Domestic Politics is Dictating Foreign Policy

Posted on: August 24, 2017 at 13:43:10 CT

By Ryan McMaken

Excerpt:

In other words, we're looking at more than 12 million Americans who rely on military spending. For comparison's sake, we can note that the the total number of people in the US working in agriculture totals less than 3 million people.

Nor should those 12 million Americans worry that they're not being looked after on Capitol Hill. According to Open Secrets, in 2016 there were more than 752 defense-sector lobbyists working in DC, representing 223 clients.

It's unlikely this total includes state-level politicians who engage in informal lobbying in favor of more military spending in their districts and states. In some states, such as Virginia and Hawaii, military spending is equal in size to more than 12 percent of the state's total GDP. Needless to say, mayors and governors in these areas won't exactly be complaining if the President announced yet another military occupation. Each additional ratcheting up in military action means more training exercises, more weapons testing, more spending by soldiers in the local economy.

Thus, when we hear that a variety of policymakers are united in their call for more military spending, there is no reason at all to assume this is due to some important change in the international environment. It's far more likely that domestic political conditions have changed in such a way that the Pentagon realizes the political situation has swung in its favor.

Certainly, this has been the case with the arrival of the Trump administration. Republicans have long received more funding from defense lobbyists than Democrats, and even before Trump was sworn in, it was assumed that a military spending binge was on the way.

And, in spite of claims that the Trump administration is merely the continuation of the Obama adminsitration's foreign policy, there is good reason to believe that the Trump administration is actually a departure from the Obama years — in a more militaristic direction. While military spending did not actually suffer to any meaningful extent under Obama, some observers believe there was nevertheless an antagonism between the Obama White House and the Pentagon. As Mearshimer claims here, had the Deep State been less powerful, Obama may have actually been successful in withdrawing from Iraq and Afghanistan. As it was, Obama settled for a rapproachment with Cuba and Iran — two moves that infuriated foreign interventionists.

Are There Any Real Limits on Military Spending?

Mearshimer is speculating here, but even if he's right about what Obama would have preferred to do, how would a drawdown of troops benefit Obama politically?

As a politician, there's actually very little to be gained from military withdrawal. As we've already noted, the political and economic rewards of expanding military spending and operations can be substantial. This is especially true in the modern world when the political downside of military operations is very small.

Historically, the downside of starting a war or sending troops to foreign soil was twofold:

It was expensive.
Dead and wounded soldiers were politically damaging.

Nowadays, the first problem can be solved with deficit spending, and by inflating the money supply. The financial costs of war are palmed off on future generations who have no say in the current policy debate.

The second issue is now mostly solved as well. While, as McAdams points out, more than 2,000 American lives have been lost in the Afghanistan occupation, that's a total that accumulated over more than a decade. Compared to large military operations of the past, these are very small numbers. Military spending nowadays focuses on producing weapons and material that can be used while minimizing the danger to the American soldiers themselves. The drone program — in which American soldiers drop bombs on children from the safety of a warehouse in North America — is a perfect example of this.

Moreover, when casualties do occur, they are inflicted on volunteers. Nor do these deaths disproportionately fall on poor or minority soldiers. As analyses have shown, poor and minority soldiers tend to volunteer for work in medical and logistical fields. The front-line combat positions tend to go to educated white people.

So, there's no especially damaging political cost to sending more troops to central Asia to conduct yet another occupation. Yes, there will be some deaths, but calculating politicians know that casualties are unlikely to occur in such numbers as to cancel out the political benefits of starting a nice new war.

The Afghanistan Escalation

Thus, how can anyone be truly surprised that Donald Trump — who once fiercely mocked supporters of the Afghanistan occupation — has now changed his mind. Trump, of course, is a man who apparently is swayed by photographs of mini-skirts rather than by anything resembling serious historical analysis.

As he has become increasingly isolated politically, he has seen an opportunity to shore up his political base with yet another military expansion — one that's likely to come with a lot more spending. Even worse, Trump may become even more bellicose the less popular he becomes. Domestic concerns won't be mentioned in the dominant narrative however. The administration and the Pentagon will invent a justification for why a new war is necessary, and the media, of course, will happily play along.

https://mises.org/blog/domestic-politics-dictating-our-foreign-policy

Edited by ummmm at 13:44:16 on 08/24/17