There are only three ways to pay for war: debt, inflation, and/or taxes. All wars produce inflation. In the modern period, war has mostly become a public endeavor out of necessity, to keep costs down. While we can argue at the margins about private military contractors, the reality is that America spends all that money on, for example, aerospace R&D at all times because it is more expensive (in blood and treasure) to start and ramp up those activities when they are needed for war. That is the arc of American military history.
Ibn Khaldoun lacked the knowledge or language to describe oxytocin, the bonding chemical which makes men cooperate as a unit. French also has "esprit de corps." Julian, you will be more familiar with "unit cohesion." However, I really enjoyed reading about him in historiography class, and better yet, with an Arabic dictionary beside me. 'Assabiya is a universal phenomenon that William H. McNeill encountered when he wrote "Keeping Together In Time." It all comes together for me in the story of the prophet, marching his followers around Medina, teaching them suras, and forming them into a cohesive society. Ibn khaldoun was not wrong to see this as an ideal moment of state formation, and he was correct that states declined as they lost the ability to do this for themselves.
There are only three ways to pay for war: debt, inflation, and/or taxes. All wars produce inflation. In the modern period, war has mostly become a public endeavor out of necessity, to keep costs down. While we can argue at the margins about private military contractors, the reality is that America spends all that money on, for example, aerospace R&D at all times because it is more expensive (in blood and treasure) to start and ramp up those activities when they are needed for war. That is the arc of American military history.
Ibn Khaldoun lacked the knowledge or language to describe oxytocin, the bonding chemical which makes men cooperate as a unit. French also has "esprit de corps." Julian, you will be more familiar with "unit cohesion." However, I really enjoyed reading about him in historiography class, and better yet, with an Arabic dictionary beside me. 'Assabiya is a universal phenomenon that William H. McNeill encountered when he wrote "Keeping Together In Time." It all comes together for me in the story of the prophet, marching his followers around Medina, teaching them suras, and forming them into a cohesive society. Ibn khaldoun was not wrong to see this as an ideal moment of state formation, and he was correct that states declined as they lost the ability to do this for themselves.
Thanks very much for this interview.