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0 pointsadolph2y ago0 comments

> The US can spend this kind of money .. with not much progress .. and no real consequences for failure. Adversaries see this as weakness because that is what it is.

I donno about this. Adversaries might just as well conclude the opposite, that the US can blow that kind of cash on SLS and other dumb stuff all over the world without major problems. IIRC, UBL's thesis was A-stan is/was the graveyard of empires and would also be the US', but it turned out to be an otherwise forgotten Pentagon rounding error.

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elcritch2y ago

I generally agree, but I don't think Afghanistan and Iraq were rounding errors by any factor. It's a major percentage of the US'es debt, as in trillions of dollars.

Perhaps the US economy (and politics) is resilient enough to handle it and not crash outright, but poorer folks in the US feel the squeeze of inflation and lowered wages due to cantillion effects.

WeylandYutani2y ago

America is in the enviable position that the entire world is obligated to keep giving them money. Too big to fail.

nebula88042y ago

Thats just because others need to step up their game.

adolphOP2y ago

A truer measure of the [Astan & Iraq] wars’ total costs pegs them at between $4 trillion and $6 trillion.[0] (2015 article)

US debt in 2000: $5.6T, in 2022: $30.9T [1]

The larger wars of this century drove about a quarter of debt growth. Major but not the majority. That more people will risk life and limb to immigrate than emigrate indicates to me that as bad as inflation is, living elsewhere is still worse.

0. https://time.com/3651697/afghanistan-war-cost/

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/187867/public-debt-of-th...

elcritch2y ago

A quarter sounds about right, and that's a quarter of our debt that could've been used to rebuild decaying infrastructure, increase medical care, housing, etc. Aside from the monetary cost the country will loose out on the dividends those sort of investments would've yielded long term.

Sure the US may still have a higher quality of life than many others, it doesn't mean that Americans lives couldn't have been better. Also I believe the US recently actually had decreases in both life expectancy and younger generations prospering fincially. So we didn't collapse, but we're not healthy either.

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asadotzler2y ago

The pentagon's budget is pretty consistent regardless.

We'll give them three quarters of a trillion dollars every year no matter what they spend it on so in reality it doesn't matter if they're war fighting or not, they own us, well 50% of our discretionary tax dollars anyway.

nebula88042y ago

It was a catastrophic failure in terms of money spent, lives lost and enduring repetitional damage on the US that continues to this day. Vietnam was a harbinger of this but Afghanistan/Iraq cemented the notion that if you operate on long term timescales you can beat the US.

UBL may not have achieved his primary goal but he got many concessions: Americans lost many freedoms, trust in government is significantly lower compared to pre 9/11 and given what happened on Jan 6 and everything that led up to it, we may look back at 9/11 as the point which set the stage for the eventual breakup of the union.

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elcritch2y ago

I generally agree, but I don't think Afghanistan and Iraq were rounding errors by any factor. It's a major percentage of the US'es debt, as in trillions of dollars.

Perhaps the US economy (and politics) is resilient enough to handle it and not crash outright, but poorer folks in the US feel the squeeze of inflation and lowered wages due to cantillion effects.

WeylandYutani2y ago

America is in the enviable position that the entire world is obligated to keep giving them money. Too big to fail.

nebula88042y ago

Thats just because others need to step up their game.

adolphOP2y ago

A truer measure of the [Astan & Iraq] wars’ total costs pegs them at between $4 trillion and $6 trillion.[0] (2015 article)

US debt in 2000: $5.6T, in 2022: $30.9T [1]

0. https://time.com/3651697/afghanistan-war-cost/

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/187867/public-debt-of-th...

elcritch2y ago

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asadotzler2y ago

The pentagon's budget is pretty consistent regardless.

nebula88042y ago

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