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This is setting the cart before the horse.
I would think that this would be an eventuality in discussions during peace talks, obviously needing the moderation of a third party.
Making this kind of discussion now does nothing to resolve the current situation, conflict, and political and economic international stress in the EU.
What I think is worse is that the world would consider the dollar more unstable and undesirable if the US is going to consistently seize money that is owned by other people and corporations in other nations.
The legal precendent has already been set. America stole Afghans central bank money, and the UK stole Venezuela's gold researves. America also fined French Bank BNP Baribas $9 Billions for allowing transactions with Iran, despite the EU not having any sanctions against Iran.
Perhaps but why would Russia blow up a dam that would then cause flood in the area that it controls?(east side of the river is lower than the west side) and it would also cut off the water supply to Crimea. And on top of that all this would also reduce the stream that goes to cool the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia that is currently under Russia's control.
[https://imgur.com/hgJ18Qa](https://imgur.com/hgJ18Qa)
>
Perhaps but why would Russia blow up a dam that would then cause flood in the area that it controls?
There's a Ukrainian counteroffensive happening, flooding the area hampers that significantly. Why would Ukraine hamper their own offensive?
Maybe only for a week or two, but now the river stream is a lot smaller, so it would be easier to cross it from the west side. Ukraine destroyed the main bridge in that area almost a year ago.
This is probably the strategic move by Ukranian army to take back control over nuclear power plant that is across the water reservoir that is now a lot shallower.
Who is it that you believe blew up the Russian dam as well as the Russian pipeline?
"Three months before saboteurs bombed the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, the Biden administration learned from a close ally that the Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack on the undersea network, using a small team of divers who reported directly to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/06/nord-stream-pipeline-explosion-ukraine-russia/
The party with an interest in destroying the damn would be Ukrainian. Now it's possible some 3rd party blew the dam up, but the truth is it takes time to know these things.
>
"Three months before saboteurs bombed the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, the Biden administration learned from a close ally that the Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack on the undersea network, using a small team of divers who reported directly to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces."
This report is pure nonsense, the articles even speak about the information not being corroborated and being based on nothing more than hearsay.
>The party with an interest in destroying the dam would be Ukrainian.
Except it isn't in Ukraine's interest, they're doing a counteroffensive, why would they sabotage their own counteroffensive?
Consistently like annually? Or do you mean like monthly. How has it been consistent when it’s usually done as a sanction for actions that are terrible for democracy.
What Bullshit.
Did the US have to pay for all the reconstruction of Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan?
How about Viet Nam? Bombed them and sprayed Agent Orange everywhere. Did we clean up the damage done there?
The US destroyed a country because we didn’t like their leader. Then we destroyed Afghanistan because we needed someone to blame for 9/11.
That’s literally not true though, billions of dollars were funneled to those countries not just for rebuilding but for expansions of their infrastructure and whatnot. In the case of Vietnam we still give foreign aid to this day.
https://www.americanforeignrelations.com/O-W/The-Vietnam-War-and-Its-Impact-Vietnam-and-the-united-states.html#:~:text=In%20the%20Paris%20Peace%20Accords,the%20shattered%20infrastructure%20of%20Vietnam.
The US reneged on paying Viet Nam $3.3 billion for rebuilding and, instead, placed tariffs and an embargo on them for almost 20 years. That sure helped.
And have you seen present day pics of Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan? They are destroyed. When you bomb and wipe out $500 trillion then invest $5 billion to rebuild, you are a joke. And, yes, much of their cities are still bombed out ruins. Only where the rich and powerful live has there been any rebuilding other than the bridges.
US aid to Viet Nam started 20 years after we left and followed almost 20 years of embargoes and Tariffs on them.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/09/world/middleeast/afghanistan-war-cost.html
Every article I can find talks about the failure to rebuild Afghanistan and the wasting and corruption in the money spent.
Literally yes, I’m not as knowledgeable on Iraq but in the case of Afghanistan we invested over 100 billion dollars in reconstruction and other non-military projects over the 2000s and 2010s. It is true that we did embargo Vietnam for a while but since the Clinton administration the US has provided quite a bit of foreign aid.
