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gwern comments on Bayesians vs. Barbarians - Less Wrong
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Good post.
Also, historically, evil barbarians regularly fall prey to some irrational doctrine or personal paranoia that wastes their resources (sacrifice to the gods, kill all your Jews, kill everybody in the Ukraine, have a cultural revolution).
We in the US probably have a peculiar attitude on the rationality of war because we've never, with the possible exception of the War of 1812, fought in a war that was very rational (in terms of the benefits for us). The Revolutionary war? The war with Mexico? The Civil War? The Spanish-American War? WWI? WWII? Korea? Vietnam? Iraq? None of them make sense in terms of self-interest.
(Disclaimer: I'm a little drunk at the moment.)
I'm not going to dispute the others, but I kind of had the impression that we did pretty well out of the Mexican and Spanish-American wars; I mean, Texas's oil alone would seem to've paid for the (minimal) costs of those two, right?
In terms of national self-interest, yes. But they weren't causes that I'd personally risk death for.
I'm being inconsistent; I'm using the "national interest" standard for WW2, and the "personal interests" standard for these wars.
Well presumably most people don't actually risk their lives for the cause. They risk their lives for the prestige, power, money, or whatever. Fighting in a war is a good (but risky) way to gain respect and influence. Also there are social costs to avoiding the fight.