News & Analysis
$20-Trillion War Costs Bankrupting US
Secret China war plan: trillions in U.S. debt ... Yes, Americans love war. Yes, wars cost money. And pile on debt, new taxes ... Back in the ‘40s, WWII consumed 57% of our GDP. Today, war eats up about half America's budget. We're sinking under Iraq war debt. Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates Iraq at $3 trillion, with $2 trillion for future costs, like VA medical. The Afghan war, maybe another $3 trillion. Plus endless terrorist threats. Future wars are "planned" years, even decades in advance, strategies based on Pentagon-Rand war games. America talks peace. But deep inside our collective brain is a dark monster: We're little kids who love playing war. – Paul B. Farrell/MarketWatch
Dominant Social Theme: Out of control spending must be examined and admitted so that the task of protecting the Homeland can be updated and maintained.
Free-Market Analysis: Paul Farrell, a columnist for MarketWatch (see above), reports what has been presented here as well: Perhaps 50 percent or more of America's annual, governmental spending is war-and intel-related. Add up related veterans' benefits, foreign and domestic bases, corollary and direct spending and the total closes in on US$1.5 trillion (not the US$700 billion that is often presented as the cost).
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq (continuing) have cost, therefore, an unfathomable US$6 trillion. If overall military spending amounts to some US$1.5 trillion then during the decade that America has waged its latest serial wars, its putative leadership has spent approximately US$20 trillion on waging war or preparing for it. Add in another US$20 trillion or so that some pundits have estimated that the US in particular has printed "out of thin air" to reliquify its ruined dollar reserve economic system and the total arrived at is US$40 trillion. This sum then, still rising, represents resources that are basically commandeered by the so-called public sector to support the nation's (and the West's) solvency and superior firepower.
The full amount, little reported in the American press, shows clearly how the public's perception of the US as a "capitalist" or free-market economy departs from reality. America's elites – Anglosphere elites really – have commandeered the wealth of a nation; this massive resource base (and its leveraging) is apparently needed to fulfill the elite agenda of ever-closer global governance. Nation-building is expensive; shaping a new global order even moreso. The elite banking families and those corporate entities clustered around them prefer not to use their own resources. The standard method of operation (which provides access to almost unlimited wealth) is called mercantilism.
It is a kind of pincer strategy that has reshaped the globe over decades and even centuries. This pincer can be seen at work in the modern day in, say, Afghanistan. Here huge amounts of aid and Western knowhow help Afghans build a 21st century society. A central bank has been set up; a parliamentary democracy has been installed. A great deal of time and energy has been spent liberating women from Taliban religious ideology and concomitant illiteracy. Hospitals and social service networks have been installed and United Nation and other aid workers have flooded the country to help educate Afghans, generally, about modern ways. Farmers are even being weaned away from the poppy toward wheat and other such crops.
At the same time, a tremendous amount of military power has been focused on Afghanistan. Everything about these numbers is big. Over 50 NATO countries have sent troops and other military resources; an Afghan fighting force of some 500,000 soldiers and 300,000 military and civilian police is being trained; America alone has deployed some 130,000 troops, with all the commensurate, additional supply forces. A single drone strike – and there are dozens every month, often killing women and children – costs an apparent US$1 million.
This is the pincer of power. Afghan society is modernized on the one hand, while its non-Western elites are defeated militarily on the other. It is nation-building; and it has served the Anglosphere well for centuries. The elites that runs Britain (and America) used the formula to conquer one-fourth of the earth's surface in the 1800s – as Bell interviewee Richard Maybury recently pointed out.
It is an expensive endeavor. And Farrell's point, well stated, is that the military side of the equation (arguably the more expensive one to operate) is running out of resources. After nearly a century of uncontrollable spending – one that bankrupted first Britain and now America – the Anglo-American war machine is facing ruin. The mathematics become untenable.
What to do? The first step to salvaging the meme is to admit the need for overhaul. Of course, Farrell's presentation is more than that; he argues that something in the American psyche demands war and its resultant carnage. This is the article's weakest part, in our view. Farrell's points are most credible as regards the unsustainability of modern military spending and the Anglosphere intention to identify a new threat. China, he writes, is rapidly emerging as the Western world's number one nemesis. "Is this how WWIII starts?" he asks, "between an aging America that loves war, won't surrender without a fight, and the world's rapidly emerging superpower, predicted to have a population one billion larger than America's by 2050."
