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Oh, the madness of it all! And I do mean madness. Today, Pentagon expert and TomDispatch regular William Hartung considers just how strikingly the giant weapons-making corporations rule the roost both in Washington and in global war-making. One factor to be added to the nightmare scenario he describes might be the effort to create a weaponized future beyond compare. After all, in the coming decades, the Pentagon is already planning to upgrade its vast nuclear arsenal to the tune of perhaps $2 trillion or more $756 billion in the next decade alone. And mind you, we're talking about the country that already has an active stockpile of 4,500 long-range nuclear weapons, with over 1,600 of them deployed enough weapons, that is, to do in several Planet Earths.
That was before the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States even came up with the brilliant idea that such a "modernization" of U.S. nuclear forces won't be faintly enough to take us all safely into that future. As the Federation of American Scientists recently reported, that committee is urging this country's leaders to "prepare to increase its number of deployed warheads, as well as increasing its production of bombers, air-launched cruise missiles, ballistic missile submarines, non-strategic nuclear forces, and warhead production capacity. It also calls for the United States to deploy multiple warheads on land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and consider adding road-mobile ICBMs to its arsenal." All above and beyond the previous madly ambitious nuclear plans (aimed at ending it all in truly high style).
As Hartung has aptly written elsewhere, "The commission's report brings to mind Stanley Kubrick's 1964 classic movie, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Bomb." And as he makes clear today, the giant corporate arms producers are already having the time of their lives as the planet goes up in still reasonably local flames, most recently in the Middle East. If that commission has its way, however, they can look forward to making an all-too-ultimate fortune off creating yet more weapons to blast us out of this galaxy.
But let Hartung fill you in on this bonanza of a money-making moment for America's weaponeers. Tom
Good Times for the Military-Industrial Complex
But Is It Truly the Arsenal of Democracy?
The New York Times headline said it all: "Middle East War Adds to Surge in International Arms Sales." The conflicts in Gaza, Ukraine, and beyond may be causing immense and unconscionable human suffering, but they are also boosting the bottom lines of the world's arms manufacturers. There was a time when such weapons sales at least sparked talk of "the merchants of death" or of "war profiteers." Now, however, is distinctly not that time, given the treatment of the industry by the mainstream media and the Washington establishment, as well as the nature of current conflicts. Mind you, the American arms industry already dominates the international market in a staggering fashion, controlling 45% of all such sales globally, a gap only likely to grow more extreme in the rush to further arm allies in Europe and the Middle East in the context of the ongoing wars in those regions.
In his nationally televised address about the Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine wars, President Biden described the American arms industry in remarkably glowing terms, noting that, "just as in World War II, today patriotic American workers are building the arsenal of democracy and serving the cause of freedom." From a political and messaging perspective, the president cleverly focused on the workers involved in producing such weaponry rather than the giant corporations that profit from arming Israel, Ukraine, and other nations at war. But profit they do and, even more strikingly, much of the revenues that flow to those firms is pocketed as staggering executive salaries and stock buybacks that only boost shareholder earnings further.
President Biden also used that speech as an opportunity to tout the benefits of military aid and weapons sales to the U.S. economy:
"We send Ukraine equipment sitting in our stockpiles. And when we use the money allocated by Congress, we use it to replenish our own stores, our own stockpiles, with new equipment. Equipment that defends America and is made in America. Patriot missiles for air defense batteries, made in Arizona. Artillery shells manufactured in 12 states across the country, in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas. And so much more."
In short, the military-industrial complex is riding high, with revenues pouring in and accolades emanating from the top political levels in Washington. But is it, in fact, an arsenal of democracy? Or is it an amoral enterprise, willing to sell to any nation, whether a democracy, an autocracy, or anything in between?
Arming Current Conflicts
The U.S. should certainly provide Ukraine with what it needs to defend itself from Russia's invasion. Sending arms alone, however, without an accompanying diplomatic strategy is a recipe for an endless, grinding war (and endless profits for those arms makers) that could always escalate into a far more direct and devastating conflict between the U.S., NATO, and Russia. Nevertheless, given the current urgent need to keep supplying Ukraine, the sources of the relevant weapons systems are bound to be corporate giants like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. No surprise there, but keep in mind that they're not doing any of this out of charity.
Raytheon CEO Gregory Hayes acknowledged as much, however modestly, in an interview with the Harvard Business Review early in the Ukraine War:
"[W]e don't apologize for making these systems, making these weapons" the fact is eventually we will see some benefit in the business over time. Everything that's being shipped into Ukraine today, of course, is coming out of stockpiles, either at DoD [the Department of Defense] or from our NATO allies, and that's all great news. Eventually we'll have to replenish it and we will see a benefit to the business over the next coming years."
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