The military industrial complex works great when there is an enemy to fight that requires the production of military equipment. examples of this enemy, in the past, were the Axis powers and the USSR during WWII and the cold war. It doesn't work so well when there is no enemy to fight.
after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in the early 90s, there was an "enemy vacuum": who would be the next enemy that the US could use to drive the military industrial complex? Russia wasn't worth fighting indirectly any more because they were too weak, and there really wasn't a competitor that was strong enough or threatening enough for the US to parade around as the enemy.
enter terrorism: it provides a target that fulfills a number of very crucial aspects:
1) non state actors: the US can go to war with terrorists without going to war against the officially recognized government. This is key to global security because conducting war within a nation's borders no longer constitutes an assault on that nation. This prevents WWI type wars that start as a series of cascading mutual protection treaties or similar.
2) difficult to define the enemy: who are terrorists? whoever the ruling party deems terrorists. everyone else is a freedom fighter. This makes it convenient to come up with a new enemy group of terrorists when the current batch has been "defeated" or the american public becomes war weary.
3)easy for the government to drum up support for new military action by creating and appealing to a sense of fear within the populace and a desire for "safety".
4) oil: the majority of terrorist groups that are in the focus of the american public's attention are primarily located within countries that have large oil interests. Other terrorist groups located in other areas, such as the philippines or south america, are largely ignored.
5) percieved threat of terrorists: it is easy to believe that terrorists are a significant threat to US citizens precisely because of their ability to strike on american soil. This greatly adds to their value as a enemy for the military industrial compelex because the general us population sees the threat as legitimate. (a converse example of this would be if the new enemy would have been, say, brazil: they're not really a threat to the US because they wouldn't really be able to directly threaten the american mainland.)
there are other reasons, i'm sure.
Politicians have adopted a "Under my watch: zero tolerance for any risk at any cost! ANY. COST." approach because no one wants to be held responsible for anything slipping through at all. It's not about saving a few hundred lives (vs tens of thousands/year in car crashes). It's about denying responsibility by spending other people's money. It's a redux of "No one ever got fired for buying I.B.M.". This way, when something bad does happen, they can point to the massive over-spending they already did and say "Don't blame me. I did far, far more than was reasonable. What more do you want from me?"
You 5 points are valid, but IMHO they are the grease that gets the rest of the machine to cooperate. I think a 5-why's approach would lead back to the politician's fear of reactionary voters.
Humans also tend to react much more strongly to the malicious actions of others than to the arbitrariness of nature (including human error, as humans are part of nature). Even compared to your ordinary murder, terrorism takes it to the next level, since it indicates that there are others who share the ideology or membership in the terrorist group who intend to cause harm to your society, and they're still out there.
In short, it's not all about "risk". It's about justice. There's little irrational about the desire to live in a just world, and the willingness to pay for it.
Notice Hillary's answer this morning to a question about her ties to the military industrial complex (Spoiler--there wasn't one):
http://www.today.com/video/hillary-clinton-on-war-diplomacy-...
Not to invalidate your comments, but is that adjusted for inflation? Because not increasing the spending to match inflation is effectively the same as decreasing the amount of [adjusted-for-inflation money] spent.
Argh. I always forget which of nominal and real dollars are adjusted for inflation.
Good point about needing to adjust for inflation. I did not consider that. I still believe that Eisenhower's warning about the military industrial complex was prescient.
the government pays the soldiers/airmen/marines/sailors a wage for their services. Those service members and their families then use that money to purchase other services. This helps bolster the overall american economy.
the government pays contractors to provide all the food/water/clothing/bullets/office equipment/communication equipment/whatever needed to conduct war. This creates jobs, which helps the american economy.
the government contracts flights from airlines to transport troops to and from warzones. this creates more jobs and helps bolster the airline industry.
the government purchased those bombs from a manufacturer using tax dollars: also could be phrased as the government creating jobs in the bomb manufacturing industry. Those people working in the bomb manufacturing industry then go and spend their wages on other things, like food, clothing, apps, computers, etc. That is useful to the nation.
another benefit: intimidating other countries. Don't go to war with america, we'll bomb the shit out of you and you will die. to use a common phrase, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." this is beneficial to the nation.
another benefit: the military gains experience in war, which will be a large benefit if the US ends up going to war against a real country. veteran armies historically have a large advantage against rookie armies.
