Spiritual Death by Militarism

In his farewell address to the nation in 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower (R) warned of the impending threat of the “Military-Industrial Complex.” The term refers to the problematic relationship between the military and the defense industry that manufactures weapons and military equipment. Having witnessed the growth of the defense industry in the aftermath of World War II, Eisenhower was keenly aware of the growing influence of the defense industry over public policy. When elected officials make foreign policy decisions that result in international conflict, war, or the sale of weapons abroad, the defense industry profits from decisions that increase the likelihood of warfare, destabilize regions of the world, kill millions of innocent civilians, and provide motive for terrorists.

Eisenhower had no way of knowing that the contemporary system of campaign finance would strengthen and solidify the military-industrial complex beyond anything he could have imagined. The 2019 military budget is $716 billion. This is a 13% increase ($85 billion) from 2015. This budget funds 800 military bases in at least 172 countries. The United States spends more on military than any other nation and more than the next seven nations combined. The military budget accounts for half of governmental discretionary spending.

Now that the military-industrial complex has been fully institutionalized, we’ve built an economic system that is dependent on the maintenance of this complex. The military-industrial complex is the consequence of a marriage between militarism and capitalism. The Pentagon periodically indicates that there are certain weapons and military equipment that they do not want and do not need, but congress continues to place those weapons and equipment in the budget. The defense industry has strategically placed manufacturing in many states, with parts being manufactured in many other states. This strategy has placed congressional representatives in the situation of facing job loss in their district or state if they vote to remove certain weapons and equipment from the budget. We’re literally manufacturing weapons and military equipment that the Pentagon says it doesn’t want or need because if we stop manufacturing them people will lose their jobs.

Against the backdrop of tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy and budget cuts to social programs, the bloated military budget is eating the rest of the budget while justifying itself under the mantra of “supporting our troops.” The truth is that much of the military budget ends up with defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman. We could cut the military budget by several hundred billion, reallocate remaining funds to properly support the people who serve in our military, and still maintain military dominance. We’d also free up several hundred billion to spend on infrastructure, education, healthcare, and other social programs.

On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his speech, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence.” In this speech, King referred to the United States as the “greatest purveyor of violence in the world.” With the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, King was beginning to understand the ways that racism intersects with poverty, capitalism, and militarism. King’s “Poor People’s Campaign” was coming into focus; a multi-racial coalition of poor and middle-class people who would challenge the interconnections between corporate capitalism, white supremacy, and militarism that exploited workers, pitted white people against minorities, and diverted the nation’s resources towards imperialist and exploitive foreign policy. Exactly one year after King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech, he was assassinated.

Contemporary criticism of the military and the military-industrial complex is virtually absent. The culture has been completely militarized. Our failure to make a distinction between the people who serve in our military and the institutional structure and history of our military makes it impossible to have a serious discussion about militarism without being accused of not supporting the troops. The overproduction of weapons has militarized our police and our schools, cultivated civil wars throughout the world, and created massive profits for arms manufacturers.

“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”   –Martin Luther King Jr.