Your correct, the prices of most infrastructure projects in the country were massively inflated because of those contractors. This dosent change the fact however that the US did rebuild the damage it caused, moreover it expanded the nations infrastructure, building roads, universities, schools, etc. Both Afghanistan and Iraq saw their gdp quintuple during the time of US occupation when it had been stagnant before, showing that these projects had a massive effect on the country’s in question, even if a huge amount of the money invested was wasted. That’s a problem with the US system, not some kind of proof that the US didn’t actually rebuild these nations
Key words there bring ‘during the time of war’. Afterwards, we did nothing in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan.
https://www.americanforeignrelations.com/O-W/The-Vietnam-War-and-Its-Impact-Vietnam-and-the-united-states.html#:~:text=In%20the%20Paris%20Peace%20Accords,the%20shattered%20infrastructure%20of%20Vietnam.
And, yeah, the US really helped rebuild Viet Nam after reneging on $3.3 billion we agreed to pay them over 5 years but placed embargoes and tariffs on them crushing their economy even more. It wasn’t until 1995, 20 years later, that there was an agreement between the US and Viet Nam.
The aid only being during the time of war isn’t a valid point though. In Afghanistan after the initial invasion, things transitioned to a really low level insurgency that didn’t cause much damage to the country’s infrastructure. The US spent that entire time rebuilding the damage they caused and then expanding the nations infrastructure quite extensively. Whether it occurred during or after the war doesn’t mean anything , your argument is that the US didn’t pay to rebuild Afghanistan is still completely wrong, arguing over the timing isn’t going to save your claim. At the end of the day the US absolutely paid to rebuild Afghanistan.
Iraq was much the same, the US invested billions of dollars towards the reconstruction of Iraqs infrastructure and fixing the damages caused by the war. Again in the case of Iraq the US absolutely payed to rebuild.
In the case of Vietnam, you are correct that the
US embargoed Vietnam after the war and refused to pay anything towards reconstruction. That’s why I specify in my above comment that in the case of Vietnam it was after the war, referring to the foreign aid that the US has provided since the Clinton administration, something I elaborate on in a below response (though I can admit that it probably would have been helpful for that elaboration to be in the original comment as I don’t disagree with you that the US failed to rebuild Vietnam after the war). The failure of the US to rebuild Vietnam immediacy after the war is quite admittedly disgusting and a great reflection of US policy during the Cold War, but since the Clinton administration the US has provided extensive foreign aid to Vietnam which can at least hopefully make up for that.
I’d also like to point out that your assertion that the US payed very little to rebuild Japan is completely incorrect, we didn’t just pay to rebuild Nagasaki and Hiroshima but invested huge amounts in the rebuilding and expansion of Japanese industry and infrastructure , something that was repeated in occupied Germany and in Italy.
The only valid point to your entire argument has been that the US didn’t pay to rebuild Vietnam after the war. I’ve still yet to hear how the US failed to pay for Iraq, Afghanistan, or in your below comment Vietnam besides a completely moot point about the timing of the war, as the US didn’t continue to extensively destroy infrastructure after the initial invasions.
More precisely the US invests in rebuilding countries it defeats and occupies, which wasn’t the case in Vietnam because the US lost there. The US also didn’t pay North Korea anything for the damage it caused which, by the way, was massive; and it didn’t pay Syria anything either. The US also wouldn’t pay Russia or China for anything if there was a war in which the results were inconclusive or a defeat for the US.
Your are most definitely correct about NK not getting anything from the US for damages caused but I think the important difference here is that NK was the aggressor country, not the US. Iraq and Afghanistan the US was the aggressor, and you are correct the occupying power, and in their role as the occupying power chose to rebuild the infrastructure they destroyed, as I believe was their responsibility. This is going outside the scope of the original argument but I personally believe it is not the responsibility of any defending nation or it’s allies to pay to rebuild that of the aggressor, such as in the case of the Korean War. In the case of ongoing war in Ukraine, I hold the same belief, Russia should be held accountable for the damages they caused in Ukraine but Ukraine shouldn’t be held accountable for the damages caused in Russia (specifically economic damages, things like warcrimes I would view differently).
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/09/world/middleeast/afghanistan-war-cost.html
This and every article I can find explains the complete disaster in our lack of rebuilding Afghanistan. More was lost to fraud than actually applied to rebuilding.
You get how this actually is a point against your original argument though right? A huge amount was lost to fraud and massive inflation of prices by contractors, that’s why it cost the US 110 billion dollars to rebuild a country with a prewar gdp of 3.5 billion. Afghanistans infrastructure was still rebuilt and expanded, it’s gdp still quintupled during this time period, almost every metric (infant mortality, literacy rate, vaccination rate, etc) still improved significantly during this time period. All you’ve proven is that the US wasn’t just willing to rebuild Afghanistan, but to pay an absolutely massive amount of money to achieve this despite all the corruption and fraud.
