Not a ‘windfall’ more a ‘guided weapon’

Jun 16, 2022
US, China, Russia Military spending
US ‘defence’ spending has steadily increased and has, for some decades, been greater than the next nine or ten national defence budgets around the world. Image: Wikimedia Commons

In his Farewell Address, 17 January 1961, stepping aside as the US President, ex-General Eisenhower warned his nation.

‘…this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognise the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. … we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, … by the military-industrial complex…Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defence with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.’ (Ref Wikiquotes, Eisenhower)

In the ensuing sixty-plus years, US ‘defence’ spending has steadily increased and has, for some decades, been greater than the next nine or ten national defence budgets around the world. The MI complex is now very well-entrenched in the political, economic and social life of America – all US States have production/employment facilities, political campaigns are generously funded and there must be families where fathers and sons, mothers and daughters have been salaried and pensioned by weapons-related careers. Congress has shown itself to be ready and willing to add to forecast defence spending on demand though hesitant to approve large, socially beneficial programs. And the US has been almost continually involved with wars distant from its shores. President Jimmy Carter – the only US President not to initiate a war – has called his nation, ‘The most warlike nation in history’.

The sheer momentum of this huge conglomerate is often overlooked by analysts, commentators and experts of all stripes – well-regarded, partisan, superficial; virus-like, its influence is global and can be seen in all the tensions and trouble spots around the world by those not mesmerised by the main-stream media because the connections get scant attention by the MSM and western/Anglo journalists.

For the MI Complex has co-opted the media and western journalists so effectively that we now have the military/industrial/media complex; the full co-ordination of this enlarged conglomerate can be seen around the war in Ukraine. Has there ever been a bigger, more co-ordinated and effective – exponentially generating its own support – than the PR campaign promoting Ukraine and its President personally. The addresses to western-orientated Parliaments are but the tip of the proverbial iceberg; the ‘bulk’ – certainly not submerged – includes editorials, street demonstrations, endless TV coverage including appeals for funds for Ukrainian refugees – not matched be any for the unfortunates of Afghanistan, Libya, Gaza, Yemen, Iraq – right on down through university declarations, princely observations and pub talk.

There is not the well informed, ‘alert and knowledgeable citizenry’ – regarded as essential by Eisenhower – to constrain the MI; just the reverse and the world faces perilous times in consequence. Dangers lie in what the MSM does not tell us.

Eisenhower spoke of the nation-wide influence of the MI Complex. The MIM Complex now extends well beyond the US with some production and research being conducted in allied nations. It has ‘branch offices/shop windows’ here in Australia; vide Australian Strategic Policy Institute and the Australian War Museum. ASPI now issues many press releases and is the agency for many ‘experts, analysts and commentators’ – staunchly pro-Western, anti-China – and, like the AWM, has US weapon manufacturers listed as Major Sponsors eg Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Numbers of our retired politicians serve on the boards of MIM affiliated local companies and associations. The reach of the MIM is now into every home, TV, personal phone and tablet throughout the ‘Western’ world.

Looked through the lens of the MIM’s need for tensions and wars – to maintain, sales, jobs, pensions – the parlous state of geo-political relations is seen to be intractable. The NATO westwards expansion was a great sales boost. Kishore Mahbubani asking in ‘Where are the peacemakers to end the war in Ukraine?’ quotes a respected US commentator, Owen Harries, from December 1997 saying that NATO’s push to expand was strongly influenced by, ‘the enormous vested interests – careers, contracts, consultancies, accumulated expertise – represented by the NATO establishment, which now needed a new reason and purpose to justify the organisation’s continued existence.’ Looking back it seems that NATO behaves like the European sales facilitator for the MIM – now wishing to recruit Sweden and Finland and to extend into the Pacific region – and whilst the words of Owen Harries were undoubtedly true at the time, they apply even more aptly to the MIM today. The Peacemakers are outnumbered, under-resourced – sadly, even have less ‘skin in the game’ – than the multitudes dependant on the MIM; peace would mean a re-deployment of human resources.

MIM sales prospects are currently helped by the war in Ukraine, Taiwan uncertainties, expanding bases in Australia and maybe nuclear submarines – markets our Government supports – and, of course the absence of’ peace’ between North and South Korea though the warring stopped more than half a century ago. Africa may be picking up!

The extent of the media penetration into our everyday life and psyche can be seen when even Brett Wilkins, P&I 18 April 2022, in ‘The US arms industry, Ukraine and the media’ – or his sub-editor – uses a sub-heading, ‘War in Ukraine a Windfall for the Weapons Industry’; that war certainly did not, like a windfall, gestate and grow naturally to fruition and in its own good time ripen and gravitate quietly to earth to decay.

No, it is more akin a guided weapon for it was researched, planned, war-gamed, funded, designed, launched and promoted. In short, it was man-made, purposefully.

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