Weimar Russia

[david dorkin]

Does someone believe that the amount of money spent on "defense from the
Russians" was so great because of a need for defense? (maybe the money
was being transfered to CERTAIN SECTORS who found this quite
profitable). Why should these sectors spend on "peace" if in their
myopic view, this is unprofitable?  

Doug Henwood wrote:
> 
> Brad De Long wrote:
> 
> >I would love to spend $40 million a year sending 10,000 (or, allowing for
> >bureaucratic inefficiency, 5,000) Russian-speaking Americans of Russian
> >descent to Russia each year to be useful...
> >
> >After spending $4 trillion preparing to defend ourselves against the
> >Russians over the past fifty years, the least we could do would be to spend
> >ten (or even one) percent of that on programs to make the Russians
> >democratic, prosperous, and happy...
> 
> But who wants that? "We" spent $4 trillion to destroy and humiliate the
> USSR; the last 10 years have been an episode of riotous celebration of
> "our" success.
> 
> Doug