Posted on 11/18/2016 7:51:14 AM PST by pinochet
President Eisenhower warned against the military industrial complex. But there are those who argue that war is good for the economy, and that World War Two ended the Great Depression.
War is Peace
Ignorance is Strength
Freedom is Slavery
The WWII argument stems from Keynesian economics, which are unsustainable, being the ultimate in the Broken Window fallacy.
I remember Star Trek TOS episode about two planets constantly at war and Kirk stepped in to end it (destroying the computers that simulated the war).
He also warned about the academic-government complex.
There will always be wars, it is best to be prepared to fight a war than to be unprepared. Being prepared usually makes other powers think about their decision to start a war. Of course, terrorists are exempt from this consideration.
Depends on the opponent.
Permanent war is apparently needed/required against the left, which is always trying to destroy the US. They are waging war against the US on many fronts, regardless of whether we are fighting them or not.
I think Sun Tzu got this right a couple thousand years ago:
___________________________________
II. Waging War
1. Sun Tzu said: In the operations of war, where there are in the field a thousand swift chariots, as many heavy chariots, and a hundred thousand mail-clad soldiers, with provisions enough to carry them a thousand li, the expenditure at home and at the front, including entertainment of guests, small items such as glue and paint, and sums spent on chariots and armor, will reach the total of a thousand ounces of silver per day. Such is the cost of raising an army of 100,000 men.
2. When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.
3. Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain.
4. Now, when your weapons are dulled, your ardor damped, your strength exhausted and your treasure spent, other chieftains will spring up to take advantage of your extremity. Then no man, however wise, will be able to avert the consequences that must ensue.
5. Thus, though we have heard of stupid haste in war, cleverness has never been seen associated with long delays.
6. There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.
No good. A successful economy relies on 1) free market principles, and 2) government refraining from living above its means (which would imply an absolute paucity of borrowing).
Our present problems are but the prelude to the other shoe dropping, the explosion of the debt bomb.
Only against Islam and anyone else who attacks us.
It depends on your definitions.
There has never been a time of universal peace. There is always warfare going on somewhere. In addition, warfare is a spectrum of actions that span violent protests to nuclear strikes.
For general prosperity, there needs to be a powerful actor that is willing to enforce minimal norms, such as free transit of the oceans for peaceful traders.
For about 140 years, that function was performed by the British Empire. For the last 70, it has pretty much been the United States. You can call it two stages of a Pax Christianity, if you like. I do not see anything to replace it.
One of the things I voted against this year. The 30s yeas of Bush-Clinton-Obama doctrine of perpetual interventionism is an error that needs to be fixed. Trump was the ONLY candidate willing to stand against the “Lets go to war with Russian over Syria” DC Groupthink last fall.
I say we stop after bombing Iran and Saudi Arabia, Qatar etc.
To start with, the “military-industrial complex” was then. Today we have the “intelligence-military-police-multinational corporation-globalist complex.”
Perpetual war is a product of internationalist socialism. Nationalism, accused by socialists of causing wars, actually limits wars. But this being said, many nations that do exist do not have much purpose to exist outside of political-economic blocs. That they exist at all is because they have an ethnic-cultural reason to stay apart from other adjacent nations.
Even after the founding of the United States, the political philosophers determined that republican-democracy among nations is a grand way to preclude war. This has been a general truism every since, with some exceptions. Even dictators in repressive regimes still make the pretense of being republican-democracies, though they are not.
In turn, this means that nations are less likely to be belligerent, but more likely that fanaticism, such as communism and Islam, becomes the driving force for war.
Addressing such fanaticism by exterminating its extremist fighters is less efficient that taking out its instigators, financiers, trainers and experts.
What’s your angle on the post/question?
What's your opinion on a FR that allows so many to post useless stuff without hitting the
button?
Are you kidding? It sucks. Boys and girls dying and maimed for "nation building"? I'm all for destroying, again destroying any enemy that would attack our way of life.
I'm not a simpleton and know that there are despots out there who want to control their region and/or the World. We just need to acknowledge who are the real threats to America and who just posture. Somalia was an example of using our military for humanitarian efforts. We all know how that worked out with, "Black Hawk Down". Stupid frigging mission to interfere in a civil war.
I now believe that Iraq was a mistake, as I do with our current efforts in Aftganiscrap. Over throwing Gaddafi was a huge mistake. He may have been a dictator, but he was no threat to the US and was fairly benign. Thank you Hellery and Obambi for the "Arab Spring" that has destabilized the ME.
GO ALL OUT OR DON'T GO IN. Screw the hearts and minds of the ME savages. They don't want nor understand liberty due to their backwards theology. No more wasted youth! Hope Trump tells the leaders of the World no more playing around with us. We will bomb you back into the stone age, even with collateral damage. Think Dresdan, Hamburg, Hiroshima.
Post of the thread! You must be Ronald Reagan reincarnated. Plus, Rules of Engagement need not be concerned about collateral damage. They attack us, we kill them all. Let God sort them out while our families and nation remain secure.
If your “foreign policy” IS permanent warfare, then, it makes sense.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.