Throughout history, after a war, the victorious looted the loser and used the gains to fund the war they just fought. For lots of the big empires of the past, they were incapable of waging a large war if it didn't have the promise of profits to fund it. Rome is a classic example, they looted Gaul (now France and Northern Italy), Britain, Iberia (Spain and Portugal) Sicily, the Balkans, The Western Middle Eastern countries and Northern Africa. All of those areas had the promise of income due to looting and taxes and helped to fund the Roman Empire. Contrary to most peoples belief, they did briefly occupy parts of Germany, but after Varus lost 3 full legions, they found that they would not make much money by fully occupying and pacifying Germany and making it into a province. The same was true with lands to the East of the Western Middle East. Crassus took it upon himself to invade Parthia, but was crushed and Rome never really tried it again because there was no money in it.
We are the first Empire in history (that I am aware of any way) that not only doesn't loot or tax conquered areas, but actually spends our own capital on both the invasion and rebuilding the country afterwards.
I don't mean to dispute the morality of this, just the cost to our economy. One thing that I don't think our leaders or people understand is how different we are from any other Empire that has ever existed. We need to honestly evaluate what it is going to cost us to invade and reconstruct the country and what kind of benefit we will gain from it. Germany and Japan are good examples of our policy paying off. Iraq and Afghanistan are not so far. This policy is also a limitation that we need to face when we are in economic trouble, as we are now, or when we try to fight on several fronts at once. A war where we fund both the costs of invastion and reconstruction afterwards is incredibly expensive in both monetary terms and troop numbers for occupation. I don't think we have the resources to take on more than 1 large front at a time. We are struggling with Iraq (large front) and Afghanistan (moderate sized front) at the same time right now and not having the kind of success we would like in either place.
We are the first Empire in history (that I am aware of any way) that not only doesn't loot or tax conquered areas, but actually spends our own capital on both the invasion and rebuilding the country afterwards.
I don't mean to dispute the morality of this, just the cost to our economy. One thing that I don't think our leaders or people understand is how different we are from any other Empire that has ever existed. We need to honestly evaluate what it is going to cost us to invade and reconstruct the country and what kind of benefit we will gain from it. Germany and Japan are good examples of our policy paying off. Iraq and Afghanistan are not so far. This policy is also a limitation that we need to face when we are in economic trouble, as we are now, or when we try to fight on several fronts at once. A war where we fund both the costs of invastion and reconstruction afterwards is incredibly expensive in both monetary terms and troop numbers for occupation. I don't think we have the resources to take on more than 1 large front at a time. We are struggling with Iraq (large front) and Afghanistan (moderate sized front) at the same time right now and not having the kind of success we would like in either place.
