Does Trump's Challenging NATO Allies to Spend More on Defense Mean that the US Will Spend Concomitantly Less?
by John Lawrence, July 13, 2018
I would be all for Trump's jawboning our NATO allies to spend more on defense if that meant that the US would decrease its defense budget by the same amount as the total increase by our NATO allies. If it just means that the US will spend the same amount, then it's a bunch of poppycock. The EU should take over their own defense with minimal help from the US. Then there would be little reason for the US to spend such huge amounts on defense. The money could be spend on improving infrastructure here at home. If Trump wants to make America great again, he better start thinking about reducing the US defense budget which, all told, amounts to over a trillion dollars. He better start thinking about using the savings from a reduced defense budget to help the American people. In order to Make America Great Again, Step 1 would be to reduce the defense budget, which purportedly is for defending other countries around the globe, and use the money saved here at home. The defense budget should reflect that money which is necessary to defend just the US and not every other country in the world especially the EU countries which have plenty of money. We don't need to be the world's policeman.
Whatever happened to the idea that, if you make friends with your enemies, you won't have to spend so much money defending yourself against them? The US modus operandi is predicated on the fact that there will be permanent and ongoing wars. The military-industrial complex needs war and the threat of war in order to justify its existence and in order to justify all the money they're making off of war. Therefore, they have to gin up the threat. If peace broke out, large corporations like Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrop Grumman would lose business. Their stock price would go down. CEOs and executives wouldn't be able to justify their huge salaries. Therefore, it's in their interests to have a cottage industry thinking up reasons for even more defense expenditures. Besides it appeals to the macho nature of many men, civilian and otherwise.
As William Hartung points out, the defense budget , when you take into account all the hidden costs, is over a trillion dollars. Department of Defense: $639 billion. War Budget (outside the DoD budget): $64.6 billion. Nuclear Warheads (Department of Energy): $20 billion. Other Defense (Money that goes to defense related activities in departments other than DoD): $8 billion. Homeland Security: $50 billion. Military Aid at the State Department: $7 billion. Intelligence (16 separate agencies including CIA and NSA): $70 billion. Veterans Administration: $186 billion. Military retirement: $80 billion. Defense share of interest on national debt: $100 billion.
When you add it all up, pretty soon you're talking about real money - over a trillion dollars worth. Clearly, this situation is not sustainable. But the current mentality on Wall Street and elsewhere is make all the profits you can in the short term. When the whole edifice collapses, take your money and get out to whatever part of the world welcomes you and your money. Clearly, all those profiting from the current corporate culture do not have to stay here. Only the poor have to stay put and suffer the consequences of profligate defense spending.
The world needs realignment. Russia should be a friend, not an enemy. In these respects, Trump is right. The US and the Democratic Party should get off this kick about demonizing everyone that is Russia's friend like Iran, Syria and China. As Trump has suggested, to his credit, the US should accept Russia's annexation of Crimea. The US and the West should get over it - their horror of what Russia has supposedly done, much of it made up to support the military-industrial complex. And Germany is so horrified by Russia, but as Trump points out, they are building a major pipeline with Russia so they can get Russian natural gas. Quelle horreur!
Thanks to Trump, a peaceful world is at least thinkable. But the Democrats won't let go of their support of the status quo which supports Saudi Arabia.Their motto is that the ally of the enemy of my friend is my enemy too. Russia is the ally of Iran which is the enemy of Saudi Arabia so, therefore, Russia must be our enemy too or the whole world based on Nixon's petrodollar deal with Saudi Arabia would collapse. It will collapse anyway as the world goes more and more to recyclables and the value of oil plummets.
