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•Five Greatest Environments for Producing Money Makers 129
The Allies might well have been better to leave the German machinery in place and
build their own from scratch. This might have slowed the German miracle down a
bit.
It is difficult to generalise about the beneficial impact of war on economies, so
let us take a quick look towards the scene of one of the most recent wars – that in
Kosovo and Serbia. Some of the missiles and ‘smart’ bombs used by Nato in pro-
longed bombing raids cost more than $1 million each and the stockpiles had to be
replenished. A Financial Times estimate of the cost of fighting the air war was $7
billion. The same article suggests that the cost of the peacekeeping force in Kosovo
will be more than the cost of the air war. Don’t forget that, as wars go, this was quite
a small one.
The bombs knocked out most of the river bridges in the country and a huge
amount of other infrastructure. There were highly varied estimates at the time for
the repair of this damage starting at $15 billion and going as high as $90 billion.
Experience now suggests it will be nearer the former than the latter.
Whatever the bill is, many of the participating Nato countries supply the mate-
rials and expertise, and probably quite a lot of the labour to rebuild. The recent war
in Croatia holds many parallels with the situation in Kosovo. German, Italian and
French companies received contracts for building and other infrastructure work.
Britain sent a party of more than 30 companies accompanied by a trade minis-
ter to Croatia to get in on the act. Concrete was at a premium to rebuild the bridges
and a British company built a cement plant in Split. The power companies in the
UK and elsewhere took good advantage of the damage done to generating and dis-
tributing plant.
When Vegetius in the 4th century wrote ‘Let him who desires peace, prepare
for war’ he could equally accurately have said ‘Let him who wants economic growth,
prepare for war.’ Oh, and fight one from time to time.
At the time of writing the USA is building up a force of 250,000 personnel to
fight a war in Iraq. The build up is costing billions and that is before they start to
