Monday, March 25, 2019

TRNN - China the Target of Pentagon’s Massive Military Budget – Horne and Jay

The new Pentagon budget is going to be $760 Billion which they are calling, The Budget for a Better America, and the idea is to keep up with China which is not increasing its annual military budget of $177 Billion in any way at all. So, to keep up with the 'threat of China', the Pentagon budget needs to be six times more than China's even though it is not threatening anyone. China has turned some islands off it's coast into fortresses, but the U.S. says this is a very aggressive threat indeed.

Remember that Adam Ramsay article I put out here, about how the British ruling class were divided into two groups: the industrialists who want to keep its easy access into Europe, and another group, which sees that the big money is to be made in the American military-industrial and financial complex, and so they want to be free of Europe's strict regulations.  The military - industrial and financial complex is a criminal outfit of money laundering, mercenaries companies, drug and gun running, secretive off-shore tax havens, and financial irregularities.


PAUL JAY: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay.
The military budget that’s been presented by the Trump administration and the Pentagon, which raises military spending to a pretty much unheard of over 760 billion dollars–and that’s actually, in reality, much more than that because there are certain parts of the defense structure that don’t show up within the Pentagon budget. Many people estimate that even before this rise in military budget, the real military spending was over a trillion dollars. But in any case, this is a significant rise. Patrick Shanahan, who’s the acting Secretary of Defense, has been quoted as telling his staff that when you’re defending the military budget and the logic behind this budget, you only need three words, “China, China, and China.”
This massive military budget is being justified, and in the thinking of the Pentagon is because there’s going to be an inevitable collision between the United States and China. And the answer of the United States is overwhelming military force in order to maintain global hegemony. They may not use the word hegemony, but they use language pretty close to that. In the most recent copy of the magazine Foreign Affairs, the title is “Who Will Run the World? America, China, and Global Order.” And they have various people writing about this.
This isn’t new, the idea that the ultimate geopolitical game is between the U.S. and China. And as I say, the answer of the Empire, American Empire, is to make it such that even in Asia, where China, one would think, would have a certain amount of sway, the United States will not give up its position of what they consider dominance in the region.
Now joining us to talk about this is Gerald Horne. Gerald teaches History at the University of Houston. He’s the author of many books, including Storming the Heavens and The Apocalypse of Settler Colonialism. Thanks for joining us again, Gerald.
https://therealnews.com/stories/china-the-target-of-pentagons-massive-military-budget-horne-and-jay



Why the Pentagon Needs Enemies

                                        

4 comments:

Noah Way said...

But but but ... the deficit! We can't afford it!

Konrad said...

We can't afford it!

The only things the US government "can't afford" are programs that help average Americans. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez keeps noting this, over and over, which is one reason why she's so widely hated by elitists.

As for the ever-increasing Pentagon budget, this is not about producing more weapons, or deadlier weapons, or more troops.

It’s about grabbing more and more federal dollars by everyone connected with the Military Industrial Complex.

Development of the F-35 fighter began twenty-seven years ago and it is still a piece of junk that does not function properly.

The F-35 illustrates the whole point, which is to stretch out development programs for decades so that federal dollars roll in for decades.

In any nation (and especially the USA) a military’s budget does not necessarily have anything to do with a military’s effectiveness.

Kaivey said...

Greg Palast wrote about how the private sector always goes over budget.

If they build a nuclear power station, they will drag it on fur years. The government, desperate not to waste money, keep coughing up, until they finally do have to give up because the public are asking questions, and it is only then - when the private companies know they can't screw the government for more money - do they finally complete the project. But they also would have made as many economies as they could jeopardizing the safety of the plant.


So much for private is better than public.

Noah Way said...

The last president to resist the MIC was JFK

Strike 1: didn’t support Bay of Bigs invasion with bombers

Strike 2: didn’t invade Cuba during the Missile Crisis (thereby preventing WWIII)

Strike 3: ordered the withdrawal of US “advisors” from Vietnam

You’re out!