The Forever Costs of the Iran War

Economists tally the price of war because it’s a language that American markets and voters understand, and because it’s a way to quantify war’s amorphous and sprawling harms and horrors. But the worst negative economic impacts of war cannot be summed up on a ledger. War transforms the economy in a way that incentivizes more war. It robs society of other opportunities. It narrows policymakers’…