In recent years the peace movement has often felt like a neglected stepchild, largely ignored by many left-liberal groups. It seems that ending war and militarism is just not on their agenda. When the Women’s March was organized at the time of Trump’s inauguration, opposition to war was not on their radar. Although it was added to the mission statement, it’s received little attention and is not among the eight Unity Principles on their website. And among many politicians otherwise deemed “progressive” we’ve seen no sense of urgency regarding ending the “endless war” or even for beating some swords into plowshares.
Of
course it wasn’t always this way. During the later years of the Bush administration
the Iraq War became an albatross around the neck of the GOP. Many citizens were
deeply opposed to the war. So, a goodly number of Democratic politicians,
including Barack Obama, made ending the U.S. role in Iraq a significant plank
in their platforms.
But
Obama’s opposition to the Iraq War did not represent a broader rejection of U.S.
militarism and the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) that Eisenhower warned the
nation against back in 1961. Obama, in spite of his Nobel Peace Prize,
dramatically escalated drone warfare, surged troops to Afghanistan, bombed
seven predominantly Muslim nations, intervened in Libya, Syria, Somalia and
numerous other countries and initiated a trillion-dollar nuclear weapons
modernization program.
The
lack of meaningful progress on the peace front during Obama’s eight years in
office is really no surprise. There has been a continuity of support for global
hegemony throughout the entire post-WWII era. While there have been outliers
here and there, the mainstream of both major parties has supported massive
military budgets and the dominant presence of the U.S. military on every
continent, in every ocean, in the skies, in outer space and in the cyber realm.
The military calls this “Full Spectrum Dominance.”
During
the Cold War the supposed threat of Communism was the justification for
super-sized budgets and a continuous stream of wars and interventions—some
overt, others covert or proxy—none of which had anything to do with defending
the United States—and none of which ended in victory. These were sold to the
American people as being fought to “defend freedom” or “support democracy.”
After
the Cold War ended it became more difficult to justify such a massive military.
Post-9/11 the need to fight a “war on terror” became the rationale, although
the purported enemy was a ragtag non-state actor with no territory, no military
assets and only a handful of fighters. What was never acknowledged was the reality
that the growth in so-called “Islamist terror groups” was largely blowback —
that is, the result of and reaction to U.S. intervention in the region.
Enter Donald Trump
While
the left was appalled by the positions Trump took on virtually all issues, his neo-isolationist
campaign rhetoric led some to believe that perhaps he’d be less interventionist
than Hillary Clinton. Unfortunately, the President is quite different from Trump
on the stump. He has surrounded himself with generals and repeatedly threatened
to blow North Korea off the face of the Earth.
Trump
campaigned on the bogus claim that the U.S. military was “depleted,” and in
office, he has pushed massive increases in the Pentagon budget. Sadly, a
bipartisan majority in Congress gave him all he asked for and then some. The
administration had requested upping the military budget for fiscal year 2018
(FY18) to $668 billion, an increase of $57 billion from the FY17 appropriation
of $611 billion. Congress ended up authorizing $700 billion, adding $32 billion
to the Pentagon’s request. The Senate vote was 89 to eight, with most Democrats,
including our own Claire McCaskill, joining their GOP colleagues in showering
extra billions on the military.
It
is worth noting that, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute, the FY17 appropriation exceeded the military spending of the next
eight largest spenders combined, six of which are U.S. allies. And the increase
means that in 2018, U.S. taxpayers will be footing the bill for a military that
costs more than the next 11 top spenders combined. Note, too, the “military
budget,” which devours more than half of all discretionary federal spending,
does not include the CIA, Veterans Administration, military disabilities and
many other expenses.
 |
| Donald Trump at the Pentagon, January 18, 2018 |
The Complex
So,
why is the MIC ascendant in the U.S.A.? Who benefits and how?
While
a definitive answer is hard to pin down, a few possibilities, not mutually
exclusive, include: A dominant military position goes hand in glove with the control
of global financial institutions; it backs up control of resources, markets and
labor in less developed countries by U.S. and transnational corporations.
Geopolitical dominance assures the ability to intervene at will in conflicts,
either directly, as in Libya, or by proxy, as in Yemen, or both, as in Syria.
A
military that is involved in frequent conflicts is one that gets to test
weapons in the field of battle. New technology provides a competitive edge both
in combat and also in the world arms trade. Selling military hardware is very
profitable. This is one of just a handful of markets in which U.S. firms are
still dominant.
Having
an adversary that can be portrayed as a threat is helpful in efforts to rally
the populace around the flag and the government, which is seen as a protector
of the safety of the nation. As Orwell put it, “War is peace.”
So,
the Complex feeds forward. The contractors benefit. They spend tens of millions
each election cycle on candidates and have spent more than a billion this
decade on lobbying. Their return on this “investment” is huge, profits in the
tens and hundreds of billions. Congress gets the donations and it also brings
home the pork, military bases and contracts in their states or districts. An
example, the Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter is being produced by contractors in
46 of the 50 states. Even Bernie Sanders supports this program, as it provides
jobs in Vermont. And the military, like any bureaucracy, thrives on an expanded
role, more jobs, promotions, resources and a more central role in our culture.
Costs &
Benefits
Militarist
cheerleaders love to point out that the Complex provides a significant number
of jobs. There is some truth here, given the massive amount being spent. But
consider that, beyond spending sufficient to provide reasonable defense,
military expenditures provide no benefit; they don’t protect us or the
environment; they fail utterly to improve our quality of life. Unlike
infrastructure, they are not an investment in our future.
Moreover,
military spending is capital intensive and produces far fewer jobs than spending
in most other sectors. A 2011 study by
Robert Pollin and Heidi Garrett-Peltier of the Political Economy Research
Institute found that dollar for dollar, green energy spending produces 16
percent more jobs than military spending. Healthcare produces 31 percent more.
And education yields a whopping 125 percent more. And these are investments in
a brighter future.
Speaking
of education, consider that the $89-billion increase in military spending from
FY17 to FY18 exceeds the $75-billion estimated incremental cost of making
public colleges tuition-free, as Bernie Sanders proposed. And of course there
are so many other unmet needs that we could be meeting if we reined in the
Pentagon’s blank-check budget.
On
the flip side, the GOP tax cuts for the wealthy are going to swell the deficit
and provide a rationale for putting Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and many
other programs on the chopping block. Clearly we’d do better to cut the
military instead.
The Bottom Line
Why,
you may ask, does the U.S. need a military with global reach? Other nations –
China, Japan, Germany and others – seem to be doing quite well maintaining
militaries sufficient to defend their countries from attack, but without
establishing bases or maintaining fleets in every part of the world.
The
simple answer is, “we don’t, but they—the MIC—do.” The citizenry would be far
better off if our nation abandoned the role of global hegemon, led the world
into multilateral disarmament negotiations, and redirected billions into
investments in our people and infrastructure. The trick is finding a way to
mobilize millions of citizens to unite behind a broad progressive platform that
includes making the move away from militarism, and finding the points of
political leverage to advance this agenda. All much easier said than done, but
we at Peaceworks invite you to join in this struggle to create a more peaceful,
just and sustainable future for everyone.
This article was written by Peaceworks Director Mark Haim. A slightly different version of the essay was published in the New York-based Indypendent at CLICK HERE.
