“We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions,” President Eisenhower said in his farewell address. (See last week’s post.) At the time, “vast proportions,” meant:
“three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment,” and
“we annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.”
That was nearly 60 years ago. What are the numbers today?
As for people who work in the “defense establishment,” this 2009 chart counted roughly three million people in the armed forces and defense department — a number confirmed by this 2012 report, which counted another three and a half million people employed by corporate defense contractors. But neither of those sources captures all defense-related jobs. This oft-cited report from Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs indicates that each “$1 billion in military spending creates approximately 11,200 jobs.” Based on current military budget numbers (see below), that would be around 8 million — 11 million people in defense jobs in addition to the 3 million people currently employed by the Defense Dept.
Employment numbers are clearly up.[1] What about comparing military spending to corporate income?
In 2015, U.S. military spending was $586 billion. In 2019, it will be $716 billion (up 22%) or $989 billion (up 69%), depending how you count it. Also in 2015, worldwide military spending was $1.6 trillion. The U.S. accounted for 37% of that amount — about as much as the next seven largest national military budgets combined, over twice the #2 country (China) and ten times the #6 country (Russia).[2] World military spending rose to $1.8 trillion in 2018. Again depending on how you count the USA’s 2019 budget numbers, they will represent 40- 55% of that total.
In 1961, total corporate net income reported to the IRS was approximately $75 Million, Today U.S. corporate profits are roughly $2.0 trillion, Comparing the two is like comparing the solar system to the Milky Way.
Vast proportions” indeed. Apparently President Eisenhower’s warnings went unheeded:
“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
“We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
What does the U.S. do with all that firepower? Sixty years of history since Eisenhower’s speech indicate that every now and then you conjure up the need to use it, and when you do, vigilance either in “the councils of government” or by “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” is the first to go:
“Before conflicts begin, the first people silenced — often with violence — are not the nationalist leaders of the opposing ethnic or religious group, who are useful in that they serve to dump gasoline on the evolving conflict. Those voices within the ethnic group or the nation that question the state’s lust and need for war are targeted. These dissidents are the most dangerous. They give us an alternative language, one that refused to define the other as “barbarian” or “evil,” one that recognizes the humanity of the enemy, one that does not condone violence as a form of communication. Such voices are rarely heeded.
“In wartime the state seeks to destroy its own culture. It is only when this destruction has been completed that the state can begin to exterminate the culture of its opponents. In times of conflict authentic culture is subversive. As the cause championed by the state comes to define national identity, as the myth of war entices a nation to glory and sacrifice, those who question the value of the cause and the veracity of the myths are branded internal enemies.
“States at war silence their own authentic and human culture. When this destruction is well advanced they find the lack of critical and moral restraint useful in the campaign to exterminate the culture of their opponents. By destroying authentic culture — that which allows us to question and examine ourselves and our society — the state erodes the moral fabric. It is replaced with a warped version of reality. The enemy is dehumanized, the universe starkly divided between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. The cause is celebrated, often in overt religious forms, as a manifestation of divine or historical will. All is dedicated to promoting and glorifying the myth, the nation, the cause.”
From War is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Chris Hedges.
More coming up re: the cultural dynamics of war.
[1] Researching this article, it struck me that the budget numbers seem disproportionately large relative to the number of jobs created. Click here and here for articles that make the same observation, citing both the Watson Institute report and other sources. The Watson Institute report also indicates that the same dollars spent on education, healthcare, clean energy, and tax cuts to fuel personal consumption would create significantly more new jobs.
[2] Click here for Wikipedia’s somewhat dated ranking of military spending by country and click here for a ranking of the top 20 U.S. Department of Defense contractors in 2018.
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