Quote Originally Posted by Fuchs View Post
You can maximize effect at given cost or minimize costs at given effect.
There are others. Lot of gray out there...
There's absolutely no point in preferring effectiveness over efficiency because efficiency in achieving a desired effect (= at minimum cost) is simply unbeatable.
Unbeatable in many respects, no question -- but sometimes the desired result will require a degree of effectiveness to be achieved that is inefficient.
Effectiveness is only about one variable while efficiency considers two important variables - it's a much richer term.
It also puts the two variables in competition.

Sometimes efficiency will win, occasionally effectiveness will.
No one with a functioning brain will ever strive for the best ratio of effect and cost and willfully fail to achieve the desired level of effect by doing so.
I agree with that, however, not everyone has a functioning brain. If one has functioning brain, one may occasionally run across an opponent whose brain functions a little better, causing efficiency to take second place to effectiveness.
The damage that wasteful behaviour in the military does to the welfare of the nation is extreme.
We can agree on that as well
Many "victories" were more damaging (net) to the "victorious" nation than staying at peace would have been.
And that...
The costs of military & war suck and threaten to badly impair the Western nations in their ability to reform themselves for the future.
Probably true. Shame there are people out there who either don't realize that or don't care...

Economics is indeed the dismal science. Warfare OTOH is not a scientific endeavor -- it is the application of an art. Art is inherently inefficient.