Despite the critical role of redistributive militarism, or of the Pentagon budget, as a major driving force to war, most opponents of war have paid only scant attention to this crucial force behind the recent U.S. wars of choice. The reason for this oversight is probably due to the fact that most critics of war continue to view U.S. military force as simply or primarily a means to achieve certain imperialist ends, instead of having become an end in itself.
Yet, as the U.S. military establishment has grown in size, it has also evolved in quality and character: it is no longer simply a means but, perhaps more importantly, an end in itself, an imperial power in its own right, or to put it differently, it is a case of the tail wagging the dog—a phenomenon that the late President Eisenhower so presciently warned against.
Accordingly, rising militarization of U.S. foreign policy in recent years is driven not so much by some general/abstract national interests, or by the interests of Big Oil and other non-military transnational corporations (as most traditional theories of imperialism continue to argue), as it is by powerful special interests that are vested in the war industry and related war-induced businesses that need an atmosphere of war and militarism in order to justify their lion’s share of the public money.
Preservation, justification, and expansion of the military–industrial colossus, especially of the armaments industry and other Pentagon contractors, have become critical big business objectives in themselves. They have, indeed, become powerful driving forces behind the new, parasitic U.S. military imperialism. I call this new imperialism parasitic because its military adventures abroad are often prompted not so much by a desire to expand the empire’s wealth beyond the existing levels, as did the imperial powers of the past, but by a desire to appropriate the lion’s share of the existing wealth and treasure for the military establishment, especially for the war-profiteering contractors. In can also be called dual imperialism because not only does it exploit defenseless peoples and their resources abroad but also the overwhelming majority of U.S. citizens and their resources at home. (I shall further elaborate on the historically unique characteristics of the Parasitic, dual U.S. military imperialism in another article.)
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Notes
[1] William D. Hartung, “Bush Military Budget Highest Since WW II,” Common Dreams (10 February 2007), <http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0210-26.htm>.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Robert Higgs, “The Defense Budget Is Bigger Than You Think,” antiwar.com (25 January 2004): <http://www.antiwar.com/orig2/higgs012504.html>.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ismael Hossein-zadeh, “Why the US is Not Leaving Iraq,” <http://www.cbpa.drake.edu/hossein%2Dzadeh/papers/papers.htm>.
[6] Bill Rigby, “Defense stocks may jump higher with big profits,” Reuter (12 April 2006), <click here
[7] The Center for Public Integrity, “Outsourcing the Pentagon” (29 September 2004), <http://www.publicintegrity.org/pns/report.aspx?aid=385>.
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