Death of an Empire
Eisenhower's warning and America's great insecurity complex
Bill Bonner, reckoning today from Normandy, France...
Fish gotta swim. Birds gotta fly. And late, degenerate empires gotta get out of the way.
Here at Bonner Private Research, we focus on money. And we see that the Primary Trend seems to have reversed. What was up is now down. Left is right. The Fed was playing fast and loose for the last 3 decades; now it is sitting up straight and tightening its tie. And those who made money in lighter-than-air ‘securities’ in the 2009-2020 boom are now losing money as they come down with a thud.
The latest headline from Bloomberg:
Super-Prime Real Estate in New York and Florida Has Hit a Wall
But this market correction is only one of a catastrophic ‘cluster’ of trends that we looked at yesterday:
The continued exploitation of the middle class by the elite, which is why the correction will not be allowed to complete its work.
The decline of the American Empire, beginning about 1999 and continuing.
Abandoning the ideas that made the US so successful. Free trade, free enterprise, free speech, equal protection under the law –who believes in these principles anymore? Not the deciders.
A fanatical, unquestioning fear of global warming and a belief that the earth’s climate can be and must be controlled.
The unchallenged political power of what Eisenhower called the ‘military, industrial complex.’
Let’s start from the bottom and work our way up.
Insecurity Complex
The military is supposed to provide security, so that ordinary people can go about their lives without worrying about a foreign invasion. Subordinate to civilian control, in the US, the gold-braided general is supposed to be kept like a guard dog – on a leash, held firmly by people in civies.
But over time, the ‘military, industrial, surveillance, think tank complex’ has become just what Dwight Eisenhower warned that it would become – unstoppable…unanswerable…and unpalatable. This year’s appropriations bring US military spending to more than is spent by China, the UK, Russia, India, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, France, and South Korea – combined. With the money, the armed wing of the Deep State, the richest single enterprise in the world, has bought control of the press, the universities, the administration, and Congress itself. It pays an army of lobbyists and a phalanx of scholars to explain and persuade…to twist arms and bend public opinion – always in favor of more and more military spending.
The war industry keeps the public’s attention fixed on one conflict after another. Vietnam, Nicaragua, Kuwait, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria…and now the Ukraine…to be followed by a showdown with China.
But what was the point of any of these wars?
US Offense Industry
Communism failed because a centrally-controlled economy is inherently weak; in Vietnam, the Pentagon got 58,000 American soldiers killed for nothing. In Nicaragua, Danny Ortega, one of the original Sandinistas, still rules. In Iraq, there are more terrorists than ever before, now that there is no Saddam Hussein to keep them in check. In Afghanistan, the Taliban – a designated ‘terrorist’ group – runs the country. And is Russia really a threat to Europe? Will she invade Germany? France? Do you watch the news? Putin has his hands full just getting control of a Russian-speaking area on his southeastern flank, where the local people actually begged him to come in.
The US ‘defense’ industry has long since given up any pretense to be defending the US. Since the Second World War, all of its undertakings have been ‘wars of choice’…offensive operations in which it meddled in the affairs of sovereign foreign nations. And yes, language evolves along with the purpose to which it is put. The new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, Republican Mike Rogers, no longer speaks of proud citizen soldiers defending the Republic. Now they are more accurately “warfighters” who can “deter and, if necessary defeat, any adversary anywhere in the world.”
Why taxpayers would want to support ‘warfighters’ has never been explained. And who do they fight? Do we have adversaries in Ouagadougou? How about in Mogadishu or Reykjavik? Only if we want to have them. And the only plausible reason for wanting to have them is to justify shifting wealth from the public to the war industry.
In practice, the grift has been easy. Put some money on the table – a campaign contribution, support to a favorite think tank, a contract, a sinecure – and deciders are easily convinced. As for the public, it needs no convincing; it hardly has time to think through the particulars. Instead, as soon as the game begins, it puts on the home-team jersey.
Long Range Imbeciles
It’s the theory that poses a problem – at least to those few who bother to think about it. America is, after all, protected by two vast oceans. It is almost impossible for an adversary to get anywhere close to Long Beach, CA or Ocean City, MD. And even the fastest long-range missiles take time to reach their destinations, during which they are vulnerable to ‘interdiction.’ In the context of an $860 billion budget, defensive missiles cost a pittance.
It’s the short-range missiles that pose a more immediate threat. That’s why President Kennedy insisted that the Soviets remove their missiles from Cuba. And that is why Mr. Putin is so keen to keep NATO away from the Donbass. Alas, in disregarding the Kremlin’s desire for the same security that it finds indispensable for itself, the US commits an error typical of late stage empires…a failure of reciprocity. It has gotten too big for its britches.
