Yet in addition to the human costs, which are themselves staggering, there are others as well. Denson further explains:
In the war-torn [21st] century, we rarely hear that one of the main costs of war is a long-term loss of liberty to winners and losers alike. There are the obvious and direct costs of the number of dead and wounded soldiers, but rarely do we hear about the lifetime struggles of combat veterans to live with their nightmares and injuries. Nor do we hear much about the long-term hidden costs of inflation, debts, and taxes. Other inevitable long-term costs of war which are not immediately obvious are damages caused to our culture, to our morality, and to civilization in general.As writers like Bastiat and Hazlitt emphasized, economists must be careful to examine all costs, not just the most obvious ones. When we do that, we begin to understand the scale of the destruction that war inflicts on human societies. This is true even for the "winners"; no matter which side is deemed the champion, all victories are pyrrhic victories. As Sun Tzu stated many centuries ago, "No country has ever profited from protracted warfare." Mises was even blunter: "War prosperity is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings."
There is much more that could be said about the economic costs of war making. Let me suggest a few readings to anyone interested. For an introduction to basic economic thinking about warfare, see a trilogy of articles surveying Austrian writings on the subject (here, here, and here). Joe Salerno has added to the foundations of the early Austrians by developing an economic theory of "Imperialism and the Logic of War Making." Further details about the political and historical implications of war can be found in Denson's collection, The Costs of War. And if you haven't already, do yourself a favor and read Bob Higgs' books Depression, War, and Cold War and Crisis and Leviathan, both of which are packed with insight into the true costs of war and the warfare state.
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