The United States’ military-industrial complex
Due to our unique geographical isolation we Americans have been relatively free from foreign military threats throughout most of our history. Thus, we haven’t had to bear the expense and political risks of maintaining a large professional standing army as have most other major world powers.
Since most of our military crises have been episodic rather than ongoing, we have followed a policy of quickly mobilizing our commercial economy to a wartime readiness when necessary. We then demobilize and return to a peacetime footing when the crisis has passed.
But this situation changed with the Cold War with the Soviets following World War II. For the first time we had to be ready to defend ourselves on a moment’s notice. And this necessitated maintaining defense forces superior to any other in the world, a permanent professional military establishment. This not only entailed political risks, but also a huge, expensive (and highly-political) defense industry to equip, supply and keep our military forces updated.
In his farewell address in 1961 outgoing President Dwight Eisenhower warned of the possible political and economic perils inherent in the “military-industrial complex” that had developed from our need to maintain vigilance against the ambitions of the Soviet Empire. But some Republicans today make light of Ike’s warnings, implying they have been the basis for endless conspiracy theories involving defense contractors. But here are the facts.
A surprising number of high-ranking officers from the general staff are often hired as “consultants” and given cushy jobs by major defense contractors when they retire. And these same contractors are careful to locate their sub-contractors in as many different congressional districts throughout the country as possible in order to exercise political influence and apply constituent pressure on congressmen who might possibly vote to reduce our bloated defense budget. As a result, the defense budget grows larger each year irrespective of international realities.
Last year President Trump demanded a healthy increase in defense spending to “catch us up.” He claimed we had gotten behind under Obama. I don’t know where he came up with this misinformation. It has little relation to the realities.
The facts are simply these, and readers are encouraged to check them out. Our total defense spending is higher than the next eight nations combined, and almost three times that of our nearest rival, China. We have twelve aircraft carriers, ten of them nuclear-powered, compared to China’s two. We outnumber China four to one in combat aircraft and Russia three to one. Yet Trump says we are “dangerously behind?” Horsefeathers!
The entire world’s aggregate annual defense spending amounts to roughly $1.6. trillion. Our spending comprises 37% of that amount, more than one-third of the world’s total. But unless Trump is challenged on his outrageous claims, he will continue to feed us these lies. And, by the way, we haven’t had a presidential press conference since July 7, 2019.
I recall back during the Cold War we were fearful upon first learning the Soviets had more tanks. But we later learned that two-thirds of them were out-dated and only one-third were operational at any given time. Let’s check things out before we react.
George B. Reed Jr., who lives in Rossville, can be reached by email at reed1600@ bellsouth.net.