But there are limits to everything. Great armies rise. And then – under the weight of their own booty, bureaucracy and brass – they fall. Already, the Pentagon’s target-rich environment is in the US House of Representatives, not in enemy territory. In the nation’s capitol, it can toss a grenade at random and take out nothing but its own supporters. Real enemies might not be so easy.
Meanwhile, the more time and stuff the ‘military, industrial complex’ squanders, the less is left over to fuel economic growth.
Productivity is falling in the US at the fastest rate in four decades. Growth rates have fallen since the 1950s, and now are nearly negative. Savings are the precious “secret sauce” of a real economy. But the savings rate is at a 17-year low. And instead of using money carefully and wisely, billions of dollars go to the shysters of Kiev, in the Ukraine, as well as those in McLean, in the Virginia.
Fearing the death of its empire, America commits suicide.
Regards,
Bill Bonner
Joel’s Note: When this year’s spending bill was flown to President Biden – who was vacationing in St. Croix in the US Virgin Islands at the time – the man with the magic pen tweeted:
“It’ll invest in medical research, safety, veteran health care, disaster recovery, (Violence Against Women Act) funding – and gets crucial assistance to Ukraine.”
The signing represented a “year of historic progress,” the president crowed, adding that he was “Looking forward to more in 2023.” (Whether more spending or more Virgin Islands vacations was not stipulated.)
Jam-packed with goodies, the 4,000+ page bill – almost certainly unread by a single member of the human species – promised all kinds of fuzzy, feel-good giveaways, like childcare development programs and housing assistance for low income families. No doubt there’s a few pennies in there for the study of mythological insects and scholarships for one-legged trans soccer players, too. Something for everythey.
In fact, there’s so much conspicuous non-violence in the bill’s non-defense spending, one might be tempted to forget about the larger, decidedly meatier slice of the pie… that is, the part that’s full of B-2 stealth bombers, Predator drones, Hellfire missiles, nuclear submarines and 11 aircraft carriers, boasting around 80 fighter jets each, the combined deck space of which is more than twice that of the rest of the world’s carriers… combined. Then there’s the 1.4 million active military personnel, with their fidgety fingers on the trigger, who keep the whole operation running...
All in, so-called “defense” spending now eats up a much larger portion of the federal government’s spending than does non-defense discretionary (NDD) spending… by almost $100 billion. That’s more than the total spent on health care and health research, transportation and economic development and education and training programs… all the things that government officials like to tout when they’re selling their massive spending bills to ordinary working citizens, whose generous hearts are reliably won over by such well-meaning, community sounding allocations.
At $858 billion for fiscal year 2023, not only is America’s defense spending larger than those of the aforementioned nations in Bill’s column, combined, it’s also roughly equal to the entire GDP of Saudi Arabia, the world’s second largest oil producer (11 MMB/D).
Were that money deployed at home, $858 billion would be enough to hire 11 million full-time registered nurses… or 15.6 million kindergarten teachers… or 17.1 million firefighters...
It’s enough to fund 28.6 million in-state physics degrees… or to fully graduate 4.2 million engineers from MIT… or to hire every single Diversity, Equity and Inclusion consultant in the entire country… and pay them double time to never come to work again.
Alternatively, the US could pay a fortune to shoot itself in the foot, the ultimate price for ignoring Eisenhower's dire warning. Bang, bang.
This spot on. We're killing ourselves
As a once upon a time lobbyist for a major defense contractor, I can assure you that the military-industrial complex does not agitate for war.
It does, however, zealously seek funds for cutting edge weapons and for readiness training to protect and defend America
The two major recent wars which have employed these instruments of destruction were ones our elected representatives voluntarily chose to wage.
LBJ staged an attack by a North Vietnam gunboat to justify the needless Vietnam War (in which I served; and after which no dominoes fell). He needed to show voters that he was tougher than Barry Goldwater
George Bush actually invaded not one but two dirt pile countries, neither a remote threat to us. He and his vice president wanted to believe Iraq had nuclear weapons and Afghanistan had Osama bin Laden
When Bush invaded Iraq, he made a strategic blunder by unleashing Iran. He did this by "neutralizing" Saddam Hussein (whom the Iranians feared and who most Americans believe to this day was somehow responsible for 9/11 when, in fact, it was a batch of Muslim extremists from Saudi Arabia who performed that atrocity)
The hundreds of thousands of deaths, massive destruction and enormous sums of wasted wealth these two presidents wrought require both to be placed on Dante's 7th Ring of Hell for eternity.