Farrell presents the creation of China's first "stealth fighter" airplane as evidence of his argument, along with China's fixation on Taiwan. He then marshals facts that describe a frightening China indeed: "An economy [eventually of] 40% of the world's GDP, dwarfing America's GDP predicted to fall to just 14% ... China's the emerging new superpower, a crafty enemy laughing as we waste our economic resources."
Always there are enemies abroad and at home that need confronting. The dastardly "Hun" – and fascism – served well prior in the first half of the 20th century. The USSR – and communism – worked well in the second half. Past fascism and communism, there is the war on terror. As we've noted on numerous occasions, the war on terror has not gone well. The critical mass necessary to create a believable bogeyman is simply not there; and for this reason, China may seem a tempting alternative.
Yet we tend to disagree with the idea that China can be built up into a kind of 21st century USSR, complete with an additional Cold War, etc. For thousands of years, this is a culture that has attempted to protect itself from "barbarians at the gate," going so far as to build a Great Wall to keep others out. China and its leaders have traditionally looked inward not outward.
The society as a whole is simply not expansionist, or not in the way the USSR seemed to be during its heyday. Additionally, China is engaged commercially on enormous variety of levels with the West. The Soviet Union never had the kind of engagement that China has today. Finally, it is very likely that China will soon face a critical recession due to its leaders inability to control price inflation. Domestic economic troubles, therefore, may make it even harder to portray China as an implacable military machine.
America's domestic and international obligations are, astoundingly, in the area of US$200 trillion. At the highest levels, the power elite itself may have it in mind to inflict such ruin on the West that global governance becomes inevitable. Out of chaos, order, etc. Within this context, we think it more likely that the elite intends to continue to expand its commitment to a war on terror. This will inevitably feature fundamentalist Islam rather than a resurgent Red Scare.
Conclusion: We agree generally with the mechanism that Farrell identifies but not with the particular iteration. It is an important distinction. For those who wish to invest abroad, such analysis is not an academic consideration but one that has ramifications for everything from the price of oil to the availability of foodstuffs and commodities. It is of course possible that Western elites shall decide to build up two existential threats at once, but that is not its usual operative perspective in our view. One enemy at a time seems the preferred messaging. Thus, if we had to choose, we would identify militant Islam not communism.
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Posted by WEC on 02/11/11 10:37 PM
Well, the world looks ALOT like 1984 today ' we are seeing the development into the three perpetually warring Socialitst/Totalitrian states Orwell predicted....
- We have the Western Regulatory Democracy Socialist bloc (Secular Socialist Authoritrianism thru "democracy" ie technocracy, elite rule, state dependency, and tyranny of the majority) likely consisting of North and South America
- The Islamic Socialist Caliphate (Islamic Religious-based Socialist Authoritrianism) likely consisting of Africa, Europe (the native population is committing demographic suicide and is being replaced by Islamic peoples), and Middle Asia
- The Chineese/Eastern Confusian Socialist state (Socialism based on anicient culture) likely consisting of the far east and Austriallia
Just like Orwell predicted, really a one-world governement with the same authorirtiran philosphophy ran by a ruling elite....
War and conflict without end......
We have seen our own government promoting revolution in the Middle East in collaboration with the Muslim Brotherhood.......we spent the prior part of JAN getting lectured on what a threat China was and how "we need to be more like China"
The presumption in both cases is the Americans MUST give up more treasure and liberty to the state and accept more Authoririan measure for "safety" against the Islamic threat and to be able to "compete" against China.....all pushing us to a centralized Authorirtrian state
Get ready for war without end folks
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Posted by Lentenlands on 02/11/11 03:55 PM
But wait – we can't stop spending on endless wars! We have to stick to the Rothschilds new world order plan timeline!
C'mon now!
Click to view link
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Posted by Bionic Mosquito on 02/10/11 06:11 PM
@Fred
"Considering the role the 'free market' has had in abusing the weak and poor of this world (and justifying that abuse as 'economic necessity', and denouncing any alterations or limits to the markets as fundementally damaging that freedom [as if the purpose to life were free markets])"
1) There are no free markets, so these cannot be blamed for the plight of the weak and the poor.
2) The purpose of life? I imagine each individual is best qualified to define their own.
3) However free markets as enablers of whatever "purpose" an individual chooses? Of this, there is no doubt. Either I am free to make my own choices, or someone else has power to make choices for me. What you derogatorily refer to as free markets is, in fact, the alternative social structure to that of a society based on slavery and theft.
You would be wise to consider precisely what it is that you advocate.
As to DB being part of the power elite? Who knows? However, if DB represents one of the goal posts, well perhaps there is hope! :-))
Reply from The Daily Bell
Yes, if DB constitutes a goalpost, it is a distant one ...
