How the military-industrial-congressional complex leads to continued increases in pointless defense spending that threatens – not protects – Americans.
In 1961, President Eisenhower’s last speech as president warned about a looming military-industrial complex. Eisenhower stated that a “conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government.” Indeed, that total influence has been felt, and it continues to this day. However, it is important to note the nuances within Eisenhower’s words; Eisenhower was a product of the military. He was a West Point graduate, a Captain in the United States Army during World War I, a Lieutenant General and Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces – who commanded the Allied invasion of North Africa and the Invasion of Normandy – during World War II, and served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after the war. In total, Eisenhower served in the United States’ military in some function for over 50 years. Being so indebted to the organization that formed his identity, why did Eisenhower use his farewell speech to warn about the military? The threat that the military-industrial-congressional (MIC) complex must have posed – and, indeed, was imposing – must have been enormous.
In any case, Eisenhower was correct in his fears. The MIC complex has been a consistent parasite in the United States’ budgets. Currently, the MIC complex has resulted in the United States spending more on defense than the next 10 top spending countries combined, the United States being the largest weapons exporter in the world, and the United States holding over 800 military bases abroad. These facts get even more disturbing when looking at how the war industry, politicians, and the military promulgate a perpetual war state.
Defense Spending
Currently, the United States spends more discretionary funds every year on defense than every other category combined; this includes funds for education, health, and transportation.
The total bill for the United States’ yearly defense is upwards of $780 billion. This includes $666.5 billion for the Department of Defense’s base budget, $71.5 billion in the Department of Defense’s “Overseas Contingency Operations” fund, $10.5 billion in supplemental funding for the Department of Defense through the CARES Act under Title III, $9 billion in the State Department’s “security assistance” funding – used for training and equipping foreign armies – and $19.8 billion for the Department of Energy – used for maintaining the United States’ nuclear weapons arsenal. Many others that calculate the total bill would include things like the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, the Department of Homeland Security, and other funds towards “militarized knowledge production”; however, for the sake of taking a conservative view – regardless of if that is even possible – this article will omit those ancillary totals. However, if you do include those other totals, the bill is a little over $1 trillion
Since this money is supposedly going towards protecting Americans from foreign enemies, it is important to put this $777.3 billion bill into context with other country’s spending on their military. As mentioned previously, the United States spends more on defense than the next 10 top spending countries combined.
The United States’ perceived threats – whether justified or not – include China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. The United States’s military budget is almost 3 times that of China, over 11 times that of Russia, over 45 times that of Iran, and over 185 times that of North Korea. In theory, every one of these “enemies” could attack America simultaneously, and yet the United States would still be spending well over double that of all its enemies combined ($780 billion to roughly $350 billion).
While situating this spending within the context of “enemy” countries is important, it is equally important to do so with the United States’ allies. Perhaps this egregious spending might be justified if there was a chance that the United States could face a multinational attack by countries other than those “enemy” countries listed previously. However, the United States has collective defense arrangements with roughly 60 countries. When aggregating the United States’ allies’ defense spending, along with the United States’ spending itself, the United States’ coalition of security partners constitutes 70% of world GDP and world military spending. It is clear that the United States is in no threatened position.
To put this spending further in perspective, it is equal to over $2,400 per capita (if we exclude children from this calculation, each taxpaying American is paying over $5,500 per year towards defense). Moreover, the federal government pays $1 for every $5 it spends towards defense expenditures. Putting this in a more personal perspective, for every $1 you pay in taxes, 24 cents go towards defense. All of this spending is when the United States is – again, supposedly – not at war, and has no clearly defined enemies (they are, if anything, more of lukewarm adversaries).
Lastly, it is extremely important to note that the defense bill includes only tax-funded yearly spending. When politicians aren’t able to foot the enormous war bills, they simply apply the bill to the deficit. For example, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan cost over $6 trillion dollars; however, as opposed to facing even more public backlash for the wars, Congress didn’t hike taxes to pay for them. Instead, they simply added the trillions onto the deficit.
Opportunity Cost
Though Eisenhower’s best known speech is his previously-mentioned Farewell Address, where he warns of the military-industrial complex, perhaps Eisenhower’s most tangible speech about the complex came 8 years prior in 1953. After the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin died, Eisenhower professed his Chance at Peace speech, stating that, “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.” Indeed, Eisenhower saw clearly the opportunity costs of defense spending.
