I’m thinking that most wars of colonization were not purely economic, but I certainly can be proven wrong. It would seem to me that the motive to “civilize the savages” certainly played a significant role, as did competition among colonizing powers. Even bloody conquests, along the lines of Cortez, I do not think are adequately explained by purely economic motives, because racist bloodlust doesn’t seem to be well described in terms of dollars and cents. A historical figure can be after gold and also hold onto other twisted motives, the two not being mutually exclusive.
Can you point out some other wars you think would qualify as being purely economic?
Yeah, but the economic punishment of Germany was a direct result of a political will by European powers to inflict their wrath on Germany for starting the war in the first place. Would that then mean that World War II is actually a direct result of the mortal sin of anger, as expressed by countries like France? Or might the origins of a complex event like WW2 actually be less simple than a single cause?
Lenin would certainly have argued differently. In Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism (1916) he argued that capitalism was inherently and inevitably imperialistic.
The education of the native populations had as its primary goal the improvement of administration and productivity in the colonies. Anything else was secondary. I would argue that the fundamental cause of all wars is economic in nature. So, to answer the OP: sure it is.
Instead of scaremongering about WMDsm, couldn’t Bush & Co have scaremongered about a US without oil/with drastically-reduced oil, and gotten the support for action? Oil is right up there with food and water, and a part of the American way of life our country would fight for.
And what would he have done when extra oil supplies didn’t materialize ? An oilman isn’t any more going to undercut the market than OPEC would; it’s quite possible that one motivation for the war was to shut down the oilfields.
If the purpose of the war was to steal Iraq’s oil, it was a catastrophic failure. How much have we spent prosecuting the war? How much have we gained? How much of Iraq’s oil has ended up owned by the US government?
Of course, the cost of the war is borne by the taxpayers, the ones who benefit might be some sinister cabal who pull George Bush’s strings. But if you pull George Bush’s strings wouldn’t it be easier just to have him give you a pile of taxpayer money?
I agree that most ancient wars were for economic reasons…let’s go over there and steal their stuff and make them work for us for free. Or, let’s fight them because they’re trying to steal our stuff and make us work for them for free.
But there are certainly ideological wars, or wars fought over personal grudges held by rulers.
I’ve heard it pointed out ( from the left, admittedly ) if the goal was to cut off Iraqi oil and raise gas/oil prices, the war is a smashing success - for the oil industry, at least.
You mean like he did with Haliburton ?
True; these days people like to feel they’re fighting for something important; even if a war starts due to greed, I’d expect other motives to get mixed in as part of the excuse making.
Please comment on my response to the allegation that WW2 had a fundamentally economic cause because of the sanctions.
I am concerned that this is a matter of dogma for you that all war is economic If that is the case, then there’s really no way to argue with this Marxist theory, because contrary evidence is dismissed because it does not fit the model: so I have to ask, how can it be demonstrated in your eyes that economics didn’t play an important role in one war or another?
Or, to stay within your paradigm, how do you explain the fact that any war of any size is actually a tremendous drain, not a windfall, on any economy, period?
The European phase of WW2 has many roots, most of which involve ethnic rivalries over control of resources. The quite valuable provinces of Alsace and Lorraine had been claimed by both Germany and France, and swapped hands many times as war booty. Was economics the sole cause of WW2? Of course not, and it would take a hard-core Marxist to argue such (Iam about as far from a Marxist as you can get, unless we are talking about “Duck Soup!”)
I don’t have to. I never said that war was productive, logical, or profitable in the short term. I merely asserted that economics was always a root cause.
Leaving aside the Iran/US/European tin foil stuff and just answering the OP I’d have to say that economic reasons are the ONLY purely justifiable reasons to go to war. What other reasons are justifiable? I can’t think of a one to be honest.
This doesn’t mean that economic reasons are ALWAYS justifiable of course…far from it. Going to war to grab someone elses land (which would be an economic reason) or their natural resources (again, this would be economic) aren’t usually justifiable for instance.
The only other reason (that I can think of at least) two or more nations would go to war BESIDES economic would be religion or race. You guys think THEY are justifications for war??
Bush claims (in hindsight) that the Iraq War was about political change, liberation, deposing a tyrant. Leaving aside the merits of that in this particular instance, certainly a lot of wars have been fought for such (purported) reasons. Including both international wars and civil wars.
WWII was very good for the American economy. Of course, that was an unusual situation. The U.S. had the good fortune to be involved in a war where all the fighting happened abroad, and did not directly damage our civilian population or industrial infrastructure. And, at the time, we needed a “tremendous drain” to jump-start the economy.
One must ask oneself - is it more likely that Bush and his cronies are a bunch of Machiavellian masterminds or that they are out of touch, incompetant imbeciles who got involved in a situation way over their heads that they didn’t understand based on wishful thinking and speculation?
I tend to not believe in conspiracy theories because I believe most people are inherently lazy, greedy and incompetant. Most disasters are the result of a great many things going wrong, not a perfectly orchestrated plan going right.
Yes and no. Imagine if the effort that went into wageing WWII was put into health care or some other positive aspect of the economy. There’s opportunity costs to fighting a war. I would also argue that the war boosted our economy because it essentially knocked our industrialized competition out of the game for awhile.
Any amount of huge deficit spending is going to boost the economy, no doubt. But that’s only one side of the ledger. I find it strange that people, in talking about the economic benefits of WW2, seem to gloss over the long term, calculable costs of having 240,000 working age men simply removed from the ledgers, not to mention the huge expenditures on war materiel that were stimulative in the short run, but could not possibly recoup the cost of investment over the very short useful lifespan of that equipment. I see on preview that mssmith537 is making the same point: money spent on war is probably the poorest economic investment that a country can make.
But all this is really beside the point. The event that brought the US into the war wasn’t Japan’s conquest of vast regions of resource rich Asia, or even Germany’s bombing risking our trade relationship with Britain. The draft in America and an arms buildup had already begun, providing the economic stimulous you’re talking about. Contrary to the simplification that all wars are about economics (and I’m not saying you’re making this argument, BG), it was bombs falling on Pearl Harbor and Germany’s subsequent declaration of war on the US that caused the US to actually enter the war, not concerns about national wealth or resources.
I would also love to hear someone explain how the US intervention in Kosovo was based primarily on economic factors.