The Cost of War

by elb0w • 15 years ago

17 6 15 years ago

rdl2• 15 years ago

This is off by 5-10x if you count all the costs (equipment, increased domestic costs, ongoing security liabilities, ...)

glimcat• 15 years ago

It also completely discounts the human cost of warfare, if such a thing is even measurable.

rdl2• 15 years ago

Definitely. Even if you just focus on the economic cost of the human costs (lost income for anyone who dies in early 20s, disinvestment in Iraq/Afghanistan by local people due to fear they'll be robbed or killed, etc.), that's higher than the direct military cost.

kbd• 15 years ago

Why is this on Hacker News?

tshauck• 15 years ago

I'd like to see the war on drugs added.

aidenn0• 15 years ago

Can we just start listing government costs debts, etc. on a per-capita basis? Aside from the fact that we can then compare differently sized governments, it just gives a better sense of scale. When you multiply by 300M just about all numbers are mindlessly big.

The Cost of War

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