Feeding US war machine risky game

WASHINGTON－Amid the Ukraine crisis and surging inflation, the White House unveiled on Monday a budget plan for the 2023 fiscal year that calls for a boost in military spending.

Though it is a mere wish as lawmakers make the final decisions on US budgets, this attempt by the US administration continues a dangerous trend in the United States' relentless drive to boost its military capabilities and presence around the globe. Such actions are likely to add more risks and uncertainties to the world's geopolitical tensions.

The comprehensive budget plan totaling $5.8 trillion includes $813.3 billion for "national defense", of which $773 billion is allocated for the US Department of Defense. The figure is an increase of $30.7 billion, or 4.1 percent, for the Pentagon from what has been enacted for the previous fiscal year.

The budget announced by US President Joe Biden also includes $6.9 billion for NATO, and aid to Ukraine, among other things.

A senior defense official who briefed reporters said that the proposal wasn't intended to increase the size of the US military, but to help modernize it to compete with Russia and China, according to The New York Times.

"The hawks in Washington want to jack up the military budget and use Ukraine as an excuse" and the proposed military spending was more than what was spent "at the height of the Korean or Vietnam Wars" as well as that of the Cold War, commented William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, a think tank in Washington, DC.

As the world's largest military spender, the US accounted for 39 percent of global military expenditure in 2020, according to data published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in 2021. It also spent more on defense than the next 11 countries combined in 2020, up from outspending the next 10 countries combined in 2019.

While the United States has spent recklessly fighting wars and managing the armed forces, "we can't even keep our infrastructure in the US intact… We do not have a government of, by, for the people," said Daniel Kovalik, an adjunct professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh.

A large amount of US military funding has been poured into its operations overseas.

According to the Congressional Research Service, a public policy research institute of the US Congress, and other sources, the US military has waged war, engaged in combat, or otherwise invaded foreign territories in all but 11 years of its existence. Depending on one's definition, the years at peace may be even fewer.

Nation's obsession

The US' obsession with warfare and high military spending has been largely driven by the nation's military-industrial complex, a powerful union of the military, private defense contractors, and politicians. Certain think tanks and journalists have often collaborated with them to spread and shape pro-war narratives.

Hartung added that the proposed budget boost by the White House "is only going to benefit weapons contractors and members of Congress who receive campaign contributions from them, who use the arguments to get themselves elected".

For the past several decades, the US has also been beefing up its global military presence to sustain its hegemony.

Nicolas Davies, author of Blood on Our Hands: the American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq, wrote on antiwar.com that a "top priority must be to dismantle the nuclear Doomsday machine we have inadvertently collaborated to build and maintain for 70 years, along with the obsolete and dangerous NATO military alliance".

Xinhua - China Daily