Accordingly, it is imperative that Americans view the cost of the United States’ spending – and not just the actual figures. Policy ideas that would certainly help working class Americans – such as Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, or Tuition-Free college – are struck down across the aisle because of the perceived costs associated with them. However, this type of logic seems to rarely extend to the United States’ defense budget. Despite the fact that the cost for these progressive programs could simply be put onto the deficit, as we do with our trillions in war expenses, the cost still remains the major argument against these programs. Nonetheless, the almost $780 billion that the United States’ spends in defense could easily be reallocated to other programs that promote prosperity for Americans, as opposed to death abroad.
If the defense budget was, instead, allocated to a Medicare For All program, then the program is already half-funded. Combining that funding with the funding that already goes towards the healthcare system, and the United States is well on its way to joining every other industrialized country – including Germany, Japan, South Korea, Britain, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Norway, and Belgium among them – with guaranteeing its citizens healthcare by paying the estimated $1.7 trillion bill.
Similarly, if the defense budget was allocated to a Green New Deal program, the program is nearly half-funded. At an estimated $1.6 trillion, The Green New Deal would also be an investment, in which Americans would benefit from for years to come.
Lastly, if the defense budget was allocated to a tuition-free college program, the program is entirely funded, probably many times over. This would cover all 20 million American college students for a four-year college of their choice.
Even if Americans decide not to invest in these realistic (yet characterized as lofty) progressive goals, what about some other programs? According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), it would cost $20 billion to end homelessness in the United States. That would mean over half of a million homeless Americans could be housed with 2.5% of the United States’ defense budget. The United States could stop hunger in America at least 6 times over (at $160 billion), and could stop world hunger at least 3 times over (at $260 billion). It is enough to lift all 46.5 million Americans currently living in poverty above the poverty line 6 times over. It could pay for food stamps for all 28 million Americans that need them 11 times over.
While discretionary spending for defense continues to rise, non-defense spending continues to fall. Given all that the United States could do with its money, why does the United States continue to fund the defense at such egregious levels?
Following the Money
To understand the United States’ defense budget, one must look at where the roughly $780 billion actually goes. Though the breakdown of the Department of Defense budget is below, there are few important things to note.
About half of the $780 billion – between $320 billion and $370 billion – goes to private contractors. These private contractors are mainly the major defense industry corporations like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, and others. The United States’ actual soldiers get about half of that amount. The biggest beneficiary of this spending, though, was Lockheed Martin, who received $36 billion in federal contracts. If you are a taxpaying American, you are paying roughly $260 to Lockheed Martin, an amount that can be thought of as “the Lockheed Martin tax.” The amount that goes to just Lockheed Martin alone is about 6 times the amount that goes to the entire Environmental Protection Agency.
Let’s revisit our more personal tax analogy. Again, for every $1 Americans pay in taxes, 24 cents goes to defense. Of that 24 cents, 12 of them go to private contractors and corporations; only 5 cents actually goes to American soldiers. When Congresspeople advocate for defense funding, they are – mostly- advocating for funding these giant defense contractors.
Understanding that a handful of defense contractors receive the majority of Americans’ defense money is a key part to grasping how the United States’ defense budget is this enormous. These private contractors possess different tools of influence that they employ to maintain and increase the United States’ defense spending yearly.
Tools of Influence
Tool 1: Jobs
Defense contractors aren’t stupid. They understand that Americans care about jobs. In fact, the economy was American voters’ top priority in the 2020 presidential elections. Weapons contractors know that politicians want to tout the number of jobs they bring to their constituents, and they play those arguments as strengths. When Lockheed Martin advertised its F-22 for Congress, they claimed that they were creating jobs – through their factories or their subcontractors’ factories – in 44 states. This is a recurring argument from all weapons manufacturers, consistently marketing the number of jobs they create. With subcontractors in nearly every state, Lockheed Martin – and every other major weapon contractor – is able to leverage this both for and against politicians; politicians can either continue funding them, or these private contractors will run enormous ad campaigns against them, pointing out that the particular politician knowingly took jobs away from their state.
