Within the first few seconds of the war that is about to begin, several million dollars will be spent shooting highly sophisticated ordnance at military targets in Iraq.
The vast cost - and cost in monetary terms only - will be in addition to the billions already expended on manufacturing the bombs and their delivery systems, as well as the money spent in recent months on the military build-up in the Gulf. If the war goes as the United States and its allies hope, it will be over speedily, perhaps within a fortnight. But a war lasting even this short a period will see vast sums of money, amounts running into many billions of dollars, spent on what is, by definition, wholesale destruction.
Human affairs conducted in this manner rightly command attention. That does not mean, however, that other events should be forgotten. It was perhaps with a hint of irony that the United Nations World Food Programme disclosed last week that, two months after making an urgent appeal for help, not even one donation of a single penny had been received from any government in response to an urgent plea for $6.1 million to help feed and house 150,000 impoverished people in the Central African Republic.
The blunt truth is that in global political terms, the Central African Republic and its people matter little. The population of 3.6 million is sandwiched between Chad, Sudan and Congo. They are plagued by AIDS and survive mostly by subsistence agriculture. Like many other sub-Saharan states, however, the Republic has valuable resources - diamonds. Since gaining independence from France in 1960, the country has lurched from one military coup to the next, the latest being last Saturday.
The only time anyone is interested in the Central African Republic is when they think they can get something out of it for themselves. France, Chad, Libya and Congo have all shown themselves unable to resist the temptation to sponsor various armed factions and their political figureheads. But no one, least of all the former colonial ruler, is interested right now in emergency food aid and shelter.
The war on Saddam Hussein's regime will almost certainly begin with the launching of a salvo of Tomahawk Cruise missiles. According to the US Navy, each one costs $600,000. Dozens are likely to be fired at Iraqi military installations and the apparatus of Baath Party dictatorship. The cost of just ten would meet the UN's urgent appeal for the people of the Central African Republic. It raises questions about priorities and international order in this world on this day.