The United States might be drowning in debt but it’s spending enough on its military-security complex to fix the crisis and save us all from economic Armageddon. There are priorities, after all.
But here America is exceptional only in scale. It’s true it will over the next decade spend a cool $700-billion modernizing and upgrading nuclear warheads and delivery systems, maybe as much as all other countries combined. But in fact the entire family of nuclear powers is on the move toward this same warm and fuzzy goal, according to a new report for the British American Security Information Council. Of course we could heat the entire world with the hot air moaning about both budget crunches and the urgent need for disarmament or else (a Barack Obama rhetorical specialty). Alas for us, “or else” wins again. The report shows that we are in for a terrifying “new era of nuclear weapons”.
Besides the United States, we have Russia, China, India, Israel, France, Pakistan and North Korea all intending to spend a king’s ransom on missile systems. How dangerous is this? In some cases, the purpose is explicitly belligerent. Russia and Pakistan, for example, assign to their nuclear weapons “war-fighting roles in military planning” while Israel “seems to be on course … for future development of an inter-continental ballistic missile.” Strange, given the loud attention to Iran’s obvious nuclear ambitions, that this report has barely been noted.
Have no fear that non-nuclear nations have been asleep at the switch. According to the annual study by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, governments across the Middle East and North Africa spent billions last year to stock up on weapons. Whatever results from the Arab Spring, the world’s arms manufacturers and their lobbyists continue to laugh all the way to the banks we’ve bailed out. Besides a tidy $60-billion sales package for Saudi Arabia of fighter jets and helicopters, for example, the United States is selling them another potential $30-billion package to upgrade the Saudi naval forces. (For perspective, Canada's entire killer deficit for the next year will be $32-billion.)
Just to be even-handed, the poverty-stricken, program-slashing U.S. government gives Israel as a gift between $2-billion and $3-billion a year in military aid, making it the largest such recipient, with Egypt, the second largest, getting as their gift only slightly less. Guns or butter, butter or guns.
I wonder if a single earnest speech commemorating Remembrance Day will mention these annoying little factoids.
Canada too spends unprecedented amount of scarce dollars on our military and security establishments though no one has a clue whether it’s money well spent. There are two main reasons for this surge in expenditures. The first is 9/11. The second is Stephen Harper.
Now it should not be necessary for me to make the following declaration, but I somehow think I’d better: Yes, there are deadly fanatics in the world whose twisted minds contrive some excuse or other to justify killing innocent people. Sept. 11, 2001 did happen and it was inevitable that the world would react. Terrorists must be prevented from carrying out their heinous acts, as security agencies throughout most of the world are being generously funded to do.
And yes, Canada needs the military capacity to make a significant contribution to dangerous UN peacemaking missions. And yes, these functions require appropriate funding, more than makes most progressives comfortable. They need to be more realistic. But must we be spending the huge sums that we do, when public funds are ostensibly so scarce and social needs are so great? That’s the question that needs far more debate.