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Posted by William Stockwell on 02/10/11 05:19 PM
Let me suggest, regarding the reason for wars:
Report From Iron Mountain, Part 1 by David Icke
Source:
Click to view link
Research Material
(Date Report Finalized and Issued: 30 September 1966)
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Posted by Fred on 02/10/11 10:58 AM
Your assumption of the term 'power elites' seems pretty uncritical; simply assuming that the moneid families will automatically (and are) mobilising against the masses; especially considering the definition given to this conspiracy is one of uncritically distributing 'memes' (as if people dont do that anyway!).
Perhaps you are the 'power elite'? Considering the role the 'free market' has had in abusing the weak and poor of this world (and justifying that abuse as 'economic necessity', and denouncing any alterations or limits to the markets as fundementally damaging that freedom [as if the purpose to life were free markets]); perhaps my remark has more truth to it than you would like to admit.
Reply from The Daily Bell
And your suggestion is? ...
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Posted by Dude on 02/10/11 10:07 AM
Does all this mean my dumpster diving hobby could become more than that? Don't laugh, the really good stuff is found on military bases but they have recently made it impossible. "You put those 4 brand new tires and brand new case of motor oil back in the dumpster, it's headed for the junkyard where it belongs!!".
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Posted by KP on 02/10/11 05:45 AM
Well, while we in the South Pacific have been learning Mandarin in schools for 15years, it appears the USA think Arabic is the future. Maybe there is quite a disconnect in cultures between the USA and the rest of the West. We expect to need a Chinese language to trade with them, and the USA needs Arabic because....
Mansfield, Texas-
The Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) grant was awarded to Mansfield ISD last summer by the U.S. Department of Education.
As part of the five-year $1.3 million grant, Arabic classes would have been taught at Cross Timbers Intermediate School and other schools feeding into Summit High School.
The Department of Education has identified Arabic as a 'language of the future.'
Click to view link
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Posted by Vauung on 02/10/11 02:08 AM
OT, but good. DB contributor Antal E Fekete has a superb article about the USD exchange rate diplomacy swindle up on Asia Times Online:
Click to view link
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Posted by Wayne on 02/10/11 01:51 AM
@Bruce in Denver
Well, not to shoot you down on your Defense Dept. propaganda, but here is Robert Mcnamara telling you that the Gulf of Tonkin attack never happened.
Click to view link
And how many people died, or were maimed, while the Defense Contractors laughed all the way to the bank.
And you had better read what a "real' War Hero had to say about War.
Right from our website:
Click to view link
So get with the program!
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Posted by Vauung on 02/10/11 01:25 AM
... (really finally) To inflate an enormously bloated military budget while poised at the brink of systemic financial disaster seems clearly irrational from the perspective of economic continuity and civilization survival. But from the PoV of a genuinely apocalyptic ruling power, staring excitedly into the abyss, it might seem the only truly rational preparation for the world to come. It is improbable, however, that such an elite could any longer be realistically described as 'bankers' (since that presupposes a future for civil intercourse).
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Posted by Vauung on 02/10/11 12:17 AM
... one final aspect to this. Wouldn't an elite with a harsh-realist (Hobbesian) outlook, facing the prospect of major regime cataclysm, seek to weaponize its wealth as comprehensively as possible? Burying gold in the backyard is still, ultimately, a bet upon residual civility.
If one's perspective is dark enough, there's nothing much needed for a new dark age except guns. Everything else, the guns get for you.
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Posted by Vauung on 02/10/11 12:10 AM
A question has been crystallized by this post, in combination with this strange and compelling story:
Click to view link
Mao Zedong, who I'm reluctant to cite approvingly, famously remarked that "Power comes out of the barrel of a gun."
It's true that bankers can buy guns, but it's no less true that guns can shoot bankers. What, then, is the basis for the confidence that the 'money power' of a financial power elite are the ultimate arbiters of global control? Why not generals? Why is wealth assumed to trump raw coercive power, rooted in the capacity for violence?
It might be argued in the US case that generals are 'constitutionally constrained', but given the healthy skepticism for paper guarantees prevalent among hard-core libertarians, I wouldn't expect this argument to be made with any great conviction here.
Wealth, even metallic wealth, appears relatively fragile vis-a-vis raw (weaponized) power. It expresses itself most confidently within sophisticated social arrangements where reciprocal contracts are honored, and where coercion is forced to take a relatively indirect form. In collapsed societies, a man with a gun will always prevail over an unarmed man seated on a mountain of gold.
