{"id":389918,"date":"2018-12-20T21:30:30","date_gmt":"2018-12-20T20:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/our-poor-defenseless-military-industrial-complex-media-decry-inadequate-us-military-budget-that-rivals-rest-of-world-combined\/"},"modified":"2018-12-20T21:30:30","modified_gmt":"2018-12-20T20:30:30","slug":"our-poor-defenseless-military-industrial-complex-media-decry-inadequate-us-military-budget-that-rivals-rest-of-world-combined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/our-poor-defenseless-military-industrial-complex-media-decry-inadequate-us-military-budget-that-rivals-rest-of-world-combined\/","title":{"rendered":"Our Poor, Defenseless Military Industrial Complex – Media decry \u2018inadequate\u2019 US military budget that rivals rest of world combined"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Alan MacLeod<\/b><\/p>\n

\"National<\/p>\n

National Review<\/strong>‘s headline (11\/17\/18<\/a>) wrongly suggests that the magazine thinks there’s ever a right time to cut military spending.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It is a sign of our times that our media attempt to decipher future government policy by analyzing the president\u2019s tweets, like some bizarre game of telephone. Throughout November, there was speculation of a coming reduction in military spending, and when Donald Trump took to Twitter<\/b> (12\/3\/18<\/a>) to describe the $716 billion budget as \u201ccrazy,\u201d media took this as confirmation.<\/p>\n

The prospect of a cut to the military elicited a storm of condemnation across the media landscape. The National Review<\/b> (11\/17\/18<\/a>) wrote that \u201ccutting the resources available to the Pentagon is a bad idea,\u201d noting that, \u201cfor decades, America has short-changed defense\u201d meaning \u201cAmerica\u2019s ability to defend its allies, its partners, and its own vital interests is increasingly in doubt.\u201d In an article headlined \u201cDon\u2019t Cut Military Spending Mr. President\u201d (Wall Street Journal<\/b>, 11\/29\/18<\/a>), \u00a0Senate and House Armed Services committee chairs James Inhofe and Mac Thornberry claimed the military is in \u201ccrisis\u201d after \u201cinadequate budgets for nearly a decade,\u201d and that \u201cany cut in the Defense budget would be a senseless step backward.\u201d<\/p>\n

More centrist outlets concurred. Forbes Magazine <\/b>(11\/26\/18<\/a>) began its article with the words, \u201cThe security and well-being of the United States are at greater risk than at any time in decades,\u201d recommending a \u201csensible and consistent increase\u201d to the budget. Bloomberg<\/b> (19\/11\/18<\/a>) recommended a consistent increase in military spending of 3 percent above inflation for five to ten years, while Reuters<\/b> (12\/4\/18<\/a>) noted the increased \u201crisk\u201d of a lower military budget.<\/p>\n

\"WaPo:<\/p>\n

Max Boot (Washington Post<\/strong>, 12\/12\/18<\/a>) argues that the US needs to both raise taxes and cut Social Security and Medicare in order to ensure its military’s ability to invade Lithuania.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What exactly was this \u201crisk\u201d that media were so worried about? Max Boot, neo-con fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations\u2014who apparently still supports the Iraq War<\/a> and demanded ones in Syria<\/a> and Libya<\/a>, while arguing<\/a> that America should become a world empire<\/a>\u2014articulated the risk in the Washington Post<\/b> (12\/12\/18<\/a>). Describing a reduction in military spending as \u201csuicide,\u201d and claiming the US is in a \u201cfull-blown national security crisis,\u201d he cited the work of a blue-ribbon panel that called for continuous hikes in military spending:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIf the United States had to fight Russia in a Baltic contingency or China in a war over Taiwan, Americans could face a decisive military defeat,\u201d the report warns. \u201cThese two nations possess precision-strike capabilities, integrated air defenses, cruise and ballistic missiles, advanced cyberwarfare and anti-satellite capabilities, significant air and naval forces, and nuclear weapons\u2014a suite of advanced capabilities heretofore possessed only by the United States.\u201d\u2026 So we\u2019re in deep trouble. We are losing the military edge that has underpinned our security and prosperity since 1945.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Thus, the crisis is that the US could not be assured of destroying the Russian military in a Baltic war or the Chinese in the South China Sea. It is important to note that these necessary wars of defense would not be happening in Maine or California, but thousands of miles away, on the doorsteps of our geopolitical rivals. Boot presents these wars on the other side of the world as impossible to avoid\u2014\u201cif the US had<\/i> to fight\u201d\u2014continuing a tradition of presenting the US as stumbling or being reluctantly dragged into wars against its will, that we at FAIR (6\/22\/17<\/a>) have cataloged.<\/p>\n

\"Bloomberg:<\/p>\n

Bloomberg<\/strong> (19\/11\/18<\/a>) suggests giving the Pentagon an additional $1.3 trillion over ten years would “restore sanity to military spending.”<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

In reality, more than half<\/a> of all US discretionary spending goes to the military, and its war-related spending is a much larger percentage of its budget than in comparable countries\u20143\u20135 times as much<\/a> as Canada, Germany or Japan. In fact, the US spends almost as much on its military as all other countries in the world put together, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute<\/a>, and has around 800<\/a> (official) foreign military bases, placed on every inhabited continent of the world.<\/p>\n

Even these figures do not include military pensions and veterans\u2019 healthcare, or nuclear weapons, and therefore the true total is possibly greater than all other countries combined. Military spending is approaching<\/a> the highest in recorded history of any country, and the increase in military spending Trump approved last year alone would be enough to make public colleges and universities across the US free to all<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Considering the problems of unemployment, poverty, climate change and infrastructure in the US, perhaps tooling up for an intercontinental war against two nuclear-armed superpowers is not the most effective use of trillions of dollars. That reducing a $716 billion war budget can be presented as a threat to the nation, and that \u201cdefense\u201d can refer to wars in Taiwan or the Baltic, illustrates the depth of the media\u2019s imperial mindset, and goes to show President Dwight Eisenhower\u2019s warning<\/a> about the power of the military industrial complex went unheeded.<\/p>\n

The media needn\u2019t have worried, as the military industrial complex usually gets its way. President Trump, \u201cwith the help of Senator Inhofe and Chairman Thornberry,\u201d according to the Defense Department (London Independent<\/b>, 12\/10\/18<\/a>), agreed to increase<\/i> the military budget after all, to $750 billion. A lot of people are going to get rich\u2014not least of all Senator Inhofe, who quietly purchased tens of thousands of dollars in Raytheon stock after he met with Trump (CNN<\/b>, 12\/13\/18<\/a>). Raytheon is the world\u2019s largest producer of guided missiles, and is sure to reap a huge windfall from the spending boom.<\/p>\n

This whole affair illustrates the important and worrying links between the media, \u201cdefense\u201d contractors and politicians. But at least the terrible risk to the United States has been avoided. Those defenseless Air Force Generals and Defense contractors can finally sleep easy at night.<\/p>\n

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