MISUNDERSTANDING POSNER
Judge Richard Posner has a blog. And he is not alone - joined by economist Gary Becker. A Univ. of Chicago affair. Law and Economics. True fun for the laissez-faire lawyer.

In their opening efforts, they discuss the Bush Doctrine of Preventative or Preemptive War. Posner quickly turns the issue into a cost-benefits analysis, explaining how policymakers must estimate the cost of not going war (i.e., the benefits of going to war) and compare that to the estimated cost of going to war. To illustrate the application of a cost-benefit analysis, Posner uses the Nazi reoccupation of the Rhineland in 1936. He argues that the cost of not going to war in 1936 was World War II - thus the benefit of war in 1936 may have been avoiding a world war and the early fall of Hitler's government. Quite the benefits. The cost, I surmise from Posner's argument, would have been a less expensive war concentrated in Western Europe, against a weaker German army. Further benefits - the millions of Jews, eastern Europeans and Russians killed by the Nazis and their collaborators, would not have been.

But if you read through the comments, you will find rather well-informed and interesting points by an intelligent crowd. But a crowd that gets hung up on its inability to think hypothetically, or to confine their analysis to broad concepts without quibbling over the application of facts. They complain about how Europe could not have known, for sure, that Hitler would not stop at the Rhineland. They complain that alternate histories can be constructed wholly differently than the one constructed by Posner. They complain that Posner does not consider other potential costs of preemptive war (like the cost of reduced international respect resulting from the speculative nature of future costs).

But what they all miss is that it is the policymakers that estimate the costs and benefits and that at some point, under such an analysis, you must accept that preemptive war can be justified. At some point, those most opposed to preemptive war will find that the benefits of preemptive war will indeed outweigh the costs. They may draw that line in an entirely different place than I would. (And I would entertain the related argument that the fixed cost of preemptive war is so great that preemptive war by its very nature of being preemptive would require that the benefits be so manifest and astromical that it would be nearly impossible for these benefits to exceed the built in fixed costs). But that doesn't make the costs-benefits analysis any less instructive.

Applying the costs-benefits analysis - if you can avoid arguing over the assumptions - can certainly help you understand the Bush Doctrine even if you don't agree with it. It can also help with the canard often offered by the left: "Well there are lots of dictators, why don't we invade them all? Starting with North Korea?" I suspect many can understand, if not agree with, an analysis that says the costs of invading Iraq are less than the costs of allowing Saddam to continue on his merry way, but that the costs of invading nuclear capable North Korea exceed the costs of allowing Kim Jong Il to continue his nefarious plans.

It will be fun reading this new blog.