conducts, then in a short period of time they expend equipment, munitions, etc during a war. But consider, the cost of labor effects everything the military does... Everyone in the entire chain commands a higher wage than they would in China/Russia, whether they hold a gun or not... researchers, assembly line workers, doctors, etc... pushing up the costs of everything the military buys.
- taobility 8y agoI agree part of your point. But you forgot another huge difference that, US has involved lots of wars in the past three decades, but China didn't, which spend trillion dollars, either on labor or not, but that money just wasted without any outcoming. You can check out what Jack Ma commented about this in World Economic Forum 2017: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/jack-ma-america-has-wasted-its-wealth/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/01/jack-ma-america-has-w...
- jwhitlark 8y agoWasted perhaps in immediate strategic outcomes. But don't discount blooding troops, burning in systems and building institutional knowledge, which are strategic assets. One can certainly argue if it was worth it, though.