« THE ART OF WAR »
The US locomotive of world military spending
by Manlio Dinucci
World military expenditure – according to the estimations by SIPRI, on
29 April [1] – exceeded 1,800
billion dollars in 2018, with a real-term increase of 76 % as compared
with 1998. According to this estimation, the world spends approximately 3,5
million dollars every minute on weapons and armies.
In first place we find the United States, with an expenditure of 649
billion dollars in 2018. This figure represents the budget of the Pentagon,
including its war operations overseas, but it does not represent the entire
military spending of the United States.
We have to add other posts of a
military nature.
Ø The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (or VA), which handles retired military personnel, had a
budget of 180 billion dollars in 2018.
Ø The Intelligence Community, composed of 17 agencies
(the most widely known of which is the CIA), declares a budget of 81.5 billion
dollars, which, however, is only the tip of the iceberg of its real expenditure
for secret missions.
Ø The Department of National Security spent 70 billion
dollars in 2018, above all to
« protect our financial infrastructure and our most important leaders with
our secret services ».
Ø The Department of Energy spent 14 billion dollars,
which corresponds to half of its budget, for the maintenance and modernisation
of the US nuclear arsenal.
Taking into account these posts and a few others, United States military
spending rose, in 2018, to approximately 1,000 billion dollars. In annual
spending pro capite, that is the equivalent of 3,000 (three thousand)
dollars per citizen of the United States.
Military spending is the main cause of
the federal deficit, which has climbed to 1,000 billion, and is
increasing rapidly. Together with other factors, it is swelling the US public
debt, which has climbed in 2019 to more than 22,000 billions of dollars, with
annual interests of 390 billion which will double in 2025.The system stands on
the hegemony of the dollar, whose value is determined not by the real economic
capacity of the United States, but by the fact that it is the main money of the
currency reserves and the international costs of prime materials. This allows
the Federal Reserve to print thousands of billions of dollars with which it
finances the colossal US public debt through financial obligations and other
titles issued by the Treasury.
China, Russia and other countries are questioning the
hegemony of the dollar – and with it the economic and political order dominated
by the West. The United States are more and more frequently playing the war
card, by investing 25% of their federal budget in the most costly war machine
in the worldThe military expenditure of the United States has a driving effect
on that of other countries, which still remain at very inferior levels.
Ø China's spending is estimated by the SIPRI at 250
billion dollars in 2018, even though the official figure provided by Beijing is
175.
Ø Russia's spending is estimated at 61 billion, ten
times less than that of the USA (counting only the budget of the Pentagon).
Ø According to the same estimates, seven NATO countries
- USA, France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Canada and Turkey - count in
total for approximately half of the world's military expenditure.
Ø Italian military spending, hoisted in 2018 from the
13th to the 11th world place, is estimated by the SIPRI at 27.8 billion
dollars.
This information substantially confirms the estimation, including other
posts than the Defence budget, that Italian military spending has reached 25
billion Euros per year, and is still rising.This mean that in one year, we are
already spending (according to the forecasts) the equivalent of four years worth of 'citizen income' for
military affairs.
In the wake of the USA, a large future
increase has been decided. The largest « 'citizen income' » is
now dedicated to war.
il manifesto, 7 May 2019
Translation: Pete Kimberley
Source: Réseau Voltaire
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