Most
readers have likely heard that President Donald Trump is claiming that the U.S.
military is “depleted” and is calling for a major boost in the Pentagon budget.
In his February 28 address to Congress he promised to send “the Congress a
budget that rebuilds the military . . .” He’s also indicated that he plans to
pay for the increase by cutting domestic spending, although it is not yet clear
where he would find the additional $54 billion he’s planning to spend, this
year alone.
While
there has been some pushback and some questioning whether the increase is
needed, few sources we’ve seen have focused in on or deconstructed the
depletion narrative, which seems to be wholly invented by Trump to justify
doling out our tax dollars to leading firms in the Military Industrial Complex.
More importantly, from our perspective, there has been little serious analysis
of the assumptions behind the U.S. spending as much as we already do on the
military.
As
the mainstream media rarely lets this cat out of the bag, perhaps you’ve not
heard that the U.S. spends more than the next seven countries with super-sized
military budgets, combined. And you might not realize that most of those seven
are U.S. allies or countries with which our government has friendly relations. You
might have also missed the fact that so-called “rogue states,” like Iran and
North Korea are way down the list with miniscule
military spending compared with any of these big spenders.
All
this begs the question, “Why”? Given that the U.S. has generally friendly
relations with our neighbors to the north and south, and that we have rather
large oceans on our east and west, why are we spending so much? The countries
and sub-national groups the U.S. military has been sent to fight in recent
years are third tier powers, at best. The reality is, despite the constant
attempts to instill fear, the U.S. faces no serious and credible military
threat.
Indeed,
with just 4.5 percent of the world’s population, why is our government, without
serious enemies, responsible for more than one-third of the world’s military
spending? How can they justify spending as much as they do already, let alone
spending hundreds of billions more over the next decade?
Learning from
our History
Well,
words have power and perhaps a key to unlocking this mystery is to consider
that those in government and most of the mainstream media refer to military
spending as the “Defense Budget,” when, in fact, it has very little to do with
defending our nation. What was once called the “War Department” was, in classic
Orwellian Doublespeak, renamed the “Department of Defense” after World War II,
at a time when global hegemony was thoroughly embraced by the corporate elites,
and the United States dramatically increased its frequency of interventions,
and took them global.
In
previous eras the U.S. mainly invaded countries and conducted covert ops in
Latin America. After WWII, with older empires crumbling, the whole world became
their playground. The U.S. military was globally dominant. It occupied Western
Europe and faced off against the Soviet bloc there as well as in
Korea/Northeast Asia. It toppled governments and propped up military juntas and
autocratic regimes in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Southeast Asia,
etc.
In
the ensuing decades, under the guise of “fighting Communism” the U.S. military
and the intelligence complex were responsible for the deaths of many millions
of innocent people, including approximately four million in Vietnam/Indochina alone.
It seems the nation’s foreign and military policies were, despite President
Eisenhower’s warnings, captured by the Military Industrial Complex.
So,
when the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact evaporated in the late 1980s, there
was only a scant “Peace Dividend.” Military spending remained off the charts,
compared with any other nation. Under Bush Sr. and Clinton, the U.S. military
continued to be based and to operate as the dominant power on virtually every
continent, every ocean, in the skies above and even in outer space.
The
military is big on naming things, be it operations, strategies, etc. The term
they embraced for their strategic posture was “Full Spectrum Dominance.” This
is essentially the notion that whatever theater of operations they might be
involved—from local skirmish to global war—anywhere in the world, they seek to
have the edge over any and all adversaries, real or potential.
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| Some proponents of massive military spending point to the fact that the U.S. has a huge economy and thus can afford to spend a lot. What they don't address is that the U.S. not only spend far more in total than any other nation, but also spends a much larger percentage of out GDP than most affluent countries. Those wasting less on wars and militarism have, in general, healthier economies than ours. |
The Threat
Today?
The
horrible crimes of 9/11 were a godsend to military contractors, as they were
used to justify the Afghan War, the Iraq War and ultimately operations in
dozens of countries around the world. In reality, a handful of extremists in
caves in Afghanistan, or some of their minions bearing only box-cutters as
weapons don’t constitute a serious military threat. But invading, bombing,
occupying, incarcerating and more succeeded in manufacturing far more “enemies”
than there were back in 2001. And this has been used, over and over again, to
instill fear in our people and to gin-up support for more militarism and more
military spending.
Donald
Trump is a master of fear mongering. He has managed to convince many people
that we face a huge crime epidemic, even though crime rates have been declining
for several decades. He’s convinced some that undocumented people are likely
criminals, even though statistics show they commit fewer crimes per capita than
citizens. Likewise, his rhetoric has reinforced the false sense that some
Americans have, that we face a huge threat from “radical Islamic terrorists.”
It
is just this sort of fear mongering that leads people to support squandering
billions upon billions on weapons we don’t need; weapons that will not make us
any safer; weapons that are redundant and have a huge opportunity cost.
Might
we not do well to consider the notion attributed to Mark Twain that “If your only
tool is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail?” Shouldn’t we be looking
to diversify our tool box?
An Alternative
Course?
We
invite you to join us in a little “thinking outside the box.” What if, instead
of major increases in military spending, our government was to pursue
significant cuts the Pentagon’s bloated budget and redirect the funds into
efforts that would actually enhance our security. After seven decades of being
on a permanent wartime footing, this is, indeed, a radical notion, but one we’d
do well to seriously entertain.
Instead
of more weapons, we could invest in sustainable development around the world
addressing some of the root causes of conflict. The USA could lead the way in
moving the world toward a secure, peaceful, just and sustainable future. We
could invest in efficiency and clean energy to address the climate crisis,
which threatens everyone’s future. We could make investments at home, in our
people and our infrastructure, making our economy stronger and more resilient. The
only losers in this process would be those who today profit handsomely from
selling us the means of death and destruction and those who profit politically from
the marketing of fear.
This
transition should not be unilateral. Our government could engage the nations of
the world to push for international agreements for mutual, verifiable cuts in
armaments and military spending, done incrementally over the coming decade. We
could announce a new foreign policy based upon cooperation and collaboration to
address the very real problems humanity faces in the Twenty-first Century. The
United States could challenge the nations of the world not to a new arms race,
but rather to a race to creating just, sustainable societies.
Instead
of being an object of resentment and ridicule, as it is today, the USA could
truly serve as a beacon of hope, a force for good in the world. We are not so naïve
as to believe that such a transformation—needed as it is—is imminent, but it
must be our aspiration. And we must communicate such a vision to elected officials
and candidates for office who hope to win the support of progressive, caring
citizens. We must also remind those who supposedly represent us that military
spending creates fewer jobs per dollar spent than almost any other spending
category.
The
need for a clear notion of where we are and where we need to be headed has been
recognized for millennia. As it says in the Biblical Book of Proverbs, “Where
there is no vision, the people perish.” It’s up to us to articulate a clear
vision, to amplify it and to insist that, as far off is its full implementation
might seem, that we be moving in that direction. Your participation in this
process is essential.
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| A Permanent War Economy is not a healthy economy. We need to take this message to our elected officials. |
