Casualties of war and sunk costs

I came across this article in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. Very interesting research. The authors find that reminding people of American soldiers’ death and injuries tends to firm up rather than undermine support for war. This contradicts common wisdom. These findings may also be part of the explanation for the impotence of the anti-war movement in the U.S. in the 21st century. Before the invasion of Iraq, I remember millions of people demonstrating worldwide against the proposed invasion. Even in the U.S., despite the frenzy of jingoistic propaganda after 9/11, huge demonstrations were organized up to March 2003. But since then, it seems we’ve been regressing. Is it fatigue? Discouragement? Or could it be that we’ve been hitting on the wrong nail all along?

Since 2003, committed activists and organizations have been highlighting the “cost of war” at every opportunity: the casualties, the injuries, the costs to military families and to American Treasury. The intent was to persuade the American public that these invasions and occupations were just too costly and not worth the expense despite their possible benefits. And certainly, rational deliberation would and should involve some form of benefit-cost comparison. The thought was that the country’s political-military establishment, along with its propaganda arm in the mainstream media would be exaggerating the benefits and downplaying the costs. So we should counter this by doing the opposite: and the easiest way to do this while still appearing to be patriotic Americans was to highlight the soldiers’ deaths, injuries and traumatic experiences.

Well, it turns out that people are not quite that rational. This is something that psychologists have known for a long time, but that the rest of us have not paid enough attention to. In particular, people have an aversion to giving up on bad investments, and are often willing to continue throwing good money after bad. People viscerally want costly efforts, especially efforts that have cost lives, to have been worth it. When Bush called for finishing the job so our soldiers’ death would not have been in vain, he was not just another dumb politician failing to understand the sunk-cost fallacy; he was saying what most people wanted to hear. The costlier these wars, the more people become attached to them and the more they want them to continue so their sacrifice could be vindicated. Irrational? True, but common and predictable? Also true.

This tells me that many well-intentioned progressives, socialists and libertarians have been going about opposing these wars all wrong. Talking about American costs and casualties is useful BEFORE an invasion begins, as a warning against making yet another bad investment. But once casualties have started to occur, we should no longer be lamenting our costs. Rather we should focus on the other side of the equation: Iraqis were a lot better off before the American invasion, even under Saddam; Afghans were better off before the American invasion, even under Taliban rule. American meddling in their affairs has ruined and devastated these countries, and it will take them decades to recover, if we ever leave them alone. Our costs? Peanuts, irrelevant, in comparison to the cost we are inflicting on them. When American bombs obliterate a village in Afghanistan, isn’t it a little obscene to complain that the bombs were expensive?

If we don’t really believe that American military aggressions have and will continue to make life worse for its victims, or if we think that questioning the motives and purposes of the military sounds too radical and unpatriotic, then we will never convince the population at large to oppose them. Demanding that people “support our troops by bringing them home” does not answer the objection that they should finish the job first. This is a debate war opponents will keep losing until we begin to make the case that the job in question is unethical, immoral and criminal, whether it costs us a little or a lot.