Wars: The big business

As promised, today and tomorrow, I will give my point of view on what is happening today over there in the old continent, but I don't even have to show my position, nor name the nations involved. Let everything be left to the reader's imagination.

This writing does not pretend to analyze the situation in-depth, but the genesis of the problem, under my humble point of view.

What is war good for?

Well, let's take as a reference the following video, which is not to be missed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HK5OsDWYJmQ

What is it about? 4500 years of documented history where all the wars that have taken place during that period are recorded. Based on that, we are not talking about something new, but since the world has existed. What is the aim?

Expansionism, resolve some conflict, conquer new territories (yes, I know I already said expansionism), disappear already established nations, and of course, resources from other nations. That is the bastion of those who go to war: to get the resources of the other. The problem is that those who decide to fight a duel are not the same ones who end up on the battlefield.

As the French poet Paul Valéry said: "War: a massacre of people who don't know each other for the profit of people who know each other but don't massacre each other.".

These conflicts serve the purpose I mentioned before, but those who suffer the most are those who enjoy it the least. Hierarchy is one of the most unjust things there is, because you order, but you don't succumb.

Great people with great content

What do we lose in war?

Here is an odious question, perhaps cliché, but necessary. Basically, we are talking about losing our humanity. But if we go to the material, we can not ignore all the resources and infrastructure that is lost through the use of weapons. And the lives of those who suffer in battle, and those who do not. Many innocent people pay for the consequences of war.

The number of displaced people, people who change their way of life, to... have a life, is abysmal. Wars devastate everything in their path, often leaving irreparable damage, or in the best of cases, the chaos that takes a long time to fix.

Peace dissipates, and uncertainty increases. It is undoubtedly a very worrying and uncertain terrain.

To make matters worse, I almost didn't mention it, but eventually, I was going to mention it, anyway. The economic gaps caused by the war are so large that we are talking about millions and millions of dollars that it costs to recover from a war blow.

Playing mathematics.

The second world war cost by 1945, according to several sources, in an approximate number: 1,000,000,000,000,000,000.00 dollars, or what is the same, one trillion dollars. To make it even more gloomy, this figure corresponds to 1945. To find out how much it would be today, the page: https://westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi?money=1000000000000&first=1945&final=2021

It is approximately 15,607,875,034,269,000.20, or about 15.5 trillion dollars. Rather expensive, isn't it?

The fuel to build a conflict

Oh yes, this is what I wanted to get to. War is as lucrative as any legitimate industry, and by far. In more modern times, the First and Second World Wars have already shown us that, when there is a conflict of such magnitude, the price of fuel increases.

And yes, oil has been a protagonist. At the end of the First World War they had already found its benefits. During the Second World War it was essential and throughout history after the event that ended the Third Reich, when there are conflicts, the price of crude oil increases. (The Middle East sure knows that well).

And to close today, spoiler alert, oil is currently hitting historic highs since 2014.

For tomorrow I will follow up with the continuation of all this, and of course, my final thoughts.

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Lead image by Kris Møklebust on Pexels