US Spends Billions On Overseas Wars, But Who Really Benefits?

Authored by Andrew Thornebrooke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Fears over incentivizing global conflicts are rising as the Biden administration requests more than $105 billion in supplemental security spending.

The administration says the money, primarily for Israel and Ukraine, will be good for the economy.

President Joe Biden has described the mammoth spending package as “a smart investment” that will “pay dividends” to U.S. security interests.

Likewise, Assistant Secretary of State James O’Brien described the supplemental as “a very good bargain.”

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the money will “flow through our defense industrial base, creating American jobs in more than 30 states.”

Many are skeptical of the administration’s claims, however, and believe that the massive investment in the defense industry will squander the nation’s ability to adequately address social and infrastructure needs.

Presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy Jr. is among them.

“Creating jobs is a poor excuse for a foreign policy that wreaks mayhem around the world,” Mr. Kennedy told The Epoch Times in an email.

“If we want to increase employment in good manufacturing and construction jobs, instead of making weapons we should repair our infrastructure and manufacture products that actually serve human well-being.”

Defense Contractor Windfall

Numerous analysts believe that the administration’s supplemental, in addition to its record-breaking defense funding, would effectively serve as a massive transfer of wealth from American taxpayers to the defense sector.

Stephen Semler, co-founder of the Security Policy Reform Institute think tank, said that defense contractors stand to reap billions from the administration’s requested supplemental, which would go “mostly to just a few companies.”

“Based on my estimate, the proposal would produce $60 billion in revenue for private-sector military contractors,” Mr. Semler said in an email.

Whether those billions of dollars will adequately serve the national interest is an open question. To that end, Mr. Semler says that the Biden administration is now “selling” the spending package as an economic boon because most people won't believe it would improve national security interests abroad.

“If people don’t buy the foreign policy argument for spending $106 billion, the thinking goes, maybe they’ll support it if it’s framed as domestic policy,” Mr. Semler said.

Citing research from the Costs of War project at Brown University, Mr. Semler’s research suggests that shifting $100 billion from the defense budget into the energy or infrastructure sectors could create 290,000 jobs.

As such, the supplemental may actively erode the United States’ ability to create more jobs that would have a positive effect on American prosperity and well-being.

The larger issue is the record-breaking defense spending undertaken by the administration and Congress, culminating with last year’s largest-ever defense budget, according to Mr. Semler.

President Biden’s domestic spending efforts, notably the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, pale in comparison to the sums now being fed to the national defense apparatus.

“Between Biden’s foreign aid plan and the fiscal year 2024 Pentagon budget, I think military contractors can expect $559 billion,” Mr. Semler said.

“By comparison, Biden’s flagship infrastructure bill spends $548 billion over five years.”

Defense Lobby Incentivizing Conflict

A key concern of Mr. Semler and others is the continued incentivization of conflict, in which the defense industrial base may directly or indirectly work to prolong conflicts in an effort to maximize its economic gains.

Mr. Semler pointed to the defense base’s “army of lobbyists,” which pressures the U.S. government to adopt hawkish policies and spending habits in the interest of their for-profit companies.

“When the U.S. buys weapons, it’s empowering a particular set of businesses whose bottom lines depend on the U.S. either making war or preparing for it,” Mr. Semler said. “These firms then redirect a share of their profits back into the political system in an attempt to steer national policy toward more war.

“The only surefire winners are military contractors, so we know what they’ll be pushing for.”Last year, American defense companies spent over $128 million on lobbying efforts.

The effort included the employment of more than 845 lobbyists, some 72 percent of whom previously worked in government, mostly in the Pentagon or for the House and Senate Armed Services Committees.

Those lobbyists don’t just grease the palms of politicians; they influence the formulation of policy itself through massive cash injections to defense-focused think tanks.

A report published by the Center for International Policy think tank found that government and defense contractors spent more than $1 billion on think tanks from 2014 to 2019.

The top recipients of this funding were the RAND Corporation, the Center for a New American Security, and the New America Foundation, which together brought in more than 600 different donations from U.S. government or defense contractors.

“The top funders from the U.S. government were the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Air Force, the Army, the Department of Homeland Security, and the State Department,” the report said.

“The defense contractors contributing the most to these think tanks were Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Airbus.”

Relatedly, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman were the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh largest corporate lobbyists in 2020.

In 2022, the four companies hired a combined 259 former government employees who now work as lobbyists, executives, directors, board members, and trustees.

“Of course, policymaking will always be influenced by ideologies,” Mr. Semler said. “We’ve all got one. But allowing the profit motivations of weapons companies to hold sway over decisions about war and peace is a different beast entirely.

“Some people don’t think this massive redistribution of wealth from taxpayers to private military contractors is a problem. I think it is.”

Congress's Role

The issue of war profiteering is not limited to the executive branch.

Indeed, the revolving door between Congress and the defense lobby is wide, and the real world policy implications of the administration’s proposed spending will ultimately be realized by the House and Senate.

But big money has big consequences for members of Congress who rely on agreeable think tanks and keeping defense sector jobs in their districts to stay in office.

As such, continued Congressional support for the Israel–Hamas war, the Russia–Ukraine war, and elsewhere is unlikely to radically shift without a great deal of unrest among voters.

“U.S.-backed wars, from Iraq and Afghanistan to Ukraine and Gaza, have direct ramifications for the U.S. defense sector,” said Antony Loewenstein, an independent journalist and filmmaker who was based in East Jerusalem between 2016 and 2020.

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