Ironically, having facilities or subcontractors in every state in America makes everything more expensive to produce, which means it requires more tax-payer money to finance. However, the even more ironic point is that allocating the money literally anywhere else would produce more jobs.
In a 2011 University of Massachusetts study, they found that 11,200 jobs were created for every $1 billion spent on defense. However, $1 billion spent on clean-energy would produce 16,800 jobs; or, if spent in healthcare, it would produce 17,200 jobs; or, if spent on education, it would produce 26,700 jobs. Even seemingly mundane investments, such as spending it on weatherizing buildings, would produce more jobs than the money is currently producing. Even a tax cut would probably be more economically beneficial than “investing” the money in defense.
Tool 2: Campaign Contributions and Lobbying
The defense industry donates over $27 million to politicians’ campaigns. The House and the Senate have particular committees that create policy around certain issues. For the issue of defense, the House of Representatives has the House Committee on Armed Services – chaired by Democrat Adam Smith from the state of Washington – and the Senate has the Senate Committee on Armed Services – chaired by Republican James M Inhofe from Oklahoma. For both chairmen of these committees, Lockheed Martin is their top donor. The defense industry pumps hundreds of thousands of dollars into just these two men alone, seeking to continue profiting off of war.
Unfortunately, donating to politicians works. In July, the House of Representatives voted on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) and on Mark Pocan’s amendment to the NDAA. The Pocan Amendment would have reduced military spending by 10%. When analyzing the votes on the Pocan amendment, the amount that politicians took from the defense industry influenced the way they voted; those who took more money from the defense industry were more likely to vote down the 10% reduction in spending.
In addition to contributing to campaigns, weapons contractors spend millions of dollars – again, public dollars through contracts – to lobbyists, who attempt to sway politicians to continue offering them multi-billion dollar contracts. Lockheed Martin has spent over $13 million in lobbying in 2018. These lobbying efforts are placed strategically, and also – unfortunately – work. For instance, Halliburton spent nearly $5.5 million on lobbying between 2002 and 2012. This included $420,000 in 2008, when KBR (at the time, a subsidiary of Halliburton) won the latest Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP) contract, and $620,000 the following year, when it protested being barred from bidding on contracts in Kuwait. Moreover, Agility spent $200,000 in 2011, after its second indictment on fraud charges. Overall, defense industries pay over $78 million every year to lobbyists to persuade Congresspeople to spend more in the area of defense.
Tool 3: The Revolving Door
Perhaps the most harmful tool that private contractors use is the revolving door between those in government making policy, and those who sit on boards and executive positions in weapons contractor companies. This is not a new phenomenon. In 1969, a Democrat from Wisconsin named, Senator William Proxmire, stated, “The easy movement of high-ranking military officers into jobs with major defense contractors and the reverse movement of top executives in major defense contractors into high Pentagon jobs is solid evidence of the military-industrial complex in operation. It is a real threat to the public interest because it increases the chance of abuse…How hard a bargain will officers involved in procurement planning or specifications drive when they are one or two years from retirement and have the example to look at of over two thousand fellow officers doing well on the outside after retirement?” In 2018, the Project on Governmental Oversight found that there were 645 instances of defense contractors “hiring former senior government officials, military officers, Members of Congress, and senior legislative staff as lobbyists, board members, or senior executives.” In fact, the problem is so bad that there were more positions filled than officials recruited. In other words, many ex-governmental officials were recruited for multiple positions in the defense industry. Moreover, at least 380 high-ranking Department of Defense officials and military officers “shifted into the private sector to become lobbyists, board members, executives, or consultants for defense contractors.” This means that nearly half of senior Defense Department officials are connected to military contractors through the revolving door.
This can also be seen historically, when Halliburton’s CEO from 1995 through 2000 became the vice president of the United States under the Bush presidency. Halliburton gave Cheney a “deferred payment” plan, meaning that – in addition to the $34 million Cheney got upon resigning – Cheney received about $2 million personally while he was vice president between 2001 and 2004. Unsurprisingly, Halliburton also happened to receive a $5 billion contract in 2001, and another $7 billion in 2003 for expenses related to the invasion of Iraq. Moreover, “more than half a dozen” vital policy positions in the Bush administration were “filled by Lockheed Martin executives, lobbyists, or lawyers.” Truly, there can be no clearer connection between the military-industrial-congressional complex.
