War Chief Will said:
War is it good: It helps stimulate the economy. Makes use of ALL the equipment the tax payers PAID for. Also, brings nations togeather in a sense of national pride and unity. It brings down evil tyrants(.....rarely however....)
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO........What's your take on war?
I work in the defense industry and, to some extent, I'm proud of what I do. I'd be fucking crazy to actually like war, however -- hell, as someone who's involved in this stuff, I feel it's pretty much my
duty to be very critical and skeptical of all elements of warfare (and culturally knowledgeable about it, too).
As far as this thread goes, I think you're flat-out wrong on most points.
Military spending doesn't feed the economy more so than any other kind of spending does. If we all got together and decided to make a space elevator or robot helpers for the elderly or the world's biggest quilt, that would create jobs and consume resources, too. But not all of those things would necessarily be a good use of resources, capital, or labor. Neither does building a bunch of shiny planes, necessarily. There's some truth to the Keynesian belief that just having money move around is better than just hiding it somewhere, but you've much better off spending it on stuff that's actually worthwhile itself rather than just funneling it into a bunch of shiny planes that sit unused somewhere (either unused because you're not fighting a war or, as is the case now, unused because the planes aren't much help to a squad of 19-year-olds going house-to-house on foot in Fallujah).
And having a war just so that you can use those shiny planes? That's damn stupid. It's just hyper-naive "broken window" economics (destroying shit doesn't stimulate economic growth, it just pulls money from other areas to replace it), except we're paying the price in human lives rather than just broken glass.
The "national pride and unity" thing? That's the worst. War turns a country's culture into a pale and hollow imitation of itself. The most diverse and nuanced elements are cast off or suppressed because they don't fit into the simplistic and artificial hero-myths that keep the nation engaged and willing to fight. Folks on the "homefront" like this stuff because moral certitude and a feeling of purposeful are deeply comforting. And, no, I'm not just talking about propaganda here; I'm talking about something far more pernicious -- self-deception. Go read (former war journalist) Chris Hedges'
War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning for a truly excellent polemic about all this stuff.
Potential economic growth at the expense of lots of wasted resources and lost lives? Not worth it.
National pride at the expense of a nation's real history and real culture? Not worth it.
National unity at the expense of national conscience? No way in hell is that a worthwhile trade.
...
Iori35 said:
"War never changes" - Ron Perlman in Fallout 3.
That quote is pithy but deeply misleading (as befits something from the intro to a game). War reflects culture; consequently, it has changed deeply over time. John Keegan's
A History of Warfare hints at that nicely without beating you over the head with it too much (he does beat you over the head with his dislike of Clausewitz, but I can kind of forgive him because it's otherwise a great book).
-- Alex
