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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMOAB attack on Isis was a baffling choice in cold-blooded terms of cost
Using mother of all bombs in Afghanistan to kill 36 militants at $450,000 each will not change its reputation as a white elephant
War, boiled down to its most brutal calculation, is a business of accounting: blood and treasure in the horrible expression.
Cost calculations underpin warfare in terms of hard cash damage to economies and societies what is called resilience.
Which makes the use of one of the US militarys largest non-nuclear explosive devices the MOAB to kill 36 jihadis in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, somewhat baffling in military terms.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/14/moab-attack-isis-baffling-choice-cold-blooded-terms-cost-afghanistan?CMP=edit_2221
Freethinker65
(10,021 posts)rzemanfl
(29,557 posts)alarimer
(16,245 posts)The justification for using it is flimsy. Trump did it to show of; maybe to N. Korea, maybe to everyone.
bagelsforbreakfast
(1,427 posts)caraher
(6,278 posts)Trump can say "I used the biggest bomb I could find." It's not about results, this is for domestic consumption.
HoneyBadger
(2,297 posts)At this point we were paying to store it.
Like keeping VHS tapes in the UStoreIt.
But I am not familiar with military accounting. It is possible that we do not pay for it until we use it.
Then again, a financial planner could make a case that we will be paying for it as long as we run a deficit; ie every purchase the government makes will never be paid off. Which leads to a new perspective on spending.
Nevernose
(13,081 posts)Two were used for the initial tests, back in 2003. The remaining 18 have just been sitting around an AF base, all lonely, nobody to kill... In fact, the AF transferred this bomb to Afghanistan while Obama was still president.
HoneyBadger
(2,297 posts)Nevernose
(13,081 posts)Which is good, because it means we won't be dropping them all willy-nilly, but strange, in that we can't use them here; they have to be shipped to the theater first.