• Shanie@mastodon.tails.ch
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    1 year ago

    Everyone looking at the price tag vs the results knows a proxy war with a well-trained army, the side of the US and Ukraine, against formerly your biggest adversary is the least costly way to cripple your foe while hardly lifting a finger.

    ~$125 billion TOTAL, including humanitarian, in a sea of $800B+/yr is play money in war, and throwing Russia back with dollars is the largest blow to a man who thinks he’s militarily strong.

    It even makes China hesitate. I’d pay a lot more just for that.

    • JWBananas@startrek.website
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      1 year ago

      Edit to add: This is a sad justification to be involved in ending human life, regardless of merit.


      It’s especially peanuts when you consider that the VA won’t have to take care of the veterans either. In the long-term, that’s where most of the funding actually goes after you put boots on the ground.


      Edit to add:

      The costs of caring for post-9/11 war vets will reach between $2.2 and $2.5 trillion by 2050 — most of which has not yet been paid.

      Source:

      https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/economic/budget/veterans

      That is roughly 1/3 of the total estimated past/future costs of the wars.

    • Spzi@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      And it provides your weapons industry with real life data from a large-scale conflict with equipment from multiple origins.

      And it advertises a competitors products as inferior, and yours as superior.

      I despise all these things, but from a purely economic viewpoint, this is interesting for business.

        • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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          1 year ago

          You can blame those deaths on Putin.

          Ukraine wouldn’t need those equipment if Putin didn’t invade a sovereign nation.

          He can literally decide tomorrow to pull back and no deaths would follow anymore.

    • zephyreks@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      Russia’s military budget in 2019 was $65 billion. It’s a waste of money that’s only practical because the US is literally swimming in taxpayer money (mostly because the US doesn’t invest in itself, but that’s another issue).

    • bobman@unilem.org
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      1 year ago

      I wouldn’t call $125 billion “play money”, even if the US yearly military budget is $900 billion.

      The US military budget is egregious, and this just shows how much war is about funneling taxpayer money to the MIC.

    • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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      1 year ago

      proxy war: a war instigated by a major power which does not itself become involved.

      Please don’t call it a proxy war, because it’s not.

    • krolden@lemmy.ml
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      1 year ago

      Oh thousands of people are dead but at least it wasn’t me and all it cost was billions of dollars.

      • Shanie@mastodon.tails.ch
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        1 year ago

        Yeah bro just roll over when you’re getting taken over and if you ask for help you should think of the thousands you’re going to kill.

        Way to victim blame.