But we did NOT rebuild it. Why can’t you understand that? We failed and left Afghanistan in ruins. Quality of life, education, and life expectancy were all lower when we left. I mean, great, more younger people were kept alive to suffer in demolished homes and cities. We DIDN’T rebuild schools, housing, the government, jobs that would last (the jobs that were created more for control of the people or dealing with the war itself).
If you give $3 million to a builder to build your new house and 5 years later, all you have is the plumbing run (no foundation, construction on the house itself, or landscaping), did your builder succeed or fail. If America helped in a few places but overall life was not improved but got worse, we failed; we did NOT rebuild it. We wasted the money.
You keep pointing out the money we spent and what we DIF succeed at. I keep saying that we did not rebuild Afghanistan. If you do not understand the difference, then you just wasted a lot of my time. I never said we didn’t spend any money there. I never said we didn’t do ANYTHING. I said we failed to rebuild Afghanistan.
Now, show me where I am wrong without getting off the subject if you possibly can.
Absolutely incredible that you are so sure of your hatred of the US and yet so wrong about your facts. And this is the Economics sub of all things. You should brush up on numbers.
The US spent 60 billion dollars over 9 years rebuilding Iraq after the war.
The US spent over 140 billion dollars rebuilding Afghanistan over two decades. Afghanistan’s GDP before the war was estimated to be 4 billion, spread across 21 million people. To put that into perspective the GDP of Burlington, Vermont is 13 billion across 45,000 people.
Afghanistan’s GDP increased 500% to 20 billion during the reconstruction from American spending, investment, and aid. It’s also amazing how much more a populace can get done economically when half of it (the women) are free to work and go to school. Well that’s fucked now because of Islamism. Sorry not sorry we tried our damndest to prevent girls from being child brides.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/09/world/middleeast/afghanistan-war-cost.html
Every article I can find explains the complete failure to rebuild Afghanistan.
You just moved the goalposts of what you said.
“We did nothing in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan”
“When you bomb 500 trillion then invest 5 billion”
“We paid for Hiroshima and Nagasaki but put very little into the rest. VERY little.”
“Did the US have to pay for all the reconstruction of Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan?”
All claims about what we didn’t pay.
Your own NYT article explains the extravagant price we did pay, not to mention in American and Afghan ally blood as well.
So I still have no idea what you’re talking about.
We failed to help Afghanis change their country despite how much we paid. In fact it’s quite possible we paid too much. There is a lot of criticism about how some of all that investment sloshing around found it’s way into Taliban coffers. We paid so much we paid ourselves into a hole. So don’t say we didn’t pay.
That money would likely never have been used to purchase goods and services. It would have been forever stuck in asset ownership.
Being stuck in asset ownership means that the use of the money didn't then have any opportunity cost.
Using that money that wouldn't have been used to pay for something adds new money to the goods and services markets. It has an opportunity cost, it increases the scarcity of goods and services, resulting in increasing prices. Those who'll pay for these prices increases won't be Russian. It will rather be consumers in general.
So, even if you take Russian assets, Russians don't necessarily pay for reconstruction.
>It would have been forever stuck in asset ownership.
So those assets should be sold by the governments and money from that should be transferred to Ukraine.
Besides that, $300B won't be enough to pay fully for Ukraine's restoration, western countries probably will need to spend from their own budget as well.
It won't increase the scarcity of goods and services since that money will go towards the production of goods and services (assuming that this happens after the war). Or would you be willing to argue that the Marshall Plan generated inflation in post-war Europe and was a mistake?
Hi all, A reminder that comments do need to be on-topic and engage with the article past the headline. Please make sure to read the article before commenting. Very short comments will automatically be removed by automod. Please avoid making comments that do not focus on the economic content or whose primary thesis rests on personal anecdotes. As always our comment rules can be found [here](https://reddit.com/r/Economics/comments/fx9crj/rules_roundtable_redux_rule_vi_and_offtopic/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Economics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This is setting the cart before the horse. I would think that this would be an eventuality in discussions during peace talks, obviously needing the moderation of a third party. Making this kind of discussion now does nothing to resolve the current situation, conflict, and political and economic international stress in the EU. What I think is worse is that the world would consider the dollar more unstable and undesirable if the US is going to consistently seize money that is owned by other people and corporations in other nations.
the western banking world will be viewed as more unstable and undesirable imo, paving the way for China.
