A society’s resources are finite. What is spent on military activities cannot be spent on food, health care, education, etc. Arabs declared war on Israel 75 years ago, rejecting the UN Partition Plan and vowing to kill or expel all of the Jews. Palestinians are able to keep this old war going because US and EU taxpayers, through UNRWA, fund all of the basic needs that motivate most people worldwide to work rather than wage war.
I’m wondering if the same dynamic is at work in Yemen. Let’s compare France, for example, one of the donor countries, to Yemen in terms of population growth:
Yemenis are far more successful demographically, it seems, than the French. Nonetheless, absent transfers of funds from French workers to various UN and NGO programs operating in Yemen, the Yemenis would have to devote a lot of time, money, and effort into feeding themselves and all of their kids. If the UN steps in to feed Yemenis, however, Yemenis can look around and find other stuff to do with what are now surplus resources.
People in Yemen, freed from the need to work for food, can demonstrate all day every day:
The Yemenis have been attacking ships in the Red Sea, which has prompted the U.S. to park a naval force in the area. They’re mobilizing ground troops as well:
If we assume that money is fungible, the countries now in a fight with Yemen are paying for both sides of the fight. Every person in Yemen who skips work to demonstrate was bankrolled by the US/EU. Every weapon in every image was purchased with US/EU money.
Could the foreign aid truly be large enough to fund a country’s entire military? See, for example, “Additional Humanitarian Assistance for the People of Yemen” (US Department of State, February 2023):
Today, I am announcing our contribution of more than $444 million, exemplifying the continued generosity of the people of the United States for the people of Yemen. As one of the largest donors, this brings our total to the humanitarian response in Yemen to over $5.4 billion since the conflict began.
Yemen supposedly was spending about $1.7 billion per year on its military in pre-Biden money back before the war over the best way to practice the Religion of Peace. Thus, $5.4 billion over time should fund quite a significant military effort. Every dollar that the U.S. sent to Yemen for food was a dollar freed up for the Yemenis to buy guns, ammo, missiles, drones, etc. and those weapons shouldn’t have cost more than $5.4 billion.
Separately, with today’s population being more than 6X what it was in 1950, with no additional agricultural land or resources added, the Giant Brains (TM) of the United Nations say that the struggle to make ends meet is due to climate:
It’s not that 33 million humans are now trying to live in a land that can produce enough food for 5 million (see “Imported food constitutes 83% of the daily calories’ intake of Yemenis.” (reliefweb.int)). it is not that those tens of millions of people have been fighting each other over the issue of what form of Islam is best (the civil war). It is atmospheric CO2 that is making life tough for Yemenis.
“Imported food constitutes 83% of the daily calories’ intake of Yemenis.”
I would expect reasonably similar results in many other cities, counties, or microstates like Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and pretty much all cities and urbanized counties in the US.
The key difference is that those geographical entities produce something of value to pay for their food.
I do appreciate your focus on demographics. It does seem highly unjust that so many polite, productive, educated people seemingly cannot afford housing and children, yet violent 60 IQ layabouts are free to breed like rabbits. There’s a saying in the less reputable parts of the Internet “the future belongs to those who show up for it.”
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/04/war-gaza-widen-biden-getting-ready-00133949
No worries! US is about to start another Middle East war with bombing of destitute people with million dollar missiles (it’s only a bad thing when Putin does it). Meaning building up Yemen was a good thing, otherwise this coming bombing campaign would have no reason to occur!
@Philip, you said “People in Yemen, freed from the need to work for food, can demonstrate all day every day”
It’s the same here in the great USA. Profile folks who are protesting or demonstrating and you will see most of them are either on welfare organized by leaders who are feed off other people’s money.