Militarism and military spending are everywhere on the rise, as the new
Cold War propaganda seems to be paying off. The new "threats" that
are being hyped bring big profits to military contractors and the network of
think tanks they pay to produce pro-war propaganda.
Here are just a few examples:
The German government announced last week that it would purchase 100 more
"Leopard" tanks - a 45 percent increase in the country's inventory.
Germany had greatly reduced its inventory of tanks as the end of the Cold War
meant the end of any threat of a Soviet ground invasion of Europe. The German
government now claims these 100 new tanks, which may cost nearly half a
billion dollars, are necessary to respond to the new Russian assertiveness in
the region. Never mind that Russia has neither invaded nor threatened any
country in the region, much less a NATO member country.
The US Cold War-era nuclear bunker under Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado,
which was all but shut down in the 25 years since the fall of the Berlin
Wall, is being brought back to life. The Pentagon has committed nearly a
billion dollars to upgrading the facility to its previous Cold War-level of
operations. US defense contractor Raytheon will be the prime beneficiary of
this contract. Raytheon is a major financial sponsor of think tanks like the
Institute for the Study of War, which continuously churn out pro-war
propaganda. I am sure these big contracts are a good return on that
investment.
NATO, which I believe should have been shut down after the Cold War ended,
is also getting its own massively expensive upgrade. The Alliance
commissioned a new headquarters building in Brussels, Belgium, in 2010, which
is supposed to be completed in 2016. The building looks like a hideous claw,
and the final cost - if it is ever finished - will be well over one billion
dollars. That is more than twice what was originally budgeted. What a
boondoggle! Is it any surprise that NATO bureaucrats and generals
continuously try to terrify us with tales of the new Russian threat? They
need to justify their expansion plans!
So who is the real enemy? The Russians?
No, the real enemy is the taxpayer. The real enemy is the middle class and
the productive sectors of the economy. We are the victims of this new runaway
military spending. Every dollar or euro spent on a contrived threat is a
dollar or euro taken out of the real economy and wasted on military
Keynesianism. It is a dollar stolen from a small business owner that will not
be invested in innovation, spent on research to combat disease, or even
donated to charities that help the needy.
One of the most pervasive and dangerous myths of our time is that military
spending benefits an economy. This could not be further from the truth. Such
spending benefits a thin layer of well-connected and well-paid elites. It
diverts scarce resources from meeting the needs and desires of a population
and channels them into manufacturing tools of destruction. The costs may be
hidden by the money-printing of the central banks, but they are eventually
realized in the steady destruction of a currency.
The elites are terrified that peace may finally break out, which will be
bad for their profits. That is why they are trying to scuttle the Iran deal,
nix the Cuba thaw, and drum up a new "Red Scare" coming from
Moscow. We must not be fooled into believing their lies.
