Sarah Kreps brings life to a often-forgotten fact: if wars are not funded by taxation, they will require borrowed money to pursue. This takes away the political accountability that a viable democracy requires from its leaders. Thus when the Bush II administration launched two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, it actually lowered taxes and thus borrowed money to pay for them. One result was that Americans not connected to the military did not feel the cost of these wars, and thus they dragged on for decades. The cost (up to $8 trillion for Afghanistan over the coming decades) will be born by future generations. Kreps compares these "hide-and-seek" wars to World War II, which was funded by taxes (50% of the funding) and war bonds. She uses both public opinion polls and war funding comparisons to find that World War II was a politically-accountable war, with Americans expecting results for their tax dollars. That has now been lost, as most wars from World War II on were funded more by borrowed money than by taxes. Presidents thus got into wars that became both unpopular and unwinnable. And thus, as Kreps notes, democracy itself suffered. This is an outstanding work, well written and researched. Anyone with a serious interest in national security policy and American politics will benefit greatly from reading it.
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