However, this trend continues in the Trump administration. Of Trump’s three defense secretaries, all of them have ties to the defense industry. Trump’s first pick at Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis, was a member of the board at General Dynamics, a large weapons contractor. After Mattis’ resignation in 2019, Mattis returned to his board position. Trump then appointed Pat Shanahan – who was the former Deputy Secretary of Defense, which is the the second-highest-ranking official in the Department of Defense – to the position of Secretary of Defense. Shanahan also happened to be an ex-executive at Boeing, and had been with the company for over 30 years. Then, Trump replaced Shanahan with the current Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, who happened to be the top lobbyist for Raytheon. Unfortunately, this trend seems like it will continue into the Biden administration as well.
Tool 4: “Buying In” and Going Over Budget
Weapons contractors consistently go over budget with their contracts. They use a method called “buying in,” where they put in a low bid on a contract knowing that it will cost far more than the bid. This allows weapons contractors to get the contract first and then increase their prices later.
Again, this tactic isn’t new. This happened in 1966, when a 375-helicopter program granted to Lockheed resulted in 10 prototypes, which prompted then-New York Representative Otis Pike to state that “nearly a half-billion dollars in government money has gone down the drain.” Even worse, this contract was the result of the revolving door, since Willis Hawkins, the Army official whose office awarded the contract to Lockheed, was previously an executive at Lockheed, and he was receiving deferred compensation while at his Army position as well.
This also occurred under President Richard Nixon with Lockheed Martin’s infamous C-5A plane, which had record overrun costs. The military requested two runs of C-5As, where the first 53 planes costed twice as much as estimated, and the second 57 planes costed 240% more than projected. The C-5A program increased almost $2 billion before whistleblower Ernst Fitzgerald, a member of the Senior Executive Service in the United States Air Force, brought it to the nation’s attention. Nixon promptly fired him, and replaced him with John Dyment, who was a partner at Arthur Young and Company, Lockheed’s chief accounting firm. This case eventually made its way to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which confirmed that the Air Force and Lockheed had both concealed the cost overruns on the C-5A. The sad irony of it all was that the C-5A had major performance problems, which resulted in one of them crashing in 1975, killing 98 Vietnamese refugees and dozens of crew members.
When examining how defense contractors soar prices after receiving their contracts, one method is fairly simple: blatant overcharges. In 1986, the Packard Commission Report found that defense contractors were charging $640 for a plastic toilet seat, $435 for a hammer, and $7,662 for a coffee maker. Even in 2011, Boeing charged $1,678 for a piece for rubber that actually costs $7 each.
This is also currently occurring with the F-35 program, which is the most costly weapons program in the defense budget. Lockheed Martin’s F-35 contract costs are about $11 billion, even prompting Trump to tweet, “The F-35 program and cost is out of control” in 2016. The cost per plane rose 89% over its estimate, which breached the Nunn-McCurdy Act, which is a law that “forces the Pentagon and Congress to evaluate whether to cancel a troubled program.” Again, ironically, the current F-35 still has enormous problems. For example, the plane faced at least 13 “severe technical deficiencies” during testing, which included cabin pressure spikes, structural damage at high speeds, and unpredictability during certain maneuvers. It also costs about “$44,000 per hour on average” to fly.
Tool 5: Export
The United States is the world’s largest weapons exporter. Over 36% of the world’s weapons come from the United States, which is more than Russia and China combined.
Through the use of the previous 4 tools of influence, large defense contractors are able to convince United States politicians to sign weapons deals with other nations. This, in turn, creates more contracts for the defense industry.
The previously mentioned F-35 program is a prime example of contractors exporting weapons. In addition to the United States, there are 7 other countries on the contract, which include Australia, Canada, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom. Turkey was originally going to receive some F-35s as well; however, the United States halted the deal once it seemed as though Turkey would use the F-35 in unpredictable ways.
However, the unpredictability of foreign countries once they receive weapons has consistently been an issue. For example, Lockheed Martin’s $6 billion deal with Taiwan for 114 PAC-3 missiles in 2010 resulted in China threatening to cut off military-to-military cooperation with the United States. Moreover, the United States-supplied cluster bombs used in Gaza also demonstrates this unpredictability, where Israel has used them, prompting an international banning of the export of cluster bombs through the Convention on Cluster Munitions (an international agreement that the United States has not signed).
