Protecting the Merchants of Death: The Police Effort for Land Forces 2024
Category: Military- Industrial Complex
Though all too many of us will continue to believe that dismantling the MIC is unrealistic, given the threats facing us, it’s time to think as boldly as possible about how to roll back its power, resist the invented notion that war is inevitable, and build the world we want to see. Just as past movements reduced the power of Big Tobacco and the railroad barons, just as some are now taking on Big Pharma, Big Tech, and the prison-industrial complex, so we must take on the MIC to build a world focused on making human lives rich (in every sense) rather than one focused on bombs and other weaponry that brings wealth to a select few who benefit from death.
Source: The Military-Industrial Complex Is Killing Us All – CounterPunch.org
Every nation, regardless of its size or power, must step up to the plate and share the burden of deconstructing the MIC.
There are Tim Gurners everywhere and profit over people is the priority.
“War is good for business,” one defense executive attending the biennial Defense and Security Equipment International (DSEI) conference at ExCel London flat-out toldReuters. “We are extremely busy,” Michael Elmore, head of sales at the U.K.-based armored steelmaker MTL Advanced, told the media agency.
Source: ‘War Is Good for Business,’ Declares Executive at London’s Global Arms Fair
Australia’s Grand Plan and Wish
This week, 35,000 arms company representatives, military officers and state officials from around the world are congregating at the Excel Centre in Newham, East London. Over four days, [Sept. 12-15] guests at Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEI) can watch demonstrations of new weapons systems, listen to keynote speakers euphemise the global appetite for war-making, visit warships moored on the Thames, and make connections with buyers and sellers via a dedicated networking app.
Source: A Very British Arms Fair
We are under constant bombardment. Hardly a day goes by without some news of a military nature. If it is not about sending more equipment to prolong the war in Ukraine, it is about Australian minerals being domesticated to serve Americas military interests.
Source: The relentless march of militarism: When will it stop? – Pearls and Irritations
On the global level, the 2021 entry into force of a nuclear ban treaty — officially known as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons — is a sign of hope, even if the nuclear weapons states have yet to join. The very existence of such a treaty does at least help delegitimize nuclear weaponry. It has even prompted dozens of major financial institutions to stop investing in the nuclear weapons industry, under pressure from campaigns like Don’t Bank on the Bomb.
Source: The Profiteers of Armageddon: Oppenheimer and the Birth of the Nuclear-Industrial Complex
And the LNP will blame the ALP
If previous defence acquisitions are any guide, the enormous cost of nuclear-powered submarines for the Royal Australian Navy will almost certainly escalate well beyond the estimated but un-itemised initial price of $A368 billion. The record of corruption of the two US submarine builders suggests that the project will also probably suffer from mismanagement. The final bill is likely to be astronomical.
Source: Seven deadly sins in the Defence industry – Pearls and Irritations
Despite the White House’s rhetoric about supporting global democracy, the U.S. sold weapons in 2022 to 57 percent of the world’s authoritarian regimes.
Source: Biden Approves Weapons Sales to Most of World’s Autocracies
How bad has the military-industrial complex gotten? The arms industry donates tens of millions of dollars every election cycle, and the average taxpayer spends $1,087 per year on weapons contractors compared to just $270 for K-12 education.
Source: The Military-Industrial Complex Has Never Been Worse
The military-industrial complex (MIC) that President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned Americans about more than 60 years ago is still alive and well. In fact, it’s consuming many more tax dollars and feeding far larger weapons producers than when Ike raised the alarm about the “unwarranted influence” it wielded in his 1961 farewell address to the nation.
Source: This is not Your Grandfather’s Military-Industrial Complex: Unwarranted Influence
While China, with a bill of $292 billion, is leant upon as an excuse for increased military expenditure by other powers, the United States remains the undisputed premier spender, making up a staggering 39% of the global total at $877 billion. Hardly the sort of figure to be sported by a peacemaker.
Source: Preparing for War: The Global Military Budget – » The Australian Independent Media Network
When reality mimics fiction chasing the “god machine”
There’s no God mode in real life, of course, but the world’s military organisations are very interested in weapons that promise something like it: lasers and other “directed energy weapons”. The US government, for example, is spending nearly US$1 billion per year on directed energy projects.
