Europe’s fixation on the American presidential race continues. Yesterday’s conference on “US Foreign Policy After Bush” sponsored by the respected Brussels think tank GRIP (“Groupe de recherche et d’information sur la paix et la securite”) focused primarily on American security policy. The panel was composed of academics and journalists from francophone Belgium’s left-leaning firmament, though the message was not terribly different from that heard in previous (conservative) European fora: though there are differences between the remaining candidates, in certain key areas, don’t expect the heavens to open even if Barack Obama is elected President.
In a series of slides, GRIP researchers presented graphs showing the ahistoric (when compared to the country’s first century and a half) levels of American military spending since the end of World War II. In previous major US wars (the Civil War, First World War), US military spending spiked, and then resumed (low) pre-war levels. As late as the 1920s, US defense budgets sunk as low as 0.7% of GDP. World War II, morphing into the Cold War, which morphed into the Global War on Terror (GWOT), set a new paradigm, where official defense budgets have built a graphical mountain on the historical timeline. Accounting for off-budget spending (the “supplemental” spending on Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as projected costs for war veteran medical care, etc.) would require an Al Gore-like “Inconvenient Truth” ladder, where spending would literally go off the charts.
My favorite slide summarizes how profitable defense spending has been – hence how difficult it will be for even a reform-minded president to change the course of the military juggernaut. It’s a GRIP depiction of the AMEX Defense Index (DFI) over the period September 1996 to present. It's worth noting that the good times really started rolling after the Clinton Administration's "Last Supper" at the Pentagon with defense industry chiefs in January 1993, when the military industrial complex was "right sized."
With profitability like this, and with a defense industry spread over every Congressional District, it will indeed be difficult to steer the ship of state in a direction different to that of George W. Bush.
Today’s Guardian carries a excellent Simon Jenkins piece on a similar theme, “Despite Iraq, America's Love Affair With War Runs Deep.”
Despite warnings from past soldier-presidents (George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower) on the dangers of large standing armies and the “Military Industrial Complex,” changing the mindset that puts military might above all other indices of national health, wealth, and yes – power - is more than a daunting task. GRIP’s presentation yesterday on American military spending in the Middle East from 1950 through 2006 is enough to cause despair - especially when you realize that most of the US money in military assistance programs is out of the same budget that funds American diplomacy, the State Department. From whatever angle (percentage of overall US aid, percentage of US aid to the Middle East, etc.), the countless billions spent, given, or sold in terms of weapons in the most flammable part of the world is astounding. Oh yes: Iran is number four on the list of US military assistance recipients. Iran? The HQ of the “Axis of Evil?” The place where they call America “The Great Satan?” Remember, the graph also includes the period before 1979, when the Shah's Iran was the Number One US arms recipient.
So what has more than a half century of arms-trading-in-the-tinderbox procured for the US? Several wars, whether direct or proxy (see Osama bin Laden, the fallen angel of the anti-Soviet crusade in Afghanistan); several regime changes, whether pro or anti-American (see Mossadegh>Shah>Ayatollah for the progression in Iran; for Iraq, Saddam>Bremer>Allawi>Jaafari>Maliki>TBD?); and several million permanently displaced people (Palestinians and now Iraqis scattered over the Middle East, miserable and a source of instability for their reluctant hosts).
GRIP provided the graphs. But will Americans elect someone who can read them?
In a series of slides, GRIP researchers presented graphs showing the ahistoric (when compared to the country’s first century and a half) levels of American military spending since the end of World War II. In previous major US wars (the Civil War, First World War), US military spending spiked, and then resumed (low) pre-war levels. As late as the 1920s, US defense budgets sunk as low as 0.7% of GDP. World War II, morphing into the Cold War, which morphed into the Global War on Terror (GWOT), set a new paradigm, where official defense budgets have built a graphical mountain on the historical timeline. Accounting for off-budget spending (the “supplemental” spending on Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as projected costs for war veteran medical care, etc.) would require an Al Gore-like “Inconvenient Truth” ladder, where spending would literally go off the charts.
My favorite slide summarizes how profitable defense spending has been – hence how difficult it will be for even a reform-minded president to change the course of the military juggernaut. It’s a GRIP depiction of the AMEX Defense Index (DFI) over the period September 1996 to present. It's worth noting that the good times really started rolling after the Clinton Administration's "Last Supper" at the Pentagon with defense industry chiefs in January 1993, when the military industrial complex was "right sized."
Today’s Guardian carries a excellent Simon Jenkins piece on a similar theme, “Despite Iraq, America's Love Affair With War Runs Deep.”
The one thing known by all three candidates for the presidency is that whoever wins must do something painful. He or she must negotiate the terms of an eventual retreat from Iraq, not with the Iraqi but with the American people. Even John McCain, who watched the retreat from Vietnam and swears he will "stay a hundred years in Iraq until peace, stability and democracy" are achieved, will eventually leave, if only under the lash of Congress.But “getting from here to there,” as Jenkins notes, includes obligatory war rhetoric to show that no candidate is “soft on defense.” This is mainly a challenge for the Democrats, since no one assumes that McCain is a softie. So Hillary Clinton delivers a pre-Pennsylvania blast at Iran, saying that she would “totally obliterate” the country if it attacked Israel. Even Barack Obama has to rattle the sabers, in what amounts to unilateralism aimed at Pakistan.
Yet now is not the time to admit it. A war that is unpopular with 60-70% of Americans (depending on the question) is not politically sustainable, however stupefying the cost. But the modalities of its ending are unpredictable and possibly humiliating. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama may call for early withdrawal, at least of "combat troops". But the real paradox of Iraq is that McCain knows he must find a way of leaving, and Clinton and Obama know they must find a way of staying, if only for the time being. For all of them, getting from here to there crosses uncharted territory and none wants to glimpse the map.
Despite warnings from past soldier-presidents (George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower) on the dangers of large standing armies and the “Military Industrial Complex,” changing the mindset that puts military might above all other indices of national health, wealth, and yes – power - is more than a daunting task. GRIP’s presentation yesterday on American military spending in the Middle East from 1950 through 2006 is enough to cause despair - especially when you realize that most of the US money in military assistance programs is out of the same budget that funds American diplomacy, the State Department. From whatever angle (percentage of overall US aid, percentage of US aid to the Middle East, etc.), the countless billions spent, given, or sold in terms of weapons in the most flammable part of the world is astounding. Oh yes: Iran is number four on the list of US military assistance recipients. Iran? The HQ of the “Axis of Evil?” The place where they call America “The Great Satan?” Remember, the graph also includes the period before 1979, when the Shah's Iran was the Number One US arms recipient.
So what has more than a half century of arms-trading-in-the-tinderbox procured for the US? Several wars, whether direct or proxy (see Osama bin Laden, the fallen angel of the anti-Soviet crusade in Afghanistan); several regime changes, whether pro or anti-American (see Mossadegh>Shah>Ayatollah for the progression in Iran; for Iraq, Saddam>Bremer>Allawi>Jaafari>Maliki>TBD?); and several million permanently displaced people (Palestinians and now Iraqis scattered over the Middle East, miserable and a source of instability for their reluctant hosts).
GRIP provided the graphs. But will Americans elect someone who can read them?