Quote:
Originally Posted by Arne
Wars end? Not with foreign policy that is in place right now. One could call it the "perpetual war for perpetual peace"-doctrine.
The US has troops in more than a 100 countries right now. War is a temporary government program which after all is always as permanent as a program can possibly be.
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Having a military presence isn't the same as war, indeed not having one usually ends up being more costly.
Until we advance to the point of not fighting over resources and conquest by sword gets bred out of us it's reality. It would be interesting to see what the results would be if OBL and Saddam were offered do overs. We had nothing even close to a traditional war size expenditure between the fall of Saigon and 9/11 as a percentage of GDP. Deterrence is pricey but taking direct action is even worse.
It's like saying the armed guards riding in those armored cars picking up deposits invite robbery or those alarm stickers and signs in people's yards say please rob me.
The asshat mess of social programs continually expand and get more resources while delivering less benefit.
We are going to spend more today on social programs than yesterday and more tomorrow than we spend today. Our National Guard will come home and we aren't raining expensive bunker busters and other ordinance nonstop. All wars have peaks and bottoms.