The US military said it plans to curb spending over the next five years, but it will be a hard task to complete since there is an entire global industry that relies on ongoing conflict to sustain its coffers.
With the world’s largest-ever defense budget, The US is set to spend $725 billion on its military this year. With growing spending and calls to cut costs and the national debt, and increased opposition to US wars abroad, why is the US committed to staying the course?Former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower once warned against the coming military industrial complex and perpetual warfare. “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex,” he said. Russ Baker, the author of “The Family of Secrets: The Bush Dynasty” explained US foreign policy is shaped by a military-oil-media complex, an ill-defined co-opting of industries brought together under the guise of a maintained sense of continual panic. The system keeps people in a mindset where war seems needed and inevitable, he argued. “We don’t have the kind of transparency we need,” Baker explained. “All the records remain classified under lock and key and we can’t figure out what went on or what is going on today.” Change cannot take place in America until proper dialogue takes place. However, that is unable to happen given the current environment. The American media is not allowing for a change in the dialogue, it has created a war driven cycle, argued Baker. “Even a man like Obama, who was presented as a great reformer, finds himself unable to really do anything substantively about this cycle of doom and destruction,” he commented.The system works towards attacking those who will maintain it, recruiting politicians and presidents who are drafted to sustain the structure backed by big money.