Fighting the Last War: Can the Philippines Beat China?

A video circulating in the cyberspace tries to whip up nationalist sentiment by using the Korean war experience to suggest that “the Philippines can beat China” should any military conflict arise from the recent territorial dispute.

Heard of the axiom “Generals are always prepared to fight the last war”?

Such expression applies to the video. The video has been framed in the assumption that future wars will be waged in the conventional sense and thus the vaunted Filipino mettle will matter.

Well this would not only be a big mistake but is patently myopic.

We are not only in the information age but in the age of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), not limited to nuclear warfare (but also to various types of chemical, biological and other evolving warfare such as computer, robotics and etc..).

[As a side note, I will not deal here with the moral issue of whether Filipino lives lost and taxpayer expenditures in the Korean war had been justified or not].

And China has been part of the states armed with substantial nuclear armaments (from Wikipedia.org)

China has also in possession of chemical and biological weapons. I will skip on the military tale of the tape, nevertheless I have shown them here earlier

This simply means that the risks of the employment of these dreadful killing machines or instruments increases once a shooting war have been initiated.

For many, getting social acceptance means to make a big issue out of things they hardly understand.

Political correctness also means stirring up nationalist fervor when they know that someone else will get to do the bloody part of the political violence, whose major beneficiaries will accrue to politicians at society’s expense. Of course this assumes a limited shooting war.

And in case of a full scale war, this will like result to mass destruction of the society (whose families and friends of these agitators will also suffer). Of course these people can’t think through their emotions enough to understand the consequences of their advocacies or are shills for the politicos.

I am reminded by distinguished historian Arnold Toynbee who claimed that people whom have not experienced the horrors of war have the tendency to become provocateurs (or the generational war cycle).

The survivors of a generation that has been of military age during a bout of war will be shy, for the rest of their lives, of bringing a repetition of this tragic experience either upon themselves or upon their children, and... therefore the psychological resistance of any move towards the breaking of a peace ....is likely to be prohibitively strong until a new generation.... has had the time to grow up and to come into power. On the same showing, a bout of war, once precipitated, is likely to persist until the peace-bred generation that has been lightheartedly run into war has been replaced, in its turn, by a war-worn generation.

And it is why agitators of war should get themselves enlisted in the military and request to get assigned in the frontlines so they can practice on what they preach.

[Updated to add: Here is a list of the death toll of 20th century wars, given the capacity of destruction of modern weaponry--assume the worst for the new age warfare]

Of course I am not convinced that the regional territorial controversy has solely been about superficial claims to property or about resources but more about the concealed political agenda such as the advancement of the military industrial complex, and or even perhaps a smoke and mirror encirclement strategy against Russia as China’s regional economic and military policies seem like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The more important way to promote peace and social cooperation is none other than through expanded trade.

As the great Claude Frederic Bastiat once warned

if goods don’t cross borders, armies will

Myth of War as Political and Economic Solution

Some people here or abroad seem to be agitating for war.

In the Philippines, recent unfortunate incidents over at the Spratlys Islands have prompted some officials to call for increased military spending as countermeasure against alleged provocations by foreign marauders.

As earlier pointed out, suggestions of an ‘arms race’ are foolish because they are not only economically unfeasible but political brinkmanship risks escalation which might lead to undesired consequences that may be baneful for both parties. In addition war spending robs the local economy of productivity and resources which leads to poverty.

Since the Philippines have an existing Mutual Defense treaty with the US, which other nations recognize, then perhaps current incursions by China represents a test of this relationship or has been merely been flexing her brawn in order to flaunt her new hardwares of destruction.

Besides, China’s actions have not shown aggressiveness elsewhere, and to the contrary, has been more investment oriented.

This is unless China’s military and incumbent political leaders have different agendas.

In the US, experts like Dr. Paul Krugman seem to be arguing for increased war spending to bolster the economy. Professor William Anderson quotes Krugman

“If we had the threat of war, had a military buildup, you’d be amazed at how fast this economy would recover.”

For people who view the world in the context of dollar and cents, then this view would seem plausible.

Yet as rightly pointed out by Professor Anderson the US has been waging war on different fronts,

I'm not sure what we call Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and wherever else the U.S. Armed Forces are shooting people. I think I call it war, and we can see just how good it has been not only for our economy, but also the economies of the lands this government has attacked.

From Google’s Public Data

From Cato.org

In relative terms, the US has the largest share of military spending in the world and has continuously outspent the world. And this has been growing trend since 2000 (obviously post 9/11).

So has increased war spending or other forms of government spending been boosting the US economy? Unfortunately not.

From Dan Mitchell

War as a demand booster is a myth.

Henry Hazlitt in his must read classic Economics in One Lesson debunked this fallacious dollar and cents view based on ‘aggregates’.

The great Mr. Hazlitt, (italics original)

Now there is a half-truth in the "backed-up" demand fallacy, just as there was in the broken-window fallacy. The broken window did make more business for the glazier. The destruction of war will make more business for the producers of certain things. The destruction of houses and cities will make more business for the building and construction industries. The inability to produce automobiles, radios, and refrigerators during the war will bring about a cumulative post-war demand for those particular products.

To most people this will seem like an increase in total demand, as it may well be in terms of dollars of lower purchasing power. But what really takes place is a diversion of demand to these particular products from others

In wars, it is not just the diversion of resources from productive to consumptive activities, which brings about a lower standard of living, but the intangible costs from losses of human lives (capital)! Death from war or disasters or any form of destruction cannot serve as economic boosters.

Those who argue for war do so either because they know someone else will do the dying for them or have not envisioned of the brutalities of a real war.

Maybe this is part of what historian Arnold Toynbee calls as the “Generational Cycle in the transmission of a social heritage”.

Dr. Marc Faber quotes Toynbee,

The survivors of a generation that has been of military age during a bout of war will be shy, for the rest of their lives, of bringing a repetition of this tragic experience either upon themselves or upon their children, and... therefore the psychological resistance of any move towards the breaking of a peace ....is likely to be prohibitively strong until a new generation.... has had the time to grow up and to come into power. On the same showing, a bout of war, once precipitated, is likely to persist until the peace-bred generation that has been lightheartedly run into war has been replaced, in its turn, by a war-worn generation'

In short, the lack of exposure to war whets the desire for war.

Here is a suggestion: Dr. Krugman and all his ilk and his followers (including Filipino politicians and their adherents), who yearn for war for whatever reasons, should go to the front line, instead of getting ensconced in the proverbial ‘ivory towers’, and bring their family along with them.

If you want war, go fight them yourself!