The US is without doubt one of the most politically polarized international locations on the planet. As a result of efficient lawmaking requires bipartisanship, and members of Congress are, like their constituents, at their most ideologically divided level in a half-century, cooperation is in more and more brief provide. Because of this — or, extra exactly, nonresult — the U.S. Congress passes fewer payments yearly.
There’s, nonetheless, one constant space of settlement on Capitol Hill: protection spending. Annually for the previous six many years, the large Nationwide Protection Authorization Act — Washington-speak for the federal protection spending invoice — has handed with overwhelming bipartisan assist. Protection appropriations are so sacrosanct that the press typically describes the NDAA as “must-pass”; it’s routine for Congress so as to add in a whole bunch of thousands and thousands of {dollars} of extraneous spending that the Pentagon doesn’t need or request.
Within the U.S. Congress, even “antiwar” voices assist the navy. Then-Sen. Barack Obama’s 2008 marketing campaign was primarily predicated on his opposition to the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. But even his GOP opponent Sen. John McCain didn’t care name out Obama on the truth that when he had six probabilities to vote on the Iraq Battle — he wasn’t within the Senate but when it voted on the measure authorizing then-President George W. Bush to assault the federal government of Saddam Hussein — he voted to ship the money every time. Sen. Bernie Sanders has repeatedly voted to fund the navy and ship weapons for wars being waged by U.S. proxies like Israel and Ukraine.
Vice President Kamala Harris, whom Republicans describe as Marxist, socialist and communist, is completely dedicated to the cult of American militarism. “As commander in chief, I’ll guarantee America at all times has the strongest, most deadly combating pressure on the planet,” she stated in Thursday’s nomination acceptance speech on the Democratic Nationwide Conference.
The concept that navy expenditures are “must-pass” depends on the belief that the U.S. faces existential threats to its security and/or sovereignty. That is crap.
As Stratfor’s traditional 2011 evaluation of the U.S. and its geopolitical place famous: “The American geography is a powerful one.”
Take into account Russia. It has 1000’s of miles of land borders, most of it with out important pure obstacles like mountain ranges or giant our bodies of water to discourage a possible invader, thousands and thousands of sq. miles of pretty flat lands that may rapidly and simply be traversed, with quite a few neighbors which can be hostile and have posed a historic menace. Given its state of affairs, Russia’s rulers have historically relied on pleasant buffer and vassal states round its perimeter.
“The U.S. Atlantic Coast possesses extra main ports than the remainder of the Western Hemisphere mixed,” Stratfor noticed. “Two huge oceans insulated america from Asian and European powers, deserts separate america from Mexico to the south, whereas lakes and forests separate the inhabitants facilities in Canada from these in america. The US has capital, meals surpluses and bodily insulation in extra of each different nation on the planet by an exceedingly giant margin.” Canada and Mexico are pleasant vassal states.
“Pink Daybreak” was only a film. Gun nuts who suppose they’ll want AR-15s to arm a resistance towards alien invaders are deluded. Nobody desires to invade us. Nobody desires to remove our freedoms.
Nobody can.
We’re appearing just like the hippopotamus. Hippos are probably the most harmful land animal on the planet, killing 500 folks yearly. They’re nervous and high-strung as a result of they quickly advanced from a a lot smaller creature that made straightforward prey. Poor issues! They don’t notice that they’ve grow to be enormous, grown fearsome tooth and not should be aggressive and territorial. Just like the hippo, the U.S. began out small and weak to aggressors like England, which reinvaded in 1812. However issues have modified for each the hippo and us. Can’t we be smarter than a hippo?
The U.S. has, like different international locations, confronted raids just like the Pearl Harbor assault and cross-border incursions from Mexico within the nineteenth century. In a now largely forgotten episode, two of the Aleutian islands had been occupied by Japan throughout World Battle II, earlier than Alaska grew to become a state. Nonstate terrorists have struck the contiguous 48 states, as on 9/11. However none of these incidents, although violent and disturbing, represented something near an existential menace. Most different international locations, confronted with assaults on such a small scale, wouldn’t really feel traumatized as a lot as merely irritated.
We’ve not confronted a considerable danger of territorial invasion by an enemy military or navy because the Battle of 1812.
Within the twenty first century, the U.S. faces two essential threats to nationwide safety: terrorism and cyberattacks. These are addressed by, respectively, the Division of Homeland Safety and the FBI. We don’t want a fleet of ships lining our coastlines or a fringe of navy bases to fend off the Germans or the Japanese or the Chinese language or the Russians. And we don’t have them. The “Protection” Division doesn’t defend the U.S.; it assaults and disrupts different international locations and nonstate entities overseas and, far much less steadily, defends U.S. allies towards inner uprisings, rival factions and hostile neighbors.
Given our remarkably enviable safety state of affairs, it’s not inconceivable that the U.S. might get by eliminating its navy price range solely, as have international locations like Costa Rica, Panama and Iceland, all of which have abolished their military, navy and air pressure and but haven’t been invaded since. Might or not it’s that, a lot as you’re likelier to be shot by a gun if you happen to personal one, an unarmed nation is much less prone to be attacked as a result of its neighbors not view it as a possible menace?
Alternatively, we might determine to not proceed the present follow of regularly including new and fancier know-how to our present arsenal. We might make do with the tools and materials we’ve now, whereas spending sufficient to take care of it.
Protection needs to be about protection, i.e. defending our personal borders. Brazil, larger than the contiguous 48 U.S. states, and by far the dominant navy energy on the South American continent, has a navy price range of $20 billion. That’s equal to 2.5% of the U.S., which presently wastes $1.6 trillion a yr — greater than half of discretionary federal spending.
Let’s begin there.
Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, co-hosts the left-vs-right DMZ America podcast with fellow cartoonist Scott Stantis.