ANZAC DAY – Celebrating and excusing War. We ambitiously spend on and sell war
The United States, China, and Russia together accounted for 56% of the world’s total military expenditures in 2022. Brett Wilkins Apr 24, 2023
Source: Global Military Spending Hits All-Time High of $2.24 Trillion: Analysis
The cost to a Nation
This year, the average American paid $1,087 in taxes just for Pentagon contractors alone. Imagine the kind of society we could construct with just a fraction of the resources we devote to war.
Source: Ordinary Americans Are Being Forced to Subsidize the Military-Industrial Complex
The Biden White House has shown no sign of pumping the brakes on Ukraine spending and arms transfers. Biden also has made clear he intends to push ahead with the aggressive U.S. military buildup in preparation for future conflict with China, a position with widespread backing across the aisle. With a divided Congress, the 2024 elections looming, and the Trump question hovering over it all, a lot of the Democrats’ legislative agenda will be tough to implement after the new year. But the short and long-term future looks bright for the Russia and China hawks, the defense industry, and its Democratic and Republican patrons on Capitol Hill. On these matters, bipartisanship remains alive and well. The House could vote on the NDAA as soon as this week, and the Senate is expected to swiftly follow suit to get the bill to Biden’s desk.
If the powerful leaders of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Jim Inhofe (R-OK), have their way, Congress will soon invoke wartime emergency powers to build up even greater stockpiles of Pentagon weapons.
The military-industrial complex generates death and destruction abroad while also harming workers at home: it funds politicians and think tanks, siphons off money from pro-worker programs, and turns the public coffers into a slush fund for war profiteering.
Source: How the Military-Industrial Complex Gets Its Power and Harms Workers, in 6 Graphs
Biden’s election slogan was “America is back.” The truth is that “America” never left. There will be no major departures from the imperial course under Biden. While the drone wars continue, and the shift back to Cold War posturing in Europe and Asia accelerates, Biden will maintain the hostile stance toward left movements and governments throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. On climate change, Biden will reverse some of Trump’s most extreme stances, while still placing the profits of major corporations and the military industry over the health of the planet. The militarization of the borders and the maltreatment of refugees will remain, and the vast domestic surveillance apparatus will endure. The stark truth is this: The interests of the War Party trump any political disputes between the Democrats and the Republicans.
Source: From Bush Through Biden, U.S. Militarism Is the Great Unifier
Good luck to Mr Biden. Let us hope that he will sacrifice popularity for peace and that he will bear in mind the words of his illustrious predecessor President Eisenhower, sixty years ago, that “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.” Indeed it has risen. But the world would benefit enormously if Joe Biden terminated its ascent by coming to terms with China and Russia. The problem for the world is that the military-industrial complex will continue to profit if confrontation continues.
Source: The Military-Industrial Complex Needs Perpetual Confrontation | The Smirking Chimp
If we’re serious about stopping impending climate disaster, we have no choice but to radically rein in one of the world’s worst polluters: the US military.
Source: We Can’t Fight the Climate Crisis Without Fighting the Military-Industrial Complex
Be prepared for WAR (ODT)
via A General once Warned against Military-Industrial Complex: Today’s West Point Mafia is It
The United States’ economy is a military-industrial complex. Therefore any multilateral arms control treaty that limits weapons and war tensions is by definition incompatible with the functioning of American-style capitalism.
President Donald Trump’s announced intention of withdrawing the US from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty is but the latest move by Washington in undoing decades of hard-won arms controls agreements.
The US unilaterally scrapped the Anti-Ballistic Missiles (ABM) Treaty back in 2002 under then-President GW Bush. That breach of a decades-old treaty has led to the installation of American missile systems in Europe ever-closer to Russian territory, as the US-led NATO military alliance relentlessly expanded eastwards.
via US ready to blow another arms control treaty to feed its war economy — RT Op-ed
Dwight Eisenhower warned us about the Military Industrial Complex. He didn’t warn us that we would still be subservient to it 75 years later.
via Trump’s State Department Prefers Arms Sales To Peace | Crooks and Liars
olddogthoughts 
You must be logged in to post a comment.