Asymetric Financial Martyrdom
So the total cost for Bin Laden’s war against the US is now hovering around $6 trillion. He accomplished exactly what he said he planned: enmeshed the US in a war in the Middle East and a war in Afghanistan.
Superpowers fall because their economies crumble, not because they’re beaten on the battlefield. For another, superpowers are so allergic to losing that they’ll bankrupt themselves trying to conquer a mass of rocks and sand.
