WARRIOR NATION

From Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman's blog, courtesy of Eschaton:

Dealing With The Debt: A Brief Note

That’s not, in economic terms, a huge number. We could raise taxes that much and still be one of the lowest-tax nations in the advanced world. Or we could save a significant share of that total by not being totally prepared for the day when Soviet tanks sweep across the North German plain.

More here.

Krugman's post succinctly explains why both the federal deficit, and the debt upon which it builds, are, despite right-wing freaking out over the subject, very manageable over the long term, and not likely to cause the kind of maleffects about which the economic snake oil salesmen loudly warn.

But what interests me is his throwaway line about Soviet tanks. That is, why do we devote nearly half, or more, of the yearly federal budget to the military? Or better, why do we have a military that is almost larger than all other armed forces around the world put together?

It kind of made sense during the Cold War, when we were in what seemed an endless arms race against an enemy that openly claimed it wanted to spread revolution to the entire world. I say "kind of made sense" because Soviet military and economic strength was almost always wildly overestimated. That is, we never really needed to spend so much on the military; the threat never existed at the level the US power establishment believed it to be. But people were scared shitless that the Soviets were going to roll over Western Europe. And then head for the United States.

But the Soviet Union no longer exists. Indeed, that kind of threat, a major conventional military force taking over the world nation by nation, simply no longer exists. For the foreseeable future, the worst that our armed forces will face, as far as conventional warfare goes, will be skirmishes and brush wars. Bullshit stuff relative to the size of our military. Sure, there's terrorism, too, but that's not conventional warfare. Tanks and jets can't stop underwear bombs--only good police work can do that. But we're still spending nearly fifty cents of every tax dollar you pay to keep us prepared to fight WWIII against an enemy that doesn't even exist in our imaginations.

That is, we're wasting a great deal of money on high tech toys that ultimately rust from disuse.

I suppose one can make the argument that the US is the de facto policeman for global capitalism, you know, keeping the price of oil artificially low, bullying so-called "rogue states" that don't play by capitalist rules, wresting away land from "socialist" third worlders, all that fun stuff. But if that's the case, I want a better return on my tax dollars. If capitalists are able to greatly benefit privately from the public security force known as the US military, and you and I are paying for it, shouldn't we get a better cut of the benefits? And I don't think that simply living in Capitalist Utopia is worth a damn at all. I have trouble making rent, but I'm still paying for rich guys to get richer safely. That's bullshit.

Even so, we're ready to fight WWIII. That's still way more than capitalism needs to function as effectively as it does now. Like I said, brush wars and skirmishes, that's what's on tap for the Capitalist Police Force. So I ask again, why must we bankrupt ourselves on this massive hot rod called the armed forces?

We know why defense contractors want it. Same with the Pentagon. Politicians, too. But that doesn't explain why military spending is so fucking popular with rank and file Americans. Personally, I think we have a cult fetish for war and warriors. That is, we see ourselves as a warrior nation. And that's pretty sick when there aren't any more wars to fight. Actually, it's pretty sick when there are wars to fight.

I prefer to think of America as a nation of builders and problem solvers. But who gives a shit what I think?

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