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Why War is Expensive

One thing that has always been true of warfare is that it is expensive. It can use vast amounts of manpower (although it tends to use less womanpower), industry, natural resources, you name it. Anybody looking at global government expenses will notice that a decent military establishment is a very expensive thing, and that isn't the full picture. Many governments hide the cost with some form of conscription, which (economically) amounts to a tax of perhaps two years' income from young, healthy, men. Other governments give the military nonmonetary preferences. This was very evident in the Soviet Union, in which the military got working equipment for the prices civilians paid for junk, the military did not pay the railroads for moves, etc.

Since war is so expensive, people have always tried to find ways to wage it more cheaply. They hope that a cheap wonder weapon can be found. Although there are wonder weapons, they work only under limited circumstances, and they still won't reduce the cost of war. There are two main reasons, the philosophical, and the technical.

War is inherently expensive
The philosophical issue is that war is inherently a contest between two societies or peoples or governments or whatever, and, other things being equal, the more one side spends the more likely it is to win. This means that, of two countries are trying to wage war on the cheap, one can up its spending to the point where it isn't really burdensome and gain a considerable advantage. The other side can counter with more spending, and so forth. In total war, this levels out when both sides are committing whatever they can to the war effort. In lesser conflicts, there are limiting factors. Neither side can win permanently without escalating to total war, and therefore they can afford to accept some disadvantage in order to spend on other things, figuring that they can recoup come total war. In addition, lesser conflicts tend to be fought in many ways, not just military, and having healthier industry, more research and education, and a higher standard of living will pay off in the long run.

Finally, there is the question of what happens when one side does increase its commitment in a limited conflict. The other side can, perhaps, match it, so that the balance of power is unchanged but everybody is a bit poorer. This also allows neutrals a competitive advantage, much like Japan enjoyed for many decades after the war. Perhaps the other side cannot match the spending, as happened in the 1980s, as Reagan continued and expanded Carter's military buildup. In that case, there are two possibilities: the other side will fold, as actually happened in the 1980s, or the other side will escalate to more intense war before it was too late, as may have happened (indirectly) in 1914.

Why Wonder Weapons are expensive
The technical issue is that cheap wonder weapons are generally very specialized, and expensive conventional weapons are much less specialized. The cheap weapons can in general be used only in certain conditions, and the more general weapons can try to affect these conditions. The usual result is that everybody adopts the new, cheap, weapons, the old weapons stay around in a slightly more restricted role, and the overall cost of forces doesn't diminish.

Over the past century or so, there have been a continuing array of naval wonder weapons. The "automotive torpedo" was the first one, and it theoretically allowed a small ship to sink a battleship. Of course, a small ship cannot have great range, and cannot operate in bad weather, so battleships were somewhat protected from these ships. Further, battleships were large, and were well able to mount searchlights and numerous small guns to fight off small torpedo boats. The result, as of World War I, was that the British battle fleet had to alter its method of maintaining a European blockade.

One "wonder weapon" that did live up to its promise, in a way, was the naval aircraft. During World War II, battleships became obsolescent, although not because of any vulnerability to aircraft, but because they could not impede the activity of enemy aircraft and aircraft carriers. While battleships themselves could steam through all but the heaviest air attacks with reasonable immunity, they could not protect smaller ships from the aircraft, nor could they close with and destroy the aircraft carriers. The result was that the combat airplane replaced the battleship gun. However, a modern carrier, with planes, is an exceedingly expensive ship, so no money has been saved.

Consider, also, the vulnerability and mobility of the "wonder weapon". An infantry anti-tank missile can be very effective against a tank, but a small group of soldiers walking and carrying a missile launcher and missiles is both slow and vulnerable to all sorts of attacks. We can make them mobile by putting them in a tracked vehicle, and we can make them well-defended by adding armor to that vehicle. Once we have done this, the cost advantage disappears. The base vehicle will be less expensive than a tank, but the missile will be considerably more expensive than a main gun round.

Exceptions to the rule?
It is possible to develop a new weapon with a more limited purpose. Consider, for example, the German U-boat offensives in both World Wars. No matter how many U-boats the Germans had, they could not make it safe for German ships to use the high seas, but they had the potential of stopping the Allies from using the seas. Despite the unique ability to trade sea control ability for near-invulnerability, the U-boat offensives were handily defeated in both wars.

Another approach at a wonder weapon was the U.S. policy of nuclear deterrence, in which we threatened the Soviet Union with nuclear retaliation for a wide (and deliberately undefined) range of aggression on their part. The idea was to use nuclear bombs, which are cheap, to substitute for conventional armies, which are expensive. This was never able to stop all Soviet aggression, since it had no effect on any action not worth starting a nuclear war over. As time went on, the Soviet Union developed more nuclear capability (and convincingly exaggerated the capability they had), so a nuclear war became more and more damaging to the U.S., and in the end nuclear deterrence was only useful for protecting the U.S. and Western Europe.