Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Retric | Hacker News Reader

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For individuals and families it’s going to be a huge deal, but less so for nation states.

Total war is part of it, but militarily guerrilla warfare is mostly meaningless. Compare all US military dead from Iraq vs. one day of the battle of the bulge. These tactics generally extend the fighting, but don’t accomplish that much.

Also, a lot more people where involved than you might think. “From June 2003, through September 30, 2011, there have been 26,320-27,000+ Iraqi insurgents killed based on several estimates.” Yet, “4,424 total deaths (including both killed in action and non-hostile) and 31,952 wounded in action (WIA) as a result of the Iraq War.”

Vietnam had more US dead, 58,220 including disease and suiside. But, again individual battles in other wars killed more Americans. https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casua...

>These tactics generally extend the fighting, but don’t accomplish that much

Maybe not in the conventional sense, but financially it's costing the US hundreds of billions that could have been invested elsewhere.

I'm pretty sure the cost of the war in the middle east is what helped sink the Soviets

IMO, that’s a separate issue. If we had grabbed the oil fields as territory following the empire model then the war could have been a net financial gain.

The major cost was not the fighting, it was having that many people in a foreign nation without any national gain.

The U.S. spends more on military than the rest of the world combined. The money would not have been invested elsewhere. Somebody's costing the US lots of money, but it isn't guerillas.

It's a principle agent problem. Overall it's a drain on the US, but the people making the decisions are moving money from outside their constituencies to inside their constituencies.

> US hundreds of billions that could have been invested elsewhere.

We destabilized Iraq as an excuse to spend all that money on war. It was a fantastic stimulus package for northeast Virginia.

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