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The estimated cost of relatively modern wars listed below is as follows (in U. S. dollars and does not include deaths and injuries; the cost of human toll may be incalculable):
WWI — $253B (adjusted for inflation)
WWII — $4T
Korean War — $320B
Vietnam War — $1T
Afghanistan and other conflicts stemming from 9/11/01 attacks — $5.8T
The reason for this display is to illustrate one point: war is expensive.
Terribly expensive.
It can be argued with some logic the longer it goes on, the more expensive it will get.
The reverse also follows: the shorter it is, the less expensive it is.
So, all other things being equal (almost never the case), aside from other factors, including loss of life and limb, it is desirable to keep a war short.
While the concept is simple, it is not necessarily grasped by combatants (whose intelligence I am not impugning) at the time.
Sometimes the forest is hard to discern for the trees.
For instance, Robert S McNamara, Secretary of Defense in the LBJ administration, and thought one of the brightest minds in that Administration, later admitted the Vietnam War was waged after American…
