There are reasons to go to war that transcend macroeconomics. Our instincts to tribal violence are ancient, and I suspect the social bonds of shared fear, dange

There are reasons to go to war that transcend macroeconomics. Our instincts to tribal violence are ancient, and I suspect the social bonds of shared fear, danger, and trauma are far more potent than most of us peacetime civilians understand, arguably being an end unto itself. Moreover, there are political motivations domestically that have nothing to do with ostensible mission objectives, whether pursued ideologically, or cynically. If anything, our long stretch of (relative) worldwide peace is the anomaly, and it's debatable whether that would be the case if not for the atom bomb setting an existential upper bound on the level of war that first-world societies choose to tolerate.