On Feb 25, 5:05 pm, " wrote:
On Feb 25, 4:34 pm, Jeff Dougherty
wrote:



*After* that time, though, the balance tips the other way. Sustaining
an army in the field takes a lot of manpower, a lot of high-end
manufactured goods, and a lot of mundane supplies like food and
clothing- and you have to supply those on your own now, because armies
have gotten big enough that you can't gather what you need by "levying
contributions"/bank robbery on an international scale. All of that
takes money, and lots and lots of it. All of this means that since (I
would say) about the mid 18th Century, fighting and winning a war is
almost always going to cost more money than any *economic* benefit you
could get out of it.

-JTD

Not really.

The Russians did a pretty good job of pillaging and looting on their
merry way back west.

Hmm, that's a counterpoint I hadn't thought about. Considering how
worked over the USSR was during the war, though, I'd doubt they really
came out ahead from a profit/loss point of view. Of course, that part
of the war wasn't ever about economics from their point of view- it
was about political survival, and making sure that they could never be
threatened from that quarter again. (IMHO)

The Hutu's and Tutsi's did their thing without an extensive logistical
tail.

Point. One could argue that they're not really functioning at a level
much above the 18th Century armies, but that's not really true
either. My thesis looks like it might have to go back to the drawing
board.

The Eastern Bloc arms were all designed to feed NATO rounds, so on
their way west they could capture NATO stockpiles and put them to use.

True, but could they really have sustained *all* of their operations
from NATO stockpiles? Even if they could supply all of their ammo
needs, would they have been able to capture enough food? POL?
Clothing? Spare parts?

You can certainly reduce your logistics headaches by looting, but I'd
argue that expecting an army to sustain itself without requiring any
real money spent at home by doing so in the modern age probably isn't
going to work. On the other hand, I haven't served and I'm strictly
an amateur historian, so I could be wrong.

I'm always wary of simplified explanations for/against War. As a
professional soldier (once) and a mildly interested historian the more
I learn, the more I am in awe of war's way of encompassing all the
worst and best of humanity.

That's certainly true, and I hope I haven't come across as trying to
simplistically explain war. My argument was that it's probably been a
long time since somebody actually made a buck, so to speak, by going
to war, and so (contra the OP) you have to look at dimensions other
than the economic to see why wars happen. I may have to rethink that
a bit in light of the examples you posted above, particularly with
respect to warfare in relatively unindustrialized countries.

Thanks for your service.

-JTD

Dan