War is often sold to the public as an act of national will: decisive, necessary, and under control. The bill arrives later, in a quieter form. It shows up in insurance markets, shipping rates, emergency guarantees, higher fuel prices, and sudden policy reversals designed to keep the economic damage from spreading too far or too fast. That is what is now happening with the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. The fighting is not only destroying lives and widening instability. It is also revealing something more familiar about the American state: when private actors no longer want to bear the risk of a...