Make no mistake: The military-industrial complex needs to create bogeymen to perpetuate itself. For the US, the Soviet bloc admirably filled in this part for nearly half a century. However, its demise led to a lull in defense spending as Bill Clinton received a "peace dividend" on the Cold War's demise. In time, however, two new evils have emerged on the military-industrial complex front. First, 9/11 brought terror into the American psyche in a spectacular fashion. Of course, politicians have been keen to capitalize on keeping their citizenry safe from terror, with arms contractors supposedly providing the hardware for protection. This point is vividly illustrated in the documentary "The Power of Nightmares," which I referred to sometime ago.Now, however, there is yet another unspeakable menace threatening freedom, justice, and the American way of life: big, bad, Red China. Recently, the US Department of Commerce slapped a whole new slew of restrictions on technology exports to China that are "dual use": civilian and military. Instead of loosening these controls as demanded by the Chinese, the US has done the opposite. Lest we forget, the US is obligated to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion attempt. Although some parties gripe about being unable to export high-tech products to China, the US defense industry is exceedingly happy to play along. From the Financial Times is this article on how Boeing warns that lowering the US defense budget would mean al-Qaeda operatives hiding in closets in suburbia and the rise of Chinese hegemony, or something to that effect:
US defence spending needs to be kept at record levels to cope with the threat of global terrorism and the emergence of China as a military rival, the head of Boeing’s defence business has warned.
Speaking ahead of this week’s Paris Air Show, Jim Albaugh forecast a slowdown in the Pentagon budget but warned that a decline would leave the country relying on old and worn out weapons after recent conflicts.
“The question is what happens when we come out of Iraq and Afghanistan and the supplementals [additional payments used to fund the wars] start to dry up,” he said.
“Right now it’s a lot different to after the end of the cold war. Then the threat really went away and the equipment for the most part was new” [We need to replace worn out military hardware, natch...]
However, the Boeing defence chief said he could afford to be “pretty objective” [good one!] because his company was protected by its booming passenger jet business, unlike defence industry rivals.
Several high-profile Boeing projects face substantial cuts during the current round of budget negotiations in the Senate and Congress.
These include the $200bn Future Combat Systems programme to modernise the US army’s battlefield equipment, the controversial US missile defence system and an airborne laser weapon.
“It’s going to be a pretty sporty year for everybody,” Mr Albaugh said, commenting on the intense lobbying campaign that will carry on until after the summer. Boeing stands to lose $400m next year if Democrats block the creation of a third missile defence site in Europe [go Dems?], though Mr Albaugh said budget cuts and gains tended to even out.
