Monday, May 7, 2012

The High Cost of War

WWII has been cited as an example in favor of humanitarian military intervention.  The argument goes along the lines that the late entry of the United States into the conflict enabled the Nazis to kill massive numbers of people.  Perhaps this is so, but on the other hand it might be the case that the Nazis would have killed just as many Jews even if the U.S. had intervened sooner.  Perhaps they would have killed them sooner.

What is clear by this article on the subject is that the chief victims of Nazi mass murder were Jews, Poles, Soviet P.O.W.'s and Gypsies.  Although many Jews died in labor camps, a majority were killed deliberately in death camps set up intentionally for that purpose.  Most of the killing was done after 1940, after the French and British were at war with Germany.  1942 was the worst year even though the U.S. had entered the conflict by then.  Hence an overwhelming proportion of the killing occurred after the war between the Nazis and western Europe had started, and a majority of them occurred after the U.S. entered.

One might also question whether entering an alliance with a mass murderer could be justified on the basis of human rights.  About 3 million people died from famine under Lenin and another 7 million under Stalin.  An additional 10 million died in labor camps under Stalin and maybe an additional 5 million were executed.  About 5 million died in labor camps after Stalin.  These figures come from here.  Estimates vary widely, according to this article from 8 million to 60 million under Stalin.  Given that this is so, it is not obvious that militarily supporting Communism at Fascism's expense was justifiable by human rights considerations.

Indeed it was not justified on that basis.  The British got involved because Poland was invaded by Germany.  Unfortunately they didn't have enough of an army to secure the national sovereignty of Poland and indeed failed at this in the aftermath of the conflict.  The U.S. was involved to a limited extent because of friendship with the British.  FDR's foreign policy won him a third term.  A large part of this was due to immigration from England and countries that the Axis powers had invaded.  Had the U.S. taken a more neutral stance, it is uncertain that the Japanese would have attacked Pearl Harbor.  As it was, Hitler, in a rare display of wisdom, decided to ignore U.S. involvement prior to that attack.

By all accounts U.S. involvement in WWII was extremely expensive.  In any program undertaken for humanitarian purposes, we must take efficiency into account.  It is almost always likely that a different course of action than war could have saved more lives at a lower cost.

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