What's the most serious problem with
the U.S. military budget?
You might say it's too big, and we'd
agree with you, but that's not the answer we're looking for.
Is
it the fact that U.S. military spending is greater than the next nine
largest spenders, combined? (That's China, Russia, Germany, India,
U.K, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, France and Japan.)
Again, the info
is correct, but not what we're looking for.
The correct answer—try this on for
size—is that, even though we are spending a trillion dollars a year
on the Pentagon, the Trump administration is proposing a 50 percent
increase in military spending for fiscal year 2027, which starts in a
few months.
You heard that right, an increase of half a
trillion or $500 billion; an inconceivably large sum. Some folks and
some of the corporations they own or control are getting very rich
and richer still, raking in the dough big time! Eisenhower got it
right 65 years ago, when he called out the excesses of what he
labeled the Military-Industrial Complex.
Trump recently told
us we can't fund day care and suggested the states should raise their
taxes to pay for it. He has also said the states should fund more of
Medicaid, and he's been talking up bringing down Social Security
benefits that older and disabled folks rely on.
What we're
talking about here is what economists call “opportunity costs.”
That is what we could do instead with the money. And clearly there's
plenty that's not getting funded, despite obvious needs. We're
talking about nutrition, healthcare, housing, renewable energy,
education, environmental protection and much more.
Some might speculate, suggesting that
the $500 billion increase figure is a gambit designed to set
parameters for a debate over how much we should increase the military
budget. Well, guess what, we're not looking to rein in the increase,
but instead to significantly decrease the military money hemorrhage.
Let's get a handle on this,folks. We need to build a Peace Economy,
one that provides all of the essentials to all of the people.
But
wait, we hear some of you saying, don't we need to seek peace through
strength? We're not here to argue how strong our defenses must be,
but rather to point out that virtually every use of the U.S. military
over the past 80 years has been offensive, not defensive. In fact,
one of the few things Trump has done that we agree with is changing
the name, assumed after WWII, back from the Defense Dept. to the
Dept. of War, its original and more honest name.
We need to
point out how, over and over, the U.S. has intervened in one nation
or another. Some, like the 2026 U.S.-Israeli war against Iran and the
2003 invasion of Iraq, have been unambiguous military wars of
aggression. Others have been proxy wars, like those against Cuba the
Contra War against Nicaragua in the 1980s or the coups in places like
Chile in 1973, Indonesia in 1965, Guatemala in 1954 or Iran in 1953.
And those who maintain that U.S. militarism is needed in a
dangerous world seem to have blinders on, as they consistently fail
to notice how much of the world's violence is U.S.-initiated. And
hardly ever do they question why other nations are able to spend so
much less per capita than the U.S. It should be obvious to all who
look, that these nations are defended adequately at a fraction of the
cost we, in the U.S., are paying. Let us learn from good examples set
by others and become a force for peace, justice and mutual,
verifiable disarmament worldwide.