While these 5 tools of influence aren’t the only ways in which private contractors seek to profit from the United States’ defense budget – for instance, they also contribute millions to think tanks – they are the major ways in which they advocate for increased spending for defense and, in turn, more contracts.
Impact
CEO Profiteering
With such an enormous amount being spent on defense, weapons contractors are able to make an exorbitant amount of money. However, a large percentage of the profits go straight into executive pockets, and rarely go to the workers whose jobs are often used as the sales pitch for politicians. Most executives at major weapons contracting companies, such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and General Dynamics, are making over $20 million every year.
It must be reiterated that this money is coming directly though tax-payers in the form of government contracts. To put this in perspective, the last military budget boasted about historic increases in soldiers’ salaries, which was an increase of pay by 3%. In contrast, Lockheed Martin’s CEO’s salary increased 44% between 2018 and 2019, from $21,500,00 to $30,900,000. This is a CEO-to-worker ratio of 186:1. When we fund the defense industry, we are truly funding CEOs.
In addition to reaping millions of public dollars through contracts, these executives often don’t contribute to the tax money they profit from. In 2004, the Government Accountability Office found that “27,100 Pentagon contractors—about one in nine—were illegally evading taxes while still receiving money from government contracts.” Moreover, most defense contractors have also started creating foreign-chartered subsidiaries to legally lower their taxes through loopholes. Separate from just tax evasion, the Project on Government Oversight has reported that Lockheed Martin has “50 instances of criminal, civil or administrative misconduct since 1995.” Americans should be appalled that the government continues to fund and partner with a corporation that overcharges consistently, avoids paying taxes, creates often problematic products, and is involved in dozens of criminal cases.
In addition to avoiding paying the taxes they are profiting from and engaging in criminal activity, weapons contractors have now attempted – and succeeded – in expanding their governmental role. Though numerous weapons contractors have become involved in various other aspects of government, Lockheed Martin has truly infiltrated every part of public life. Lockheed Martin has interrogators at Guantanamo Bay; they had personnel in Darfur to monitor human rights violations; they have trained local police in Haiti; they have facilitated the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s postal service; they had a large part in writing Afghanistan’s new constitution after the United States invasion; they scan mail for the United States postal service; they process taxes for the Internal Revenue Service; they provide biometric identification for the Federal Bureau of Investigation; they provide technology support for the United States Census; and the list goes on. Often, when Lockheed Martin is asked about the training of these individuals – especially those who work as interrogators and military trainers – Lockheed can simply state that all training, costs, and implementation is “proprietary,” and therefore does not need to be made public knowledge. This is despite the fact that an investigation by the Army Inspector General found that Lockheed Martin supplied interrogators in Afghanistan that had no training on the “Geneva Convention’s requirements on the treatment of prisoners of war.” Americans must question whether it’s appropriate to have the largest weapons contractor involved in all of these roles of public life.
Bases
Undoubtedly, weapons contractors pressure politicians to spend more on defense. However, this pressure is coupled with a general sentiment of American Exceptionalism that suggests that America should be the world’s police, and dictate international policy for countries around the world. To satisfy this thrust for global hegemony, the United States has constructed or leased bases on foreign soil.
Currently, the United States spends somewhere between $71 billion and $120 billion annually to control over 800 bases in over 130 countries. America has 174 bases in Germany, 113 in Japan, and 83 in South Korea. To put this into perspective, all other countries in the world combined have “about thirty foreign bases among them.” This mass acquisition of bases is something the United States calls “Forward Strategy.” Historically, the rationale was to have bases to contain the Soviet Union. Contemporarily, the United States is holding onto those past bases and acquiring more in the name of “national security.”