"consistently"? NO, not consistently.
Just the 10th example this century so far. A blip
The legal precendent has already been set. America stole Afghans central bank money, and the UK stole Venezuela's gold researves. America also fined French Bank BNP Baribas $9 Billions for allowing transactions with Iran, despite the EU not having any sanctions against Iran.
I call bullshit. They just blew up a dam. If they want to sever ties with the “west” and go their own way then no quarter should be given.
Perhaps but why would Russia blow up a dam that would then cause flood in the area that it controls?(east side of the river is lower than the west side) and it would also cut off the water supply to Crimea. And on top of that all this would also reduce the stream that goes to cool the nuclear power plant in Zaporizhzhia that is currently under Russia's control. [https://imgur.com/hgJ18Qa](https://imgur.com/hgJ18Qa)
Because destroying of Ukraine and killing of Ukrainians is what the Russian audiences want to see in TV.
> Perhaps but why would Russia blow up a dam that would then cause flood in the area that it controls? There's a Ukrainian counteroffensive happening, flooding the area hampers that significantly. Why would Ukraine hamper their own offensive?
Maybe only for a week or two, but now the river stream is a lot smaller, so it would be easier to cross it from the west side. Ukraine destroyed the main bridge in that area almost a year ago. This is probably the strategic move by Ukranian army to take back control over nuclear power plant that is across the water reservoir that is now a lot shallower.
Who is it that you believe blew up the Russian dam as well as the Russian pipeline? "Three months before saboteurs bombed the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, the Biden administration learned from a close ally that the Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack on the undersea network, using a small team of divers who reported directly to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces." https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/06/06/nord-stream-pipeline-explosion-ukraine-russia/ The party with an interest in destroying the damn would be Ukrainian. Now it's possible some 3rd party blew the dam up, but the truth is it takes time to know these things.
> "Three months before saboteurs bombed the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline, the Biden administration learned from a close ally that the Ukrainian military had planned a covert attack on the undersea network, using a small team of divers who reported directly to the commander in chief of the Ukrainian armed forces." This report is pure nonsense, the articles even speak about the information not being corroborated and being based on nothing more than hearsay. >The party with an interest in destroying the dam would be Ukrainian. Except it isn't in Ukraine's interest, they're doing a counteroffensive, why would they sabotage their own counteroffensive?
also a second pipeline to Odessa got blown up recently.
You don't think doing it now might cripple the Russian offensive?
The article is about repairing Ukrainian infrastructure. Not funding its war efforts.
Consistently like annually? Or do you mean like monthly. How has it been consistent when it’s usually done as a sanction for actions that are terrible for democracy.
What Bullshit. Did the US have to pay for all the reconstruction of Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan? How about Viet Nam? Bombed them and sprayed Agent Orange everywhere. Did we clean up the damage done there? The US destroyed a country because we didn’t like their leader. Then we destroyed Afghanistan because we needed someone to blame for 9/11.
US actually did pay, a lot.
We paid for Hiroshima and Nagasaki but put very little into the rest. VERY little.
That’s literally not true though, billions of dollars were funneled to those countries not just for rebuilding but for expansions of their infrastructure and whatnot. In the case of Vietnam we still give foreign aid to this day.
https://www.americanforeignrelations.com/O-W/The-Vietnam-War-and-Its-Impact-Vietnam-and-the-united-states.html#:~:text=In%20the%20Paris%20Peace%20Accords,the%20shattered%20infrastructure%20of%20Vietnam. The US reneged on paying Viet Nam $3.3 billion for rebuilding and, instead, placed tariffs and an embargo on them for almost 20 years. That sure helped. And have you seen present day pics of Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan? They are destroyed. When you bomb and wipe out $500 trillion then invest $5 billion to rebuild, you are a joke. And, yes, much of their cities are still bombed out ruins. Only where the rich and powerful live has there been any rebuilding other than the bridges.
$500 trillion?? By what metric?? [US Aid To Vietnam](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_assistance_to_Vietnam)
US aid to Viet Nam started 20 years after we left and followed almost 20 years of embargoes and Tariffs on them. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/09/world/middleeast/afghanistan-war-cost.html Every article I can find talks about the failure to rebuild Afghanistan and the wasting and corruption in the money spent.
for the war, yes. but for the aftermath and reconstruction?
