Some people need killing. But that’s not really the goal of building better weapons systems. Wars only get started by people who think they have a chance to win

Some people need killing. But that’s not really the goal of building better weapons systems. Wars only get started by people who think they have a chance to win. Having a large, well-equipped military with the best weapons and then pledging to deploy that military to the defense of half the world deters a lot of wars from even starting in the first place. A lot of people will argue that defense companies want wars to break out to increase their business, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. In wartime, the military mostly needs cheap commodities—ammunition, supplies, food, fuel—nothing you can really differentiate on. And especially the most recent wars have mostly been against poorly armed terrorists, when the defense industry makes a lot more money selling weapons that would be total overkill against the Taliban but potentially useful against Russia or China.