‘We should send arms and ammunition to Ukraine because that will create thousands of jobs in dozens of states.’ – So said some high US government officials very recently. A few minutes of calm reflection shows how pathetic that reasoning is, coming from high US government officials.

1. The reasoning hides a totally false assumption that it is not possible to create peacetime jobs in the economy. Does societal infrastructure – transportation, water, power, health … and so on – not need huge improvements?

Wrong understanding of economics underlies the cited statement.

As every economist learns, two thousand jobs are created if a thousand persons are hired for digging up earth, and another thousand for filling up the resulting ditches with the dug up earth. The GDP increases accordingly. Of course no useful purpose is served – but at least people are not being employed to bring death and destruction to societies.

Indeed, the brain must be totally dead to the potential of human life which cannot conceive of productive, satisfying peacetime jobs.

2. An immediate consequence of the reasoning cited is that the wars for job creation must continue endlessly. Once the Ukraine war ends – in one way or the other – what will the MIC employees do? Should another war must be started up somewhere, accompanied by another round of war-drums?
3. If the US official’s reasoning is valid, why should other countries also not put it to practice? Citing the US example, can another head of state not declare war on a putative enemy, so as to create jobs in his or her country’s economy?
4. Like any other investment, investment in war makes sense – even to a crazed war-monger! – only if the anticipated returns are juicy.

For the US, the equation today is simple. The cost of war is paid in cheaply printed US dollars. The returns aimed for, on the other hand, are in terms of valuable natural resources in mouth-watering quantities, and at low prices. Returns on investment – assuming that the war is won – are HUGE!

Humongous amounts of western capital have allegedly been invested in Ukraine. The concerned capitalist barons would want to claw back returns on their investments, even if that costs hundreds of thousands of lives. These capitalist barons have not invested in US infrastructure; so improvements in the US infrastructure are of no financial interest to them.

Do the capitalist barons’ financial obsessions not dictate forever wars?

5. Everyone likes to appear to be a paragon of virtues. Even the craziest war-monger has a ‘cover story of righteousness’ which justifies his or her cruelty and destruction. The cover story requires the active assistance of accessories in the government, media, finance, business, PR, academics, legislative bodies … and so on and on. Many jobs in these sectors, usually very highly paid jobs, should also be treated as linked intimately with the war economy.

A vast section of the ruling elites are thus invested directly or indirectly in the war economy.

We are forced to conclude that the only economic-political strategy option available today to the US, for increasing its wealth, is to continue indefinitely with its war economy. For the ruling US elites, while nothing else is ‘off the table’, peace was apparently swept ‘off the table’ a few decades ago.

Naturally, one wonders what the future might have in store for us.

In life, every alluring option has its downside. Modern wars are incredibly expensive. When other countries develop war economies which offer much higher ratios of effective fighting power per unit cost, the US war economy will lose its competitive edge. Its war economy option will then begin to backfire.

Some people assess that this stage has already been reached. Even if that is not true today, however, it will become true in the near future. People around the world are watching and learning. Can we believe that ingenuity, hard work, bravery, production capacity, logistics et cetera can be monopolized?

The war in Ukraine forces us to understand the gruesome, bloody foundations of war economies.

Can we dare to hope that war economies will give way to peace economies in not-too-distant future?