Technological and economic "advances" come about as the result of war. They are never worth it in terms of the human suffering, the damage done to both the killed and maimed and the killers and maimers.

As a character in a book I read recently said, war is ALWAYS about economic matters, and soldiers are spent over dollar bills.

Before the kinder, gentler wolf pack brings it up, I'll mention the economic aspects of WWII as simply as I can.

As the troubles in Europe grew, Japan had "big eyes" for the European colonies in Southeast Asia. The French, Dutch, and British had holdings, as did the US in the Philipines. The US resisted those efforts of the Japanese to expropriate those holdings, and politically things got tense.

The Japanese thought that by crippling the US fleet at Pearl Harbor they would buy time to take over Southeast Asia, and would become able to hold it in a defensive war. There was never any doubt in the minds of responsible Japanese that the US wouldn't rebound, in spades, from Pearl Harbor. They just wanted time.

After Pearl Harbor, the Germans and Italians came to the aid of the Japanese and declared war on the US. Prior to that, we were reluctantly willing to see Britain fall to the Germans. (The US started designing the B-29 bomber not for the Asian war, but to have something which could fly from North America to bomb targets in Europe and return. Turned out not to be needed that badly in Europe when Britain wasn't invaded.)

War is about money, and lives are spent like dollar bills Not worth it unless you like profits more than people.

Arf

PS The conservative view is as George Herbert Walker Bush said about Kuwait: "This isn't about oil, it's about democracy!"