another benefit: the threat of force (or protection against other forces) can be used to enter into treaties with other states that are not directly involved. Look at NATO: literally a treaty between nations in order to gain protection from America against the Soviets. NATO has provided a large benefit to the nation. Pax Americana is a real thing.
another benefit: technological development. DARPA is a government program that is designed to fund new technologies. Its overall goal is to keep the US military at the technological forefront, but its side effects are greatly beneficial to the populace at large: GPS (a single example among many) is a direct result of DARPA. this provides a huge benefit to the american (and the world's) people.
so yes, you are right that the purchase of that single bomb at whatever cost probably wasn't worth it. but the overall system of purchasing and using bombs and the logistics of delivering those bombs to a warzone and the entire network of individuals that are needed to invent, manufacture, deliver, load, use, and whatever else is needed, is what really benefits the american people.
Military and military industry for economic benefits. Just pay them to build highways, bridges or whatever, they will still spend the wages on food, houses and cars. And you can keep the highways and bridges.
Attacking the USA? Geographically almost impossible, no need to intimidate someone.
Veteran army, well maybe, but given all the technological and financial superiority of the US forces compared to their past war opponents the track record doesn't really reflect that as far as I can tell.
Pax Americana, I think is a thing of the past. It may be a bit to early to conclude that humanity left it aggressive youth behind but I think it is pretty unlikely that we will see something like a third world war or even larger international wars, it just isn't worth it.
And finally you can also spend the same amount of money for research without military technology advances as driving force.
> the government pays contractors to provide all the food/water/clothing/bullets/office equipment/communication equipment/whatever needed to conduct war. This creates jobs, which helps the american economy.
> the government contracts flights from airlines to transport troops to and from warzones. this creates more jobs and helps bolster the airline industry.
Couldn't we just instead cut a check to all those people who would have been involved? That would free up their time to go do something productive, and they'd still have the cash in hand to stimulate the economy or whatever. Wouldn't we be even better off? Even in the worse case, where they take the money and do nothing, it would be a wash.
Also both of you and OP mention "dessert countries" but afaik we have no real plans to bomb or invade Switzerland.
While the Soviet Union is no longer, Russia continues strong.
What usually happens is the candidate talks about reducing the military budget, only to increase it once in office. Obama would be a great example. He was opposed to the multiple wars the US was fighting, then once he got into office, he increased spending on various defense projects:
In Obama’s first year as president, his defense secretary, Robert Gates, ratcheted up spending on the F-35 as a compromise for halting production on the F-22, a larger, more expensive stealth aircraft. But the F-35 has turned out to be nearly as costly and considerably more troubled.
His budget for 2016 looks to increase the military budget:
Intriguingly, while the Pentagon’s “overview” briefing notes that it’s requesting a 4 percent increase in the total defense budget and a 21 percent reduction in the OCO accounts, it doesn’t express the base-budget increase in percentage terms, so let me do the math for you: It translates to an increase of 7.7 percent.
This is enormous.
source: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/war_stories/...
Practically all of the major political battles ongoing today in America are to clarify the proper scope and function of government. Healthcare, taxation, voting rights, abortion, religious liberty, on and on and on. It has been going on since the Revolutionary War, and will never reach consensus.
Here's another opinion - The constitution is a starting point, not a recipe book.
You can't really understand many constitutional debates without understanding this core formulation of the U.S. Constitution.
Attempts to interpret the whitelist in such a way that it effectively becomes "allow anything" is a good way of understanding the criticisms of expansive federal programs.
Similar attempts to minimize the blacklist portion is a good way of understanding the criticism of expansive police and military programs (i.e. war on drugs, war on terrorism, etc.)
My use of "without dispute" is in regard to that overall logical structure and I do believe that the structure is quite clear and does not lend itself to 'quite different interpretations'.
Of course the appropriate interpretation of particular enumerated powers is often debated as well as what the "federal government should do", but that is not what I was referring to with "without dispute".
You could perhaps argue that they shouldn't have been illegal, constitutionally. But, IIRC, they were, and so new change was required to start the war on drugs. It was just "we're going to get serious about stopping this stuff".
Frankly, I was mostly attempting to engage with mason240's rather strict legal philosophy in a way that would cause most strict constructionists some discomfort.