Are wars too profitable for America to become pro-peace?

Question

Vietnam, Laos, Korea, Iraq, Cuba, Grenada etc

Answer 1

Yep, that same theory goes hand in hand with the theory that "repulicans care more out servicemen and women cause the increase the military budget"...while this is true - that rise in budget is not for the troops. That rise is for military contracts. People say Clinton "dismantled the military". He just cut back on military contract. I was in Army under Clinton and got a couple raises that he signed off on. Yet, as long as there are Limbaughs and Combs out there, republicans will continue to be branded as the ones that care more about the troops.

Answer 2

Wars are profitable for one sector of the economy. The problem is, the only way wars are funded is through taxation. Nobody can 'sell' war; companies can sell weapons of war to governments, but the governments buy those weapons with tax dollars. At some point, the economy needs to shift from wartime focus to peacetime focus, to building up other economic foundations that can be used to trade with other countries, and to build up more productive efforts.

So ultimately, you can't really consider either war or peace to be "too profitable"--your defense sector companies can't keep innovating without periods of peace in which R&D budgets can be increased, and money moved away from production and operations, and governments can't keep taxing the population to fund wartime development without running them into poverty.
We'll continue to see alternating cycles for many generations to come, I'm afraid.

Answer 3

Its difficult to say whether some of those wars have economic benifits. In Iraq we've spent billions of dollars to basically destabalize the entire Middle East (drastically raising oil prices)

Answer 4

It depends on whose profits you care about. War is profitable for industries that are in the military or supplying them. However, peace is profitable for everybody else. This is why war/peace goes in cycles as the two sides ebb and flow. As economic forces push and pull, we keep going to war and then pulling back out without accomplishing anything useful.

Answer 5

Profitable? Are you kidding? America spends billions of dollars on Iraq, and the only noticable impact to our economy has been downward pressure from the oil reductions. Please, be serious -- war is waged for many reasons, but profit isn't sensible.

Answer 6

It's amazing how many people think the absence of war is the same as peace.

Morons.

Answer 7

Nonsense..

Answer 8

I think you could perhaps be on to something there. If not the US then definitely the military-industrial complex.

Answer 9

Go away - too chilled to be bothered with all that crap