Thinking about a post war society.

What if... 

...We stopped going to war.

Take that armed conflict!

During this time for the United States, war is fairly useless. We don't need more land and aren't likely to get it. The economy is shifting towards a borderless, free flowing market. One of the primary inhibitors of the international economy is the continued armed conflicts happening around the world.

So why do we still even consider going to war?

Jackson and Morelli's reason's for "bargaining failure":

"1. Asymmetric information about the potential costs and benefits of war.
2. A lack of ability to enforce a bargaining agreement and/or a lack of the ability to credibly commit to abide by an agreement.
3. Indivisibilities of resources that might change hands in a war, so that not all potentially mutually beneficial bargaining agreements are feasible.
4. Agency problems, where the incentives of leaders differ from those of the populations that they represent.
5. Multilateral interactions where every potential agreement is blocked by some coalition of states or constituencies who can derail it."

("The Reasons for Wars – an Updated Survey - Stanford University." Insert Name of Site in Italics. N.p., n.d. Web. 4 Sept. 2013 <http://www.stanford.edu/~jacksonm/war-overview.pdf>.)


We don't NEED anything from any other country, especially those countries we are currently warring. Afghanistan doesn't have many resources, especially not enough to account for the cost of conflict. Iraq now produces about $75billion per year from oil, but, if you look at the cost of the Iraq war, then you'll see where that doesn't equal out.

Iraq War initially cost $757.8 billion. The CBO estimated that of the $2.4 trillion long-term price tag for the war, about $1.9 trillion of that would be spent on Iraq, or $6,300 per U.S. citizen.

The Afganistan and Iraq wars have cost us roughly $100 billion every year. What happens if we were to spend that money elsewhere? That's not even touching the rest of the Defense budget.

Mmm... lunch...

Education

It would be hard to argue that cold, hard cash wouldn't do some good for our education system. Currently, the whole budget for the department of education is $19.4 billion. Doubling our education budget could do some great wonders. Many schools that need more teachers have been required to cut back after federal cutbacks. Double their budget though, and we would see schools higher more teachers to reduce class sizes and  more schools to reduce school populations. These steps would allow teachers and administrators to bring the student to teacher ratios to a manageable level. Currently, our teachers are overwhelmed and could use the support.

Research

Simultaneously, we could double the NIH budget. Responsible for 28% of all biomedical research funding, the NIH has a budget of $30.9 billion.

In 2000, a report from a Joint Economic Committee of Congress outlined the benefits of NIH research. It noted that some econometric studies had given its research, which was funded at $16 billion a year in 2000, a rate of return of 25 to 40 percent per year. It also found that of the 21 drugs with the highest therapeutic impact on society introduced between 1965 and 1992, public funding was "instrumental" for 15.

That's just a straight-up, good investment. It also goes along with improving education but on a graduate level. More NIH money means more NIH grants. More grants mean graduate school programs can take more graduate students. More graduate students mean more future scientists. More future scientists mean a larger work force to confront our most challenging problems and further developing our technology and medicine.

Don't those sound better than fighting all the time?

Captain?

Snoop Dogg?

Then we've all agreed! No more war!