[tonis2]

War is another thing, that's artificially created for that reason I think.

New jobs are created, creating battle equipment, cause stuff always gets destroyed in war.

Governments buy guns, choppers tanks, so those who produce them, are swimming in money now.

Why would those institutions be interested in a time, where there is no major war ?

I also feel like there's some kind of dynamic between US and Russia, like good cop and bad cop.

Russia is an aggressive lunatic, and US sells guns, offers protection services for rest of the world from this crazy guy.

But what would happen if Russia would be gone, or not aggressive anymore, who would buy the guns then ? World order would be totally different and US would lose customers.

[mlinhares]

We had that brief period after the end of of the cold war and the US just found other places to blow up in the middle east. The gun lobby will never stop. And, unfortunately, you might become a "peaceful nation" but if your neighbor decides to wage war against you, you either bow or buy more guns to fight as well.

It's unfortunate but I don't think human beings will be able to coexist without wars for the foreseable future. There's just too much you can win by violence if the other side doesn't have the same firepower.

[adamsb6]

Defense contractors like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin have large incentives to promote conflict and intervention, but how much business do American gun manufacturers even do with militaries?

I can’t find numbers, but my intuition is that individuals consume over 90% of their output. There’s too few militaries rich enough to equip soldiers with US-made guns, and too many US gun buyers.

ChatGPT tells me there are about 20 million soldiers worldwide. That includes roughly two million Chinese, 1.4 million Indians, a million Russians, 1.2 million North Koreans. Of those only India has a small deployment of American small arms from Sig. For the sake of argument, let’s say each is issued a rifle and a sidearm, 40 million guns.

It’s difficult to estimate gun sales, but in 2020 there were 40 million background checks run for gun purchases in the United States. Each check could represent multiple sales.

And arms purchased by the military can remain in service for decades.

[datavirtue]

Humans need conflict to find meaning. No conflict, no story.

[qbbbauiisj]

Don’t forget somebody has to pay for all the reconstruction that follows.

For the US at least, over the last 110 years or so, every war we’ve been in was initially strongly opposed by the populace. Most (modern) wars are the result of relatively small groups of elites working to create the conditions in which a peaceful populace will be ok with war.

If Russia was gone, the US has a host of “enemies” to replace them with. Additionally, when you have such control over the world economy, it’s very easy to create conditions that create new enemies.

[hcfman]

Well. What happened when Afghanistan went, might give a clue.

Nice points.

[theGnuMe]

We don’t need war, we could just continually rebuild things. The reason for wars are mostly acquiring resources even if power is that only motivation.

[totetsu]

You’re describing the military industrial complex?

[timeon]

When I saw the title I knew this topic would be good ground for conspiracy theories.

Was there peaceful time before these two countries existed?

[cutemonster]

No, there's always been wars and fighting between men from different tribes.

See my sibling comment.

[cutemonster]

It's not artificial. It's always been a trait of this animal species to get weapons, go kill the men in the other tribe, ra*e the women.

Read about massacres by (some not all!) Russian soldiers, or about what Hamas did. Artificial? No, it's how things have always been.

Combined with Machiavellian dictators, always hungry for more power (including m2 land) and you should see that what Putin and his soldiers do is (unfortunately) pretty natural and common across the ages.

Seems to me you've bought a bunch of conspiracy theories and possibly Putin's manipulation when you apparently think the reasons lite elsewhere.

Companies make money from war, but don't confuse that for that being the underlying reasons for wars.

[tonis2]

Not taking my side with Russia or Hamas on this, by saying that US is actually "aggressor here".

But the militaries in every country, probably won't throw away blood money, I think it matches pretty well with the topic of

"Institutions try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution"

[cutemonster]

What does this mean: "militaries in every country, probably won't throw away blood money"?

You're believing that none of the countries in Europe actually care about the people in Ukraine, and it's all about the weapon industry wants to sell weapons? (Or I don't understand what you're writing)

[cutemonster]

> Not taking my side with Russia or Hamas on this, by saying that US is actually "aggressor here".

Seems you're overlooking that Putin is attacking Ukraine, and that Ukraine defends itself.

You're saying that helping a country _defend_ itself is aggression.

That's like saying [a company that provides weapons to police who stops an active shooter], is an aggressor. -- It's not the right time to say that, when it's about _defending oneself_.

Had the US been exporting weapons to _Putin_, what you wrote would make sense.

In some cases, the US does such things (and many other countries, incl Russia and China). But this time you got it backwards, when you call the defenders for "aggressors".