> War is a stress test for societies. By destroying less efficient social structures it promotes long term progress and reduces inefficient practices like slavery.
War destroys progress and is incredibly inefficient. The mere threat of war creates an endless arms race resulting in half of discretionary spending going to defense.
The reason for submitting to government authority is for protection of life and liberty. War results in destruction of life and reduced liberty, so it's a major failure in that regard.
"Sorry ma'am, but your son died in the Great Stress Test of 1861. I know you just spent your last nineteen years raising him, but we weren't sure if slavery was efficient or not, so we needed him to help settle the question on the battlefield."
The global average military spending is 2.2% of global GDP, the US spends 3.4% of GDP. In a vacuum that looks like a dead loss, but over the last 10,000+ years even minor increases in progress could easily make up for that. Consider the USSR was destroyed by failing to manage that expenditure, in a world without war it could easily still be around. Now extend that back to every poor use of resources eliminated by war like Aztec mass human sacrifice or the southern states use of slavery.
I don’t think it’s acceptable trade off for the direct suffering of war, but it is a defensible argument.
War certainly destroys somethings, but in other ways it spurs invention -- radar, cyrptography, jet engines, computing were all products of world war 2.
And sometimes destroying leads to improvements - the blitz destroyed a lot of slum housing in the London east end, which was rebuilt en mass in a way that wouldn't have been possible without the widespread destruction.
Massive losses felt across the population in the UK led to a national unity and a desire for improvement of everyones lives, leading to things like the welfare state and healthcare for all.
Looking further back in history, the US war of independence is deemed to have had desirable outcomes.
You can still think war is a failure but acknowledge that it can lead to benefits as well as drawbacks.
> War destroys progress and is incredibly inefficient.
Please explain the monumental advancements of technology witnessed during both world wars. Even if they were not a direct result of the war effort, they still succeeded in spite of all technically and scientifically advanced nations being on a war footing during those time periods.
> The mere threat of war creates an endless arms race resulting in half of discretionary spending going to defense.
Please explain why we have not seen a significant drop in defense spending during the periods when the threat of war has lessened. Especially after the fall of the Soviet Union when the world was decidedly unipolar for more than a decade.
> The reason for submitting to government authority is for protection of life and liberty.
I would argue that ceding some liberty to government is necessary for peaceful defense of life and property (backed up by the threat of collective force) but I don't believe that a government inherently defends liberty. To the contrary I think that liberty must be actively defended from the excesses of government, preferably by building those protections in to the legal foundation of the governments power so that if they are violated it invalidates the mandate granted and provides legal recourse against the government in favour of those wronged by it.
To be clear, I don't support war and I think that there are much better and less destructive ways to stimulate technological and societal growth but I don't hold with weak arguments either.
> Please explain why we have not seen a significant drop in defense spending during the periods when the threat of war has lessened. Especially after the fall of the Soviet Union when the world was decidedly unipolar for more than a decade.
Spiked over 45% of GDP during WWI, and over 50% during WWII. Took a small bump over 10% that I believe was the Korean War, and has been fairly consistently drifting downward since, and is roughly comparable to 1900s pre-war spending.
> Please explain the monumental advancements of technology witnessed during both world wars
The problem is that you can't counter this by showing the monumental advancements that may have happened without the destructive nature of those wars on lives, economies, etc. because, well, we have no idea.
> Please explain why we have not seen a significant drop in defense spending during the periods when the threat of war has lessened.
Because "the mere threat of war" still exists - except instead of Russia, it's now terrorists, Middle Eastern countries, North Korea, etc. Also because the military industrial complex has an ungodly hold over governments.
War destroys progress and is incredibly inefficient. The mere threat of war creates an endless arms race resulting in half of discretionary spending going to defense.
The reason for submitting to government authority is for protection of life and liberty. War results in destruction of life and reduced liberty, so it's a major failure in that regard.
"Sorry ma'am, but your son died in the Great Stress Test of 1861. I know you just spent your last nineteen years raising him, but we weren't sure if slavery was efficient or not, so we needed him to help settle the question on the battlefield."