Author: Chris Hedges
Affiliation: American journalist, Presbyterian minister, author, and commentator.
Organization/Publisher: The Chris Hedges Report
Date/Place: May 22, 2022
Type of Literature: Analysis
Word Count: 2600
Link: https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/no-way-out-but-war?utm_source=twitter&sd=nfs&s=r
Keywords: Military Industrial Complex, American Foreign Policy, Militarism, Empire
Brief:
The author, a Pulitzer Prize winning political journalist, argues that the United States has had a permanent war economy which is bankrupting the nation. Since WWII, the military industrial complex has squandered trillions of dollars on failed wars, raising the national debt to 30 trillion dollars. Servicing this debt costs taxpayers 300 billion per year as it now exceeds the total US GDP. The desperate geopolitical use of the US dollar for the interests of perpetuating the war economy has pushed large economies around the world such as Russia, China and India to consider leaving the SWIFT system and look to other ways to conduct international trade. Once the US dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency there will be an internal collapse of the US empire. Most recently the United States has authorized 40 billion dollars in military aid to Ukraine, while at home 41.8 billion dollars’ worth of infrastructure repair is required on aging roads and bridges. In the midst of a pandemic, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) has a budget of 10 billion. With looming climate disaster, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has an 11 billion dollar budget. But Ukraine gets more than both of those agencies combined, because war is all that matters. While mothers are unable to get baby formula due to rising inflation and supply chain disruption, Ukraine is being pumped 4 to 5 billion dollars per month. The forces within the United States that used to curb war mongering such as old-guard liberals, an independent press and a local anti-war movement, have all but disappeared. On the question of war, both liberals and neoconservatives are unified and unchecked. Accordingly, the political class in the United States is driving the country into its own demise. Elites are out of touch with reality as they believe a military solution will control Russia and China. As the elitist architects of American imperialism have alienated the have-nots in America, a growing populism moves to dethrone elites who push the burden of the war on everyday Americans.
By: Üveys Han, CIGA Senior Research Associate
