The idea that pumping ~$800 billion into the economy wouldn't affect inflation and the economy in general seems unlikely.
https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/revie...
[0] https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/regional-economist/2...
Their link does not create a bright line, instead it commingled both programs (and any other increased governmental spending).
Not $800 Billion, rather $8000 Billion
What did that do to the economy/prices/inflation and why isn't that headline news every day for 20 years?
It seems likely the blood and treasure squandered on those unnecessary wars held back growth by misdirecting investment money into war rather than being traditionally inflationary (as it was, say, in Viet Nam or WWII).
Now the US is spending on the order of $0 on the UKR war for an enormous IRR, and that's controversial.
You build a bomb, you blow up the bomb, that’s money that’s just gone for good.
You give people money, along with negative interest rates so they don’t just hold on to the money, and that money spread out into the whole economy causing the price of goods to increase because of more competition for a finite amount of resources needed to produce said goods.
That being said, that 8 trillion dollars could have undoubtedly been spent in a more productive manner but that’s not the world we currently find ourselves in.
The bomb is gone, the money isn't. It's still circulating, because the people working for the defense contractors who built the bomb got paid.
The money was also created by the government borrowing it (As the war was financed by deficits). In our current financial system, loans expand the money supply.
There's no significant difference in the impact on the economy between paying defense contractors money to build a bomb that you then explode, and paying them to sit around and pick their nose.