Why is the U.S. at war?

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It seems that we have been at war overseas since the first world war. Ever since then, we've been fighting in other countries since the 1960's that had nothing to do with us.. Are we a war loving nation? What do we the american people benefit from these wars? It seems it does more damage than good so I'm wondering, who does it benefit the most?

I'd appreciate it if I could get respectful comments whether or not you agree with me. I'm not very great at wording my posts so bare with me.

Capitalism is a system of production and consumption. There are giant firms that benefit hugely from government contracts that produce very expensive goods that are consumed very rapidly in war. They have well paid lobbies in Washington that urge purchase and consumption of these goods and may influence government policy on war. The USA spends many times more for these goods than any other nation. That is a very strong contributing factor. It is by no means the only one but it is one very large one.

Where would we be without privately owned firms producing the goods and related services of a modern technological society. Every major technology we have was privately invented and produced before the government got its hands on it.

My favorite instance is the heavier than air motor powered flying machine. Congress funded Samuel Langley (after whom Langley Field is named) to the tune of 50,000 gold backed us dollars in 1901 to produce a motor powered flyer. His attempts were abject failures. The Freres Wright, a pair of Ohio bycicle designers and manufactures funded the development of their successful flyer for 1200 dollars out of their own pocket. That tells the story right there.

ruveyn

Sure. Like the atomic bomb.
Like the whole development of satellite technology under NASA.
Like the medical use of radioactives.
Like DARPA's development of the internet.
Etc.
The whole development of aviation after WWI was kept alive by US Government airmail.

Those who make the wars make the rules.

It's horrible, but a fact of life.

its a boom (pardon the pun) industry, destablise the world and sell the weapons

The chain reaction (the basis of fission weapons) was invented and patented by Leo Szillard in Hungary without any government backing. Enrico Fermi managed to get a controlled nuclear fission going beneath a football stadium at the University of Chicago. The work was done by Fermi and a dozen graduate students. Not a politician in sight. No army to guard his installation either. It was a civilian effort made with little or no government oversight. The major plants to produce sufficient fissile material was indeed a government run installation. It was so well run that the Soviet Union knew every detail of the work (thanks to Claus Fuchs who was hired on at Los Alamos by our government).

Lets see now. The stored program computer, aka the von Neuman machine invented by Atsanof at the University of Indiana in 1938. Not a single federal dollar.

Penicillin, invented by Dr. Fleming, a Canadian without any Canadian government money or initiative. He discovered the mold accidentally and did the research himself and on his own initiative. The Canadian government did not fund it.

The transistor. Invented by three individuals acting against laboratory directive, by the way, at Bell Labs. The equipment was provided by Bell Tel. The brains and the initiative by Bardeen and Brittain. The government did not ordain the transistor nor did it fund the basic physical and mathematical research.

The theory of relativity, invented by a Patent Clerk in Bern Switzerland who did the work "off the clock" after he finished his official tasks of vetting patents. The government did nothing to fund his work and if he were caught doing it on paid time, he would have been fired. Fortunately, Max Planck stood up for him.

The wireless telegraph, privately funded and invented. Television, privately funded and invented. Synthetic fibers, privately funded and invented. The government gets into the act AFTER the heavy intellectual work is done by private individuals. Politicians have not got the intelligence or creativity to do anything new or useful. They mostly tax and forbid. And when they do something positive it is after the heavy lifting is done by individuals.

As you can see government does little but interfere with the creativity and initiative of individuals.

Governments are run, by and large, by power trippers and second rate intellects. The is hardly a functioning brain in the halls of Congress. Our best technology was invented by non-government connected individuals on their own initiative, not that of Congress.

ruveyn

But you're talking about specific technologies that developed from things that originated from military applications. For example, what business does a private company have for a nuclear weapon? Also, the Germans had the "dirty bomb" figured out and could have easily come up with a deployable tactical weapon. I believe, as Einstein did, that a strategic weapon was only a matter of time. The development of the atomic bomb had to be secretive and strictly overseen by the government due to its destructive power. You know, "national security," right?

Satellite technology--same thing. Private companies did not see a need or practical application until they'd already been in use for a while.

DARPA--the internet is just such a good idea I'm actually surprised the military got it first. But on the other hand, telecommunications companies were already developing networks independently of the military. It might have taken longer, but SOMEONE would have figured it out.

The wars the US have been involved in have generally been morally defensible - evil guys in control of the production of a whole nation are a threat to everyone. The US just hasn't done a very good job of protecting civilians or setting up better regimes in the place of dictators. But certainly, the people of Europe, South Korea and (in a way) Iraq owe their freedom to the willingness of the US to fight for it. I respect the US for that.

You must have forgotten about 9/11. No country would take that crap and not respond. Even armies that are weak and cannot respond in a conventional manner will do so in one way or another (like firing rockets at civilians).

I have never heard such idiocy from such people claiming intellect.Without government sponsorship or government money none of these would have been developed at the rate they were. Of course individuals did the work. What the hell do you think government is made up of except people? And who got the industries participating to do the work but government who paid for it? Good grief! What nonsense!

The U.S. is protected from the worst effects of war by two oceans, so the U.S. is more likely to be involved in overseas wars because the cost/benefit analysis tends to be better.

Who does it benefit? Well, some of them probably benefit no one directly (e.g., Afghanistan after the first couple years). Some of them benefit other people (e.g., the Iraq War, which primarily benefited Iraqis who were freed of Saddam Hussein). Some of them could be argued to benefit the U.S. directly (e.g., the Gulf War if you believe that Iraq would have continued their offensive into Saudi Arabia, thus making oil much more expensive for the U.S.)

However, all of them also benefit the U.S. indirectly, through two related mechanisms. First, the specter of U.S. military power allows the U.S. to negotiate favorable trade relations, in particular access to markets for U.S. products that help keep people in the U.S. employed. Secondly, it reinforces the idea that the U.S. dollar cannot collapse, which keeps the dollar valuation high, allowing U.S. citizens to buy overseas goods for cheap and improving the U.S. standard of living.

Don't take this to mean I approve of it. I think a lot of the wars we get involved in are poorly thought out - for example, I think we ought to be winding down Afghanistan, rather than building our presence there up. Wars can drag down the U.S. economy as well - as witness the Viet Nam War through the 1960s. However, there are legitimate reasons why we get involved in them, so I'm just providing a realistic answer to your question.

Government projects generally throw onerous debts on the public shoulder. In this ruveyn is correct. However, when they succeed they pay off for society in the long term. First examples I can think of would be the Victorian reforms to sewage, the implementation of subways and the piping of fresh water. The aqueducts delivering water to New York city are prime examples, as are most of the bridges to Manhattan.

For modern examples I would cite urban renewal, road design(like that interstate highway thing) and of course programs like NASA. Probably the biggest monolithic project of the US government would be the Hoover Dam, the Panama Canal, the Alaska highway and the St Lawrence river seaway.

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Last edited by ruveyn on 25 May 2010, 6:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Dunno if it's relevant, but i found a quote from Hermann Goering, Reichsmarshal, 1936 in one of my books : "Guns will make us powerful, butter will only make us fat". <.<

Edited for giving proper credit. ><

Last edited by phil777 on 26 May 2010, 5:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.

In that case it looks like when it came to choosing between guns or butter America decided to have both.
Ho ho ho!