One of the concepts we will study in cost accounting is that of a sunk cost-if the commitment has been made and the cost cannot be recovered, it has to be ignored. This concept is sadly lacking in the current national debate, or lack thereof, about Iraq and North Korea. Eliot Cohen takes a look at our options on page A 12 of the Friday Oct 20, 2006 WSJ. Adjacent is a WSJ editorial on our shrinking defense budget. A couple of weeks back I read a story about a 52 year old woman, an Army reservist, whose job was standing on a box to reach the machine gun in the back of her Humvee. She and the driver were killed by a sucide bomber. This does not strike me as the sort of ready defense force that Rumsfeld had in mind.
Cohen makes the point that we have sunk costs in Iraq though he does not call them that. This and North Korea, as Tom Sowell notes, are no small matters. I was in college during the draft years of Viet Nam. It is clear that we do not have a large enough army (read Cohen’s column as well as the front page article in Wed Oct 18 WSJ) to continue what we are doing. Without question, the reason Iraq is not a bigger issue with all of you is that there is no draft and the military does not want one, but this is not going to work as is. Where is the rational debate instead of all the finger pointing? This is not political science class but part of a university education is getting a better grasp on the larger world, Take a look at these articles. This comes amid Eastwood’s movie about another War which was apparently not as ‘popular’ as we might think. It is all worth a rational discussion.
From the accounting sense, all this ties in too. Right here in Lancaster we are building an inland port to handle all the goods from China. China is negotiating with North Korea. Yet China realizes our impasse with North Korea and is playing the game both ways so to speak. Meanwhile, Russia, still wincing from its departure from the international stage, wants to use its oil power in the same way. They do business with North Korea and Iran, block us at the UN, yet also sell us needed oil. Gee, what a mess. We want their goods yet they want us off balance internationally particularly as it suits China and Russia’s ability to become larger on the international stage. I believe it was George Washington that warned against dangerous alliances….some while back……IN fact I just looked it up, seems George was concerned with the ‘intense polarization of the country’ and the necessity of staying out of wars between France and England. Notably his successor Tom Jefferson would be fighting the Barbary Pirates on the African coast. Read a summary of what George had to say in his
final address. Two hundred years, same issues.
DLE
Professor Elam 
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