I remember a slogan that was popular during the Cold War: “Peace Through Strength.” At various times it was the name of an actual right-wing group, an official jingoistic catchphrase of the federal government, the philosophical trope for American foreign policy, and just a good ol’ knee-jerk reaction to anyone who might question the usefulness of war as a means of solving political problems.

Yes, “Peace Through Strength” summed it all up: We live in a Machiavellian world, where the Law of the Jungle is the ultimate reality. We don’t want to start nothin’ but we sure as hell are gonna finish it. Speak softly and carry a big stick. Successful deterrence depends on being able to carry out the threat of force. When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns. Etc.

This logic has always prevailed in our post-colonial militarized geopolitical chess game. We can’t seem to get beyond a phase of human civilization characterized by nations competing with each other for territory, markets and resources. Economic cooperation and interdependence rests in a fragile state atop the global war machine. Everyone knows it is dangerous, wasteful, immoral and just plain idiotic, and yet we can’t seem to evolve past the Law of the Jungle mentality. So, “peace through strength” sums up our collective political philosophy.

But does “peace through strength” work? You could argue that in certain circumstances, and for certain types of social groupings, yes it does work. Big dogs don’t have to fight as often as small dogs. Bullies prey on the weak. Aggressors may be crazy but they’re not stupid. That all makes sense. But there is another level of reality which gets ignored by looking at the world only in this way.

We consume, produce and rearrange our planet’s resources. That is what we do. We eat, we shit, we die, and our bodies get recycled into the planet. That is what we are actually doing while we build elaborate visions about the meaning of our lives. Perhaps the best argument against war is our mathematical ability to quantify, to list, all the resources used in war. When the bombs stop falling, the screams fade into silence, what is left is the bill, the list of expenses.

As our modern societies get more technologically efficient, the number crunchers can accurately tabulate all the costs of war, not just the costs of the bombs, bullets and guns, but all the tertiary resources involved, such as food, fuel, training and so on. They can also tabulate all the secondary costs of the destruction wrought by war, not just buildings, bridges and roads blown up, but things like the environmental cleanup costs after an oil refinery is breached, the medical costs of all the refugees, amputees and maimed orphans created by war. The practical, human, unromantic costs of war.

We are now at the point in our human social development that we can accurately predict the cost of most human endeavors. You want to send a guy to the moon? It’s gonna cost X million dollars. You want to build a tunnel connecting England to France, it’s gonna cost Y million Euros (by the way let’s call it the “Chunnel.” Catchy name, huh?). You want to invade Iraq, topple the government and install a new government? Ooh, now that’s gonna cost you.

In fact, mathematical estimates were made for the cost of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the costs were predicted to be exorbitant. And the Bush administration ignored or denied these estimates. The Bush dream weavers spun a fantasy about the war paying for itself, and it was “bombs away!” And now the waiter comes with the bill: “Did you enjoy your bombs, sir? Very good. We do take mastercard, or you can mortgage your children’s future, if you’d like.”

So “peace through strength” has thrust the U.S. economy into a downward spiral of unimaginable debt, caused massive death, destruction and suffering, and created conditions for civil war in Iraq, not to mention helping to further disenfranchise millions of poor, desperate and angry people, who will serve as a reservoir for terrorists with nothing to lose.

I guess all this is not news to most of us. The question is: Was this the plan all along, or are our world leaders so stupid that they thought things would go differently? Did they make the mistake of believing their own lies? Seriously, I wonder about this.

As Israel carries out its own version of the Bush plan in Lebanon (doing to Lebanon what we did to Afghanistan and Iraq), are the Israeli military leaders thinking that they are really going to eradicate Hezbollah by blowing up Beirut, throwing the Lebanese economy into chaos, and creating hundreds of thousands of refugees? Israel, of course, is one of the most steadfast proponents of “peace through strength.” But do they actually believe their own rhetoric?

Who is in charge of this madness? I think it is the bombmakers, and by this I don’t just mean the highly profitable companies that make the bombs, guns and bullets. I mean all the corporations and individuals who profit from war. They are short-term planners. They blow stuff up and then rebuild it. They make obscene profits from all phases of war, from the planning and staging, to the destruction, to the rebuilding. And in the process of reaping all these short-term profits, they divert humanity from longer term, more productive goals. Definitely Hall of Shame material.