A better suggestion is that the USA should save its money and soldiers/citizens lives for better causes; the US overspent in Iraq, whereas Germany, Russia and especially France lead by the aghast CHIRAC who saw his gangster money disappear did nothing but encourage the scum in Iraq; would you like this motley group in your country? This has caused more misery to the USA troops and Iraqi people.
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My only explanations for Chirac’s behaviour (there is none,he has been rationalizing) is as follows:

1) He could not fathom the USA’s position, for surely the USA lost in the deal, and France would never have messed up the USA’s gangster party to actually lose big time …. France acts on immediate self interest alone, and lets others tackle obscure threats, or

2) He believes that the USA did this for a few Texan businesses and this was no better than what he had going, so he was bitter that the USA stole his toy.
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BUT, the Iraqis are truly going to benefit from this if civil war does not erupt because of world neglect.
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The fact is, the USA can only do about one major war every 10 years…this one was truly not worth it, but it could be an impetus for democracy in the Arab world, which surely needs some outside force to break the stranglehold that the combined wealthy, paternalistic-Islamic, and poor-uneducated people together have over the middle people in those societies.
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If the USA really wants to maraud around the world doing “good”, it ought to go to the UN and gather support for this country by country inspection process, and tap into the resources of the UN…or find an alliance of powerful like minded countries to support this project.
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If the USA wants to act alone for the long term, it needs to concentrate on its economy, otherwise, China, even India and perhaps some trade alliance centered on Europe could surpass them in 50 years.
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Footnote: Chirac, who shamelessly wanted to reconstruct Iraq as soon as the americans still did battle (and join with his old gangsters and bad-mouth the US, in all likelihood) has found a new African nation to possibly gain oil and trade….

Libya! US pressure brought Libya back to the world as much as anything, perhaps

Once again, SHAMELESSLY, Chirac brought with him a host of important businessmen for this first visit … and he will surely avoid talk of Chad or Algeria, while he explains the great friendship France and Libya naturally have…(and I will bet anything, that no treaty on earth, with the EU or any one else, would prevent this “Ally” from doing a little back door dealing).

Their seem to be 4 good rules to remember when France is around.
A)Deal bilaterally with France and be very careful.
B) Outbribe France when dealing with others.
C) Ignore France if required, and impose your will.
D)France will gladly offer to rule the relationship … let her only if you are very weak and need a deal for the short term … but have a counterfoil ready before the French can impose their “collection process” on you.
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I know I have been too hard on France! Well, every friend, no matter the quality, needs a little reminder sometimes of the realities out there …

3 out of Europe’s 10 most populous countries did not send troops to Iraq, the three that had their hands in the pie, and those 3 have not failed to whip up opinion against the USA …

But europeans can take solice, most of us (yes, MOST AMERICANS)would like to have relations restored to the previous level with Europe, or should I say the chagrined three, and we DO have many politicians over here, many republican, strongly urging that we get back to normal with Europeans. We will.. Germany and France and Russia just need a nice windfall of easy money somewhere, preferably with USA help, and american politicans will be happy too oblige, for they will get all kinds of applause,respect and votes from grateful americans who admire their worldliness and statesmanship.

I just hope it does not all come about through a direct transfer from American taxpayers.

Unless you wish to define ‘failed states’ simply as ’states the US doesn’t like’, you might be better off applying the term to states like Sierra Leone, Taliban-era Afghanistan (whether that unhappy nation will be successful in unfailing, we may have to wait to see) and, arguably, the Sudan.

I don’t think the US aim is to export insecurity to Islamofascist countries, at least not premanently. I think there is a recognition, though, that when dealing with failed states such as Iraq and Iran a period of insecurity, such as we are witnessing in Iraq at the moment, is far better than letting the problem fester as it had done under the UN sanctions. The difference with the current strategy is that we, to some extent, are now able to control the level of insecurity, having boots on the ground, whereas previously we had no direct means of shifting policy in the region.

As to feeling overconfident in diplomacy, that was exactly Powell’s problem: he actually believed that he and Tony Blair could get the UN’s backing. Diplomacy failed miserably on that case, and it was left to the military men to pursue diplomacy by other means.

It’s true there is a lot of pork in the Pentagon. However, historically the Pentagon has always been most reluctant to actually go to war. Those pushes always came from various administrations.

I think that there is a good chance of it. Firstly, when the military is so strong there is a great tendency to be over-confident in all diplomacy. Secondly, the military itself is often under use-it-or-lose-it pressure. Thirdly, with so much pork floating around, the usual checks and balances begin to fail. Money is a great distorter of common sense.

As an example, consider Colin Powell’s isolation in almost every issue over the last 18 months.

My guess is that a first approximation can be very simple. E.g. percentage of the world’s population dying annually from direct or indirect military or civilian strife. Better approximations can probably be got by taking other factors such as dispersion (a little insecurity spread out can be equivalent to lots all in one place) and perception etc. I will be surprised if models don’t already exist.

Secondly, why do you think that it is a bell curve?

I don’t. the Laffer-curve isn’t a bell curve. We do know that plotting proportion of GDP spent on the military against security exported must have two fixed zero points at 0% and 100% and that there is at least one non-zero in between, namely today’s spending. This implies that (assuming a continuous function) there wiill be at least two costs for most achieveable security values.

Thirdly, is global security the paramount aim?

Military costs provide direct security from external threats and economic stimulus and the only global security provided is as a means to one or both these ends.

We have a number of economists on the blog, any comments from the altruism (Q3) or modelling perspectives.

As opposed to what, FFS?

I’d like to hear your ideas on the subject. Do you believe that the US is exporting insecurity?

I can see that one might refer to the situation in Iraq, but I think this is a temporary period of insecurity and not a refutation of the overall evidence that US defence policy is responsible for world security, and indeed was responsible for world security for much of the latter half of the 20th century.