Peace Action Manhattan

So for the NDS, “it stands to reason you need at least that level for resourcing, if not more … you’re going to need consistent, appropriate levels of funding that are predictable and not subject to the constant stress of continuing resolutions and two-year budget deals if we’re going to be able to meet the high-end challenge over the next 20 years.”

See, A Crisis of National Security by Mehta, Aaron, “Defensenews.com” November 14, 2018.

Those in the high offices of our democracy have deemed military expenditures–getting more and more of taxpayers’ money out of the budget and directing it into military force expansion–is our uppermost priority, and must not be superseded by any other concern of our civilization.  Let the coastlines flood, let the forests burn, let the children starve and let the planet’s species vanish.  But don’t let us lose our supremacy in force projection to one or two 2nd-rate wannabe empires.

They actually have the nerve to call it, “superiority,” not, “supremacy,” which are two different things.  Supremacy means we’re the absolute no. 1, top dog, sure-enough-sure-enough best military in existence.  Superiority means we have an edge over our closest immediate rivals.  This is the same tactic the defense industry lobbyists and Pentagon spokespersons pushed last century.

After WWII, the big boys decided to push a Cold War narrative, that the U.S. and all our sacred institutions were existentially threatened by the Soviet Union and the spread of Communism.  Communism as adversary succeeded in inflating the military budget, allowing the takeover of our country by the National Security State.

And, that’s exactly what we’re seeing now.  Terrorism just can’t generate the kind of military spending it did since 9/11.  So now we’re down to the bare truth.  Our country is going to continue with force expansion on a global scale–even into pristine outer space–in order to prevent democracy from facilitating cooperation with our “adversaries.”  If our War Power loses it’s grip on the government-to-industry gravy train, citizens are going to start demanding health care, education and infrastructure.

The Pentagon has known about climate change for decades.  So why hasn’t our national security machine directed our best resources toward fighting our no. 1 threat to national security?  The answer is that climate change is a global threat.  The solution will require much greater cooperation among nation states, cooperation across national boundaries like never before, and by citizens of the planet.

Space exploration used to be considered the ticket out of perpetual war and conflict for the human race, because it would ultimately bring about cooperation and a reframing of what it means to be defending our best interests.

Now, climate change has forced everyone who looks to see that our best interests are the same as everybody else’s.

So…  BOOM BOOM BOOM!  Hear the war drums pounding!  The national security behemoth parasite demands veto power over every other interest in society, especially the ones that would decrease the ever-so-urgent necessity for more and more weapons and wars and a national security state that is stronger and more monopolistic over our  government.

“The U.S. military could suffer unacceptably high casualties and loss of major capital assets in its next conflict,” reads the report, issued Wednesday by the National Defense Strategy Commission. “It might struggle to win, or perhaps lose, a war against China or Russia. The United States is particularly at risk of being overwhelmed should its military be forced to fight on two or more fronts simultaneously.  –Ibid.

As far as budgeting goes, Mehta relates that the planning in Congress for the immediate future may be insufficient and lacking in depth of vision.

[T]he FY20 budget is expected to reflect the push by the strategy to focus more on potential conflict with China and Russia while drawing back from the Middle East.

. . .

“We believe that the NDS points the Department of Defense and the country in the right direction, but it does not adequately explain how we should get there,” the authors conclude.

It takes no clairvoyance, and barely any common sense, for anyone to see that the U.S. national security structure seeks nothing short of world domination, and does not consider any  goal of our society to be commensurate in priority and resource allocation.

Furthermore, it makes no sense to commit twice the resources as the rest of the world combined for decades, only to foresee peril and paucity of funding as a result.  Hasn’t it occurred to our congressional and military leaders that no other country will be able to afford the kind of escalation we are pursuing, let alone the overly burdensome proposal made in the NSD?

This “National Defense Strategy” will not make our nation, nor the rest of the world safer in that it merely calls for escalating the already excessive spending, containment and global domination strategy that has brought us to this “crisis of national security” in the first place!

Perhaps there is a better way to overcome our fear of insecurity than by simply paying more money to those who profit from war and defense operations.  If we base our planning on fear, then we are likely to pave the way into our worst-case scenario.  Just as our attempt to contain the spread of communism in southeast Asia in the 1960s resulted in our admission of failure to do so, and our complete withdrawal from the attempt, so our attempts to liberate the Afghani and Iraqi people have resulted in the devastation of their civil societies and the tyranny that comes from a complete breakdown of law and order.

If we seek to turn Russia, China, and Africa into profit centers for our national security industry, we are likely to impoverish them in the process, through a new arms race and the devastation of armed conflict.

It is also more than likely that continuing to prioritize world domination for profit in our government policies will result in the destruction of our own economy and the loss of the  liberty and freedom of lifestyle that we pretend to be trying to protect here at home.