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Out of America
Whoever wins the presidency will most likely fail to take on the
unholy trinity of arms manufacturers, the Pentagon, and Congress
By Rupert Cornwell
10/02/08 "The
Independent" -- -"Lockheed Martin," intones the
fruity male voice, drenched in patriotism. "We begin with the
things that matter... [pregnant pause]... Freedom." Such are the
joys of listening to radio commercials as you drive to work in
Washington DC. Lockheed, of course, is a giant defence
contractor. Hearing this ad, and similar inspirational stuff
from Boeing and the like, you might think you were on the front
lines of a war that reached into your living room.
That, of course, is precisely what George W Bush would like you
to think of his "war on terror", even though the closest the
average citizen here ever gets to it is a security line at an
airport. But those commercials are part of another struggle,
less violent but no less relentless. It is being fought out by
companies like Lockheed over the lucrative and effectively
captive US government arms market.
Obscured by the great Obama-Hillary battle and the drama of
Super Tuesday, the final budget of the Bush era was published
last week. It covers the 2009 financial year, and contains one
startling fact. If this President has his way, the US will next
year be spending more on its military (adjusted for inflation)
than at any time since the Second World War.
The raw figures are mind-boggling. The official Pentagon budget
for 2009 runs to $515bn (£265bn), or around 4 per cent of
America's total economy (the equivalent figure for Britain is
2.5 per cent), and about the same size as the entire output of
the Netherlands. Throw in an expected $150bn of supplementary
outlays and you've got defence spending larger than Australia's
entire gross domestic product.
Even that may be an understatement. Add in various "black
items", such as military spending tucked away in other parts of
government, and some claim that America's total annual spending
on the military now exceeds a trillion dollars – roughly half
the entire British economy.
Students of these matters claim that the wind-down of the surge
in Iraq, and the likelihood that the Democrats will recapture
the White House in December, mean that the latest growth cycle
in Pentagon spending, that began at the end of the Clinton era,
has probably peaked. But don't bet on it.
A faltering economy may be the biggest worry for voters this
election year, but national security runs it close. On Thursday,
Mitt Romney justified his decision to drop out of the Republican
race for the White House by his party's need to set aside
divisive internal squabbling "at this time of war". As for John
McCain, the man now set to carry the Republican standard in
November, maintaining the strength of the US military is his top
priority. The economy, he freely admits, is not his strong suit.
National security, however, is. If McCain wins, it will be
because Americans deem him the candidate to keep them safe.
Appearing "soft" on national security can be fatal, as Democrats
know only too well after their stinging defeats in the 2002
mid-terms and the presidential election of 2004. Hillary Clinton
has been trying to establish herself as a hawk ever since, while
Barack Obama knows full well he also has to convince in the role
of commander-in-chief. In short, even a liberal Democratic
President will hesitate before taking an axe to the Pentagon
budget. But he should.
The US simply does not get value for its defence dollars. The
Pentagon is still fighting the Cold War, not the terrorists who
rely on infiltration and ambush rather than submarines and
strategic bombers. Yet for all the money Bush has lavished on
the military since 9/11, Iraq has stretched America's armed
forces to breaking point.
The US defence budget may reach a 60-year high next year, but
the number of combat troops is smaller than ever. Politicians –
Democrats as well as Republicans – all now agree the armed
forces need more boots on the ground. That, however, means more,
not less, Pentagon spending – unless, of course, some of those
blue-chip weapons programmes are cut back.
But again, don't bet on it. Vast spending on defence is locked
into the contemporary American system as firmly as it was into
the former Soviet one. Paradoxically, it took a
general-turned-president to warn against such excesses. Indeed,
Dwight Eisenhower had hardly taken office in 1953 when he spoke
of the danger of amassing military strength at the expense of
all else, a policy that amounted "to defending ourselves against
one disaster by inviting another".
Eisenhower famously referred to a "military-industrial complex".
A better term, however, is perhaps an "Iron Triangle" whose
three corners are the Pentagon, arms manufacturers such as
Lockheed Martin and Boeing, and – most important – Congress. All
three are locked together by a common vested interest. The
Pentagon chiefs want the best weaponry possible. The companies
want to keep the orders flowing ever more munificently. But the
ultimate enablers are the elected representatives of the people.
Lockheed operates in 45 of the 50 states, where its factories
provide jobs, and the congressmen and senators from those states
will do anything to keep them. Far from voting less money for
the Pentagon, they often provide more than the President of the
day is seeking, to finance extra projects – needed or not – if
that will keep the money flowing into their district. And,
fearful of appearing soft on defence, few will oppose them. Thus
the spending merry-go-round continues. In the America of 2009,
that is the real war economy.
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