[beginningguava]

>These tactics generally extend the fighting, but don’t accomplish that much

Maybe not in the conventional sense, but financially it's costing the US hundreds of billions that could have been invested elsewhere.

I'm pretty sure the cost of the war in the middle east is what helped sink the Soviets

[brlewis]

The U.S. spends more on military than the rest of the world combined. The money would not have been invested elsewhere. Somebody's costing the US lots of money, but it isn't guerillas.

[skj]

It's a principle agent problem. Overall it's a drain on the US, but the people making the decisions are moving money from outside their constituencies to inside their constituencies.

[InitialLastName]

> US hundreds of billions that could have been invested elsewhere.

We destabilized Iraq as an excuse to spend all that money on war. It was a fantastic stimulus package for northeast Virginia.

[Retric]

IMO, that’s a separate issue. If we had grabbed the oil fields as territory following the empire model then the war could have been a net financial gain.

The major cost was not the fighting, it was having that many people in a foreign nation without any national gain.