War, debt, and democracy

With the rise of the Tea Party, Republicans may rail against raising the debt ceiling, but they are likely to back down in the end, because, among other things, debt-funded wars - say, in Afghanistan and Iraq - are easier to defend than pay-as-you-go wars that voters must finance up front with taxes.

Indeed, the looming US debate underscores a more general point: since time immemorial, war has been a double-edged sword. Human societies have slaughtered and oppressed one another on the scale of Mother Nature's worst scourges. But wars have also brought beneficial change, because mobilising people for fighting also mobilises them for politics.