…Once upon a time wars were fought for fun and profit; when Rome overran Asia Minor or Spain conquered Peru, it was all about the gold and silver. And that kind of thing still happens. In influential research sponsored by the World Bank, the Oxford economist Paul Collier has shown that the best predictor of civil war, which is all too common in poor countries, is the availability of lootable resources like diamonds. Whatever other reasons rebels cite for their actions seem to be mainly after-the-fact rationalizations. War in the preindustrial world was and still is more like a contest among crime families over who gets to control the rackets than a fight over principles.
If you’re a modern, wealthy nation, however, war — even easy, victorious war — doesn’t pay….We might add that modern war is very, very expensive….So the thesis of “The Great Illusion” was right: Modern nations can’t enrich themselves by waging war. Yet wars keep happening. Why?
One answer is that leaders may not understand the arithmetic…..The larger problem, however, is that governments all too often gain politically from war, even if the war in question makes no sense in terms of national interests.
Read more at Why We Fight Wars – NYTimes.com.
even if the war in question makes no sense in terms of national interests there’s still the personal gain for people.