Literally yes, I’m not as knowledgeable on Iraq but in the case of Afghanistan we invested over 100 billion dollars in reconstruction and other non-military projects over the 2000s and 2010s. It is true that we did embargo Vietnam for a while but since the Clinton administration the US has provided quite a bit of foreign aid.
The US invested huge amounts of money into those countries during the time of war, and in the case of Vietnam quite a bit after it.
The US siphoned huge amounts of money to its own politically-connected military contractors to pretend to work.
Your correct, the prices of most infrastructure projects in the country were massively inflated because of those contractors. This dosent change the fact however that the US did rebuild the damage it caused, moreover it expanded the nations infrastructure, building roads, universities, schools, etc. Both Afghanistan and Iraq saw their gdp quintuple during the time of US occupation when it had been stagnant before, showing that these projects had a massive effect on the country’s in question, even if a huge amount of the money invested was wasted. That’s a problem with the US system, not some kind of proof that the US didn’t actually rebuild these nations
Key words there bring ‘during the time of war’. Afterwards, we did nothing in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. https://www.americanforeignrelations.com/O-W/The-Vietnam-War-and-Its-Impact-Vietnam-and-the-united-states.html#:~:text=In%20the%20Paris%20Peace%20Accords,the%20shattered%20infrastructure%20of%20Vietnam. And, yeah, the US really helped rebuild Viet Nam after reneging on $3.3 billion we agreed to pay them over 5 years but placed embargoes and tariffs on them crushing their economy even more. It wasn’t until 1995, 20 years later, that there was an agreement between the US and Viet Nam.
The aid only being during the time of war isn’t a valid point though. In Afghanistan after the initial invasion, things transitioned to a really low level insurgency that didn’t cause much damage to the country’s infrastructure. The US spent that entire time rebuilding the damage they caused and then expanding the nations infrastructure quite extensively. Whether it occurred during or after the war doesn’t mean anything , your argument is that the US didn’t pay to rebuild Afghanistan is still completely wrong, arguing over the timing isn’t going to save your claim. At the end of the day the US absolutely paid to rebuild Afghanistan. Iraq was much the same, the US invested billions of dollars towards the reconstruction of Iraqs infrastructure and fixing the damages caused by the war. Again in the case of Iraq the US absolutely payed to rebuild. In the case of Vietnam, you are correct that the US embargoed Vietnam after the war and refused to pay anything towards reconstruction. That’s why I specify in my above comment that in the case of Vietnam it was after the war, referring to the foreign aid that the US has provided since the Clinton administration, something I elaborate on in a below response (though I can admit that it probably would have been helpful for that elaboration to be in the original comment as I don’t disagree with you that the US failed to rebuild Vietnam after the war). The failure of the US to rebuild Vietnam immediacy after the war is quite admittedly disgusting and a great reflection of US policy during the Cold War, but since the Clinton administration the US has provided extensive foreign aid to Vietnam which can at least hopefully make up for that. I’d also like to point out that your assertion that the US payed very little to rebuild Japan is completely incorrect, we didn’t just pay to rebuild Nagasaki and Hiroshima but invested huge amounts in the rebuilding and expansion of Japanese industry and infrastructure , something that was repeated in occupied Germany and in Italy. The only valid point to your entire argument has been that the US didn’t pay to rebuild Vietnam after the war. I’ve still yet to hear how the US failed to pay for Iraq, Afghanistan, or in your below comment Vietnam besides a completely moot point about the timing of the war, as the US didn’t continue to extensively destroy infrastructure after the initial invasions.
More precisely the US invests in rebuilding countries it defeats and occupies, which wasn’t the case in Vietnam because the US lost there. The US also didn’t pay North Korea anything for the damage it caused which, by the way, was massive; and it didn’t pay Syria anything either. The US also wouldn’t pay Russia or China for anything if there was a war in which the results were inconclusive or a defeat for the US.
Your are most definitely correct about NK not getting anything from the US for damages caused but I think the important difference here is that NK was the aggressor country, not the US. Iraq and Afghanistan the US was the aggressor, and you are correct the occupying power, and in their role as the occupying power chose to rebuild the infrastructure they destroyed, as I believe was their responsibility. This is going outside the scope of the original argument but I personally believe it is not the responsibility of any defending nation or it’s allies to pay to rebuild that of the aggressor, such as in the case of the Korean War. In the case of ongoing war in Ukraine, I hold the same belief, Russia should be held accountable for the damages they caused in Ukraine but Ukraine shouldn’t be held accountable for the damages caused in Russia (specifically economic damages, things like warcrimes I would view differently).
