Why the U.S. Loves War

Hiya,

This month’s video is actually a spiritual successor to a video I made back in 2019 about the military industrial complex. I figured it was high time for an update, so I dug into the research and came out the other side with the video below. I wrote the script and made this video during the summer. A lot, and also very little, has changed since its making, but hopefully you still find it illuminating. As always, below you can find three quotes and three links I found useful during my research process.

Three Quotes:

1. “The Pentagon budget increased 91 percent in real terms between 1998 and 2011, while worldwide, total state military budget outlays grew by 50 percent from 2006 to 2015, from $1.4 trillion to more than $2 trillion. (This figure does not take into account the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on intelligence; contingency operations; policing; bogus wars against immigrants, terrorism and drugs; and “homeland security.”) During this time, military-industrial complex profits quadrupled.”

   — Truthout

2. “[War] expenditures accomplish the same purpose as public works, but in a manner that is decidedly more effective and more acceptable (from the capitalist point of view). . . . War outlays, in fact, have become the modern substitute for pyramids. They do not compete with private industry and they easily permit the employment of all those whom it is considered necessary to employ. True, this type of consumption (waste) of surplus labor brings with it a series of difficult political and economic problems. These, however, appear to be solvable; in any case, they can be postponed. The deluge may come but the next generation, not the present one, will have to face it.”

   — Walter J. Oakes

3. “As tools of war have grown more sophisticated since the Second World War, the U.S. government has subsequently grown more dependent on its relationship with what used to be called “industry,” in order to maintain American military edge. The resulting demand for hardware, software, and consulting expertise made the corporate producers of these new tools of war key diplomatic facilitators. They sustained government alliances, end-ran chronic labor shortages, and built up U.S. capacity for what amounted to indirect state governance across the Middle East, but in Israel/Palestine in particular.”

   — Zaynab Quadri

Three Links:

1. War and warming: The effects of climate change on military conflicts in developing countries (1995–2020) (Jeremy Ko et al.)

2. The U.S. Imperial Triangle and Military Spending (John Belamy Foster et al.)

3. Who funds the forever wars of America? (Hakim)

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Hope you have a great day,

In solidarity,

Charlie