However, to determine if this “forward strategy” keeps the United States safe, Americans must examine this issue from the eyes of other nations. What would be the typical American’s reaction to Germany building even just one base on American soil? What if a perceived threat, like Russia or Iran, built bases in Mexico and Canada? Surely, Americans would feel threatened, push for policymakers to expel these bases, and – perhaps – take up arms themselves. This thought experiment was palpably expressed in 2009, when Ecuadorian president, Rafael Correa, refused to renew a lease for a United States base in Ecuador, stating that he would approve the lease renewal on one condition: “They let us put a base in Miami – an Ecuadorian base.” For an historical example, take the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviet Union began installing a base in Cuba, which pushed the world to the brink of nuclear war. Most Americans can understand the threat felt by the construction of the Soviet Union’s base in Cuba, yet cannot understand why other countries oppose the construction of United States bases nearby.
These bases are problematic for many reasons, but the first is clear: they generate anti-American sentiment. This is especially true in the Middle East, where United States bases “create breeding grounds for radicalism, anti-Americanism, and attacks on the United States.” Osama Bin Laden’s attack on the World Trade Center on September 11th was a direct result of the United States’ presence in the Middle East. Bin Laden’s fatwā against the United States was titled, “Declaration of War against the Americans Occupying the Land of the Two Holy Places.” The established American bases throughout the Middle East have become a “major recruiting tool for al-Qaeda,” and continue to radicalize the region.
However, the anti-American sentiment isn’t just coming from radicals in the Middle East. There are regular protests in nations that are the United States’ allies. In Ansbach, Germany, a protest group called Etz Langt (which translates to “It’s Enough”) has advocated to limit the use of the United States base in their area. This is mainly due to the incredibly loud noises that emit from the base consistently, with helicopters and aircrafts landing and lifting off throughout all hours of the day. In Vicenza, Italy – the location of another United States military base – the local population participated in a referendum: 95% of those who voted were against the base. The United States base in Soto Cano, Honduras, consistently has protests against the “militarization in Honduras and Latin America.” Despite the protests at Soto Cano in specific, American officials have seemingly ignored the 1995 Government Accountability Office’s recommendation to close the base, and also the 1994 National Defense University’s report that stated that the base “is potentially a political problem between U.S. and Honduran governments.”
Another opposition to United States military bases from those in foriegn countries is the environmental pollution they cause. Even in 1991, the Government Accountability Office reported that many United States bases in foreign countries “did not provide adequate oversight of their activities that generated hazardous waste,” and found that 300 military sites had “environmental pollution claims” that could be charged against them. At Diego Garcia, an island where another United States base is located, about 24 million gallons of jet fuel spilled between 1984 and 1998; that is twice the size of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Garbage collection is also a problem. In Okinawa, Japan – the location of another United States base – the average soldier stationed there produces almost three times the amount of trash than the average Okinawan (1,500 pounds to 590 pounds annually). Due to the excess trash that is produced on these base sites, United States soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan used open-air burn pits to burn trash, which included plastic, tired, chemicals, and other toxic waste. The burning of these items contaminated the air, which prompted the United States Department of Veteran Affairs to launch a “VA’s Airborne Hazards and Open Burn Pit Registry.” These are also the open-air burn pits that contributed to Joe Biden’s son, Beau Biden’s, death. Lastly, the United States Department of Defense is the “world’s single largest consumer of oil” and, consequently, “one of the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters.” The United States military uses more oil than the entire country of Sweden. Given these severe environmental consequences of these bases, the local populations often understandably take an oppositional stance to them.
Moreover, the thirst for more global bases results in the United States striking deals with dictators in exchange for base ownership. Kent Calder, a director and political scientist at Johns Hopkins University, provided abundant evidence of the “dictatorship hypothesis.” This hypothesis showed that “the United States tends to support dictators in nations where it enjoys basing facilities.” The United States making deals with dictators intertwines the repressive government’s interests with that of those seeking American hegemony. This encourages the United States to not only support tyrants against the will of the country’s people, but even help to quell rebellion against these dictators when they arise.
Lastly, Americans must question whether these bases actually make them safer. As with the Cuban Missile Crisis example, most countries – like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea – take the construction of bases on their borders as a threat. And understandably so, as the United States often rehearses the invasion of these countries through regular “war games.” In return, it creates a massive incentive for those countries to increase their defense spending and create bases of their own. Moreover, having 800 bases across the world makes accidental attacks, misunderstandings, or interventions much too easy. This has the terrible possibility of, again, dragging American soldiers to another war halfway across the globe for an undefined purpose against a country that was never an actual threat to Americans in the first place.
