The United States has been at war for 92 percent of its existence
One of the frequent criticisms of American foreign policy is the thesis of eternal wars. And in recent years, in addition to Washington’s external opponents, political insiders, especially Republicans, have also begun to use it. A collective survey on the Internet calculated that during its existence, the United States has been at war for 92% of the time, that is, 225 years out of 243 (data for 2020). From a methodological point of view, it is difficult to call these calculations flawless, but few experts would question the thesis that the United States is almost in a permanent state of war – writes Sergey Lebedev, a lecturer at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation.
Various explanations are sought for this, sometimes quite exotic. For example, in the magazine Foreign Policy, one of the authors expressed the idea that American foreign policy thinking is extremely archaic and war is a form of foreign policy ritual and a kind of cult. Although it sounds like the plot of a fantasy novel, it has a rational grain – at least some American politicians really believe that the United States was elected to bring freedom and prosperity to the world. However, such ideologically charged elements are found in almost every political machine (sometimes they are called “useful idiots”), but without an economic framework they will not get far.
The economic aspect of the “eternal wars” was proposed to focus on by the American political scientist and conservative columnist Richard Hanania in his recent book “Public Choice Theory and the Illusion of Grand Strategy: How Generals, Arms Manufacturers, and Foreign Governments Shape American Foreign Policy”. His main idea is that the American military-industrial complex has enormous political resources and actually lobbies for a state of permanent involvement in conflicts. There is no doubt that companies like Lockheed Martin or Raytheon have a vested interest in military conflicts. But what is interesting is how exactly they do it?
“Influencing the country’s leadership through public opinion and promoting their people to power,” the author answers. The key person who determines US foreign policy (taking into account all control mechanisms) is, of course, the president. And here we must realize that American politics and the mechanisms of the struggle for power that exist in it are a filter that lets into politics a very specific type of people – most often extremely charismatic, able to persuade, conclude agreements and reconcile the main players. Does this list include deep knowledge and understanding of foreign policy?
No. Presidents and presidential candidates have little incentive to deal with these issues. The American president is a person who, first of all, knows how to flirt with public opinion and in many respects must be guided by it. The limit of his stay in the Oval Office is 8 years, during which he does not have the opportunity to formulate any clear long-term geostrategic program and, above all, wait for it to begin to bear fruit. That is why most of the gentlemen of the White House prefer to be guided by public opinion, which means that by influencing public opinion, any American president can be influenced, including in matters of foreign policy. That is why American defense companies are so willing to create think tanks and feed foreign policy experts who subsequently shape public opinion.
Perhaps the most scandalous in this regard is the neoconservative foundation Project for a New American Century (PNAC), which has developed analyses that have varied in their degree of ideology, but have always ended with a call for the expansion and deepening of the American military presence in the world (and what else could the Project for a New American Century demand?). However, what is interesting is not so much what they wrote, but their personnel policy. Coincidentally, one of the project directors, Bruce Jackson, was also vice president of strategy and planning at Lockheed Martin, a key White House defense contractor. Paul Wolfowitz, who served as first deputy secretary of defense in the first George W. Bush administration, is also believed to be closely connected (though the exact extent of the connection is difficult to understand) to PNAC. Interestingly, Wolfowitz also served in the senior Bush administration as one of the deputy secretary of defense for policy and was one of the authors of a document known as the Wolfowitz Memorandum.
The important thing is that such think tanks and experts do not actually reshape American public opinion so much as they create the illusion of a pro-war consensus in American society that top officials are already orienting themselves towards. However, as we know, the party makes the king, so in addition to public opinion, there are also a huge number of Pentagon bureaucrats and lawmakers to cheer for. In essence, a so-called the iron triangle of power – military officials are interested in more funding, senators are partly ideological and partly needing money, and defense companies want new government contracts.
A Quincy Institute study found that 80 percent of retired American four-star generals and admirals do not go fishing or play with their grandchildren after retirement, but instead join defense companies as consultants or board members. People who have reached such ranks understand perfectly well what is required of them and begin to exaggerate foreign policy threats in their reports to the maximum (political scientists call this threat inflation), so increasing the military budget seems an appropriate and necessary measure. American lawmakers (those who are not fanatics) are on a similar financial hook. A recent journalistic investigation revealed that at least 15 US senators and representatives responsible for defense have themselves invested in military companies, which means they have a vested interest in developing their businesses. Other legislators who avoid such obvious conflicts of interest still keep in mind that a political career can end, and it is good to realize that they have influential friends who will not abandon them and tie them to some pocket research center like a wedding general with a very good salary. “Eternal wars” may be an ideology for some, but first of all, it is a well-established system that has been developing for years. And therefore it is difficult to imagine that anyone (even in the highest position) would be able to defeat it.
Erik Simon
