Too Big to Succeed

__________________________

In my short life, the United States has been continuously enmeshed in wars, big and small.  The purpose, besides funding the military complex, is unclear.

Are we for Balkanization, or for the preservation of national state's status quo? Are we against secret or entangling alliances?  Have we learned the lessons of World Wars I and II?

Why did the U.S. enter the world stage in WWI? This is salient to what is spooling out in what we are calling the Syrian Civil War. The situation is similar to that of the Balkans in August, 1914 when the Western world tore itself apart over an insignificant assassination in Sarajevo. (Interestingly, a U.S. combat unit presence remains in Kosovo under the aegis, "peacekeeping".)

As in the Balkans of 1914, there is a similar fault line in Syria which could rupture into a regional war. One little spark (like the self-immolation of Tunisian fruit seller Mohammed Bouazizi) can set off the tinderbox of the one reality: this is a highly factionalized region, now as then

Did U.S. leaders fail to recognize this before destabilizing the region by invading Iraq? What has happened to realpolitik? For what reason did the U.S. rush in then, and why would they do so now?

Does it matter if their governments are democratic, autocratic, theocratic, Sunni, Shi'ia or any combination thereof? If so, to whom? Of what strategic concern is this to the U.S. government? What progress has been made since the wars in the Crimea and the Balkans?

WWI and II solved nothing; there were no victors, only losers. What did the U.S. gain from either war that we didn't have  or wouldn't have if we had stayed strictly neutral?

Why has the irrational response of war become a rational choice in our current condition? What democratic nation can prosper by maintaining a war footing for 100+ years?

The Bombardier

Everyone thinks chiefly of his own,
hardly at all of the common interest;
and only when he is himself concerned as an individual.
Everybody is more inclined to neglect the duty
which he expects another to fulfill
--Aristotle, Politics

In the councils of government,
we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought,
by the military industrial complex
--Dwight D. Eisenhower (1961)
___________________

In the Vietnam War it has been estimated that every dollar of bomb damage inflicted upon North Vietnam cost the U.S. $10.

That does not seem justifiable from a cost-benefit viewpoint, and makes Ranger wonder the cost-kill ratio of killing a suspected terrorist today. It seems the trillions spent have not dented the al-Qaeda roles; even if it has where is the data justifying this expenditure of our tax dollars?

We used to say in Vietnam, it wasn't a great war, but it was the only war we had. The idea was to keep it going since it was a great career-builder. An old soldier looks at the current three wars flapping in the breeze and concludes: The intention is not to win but merely to continue an endless campaign.

The purpose of the wars is to war, and winning is not a consideration as there is nothing to be won. That is, unless one looks at cost-benefits, this time from the corporate standpoint. How does a war end when there is no incentive to do so?

When profits = expediency, campaigns become indefinable and peace is not a dividend that pays off.