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Mises.org  The Free Market The Mises Institute monthly, free
with membership  Volume 21, Number 6 June 2003  War and Central
Planning  by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.  "The enemy we're
fighting is a bit different from the one we had war-gamed
against," said General William Wallace after the first week of
fighting in Iraq had not gone as planned. The comment speaks to
a truth of which we are reminded in wartime: the military is a
government operation that undertakes its activities according to
a plan cooked up by nonmarket actors. The bureaucrats are denied
access to prices, the signaling devices that serve as the basis
for assessing the success or failure of any particular project
on the market.  As such, even the best military plans, even
those that lead to a declared victory, will partake of features
similar to that of any form of central planning. The reason wars
can tend to appear succe