World at War Fuels War Profits

Make no mistake about it. War is a highly profitable growth industry. One that is likely to be with us for a very long time. Probably for as long as humans populate this earth.

But wars don’t profit everyone. If you want expert opinion on this issue ask the unfortunate civilians and military personnel who pay the price for their national leaders often irrational excursions and excuses that lead to war. Their nation’s ensuing vigorous destructive war activities lead to extreme sacrifices for many so that the few prosper.

That’s not a very democratic arrangement, is it?

One very interesting statistic gleaned from the vast amount of war and military data maintained at Global Security is that the nature of war has changed considerably over the past 90 years. During World War One about 5% of the casualties of war were civilians and 95% were military. Now in an age of “surgical air strikes” and highly lethal weapons 75% of the war casualties are civilians and 25% military.

Today if you are a civilian in a war zone you had best watch your step. And keep one eye peeled to the sky.

Unfortunately, since war around the world is so well sponsored it is unlikely to enter a remission phase anytime soon, if ever. One movie that sheds some light on this issue is “Lord of War” starting Nicolas Cage. One scene in the movie presents a remarkable fact as follows:

The largest arms dealers in the world are the United States, Great Britain, France, Russia, and China. Those of you who are familiar with United Nations operations probably recognize those names as being the five nations that have permanent seats on the UN Security Council.

So those with the responsibly for preventing or ending wars have the most to gain from wars being continuously fought. How’s that for a neat guarantee for plenty of future conflicts? As you can see war does have rather strong sponsorship.

One can quickly get a good idea as to just how strong the current raging bull market in war is by reviewing The World at War page at Global Security. What a business! Wars consume vast amounts of resources including fixed wing aircraft of all sorts, helicopters, bullets, tanks, Humvees, trucks, tents, body armour, medical supplies, construction materials, rations, uniforms, oil and related petroleum products, money, money, money like crazy, ahhhhhhhh, the list is almost endless, including people.

As “leaders” and politicians sons and daughters are seldom dispatched to battlefield hot spots and very rarely make any sacrifices, much less the “ultimate sacrifice”, the ruling elite in all warring countries tend to profit mightily from all of this war time consumption.

No doubt the distribution of the wealth and suffering derived from the war business is unequally distributed. Poorer people tend to end up in the military much more often than the sons and daughters of wealthy families. Often enough they pay for war thought the loss of life or by suffering horrible life time injuries. The families of less financially able people, lower class and middle class alike, often pay forever though the loss of fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, long separations from loved ones, and the caring of wounded warriors who can no longer care for themselves.

Money made from wars, by companies like Halliburton, or Lockheed, or Blackwater, tend to further enrich the wealthy. And that’s a fact.

Just for the record, I’m not a starry eyed idealistic who thinks that wars should never be fought. Occasionally, a threat to a nation or to the world community is all too real. The fight against Hitler’s plans for world domination is proof enough of that. There are times when transgressing nations must be stopped to protect the world from tyranny.

However, as a Vietnam veteran and one who lost his father in World War Two, I’ve had my view of war up close. Not as close up as many of my Marine brothers or my Army Air Force dad, (I was in the US Navy Seabees deployed for a long enough time at a Marine 155 mobile artillery fire base) but close enough, thank you.

I firmly believe that if to become a national leader one had to qualify by serving for a minimum of two years in their nation’s regular military (no easy outs) fewer wars would be fought around the world. If that little qualifier were required of young men and women in my opinion the caliber of the next generation of politicians and their ability to deal with important issues, like going to war, would be considerably higher.

Somewhat idealistic and simplistic? Perhaps. But someone who has been exposed, even in peacetime, to military service would likely give the act of committing a nation to war more careful thought than one who had “other priorities” when it was time to serve.

No one can hate war or the global war business as much as an experienced highly trained warrior. Ask a true warrior, Colin Powell about this. Warriors know that the primary purpose of a military should, much like the primary job of a diplomat, be to prevent wars, not to initiate and to fight them.

Of course, constant preparedness also fuels the war business. As I said earlier, what a business!

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