Cost-Benefit Analysis of Discretionary Wars

Policy-makers should perform a cost-benefit analysis before initiating a war. This article describes a methodology for such assessment, and applies it post hoc to five military actions undertaken by the United States between 1950 and 2000 (the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the invasion of Grenada, th...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inStatistics and public policy (Philadelphia, Pa.) Vol. 6; no. 1; pp. 98 - 106
Main Authors Hu, Diane, Cooper, Andrew, Desai, Neel, Guo, Sophie, Shi, Steven, Banks, David
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Macclesfield Taylor & Francis 01.01.2019
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Taylor & Francis Group
Subjects
Cost benefit analysis
Human capital
Korean War
Military intervention
Persian Gulf War
Policy making
Politicians
Risk analysis
Value
Value of a statistical life
Vietnam War
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Summary:Policy-makers should perform a cost-benefit analysis before initiating a war. This article describes a methodology for such assessment, and applies it post hoc to five military actions undertaken by the United States between 1950 and 2000 (the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the invasion of Grenada, the invasion of Panama, and the First Gulf War). The analysis identifies three broad categories of value: human capital, economic outcomes, and national influence. Different stakeholders (politicians, generals, industry, etc.) may assign different weights to these three categories, so this analysis tabulates each separately, and then, as may sometimes be necessary, monetizes them for unified comparison.
ISSN:2330-443X
2330-443X
DOI:10.1080/2330443X.2019.1688740