[Cross-posted at The Left Coaster.]
Given the uproar of the 2020 election it’s not surprising the grossly insane American defense budget has not come under scrutiny, but it’s still unsettling to see this flaming catastrophe being ignored as if everything is normal and fine. We don’t accept it from President Trump declaring the covid-19 catastrophe being over but we hum along as if $648 billion in annual defense spending is normal and good, we get security.
What a terrible word of fear and manipulation that so rarely delivers on its promise. Defense spending is “security” through fear of serious violence, a stupid and ridiculous way to deliver it. If one wants resource security then develop wind and solar renewables to get the hell out of the Middle East, stuffing the cauldron with military power has solved nothing.
Speaking of security deliverables, what has its slavish devotion delivered for the United States? There are no viable trains, infrastructure crumbles everywhere, while many cities ensconce vast areas of slums and misery. Huge investments are desperately needed at CIS, IRS and the Post Office, not to mention the vast sums needed for a Green New Deal. There’s a lot more government has to deliver than security, how is that not obvious?
To get an idea how lost we have become here many citizens will remember the big fire on USS Bohomme Richard in July, but what kind of ship was that again? LHD, Landing Helicopter Dock. She’s part of the amphibious assault arm of the Navy, she’ll make a landing as part of a sea war with helicopters—but not on the beach, at a dock.
Wait a minute, is it really in the security interests of America to have the ability to invade another country by sea? When was the last time that happened? Precisely 70 years ago, 1950, when MacArthur took on Inchon at Korea. In all that time the Navy has spent hundreds of billions on an amphibious assault Navy that’s never been used.
There was a bit of a brouhaha in the defense community this year when three former Navy officers published a 100 ship manifesto. Why did they do that?
Because they know full well “security” for the United States at sea can easily be attained with 100 ships, this insanity of global hegemony at sea better get a fierce defense in the next decade or the Navy will indeed lose its amphibious assault force, a ridiculous insanely expensive military option we can no longer afford.
Many readers have noted that so far defense spending has been ripped from a purely resource prism, but there are other god-awful dimensions to the insanity.
If you build it, they will use it. Instead of investing in a vibrant middle class for the little people the United States squandered incomprehensible trillions in sums for wars in the Middle East this century that delivered noting but shame, misery and failure. Way to go.
There is a moral dimension of serious cruelty here, my god how many millions of Americans are hungry today, frantic with worry their kids can’t eat? Shut up and never mind, bring on the Space Force! If you can accept that horrible dagger of pain to the American fabric of life while we construct mountainous forms of violence good for you, I never will.
As for the Navy I’m afraid that storied institution is having a regression evolution, ships keep smashing into each other, a nasty corruption scandal for shipyard repair, with serious sexism and neglected personnel problems. As of 2020 it isn’t clear they’ve snapped out of it, but they better prove it soon if they want those new LHD’s and CVN’s.
My god, I am no pacifist, I know enough of history and the psychology of humans to accept a standing defense force, but I’m perfectly willing to fund a defense budget at $400 billion annually, not the insanity of $648, please.
In the online liberal writing community I’m used to feeling lonely about this, somehow it just became accepted that the glory of guns and spilled blood became a good and necessary element of Democratic Party politics. Somehow it became normal that when millions of our kids are suffering with hunger today we order another $15 billion aircraft carrier.
It’s not normal or remotely good, we either fail as a society with a $648 billion defense budget or cut it to $400 to make it into our future, that reality is soon arriving whether the Democratic Party likes it or not.