Calculating cost of war

The cost of war is calculated based on missiles intercepted, ships sunk, aircraft destroyed, drones felled and infrastructure demolished. No metric can capture the cost of priceless lives lost, humans incapacitated and families shattered. War does not just destroy; it diverts resources that could have been used otherwise for the benefit of ordinary citizens. The opportunity cost of war is not just high, it is tragic. The supreme commander of Allied forces in WW2, Dwight Eisenhower, during his presidency, in his 'The Cross of Iron' speech, articulated, 'Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.'

The relevance of these words has only deepened with time. War may end a conflict, but it sows seeds for the next one because trauma is no longer confined to battlefields. War destroys the moral fabric of humanity - trust, compassion and innocence. And until humanity learns to resolve conflicts with understanding rather than aggression, we will continue to build more weapons than toys, raise more soldiers than teachers, and build more bunkers than hospitals. Verses of Gita, spoken on a battlefield, offer insight into the consequences of human impulses. Chapter 2, 62.63, states: 'From anger arises delusion; from delusion, confusion of memory; from confusion, destruction of intellect; and when intellect is destroyed, one perishes.'