Behind the Pentagon budget debate
New division of spoils, same old imperialism
By John
Catalinotto
A series of recent news items bears directly on the
current congressional wrangling over the record-breaking U.S.
military budget and how military funds will be spent now and
in the future.
On July 14 the Pentagon announced that an anti-missile
weapon had succeeded in shooting down a mock missile over the
Pacific.
A day earlier, the New York Times reported that the
Pentagon and the Bush administration had made a "compromise"
proposal that involved dropping the eight-year-old "two-war"
strategy for a new set of military goals.
The "compromise" followed tense arguments within the
administration and the Joint Chiefs of Staff that other media
had reported earlier.
This "compromise" is only the beginning of a struggle over
the military budget. It has been only partially reported. It
is disguised as a debate over strategy for "defending the
U.S." But it is really a debate, influenced by narrower
interests of caste, privilege and gigantic profits, over how
to preserve and expand U.S. imperialism's domination of the
globe.
Right now only the ruling class and its politicians and
generals are participating in this debate. But it is of vital
interest to workers, unemployed, to all who are exploited and
oppressed by the capitalist system here, and to all the
working-class youth who join the military services because
it's the only government job program available.
A July 11 Washington Post article made this clear. It
reported that "the chairman of the Senate Armed Services
Committee said yesterday he doubts there is enough money to
pay for the Bush administration's proposed $328.9 billion
defense budget for fiscal 2002 without running a deficit,
dipping into the Social Security trust fund or cutting
important domestic programs.
"'None of those are acceptable alternatives,' Sen. Carl
Levin told top officials from the Army, Air Force, Navy and
Marines, describing a looming budget battle that came sharply
into focus during a hearing on Capitol Hill."
Role of the Pentagon
To understand what's behind the part of this struggle that
reaches the public, it is first necessary to cut through all
the lies and propaganda about the role of the Pentagon. It is
completely false that the Pentagon defends the interest of
all the people of the United States and that the funds
allocated to the Pentagon help everyone here.
The truth is that the Pentagon's role is to protect and
expand the interests of the giant capitalist monopolies that
dominate the world's economy. This includes not only
industries but giant banks and other financial institutions
behind these monopolies, mainly those based within the United
States.
This means the Pentagon targets those countries that have
overthrown capitalist property relations, like Cuba, China
and North Korea, and uses force to prevent any new socialist
revolution, as in Colombia. It went to war in Vietnam for the
same reason, until the U.S. military was defeated in 1975 by
a people's war.
The Pentagon also threatens any people trying to resist
complete domination by the capitalist world system. It
targets even states like Iraq and Iran that try to keep some
control over their own natural resources.
For the goals described above, Washington can usually
count on support from its "allies" in Western Europe and
Japan. The rulers of these countries exploit the rest of the
world in the same way those in the U.S. do. This can be seen
in how the U.S. and its NATO allies are together occupying
the Bal kans after the war against Yugoslavia, and how they
have parceled out the resources of occupied Kosovo.
On the other hand, U.S.-based monopolies, such as Boeing
and General Motors, compete with other monopolies, like
Airbus based in Europe and Toyota in Japan. Washington uses
its military domination to control strategic materials like
petroleum and win trade advantages for U.S.-based
monopolies.
Robbing social services to feed the Pentagon is a direct
loss for U.S. workers. The only ones to gain from Pentagon
threats and aggression are those who own the banks,
industries and the military-industrial complex itself.
A strategy for empire
The argument over the new military strategy comes right in
the middle of the struggle over the Pentagon budget. Both the
administration and the various military services want to
increase the budget, although there are differences over how
the money should be spent. The Times reported their
"compromise" as expressed in a 29-page document known as the
"terms of reference."
Previously the Pentagon strategy was supposed to prepare
to fight "two nearly-simultaneous major theater wars," in the
Middle East against Iraq or Iran and in northeast Asia
against People's Korea.
Currently, according to the Times article on the "terms of
reference," the new strategy can be summed up in four
paragraphs. The first part is to "win decisively" in one
major conflict, a second is to conduct "small-scale
contingencies of limited duration in other areas of the
world." In addition, Washington aims to make it a credible
threat that the Pentagon can intervene "in Europe, the Middle
East, southwest Asia, northeast Asia and along the East Asian
rim."
While this sounds like a significant shift, it is really a
description of how the Pentagon has been deployed over the
past 10 years. It is the use of the military to expand and
defend an empire.
The U.S. has military bases now in over 100 countries,
including most of those bordering the Persian/Arabian Gulf,
throughout Europe including Eastern Europe and the Balkans,
in Korea and Japan. It has "advisers" and mercenaries
throughout Central America, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru in the
guise of anti-drug warriors.
So far, many of these interventions, while on a relatively
"small scale," have been longer than a "limited duration."
The occupation has lasted six years in Bosnia. U.S. troops
have been in Saudi Arabia since 1990.
The Pentagon has also fought two "major" wars, against
Iraq in 1991 and Yugoslavia in 1999, slaughtering the local
population with its overwhelming weaponry. Terrorism at a
distance. In both cases, U.S. and allied forces inflicted
terrible damage while suffering few if any casualties.
One Pentagon officer, explaining the phrase "win
decisively," put it bluntly: "We don't like a fair fight. We
want to win, absolutely and on our terms."
This is not just the arrogance and hard-nosed attitude of
a U.S. military officer. It also expresses the hidden fear
the U.S. military brass has of any extended warfare that
causes U.S. casualties. Reports of lost U.S. lives wake up
the people at home and make them question the web of lies
used to win support for the war.
During the Vietnam War it led to mass protest both at home
and within the U.S. military rank-and-file that contributed
to the victory of the Vietnamese over the U.S. It is a
general's nightmare.
Missile shield and intervention
at home
The fourth part of the strategy is to "defend U.S.
territory," which hasn't come under attack on the continent
since the British sacked Washington in the War of 1812.
The administration and Pentagon use this phrase because it
is more popular than "expanding the Empire," which they
really mean. They want to win massive funding for the Bush
administration's pet project, the missile defense shield.
Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld and others in the current Bush administration have a
record during the Reagan-Bush administrations of forcing the
Soviet Union into an expensive arms race that helped lead to
the USSR's collapse. The missile defense shield, whether it
is ultimately effective or not, likewise forces China to
expand its military and spend down its scarce resources on
its own defense.
The Bush administration also has close links to the
aerospace industries that stand to profit in the tens of
billions of dollars from building the missile defense shield,
whether it works or not.
Since the bloated military budget is still finite,
spending funds on the missile shield means taking them from
ships and armored carriers that warm the hearts--and create
posts--for admirals and generals. And these officers also
have close relations with the industries that build the ships
and the armored personnel carriers.
So the inner conflict in Washington is not only over
geopolitical strategy, but also over who gets the profits and
perks.
A second part of the "defend the USA" scheme consists of
plans to open the door to a dangerous Pentagon interference
inside the U.S., supposedly to combat "terrorism, especially
in the case of nuclear, biological or chemical weapons."
What to do
An officer speaking with the New York Times made the
following point when discussing the terms of reference: "But
is there enough money? If not, everybody will have to
downsize their expectations."
None of the money spent on the Pentagon's weapons helps
the workers and oppressed peoples here in the U.S. A fight to
defend spending on social services and cut Pentagon spending
is both in their interest and would benefit people all over
the world.
The best thing that could happen would be to force the
generals to downsize their expectations to zero.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
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