On March 6, the U.S. Foreign Policy Focus Research Program published an article entitled "War Is Not Good for You and the Economy" on February 27, written by William Hartung, a senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Statecraft. The full text is compiled below
Biden wants you to believe that spending your money on ** is good for the economy. This false narrative, repeated by political leaders of both parties, could lead to a more militarized economy that threatens our peace and prosperity for decades to come. Any short-term gains from increased spending on armaments will be offset by the long-term damage caused by the crowding out of new industries and innovations, while also draining the funds needed to address other pressing national priorities.
Last October, Biden began earnestly selling the alleged benefits of military spending. **Rare speech in the Oval Office, pushing for a $106 billion emergency grant, including tens of billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, Israel. Republicans in Congress have been blocking the approval, and the White House is looking for new reasons to win their support. ** and his advisers gave an answer that should have been what Trump would have said: jobs, jobs, jobs.
Yes, it is important to provide Ukraine with the necessary equipment and ammunition to help it fight Russia, but it should be done based on facts, not on exaggerating the economic impact of doing so. Otherwise, the military-industrial complex will make another endless claim for our scarce national resources.
High military spending hurts people's livelihood.
In the official U.S. narrative, the relationship between military spending and the economy is this: Full-steam (military) production during World War II lifted the U.S. out of the Great Depression, spurred the development of important civilian technologies (from computers to the Internet), and created a steady stream of good-paying manufacturing jobs that were an integral part of the backbone of the U.S. industrial economy.
But they all ignore a key fact: Continued high spending in the military sector means that the United States will need significantly less investment in other key areas, including housing, education, public health, and environmental protection. Military spending did help the U.S. recover from the Great Depression, but not because it was military, but because it was an expense. Spending the equivalent of World War II on anything can revive the economy. In those days, such military expenditures were certainly necessary, but today such expenditures are more a matter of (bloc) politics and priorities than economic ones.
The Pentagon's spending has soared year after year, the defense budget continues to move closer to the trillion-dollar goal, and the future prospects of tens of millions of Americans have plummeted. The United States has about 1400 million people are in poor or low-income groups, including one in six children. Tens of millions of people suffer from hunger every year. In 2019, there were an estimated 1830,000 Americans die from poverty, more than the number of people who die from **, gun violence, diabetes or obesity. More Americans are sleeping on the streets or in shelters, and the number of homeless people reached a record 650,000 in 2022.
The most shocking thing is that the life expectancy of Americans today is one of the lowest of any industrialized country, and the United States now spends about 40% of the world's military spending – yes, the whole world!
Military attrition is costly.
How can Washington be made to spend as much on non-military needs as it does for the Pentagon's spending needs?
To make this happen, we need leadership and a new, more forward-thinking Congress. It's a difficult long-term goal to achieve, but it's well worth pursuing. If Washington were to change its budget priorities, the resulting spending could create 9 percent more jobs in wind and solar production, for example, and about three times as many jobs in education.
The spin-off benefits of military research have been touted, but investing directly in civilian industries, rather than relying on the spillovers of Pentagon spending, will produce more useful technologies at a much faster pace. In fact, over the past few decades, the civilian sector of the economy has been much more flexible and innovative than Pentagon-funded programs. On the contrary, the Pentagon is desperately trying to attract high-tech companies and talent to its use, which could weaken the ability of the United States to create useful products. Businesses and employees who might have been involved in vaccine development, upgrading environmental technologies, or finding new green energy sources are recruited by the Pentagon and forced to work making a new generation of deadly**.
The Pentagon's budget for fiscal year 2024 stands at $886 billion, the highest since World War II. That's a lot more than the highest annual budget during the Vietnam War or the Cold War. Despite this, the actual number of jobs in the manufacturing sector has fallen sharply from around 3 million in the mid-80s of the 20th century to about 1.1 million now. With increased automation and the growth of outsourced services, the development of new** systems incorporating artificial intelligence will rely more on software than hardware, which will accelerate the process of job reduction in the military industry.
If current trends continue, the military economy will only continue to grow at the cost of many other things we need as a society, exacerbating inequality, stifling innovation, and normalizing endless war policies. We cannot allow the illusion of military-driven prosperity to blind us to the needs of tens of millions of people or hinder our ability to plan to build the world for future generations. The next time you hear politicians, Pentagon**, or people in the military-industrial complex tell you about the economic miracle of a huge military budget, don't believe that lie. (Compiled by Guo Jun).