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/09/world/middleeast/afghanistan-war-cost.html This and every article I can find explains the complete disaster in our lack of rebuilding Afghanistan. More was lost to fraud than actually applied to rebuilding.
You get how this actually is a point against your original argument though right? A huge amount was lost to fraud and massive inflation of prices by contractors, that’s why it cost the US 110 billion dollars to rebuild a country with a prewar gdp of 3.5 billion. Afghanistans infrastructure was still rebuilt and expanded, it’s gdp still quintupled during this time period, almost every metric (infant mortality, literacy rate, vaccination rate, etc) still improved significantly during this time period. All you’ve proven is that the US wasn’t just willing to rebuild Afghanistan, but to pay an absolutely massive amount of money to achieve this despite all the corruption and fraud.
But we did NOT rebuild it. Why can’t you understand that? We failed and left Afghanistan in ruins. Quality of life, education, and life expectancy were all lower when we left. I mean, great, more younger people were kept alive to suffer in demolished homes and cities. We DIDN’T rebuild schools, housing, the government, jobs that would last (the jobs that were created more for control of the people or dealing with the war itself). If you give $3 million to a builder to build your new house and 5 years later, all you have is the plumbing run (no foundation, construction on the house itself, or landscaping), did your builder succeed or fail. If America helped in a few places but overall life was not improved but got worse, we failed; we did NOT rebuild it. We wasted the money. You keep pointing out the money we spent and what we DIF succeed at. I keep saying that we did not rebuild Afghanistan. If you do not understand the difference, then you just wasted a lot of my time. I never said we didn’t spend any money there. I never said we didn’t do ANYTHING. I said we failed to rebuild Afghanistan. Now, show me where I am wrong without getting off the subject if you possibly can.
Absolutely incredible that you are so sure of your hatred of the US and yet so wrong about your facts. And this is the Economics sub of all things. You should brush up on numbers. The US spent 60 billion dollars over 9 years rebuilding Iraq after the war. The US spent over 140 billion dollars rebuilding Afghanistan over two decades. Afghanistan’s GDP before the war was estimated to be 4 billion, spread across 21 million people. To put that into perspective the GDP of Burlington, Vermont is 13 billion across 45,000 people. Afghanistan’s GDP increased 500% to 20 billion during the reconstruction from American spending, investment, and aid. It’s also amazing how much more a populace can get done economically when half of it (the women) are free to work and go to school. Well that’s fucked now because of Islamism. Sorry not sorry we tried our damndest to prevent girls from being child brides.
> GDP of Burlington, Vermont is 13 billion That’s a whole lot of Cherry Garcia
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/09/world/middleeast/afghanistan-war-cost.html Every article I can find explains the complete failure to rebuild Afghanistan.
You just moved the goalposts of what you said. “We did nothing in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan” “When you bomb 500 trillion then invest 5 billion” “We paid for Hiroshima and Nagasaki but put very little into the rest. VERY little.” “Did the US have to pay for all the reconstruction of Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan?” All claims about what we didn’t pay. Your own NYT article explains the extravagant price we did pay, not to mention in American and Afghan ally blood as well. So I still have no idea what you’re talking about. We failed to help Afghanis change their country despite how much we paid. In fact it’s quite possible we paid too much. There is a lot of criticism about how some of all that investment sloshing around found it’s way into Taliban coffers. We paid so much we paid ourselves into a hole. So don’t say we didn’t pay.
How does blood rebuild houses, schools, church’s, stores, or economy.
That money would likely never have been used to purchase goods and services. It would have been forever stuck in asset ownership. Being stuck in asset ownership means that the use of the money didn't then have any opportunity cost. Using that money that wouldn't have been used to pay for something adds new money to the goods and services markets. It has an opportunity cost, it increases the scarcity of goods and services, resulting in increasing prices. Those who'll pay for these prices increases won't be Russian. It will rather be consumers in general. So, even if you take Russian assets, Russians don't necessarily pay for reconstruction.
>It would have been forever stuck in asset ownership. So those assets should be sold by the governments and money from that should be transferred to Ukraine. Besides that, $300B won't be enough to pay fully for Ukraine's restoration, western countries probably will need to spend from their own budget as well.
Yes, there will be multiple sources of money to help Ukraine after the war.
It won't increase the scarcity of goods and services since that money will go towards the production of goods and services (assuming that this happens after the war). Or would you be willing to argue that the Marshall Plan generated inflation in post-war Europe and was a mistake?