To modify this question slightly: How could a financially-empowered elite imaginably benefit from a social relapse that devalued sophisticated transactions and emphasized naked forms of domination?
Wouldn't a 'bankster' conspiracy that promoted such a trend be exhibiting near-suicidal behavior? How then to make sense of a scenario that depicts a shadowy financial elite deliberately pushing the world into chaos?
Reply from The Daily Bell
They did it because they could, not because it was rational or because they were assured of success ...
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Posted by Bionic Mosquito on 02/09/11 10:39 PM
Speaking of Americans loving war, see the following:
Click to view link
No, not the editorial itself (very much worth the read), but the comments below.
Blackistone is my new favorite sportswriter, and Americans love war. The game only ends when the soldiers overseas have to ask their parents to wire airfare home....
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Posted by EDD on 02/09/11 07:52 PM
@ DB and the Feedback list: The link below was sent to me via a high school classmate of mine, and is an interview by a Dr. Joseph Mercola with Ron Paul. Highly recommended reading.
Click to view link
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Posted by Bionic Mosquito on 02/09/11 05:46 PM
(2 of 2)
"The USSR and Islamic Jihad are both aggressive ideologies that cannot co-exist with our natural god-given rights as Americans."
My God-given rights are being infinitely more abused daily by the government and the actions you support than anything any communist or Muslim ever did to me.
"Lets use a little common sense, and show a little respect for the constitution people!"
Please don't talk down to this group. You are the poster boy for the desired outcome ‒ state-manufactured fear used to incite the people to demand more state control. Educate yourself first, and then come back for another visit.
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Posted by Bionic Mosquito on 02/09/11 05:45 PM
(1 of 2)
@Bruce In Denver
Never has a comment here taken me from such a high to such a low all in one post...congratulations, I think.
You are refreshingly correct about the post WWII economy.
"But consider where we would be if we had retreated into isolationism in the 1950's instead..."
The standard straw-man, as those who are opposed to foreign military adventurism are accused of being isolationists. A false connection.
"...or if we had not responded more forcefully after 9/11."
We don't know what happened on 9/11. Even some of the investigators say they were lied to by individuals in the military and elsewhere in government. Osama is not wanted for anything associated with 9/11.
Even if you accept the standard story of 9/11, consider: all those directly involved in the attack died on that day ‒ how much more can you punish them? As to others that may have participated in the planning, etc., the resolution is a police case, not a military one. It was a crime, albeit a large one.
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Posted by Bruce C. on 02/09/11 05:39 PM
I don't think there will be another big war, especially involving the US. Just don't see it or sense it. Could be wrong but I hope I'm right.
Using the now common analogy of the US economy and financial system being like a patient on life support, I don't think the patient is physically capable of even standing on its own two feet, let alone exerting itself in any way.
The rates on Treasuries when the debt ceiling is raised this spring will be the bellwether for the future of the US going forward. If there isn't a sell off then maybe the world has a lot more capacity for insanity than I realize, so maybe another big war would seem like a good idea.
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Posted by Stephen on 02/09/11 05:33 PM
I believe war has become a business. There is big profits to be made in wars. Sometimes both sides are funded by the same Big Boys. Could this be the solution below?
Should We Have War Games for the World's Leaders?
By Stephen J. Gray
Yesterday's enemies are today's friends and today's friends are tomorrow's enemies, such is the way of the world, and wars of the world. All these wars cause enormous bloodshed, destruction and suffering to those affected. Therefore, would it not be much simpler to have war games for all of the world's leaders and elites every few years? We have Olympic Games every four years where the world's athletes from different countries compete. And many of these countries are hostile to each other, yet they participate in the Olympics. So if enemies can participate for sport, why not for war games? How could this be arranged?
All the leaders and elites of the world would have to lead by example, instead of leading from their political platforms, palaces and offshore tax havens, while the ordinary people have to do the dirty work in wars. The world's leaders and elites would all be in the front lines first. A venue could be arranged in a deserted area and the people of the world could watch via satellite TV their courageous leaders and other elites leading the charge in the war games....
Read full article at link below.
Click to view link
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Posted by Glen on 02/09/11 05:32 PM
Ed Seykota, a notable futures hedge fund manager, said, "Inflation is society's way of sweeping out the old order...that's why no one has anywhere near the wealth that would be represented by compounding $1 from the time of Christ to the present day." If you do the math the result is about $27.0 10e27, as I recall. I love people who can make connections like this. I think you guys have this same talent. Thanks for keeping things in proper perspective and exposing things for the way they are.
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