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rdl
This is off by 5-10x if you count all the costs (equipment, increased domestic costs, ongoing security liabilities, ...)
glimcat
It also completely discounts the human cost of warfare, if such a thing is even measurable.
rdl
Definitely. Even if you just focus on the economic cost of the human costs (lost income for anyone who dies in early 20s, disinvestment in Iraq/Afghanistan by local people due to fear they'll be robbed or killed, etc.), that's higher than the direct military cost.
kbd
Why is this on Hacker News?
tshauck
I'd like to see the war on drugs added.
aidenn0
Can we just start listing government costs debts, etc. on a per-capita basis? Aside from the fact that we can then compare differently sized governments, it just gives a better sense of scale. When you multiply by 300M just about all numbers are mindlessly big.