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Joshua Perrigo
Ms. Grant
11/05/2014
UWRT 1103
Economics of War
The economics of war affect the economies of those at war and countries that
participate in trade with those at war. I decided to research this topic due to my interest in
the military. I want to inquire on this topic because I want a better understanding of why
we spend so much on the military each year and whether that much spending is worth it or
hurting us in the long run. Also, I wanted to understand who benefits the most from our
successes overseas. Whether it is weapons companies, the government, or the citizens of
those being occupied or even the United States citizens such as myself.
The questions that have been stated above can easily be answered through proper
research. Researching several different sources about this topic. Some go way back to wars
in the napoleon era to describe the idea of total war and how bad that is for the economy.
Others talk about modern warfare in the Middle East and what it is doing for the United
States economy. Total war is desperate and unnecessary. The only thing that can come
from it is mass destruction. For example, Napoleon Bonaparte had one of the largest
empires in history at the palm of his hand. Giving the command to launch total war led to

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his defeat and exile. So in theory, total war always leads to defeat. Most countries, or
empires can only take on one to two other empires at a time. When Hitler was doing great
during World War II, he decided to attack his ally in Russia. This caused a war on two fronts
for Hitlers empire, which was not big or strong enough to fight two other world powers.

Now, this paper will go into great detail about the information found from reliable
sources on this topic.
Joshua Goldstein goes into great detail about both the good and the bad of war and
what it does for the economy. He states Nearly all wars are fought over control of
territory, and sometimes over specific economic resources such as minerals,
farmland, or cities. This shows that he understands why wars are fought, and why
leaders give so much to achieve victory. Whether it is money, resources, or human
lives.
With this in mind, know that this is why wars get out of hand and lots of people die for
things that arent really worth it. Most people that are involved in the war believe in
something greater than themselves. For example, people that were involved with the
Roman Empire believed in the idea of Senatuse Populus Que Romanas, better known as
The Senate and the People. They fought hard for land that wasnt theirs for the republic
they believed in back home. So many soldiers gave their lives for this idea of a republic that

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ruled the world. Their sacrifices helped the Roman Empire grow into one of the biggest
empires in the known world. When Rome got desperate in its later years, It went into total
war which basically led to their inevitable defeat. Rome fought until the very last man to
defend what they had worked so hard to accomplish. Out of all of the research given to this
topic, It is pretty obvious that a certain nation or empire cannot successfully rule the
entirety of the world.

Has war ever benefited the economy? Yes of course; for example, both world wars
benefited the United States of America. It is what gave America a world power status. It
also gave America new technologies that would never have been discovered otherwise.
Things like battleships, machine guns, combative fighter jets, and mass production all came
from the world war era. These kinds of weapons and ideas came from desperation and the
need for new technologies to win the war. The beginning of World War II got America out
of the Great Depression and brought great wealth and power to them as well. It created
thousands of new jobs for people that built tanks and planes in the ford factories. Other
opportunities created included women gained rights in the workplace due to the fact that
most able-bodied men were overseas fighting in the war. Weapon companies grew to an all
new level, which led to new weapon technologies and more dangerous weapons. World
War IIs biggest weapon invented was the Atomic Bomb. A team of scientist whose sole

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purpose was to design a weapon that would end all wars in general invented the Atomic
Bomb and used it on the determined Japanese who would not surrender. All of these
weapons, jobs, and opportunities invented from the World War era are a prime example of
how war can benefit an economy or society.

Mises states, Under Laissez faire peaceful coexistence of a multitude of sovereigns

nations is possible. Meaning that this form of economic doctrine needed peace in
order to exist. So without peace, Laissez faire will not work, as it should. Industrial
growth and the idea of mass production made Laissez faire nearly impossible.
Laissez- faire will work with a world full of war. It seems that there is always something to
fight about and with constant conflict this policy is not applicable to modern economies.

Speaking of Modern Warfare, it is full of airstrikes, cruise missiles, and drones. All of
these are modern warfare tactics and strategies to save human lives, but they are very
costly. Currently, in Iraq, The United States has conducted 154 air strikes to destroy ISIS.
That is only since June of 2014, just think of how much money that costs. That is in
airstrikes alone. Not troop deployments, Missile strikes, or even naval fleet deployments.
All of these are so expensive to run on a daily basis. Yes they are important but so
expensive. For example, one Aircraft carrier cost one million dollars a day to run. Yes, a

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million dollars in one day. So most of the time carriers get deployed for around 6 months;
therefore, a lot of money is spent on an entire naval fleet to be deployed for 6 months.
This is why the economy of the United States is suffering heavily from overspending of
expensive weaponry on a foreign enemy. Given that ISIS is very dangerous and taking
innocent lives, the US should still take caution considering both facts, that there may be
innocent lives in the region and the fact of how expensive it is to continually bomb ISIS.
These are all examples of why our war in Iraq is so expensive, and why the US is in a
financial crisis.
The bottom line is that overspending in a war will severely hurt an economy and
sometimes make it extremely difficult to bounce back from. The US is a modern day
example of that situation and they cannot seem to get out of war. The fact is that a lot of
countries, and terrorist groups hate the US with a passion. This makes it hard for the US to
stay out of conflict because the ultimate goal for the Department of Defense is to protect the
US and her allies at all cost. Unfortunately for the US, the cost is very expensive currently.
The last thing is that war can lead to mass casualties and it can also physically destroy
communities and places of business, which would also hurt the economy of the nation
where the war is taking place. This is often times used in wars as a strategy to destroy all
their resources to achieve victory. This concludes my inquiry on the economics of war.

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Works Cited
1. Goldstein, Joshua. War and Economic history. N.p, n.d. web. 10 November 2014
2. Mises, Ludwig Von. The economics of war. 1 November 1955. Fee. Web. 10
November 2014
3. Sedghi, Ami. Arnett, George. US military Isis air strikes in Iraq: day-by-day
breakdown. 3 September 2014. Web. 10 November 2014