Diplomacy Becomes Military Action
As weapons contractors continue to push for more contracts, politicians continue to increase defense spending, and the military continues to acquire and maintain hundreds of bases on foreign soil, the United States’ response to international relations becomes more militaristic than diplomatic. Despite a PEW research poll demonstrating that most Americans believe diplomacy to be the path of peace, military intervention has been a commonly used tool for American foreign policy.
The United States Department of State is responsible for forming diplomatic relations with foreign nations, and the current Secretary of State under the Trump administration is Mike Pompeo. Unfortunately, the revolving door makes its presence again, since Mike Pompeo owned a company named Thayer Aerospace, which worked directly with Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and Raytheon. Despite the State Department’s move towards militarism, the department also does provide hundreds of diplomats internationally to peacefully discuss foreign relations issues.
However, one must consider that the United States has only 307 embassies located in foreign countries, compared to the 800 military bases previously discussed; the United States’ priorities are very clear. Moreover, the Government Accountability Offices reported in 2019 that about 13% of the State Department’s diplomatic positions were left vacant. These vacancies can, perhaps, be explained by the lack of funding the State Department gets when compared to defense spending; the State Department got $54.22 billion in discretionary spending in 2019, which is about 13% of what the Defense Department got that same year. While average Americans want diplomacy, the United States government wants to continue funding the national war state.
The Path Forward
The United States must shift its thinking when it comes to defense. Whenever there is a proposal to cut the defense budget, politicians unite around the radicalness of such a proposal. Claims that suggest the proposer to be ungrateful for the troops, unwanting of American security, or isolationists are common. However, Americans must think differently about the current reality around defense spending.
American defense spending is radical. To suggest that somehow cutting the defense budget is a radical idea is to ignore the very data presented in this article. Unless the accusers are going to somehow claim that literally every other country on the planet, who spend fractions of the amount the United States does on defense, are all radical, then their argument is logically incoherent. Having 800 military bases across the globe, funnelling billions of dollars to weapons corporations, and steadily increasing the defense budget while so many Americans are impoverished, homeless, in debt, or lacking in healthcare is radical.
Some will claim that spending has somehow already decreased, citing the defense’s portion of the United State’s GDP. The premise of this argument is that defense spending made up almost 6% of the GDP during the height of the Cold War in 1985, but now only makes up about 3%. However, putting the defense spending amount in relation to the entire GDP is illogical, and yields no substance in regards to what the nation actually spends. The American economy has grown faster than defense spending; however, the United States still spends more on defense now than it ever did during the Cold War. After adjusting for inflation, the United States Department of Defense received $570 billion in 1985, compared to the $738 billion in 2019 .
Moreover, those who propose a cut to the military budget are certainly not against the troops. Seemingly, the very people who claim their support for the troops are the quickest to send them into war. Instead of militarily intervening in a dozen countries in the past 20 years, perhaps not deploying troops at all would be the best way to support them. There is no better support for the troops than not sending them to their potential deaths, especially when there is no actual threat to Americans.
Those who claim that decreasing our national defense spending and closing down our foreign bases is equivalent to isolationism are wrong. In fact, that thinking is exactly the result of American officials confusing diplomacy with military action. Americans want diplomacy, which is certainly not isolationist. What is, however, isolationist is – in order to secure its global hegemony without recourse – that the United States hasn’t signed as a party to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which is a body to “investigate and prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and the crime of aggression.” While there are 123 countries that recognize the ICC, almost all of which the United States has bases in, the United States refuses to sign onto the agreement. What is, however, isolationist, is that the United States will not join the other 108 countries who agreed to stop the use of cluster bombing through the Convention on Cluster Munitions. What is, however, isolationist is that the United States will not join the other 90 parties in the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) agreement, which would allow independent evaluation for the United States’ actions abroad to “to prevent torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The continued refusal to be party to major international agreements around descaling military force, coupled with the waning interest in actual diplomacy, is isolationist.
The United States needs to think differently about defense. It needs to curtail the role of money in politics, close the revolving door, create accountability measures for contractors, cut its weapons exports, close its bases, join international agreements, and focus on diplomacy. Without these measures, the United States will continue to be a perpetual war state, searching for the next country or group to label its “enemy.”
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