Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Foreign Policy & News "Unintended Consequences of Military Intervention"

I infer that you mean the use of Wikipedia is a sign of what - low intelligence? (I checked and "critical thinking" does not generally include the use of gratuitous insults).

Look, I am trying to engage in the testing of your hypothesis. It appears to me that your hypothesis may be too absolute.You could say, ECONOMICS IS often THE MAIN MOTIVATION FOR WARS AND INTERVENTIONS; or you could say, ECONOMICS IS one of THE MAIN MOTIVATIONS FOR WARS AND INTERVENTIONS. I doubt that anyone would challenge that.

But shouting ECONOMICS IS THE MAIN MOTIVATION FOR WARS AND INTERVENTIONS (all caps is commonly acknowledged to be shouting in written communications) invites scrutiny.

My two examples of wars where economics does not appear to be the main motivation were offered as test subjects. I arrived at no conclusions from them. The extent of analysis they received relevant to your hypothesis was a vague opinion that they probably had some economic motivation involved, not ECONOMICS IS THE MAIN MOTIVATION FOR the examples, followed by unilateral dismissal. It seems to be a case of confirmation bias that you rejected them without any substantive analysis.

I still maintain that you have not presented a case study for discussion that supports your hypothesis. Overviews, quotes from speeches, etc., are valuable sources when one is formulating a hypothesis, but they do not test the hypothesis.

'
"For the corporation executives, the military metaphysic often coincides with their interest in a stable and planned flow of profit; it enables them to have their risk underwritten by public money; it enables them reasonably to expect that they can exploit for private profit now and later, the risky research developments paid for by public money. It is, in brief, a mask of the subsidized capitalism from which they extract profit and upon which their power is based."
-– C. Wright Mills, Causes of World War 3, 1960

Your inference about using Wikipedia is wrong. I used it myself right after.


Nothing absolute about it. That was my original post.

My intention was not to shout. That convention I am unaware of. I meant it simply as a way to emphasize the point.

Both of your suggestions were questioned. You supplied nothing after that. Just the old - throw the spaghetti and see if it sticks.

I have enough evidence - much of it has been presented - to believe that the hypothesis holds water.
It is your job to show me where it may be wrong, after all, you are contesting it.
You have not done so as of yet.

Please regard your own post: this is business, not personal

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"Charles Wright Mills was an American sociologist, and a professor of sociology at Columbia University from 1946 until his death in 1962. Mills was published widely in popular and intellectual journals, and is remembered for several books. Among them The Power Elite, which introduced that term and describes the relationships and class alliances among the U.S. political, military, and economic elites...."

OK
here is an article on causes of wwI.... economic reasons are among a whole network of other causes.

The causes of World War I, which began in central Europe in late July 1914, included intertwined factors, such as the conflicts and hostility of the four decades leading up to the war. Militarism, alliances, imperialism, and nationalism played major roles in the conflict as well. The immediate origins of the war, however, lay in the decisions taken by statesmen and generals during the Crisis of 1914, casus belli for which was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife by Gavrilo Princip, an irredentist Serb.[1] wiki

In her history of this period called "Guns of August". Barbara Tuchman goes into exquisite detail aboput how miscalculations, false assumption, historical suspicions, national pride and rivalries, etc all intertwined to suck nations into a war that no one really wanted.

link once again economic issues were but a part of a complex fabric of causes.

link in other words the Korean war was primarily a dispute over who should run Korea

link There would be no war except for North Vie Nam's willingness to fight on against what they saw as an invalid government in the south... it was for them a nationalist struggle.

As it turns out, there are wealthy people all over the world. And in most cases, the wealth is not a product of encouraging their governments to go to war.

And in the USA, the wealthiest people... Bill Gates, Larry Ellision, Warren buffet, Walmart founders, Aple stock holders.... google stock holders, facebook stock holders..... none of these people have any economic interest in having more wars.

Definitely a classic case of confirmation bias. Interesting how it manifests persistently, even to the point of changing accepted forms of engagement and shifting the hypothesis from first;
- a conditioned statement (Almost all military intervention is almost always economically motivated);
- to an absolute statement, shouted for emphasis (ECONOMICS IS THE MAIN MOTIVATION FOR WARS AND INTERVENTIONS);
- and back again to the more moderate position (Almost all military intervention is almost always economically motivated).
And saying that a quibbling insult is not an insult. Very strange...

Francis Bacon, Novum Organum

As I have asked before, please do not distort my words.

Ardy,

Your posts prove only that there are differing opinions on the causes of war, albeit, all of those you presented do have some degree of economics in them.
I never said or thought that there would not be differing views.

Since our friend Iss has abstained from this debate I find myself presenting what might be his input into this discussion. I never thought it would happen but, here goes:


Link

Now on the diametrically opposed angle of the political spectrum we have:


Link

So, as you can see, there are many who argue that the economic cause IS a main cause of war.
What is more, they hail from opposite poles of political ideology.

Again, I don't think there is proof positive of this or any other claim - at least I have not read one. But, I do think that the economic cause is the main cause.

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Well, although one would scarcely know it in the USA, there are other ways to make money than by waging war.

However, in such a hyper-militaristic barbarism as the United States, there can be few rich people who do not make significant profits from abetting the murdering rampages of their government all over the world.