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Consider it an economic problem. War costs money, therefore war will be conducted when its benefits exceed its costs. What makes war profitable? For that you ne
by imtringued 2y ago
Consider it an economic problem. War costs money, therefore war will be conducted when its benefits exceed its costs. What makes war profitable? For that you need to know the benefits of war. The most obvious benefit is the changing of borders and conquering of new land. Now you might say that it always makes sense for a country to try to conquer the enire world, because having the land grants you access to its riches for free, but then you have to consider the costs of war too.
The cost of conquering land and managing it yourself must be cheaper than letting the other country manage the land and production process and then importing the goods you want.
The cost of conquering the land can be split into two parts. First, the initial offensive representing capex and the ongoing defense costs against attackers represent opex. If it turns out that the foreign country is both fleecing you on imports and is spending less in defense per acre than you would, if you managed the land, it would be profitable for you to conquer the land and install a defense force that spends more to protect the same plot of land. Since your spending budget is higher per acre, the original country would lose if they tried to recover the territory.
Now consider the opposite scenario. The original country does not fleece you on imports and has a lean army. Then it would not be profitable for you to conquer the land, since you have higher opex and the benefit is insignificant.
Of course none of this stops crazy dictators from attempting world domination, but it can tell you that on average, people should be uninterested in war.
- lovecg 2y agoIt’s interesting that the relative costs of offense vs. defense vary with technological development. In the middle ages when castles existed but guns did not, and societal structure was such that mounting enormous besieging armies of antiquity was not possible, the borders mostly stayed intact. It’s possible we’re entering something similar judging by the drone war in Ukraine which seems to heavily favor defense.
- kevin_thibedeau 2y agoOnly a matter of time until semi-autonomous hunter killer drones are perfected for mass deployment.
- squigz 2y agoI think one of the most obvious, major benefits of war is the trillions of dollars that's put into the military-industrial complex every year. Whether war actually breaks out is irrelevant, if the interests involved can make people believe it's always inevitable, so let's keep pumping money into it.
- pixl97 2y agoSo everyone is just going to get along? Like that drunk neighbor that started fighting everyone and you had to call the police on them? The thing is if as few as 1 in 1000 have ill intentions we'll quickly find ourselves back in a system with a MIC.
- squigz 2y agoI don't believe I made any implications about how the world should act, or whether peace is possible. I made a point about a major motivating factor. That isn't to say it's the only one.
- gizmondo 2y agoEurope stopped believing in it and "interests involved" couldn't do anything about it. As a result their military-industrial complex has atrophied to a point where without US goodwill they would not be able to protect themselves against the belligerent neighbor with much smaller economy.
- jemmyw 2y agoSure that calculation might have worked when it was purely about the land. But now the land itself is only one small part of the value production. Even for agriculture, there's all that infrastructure, and the knowledge workers to make it viable and competitive. War destroys those, and a war of attrition like the one in Ukraine also has a destructive effect on the land itself. Internal strife shows this. In Africa where farms were taken with force with no planning on what happened next the agricultural economy collapsed.
- pixl97 2y agoNever underestimate the stupidity of someone that wants a bigger piece of a smaller pie.
- scotty79 2y agoInternational wars are started for internal reasons. To stay in power. To funnel money.