Banging the Drums of War: Republicans Promote an Increase In Military Spending

 This is my last post before I go on vacation. My next post will appear on July 2.

Banging the Drums of War

Republicans have started a push to increase military spending in the face of threats from Russia and China. Two opinion pieces by prominent Republican senators appeared in the New York Times on the 80^th anniversary of D-Day to persuade us that we should not repeat the “errors of the nineteen thirties.”

Sen. Roger Wicker, the ranking Republican on the Senate’s Armed Services Committee says,

It is far past time to rebuild America’s military. We can avoid war by preparing for it.

On Wednesday I am publishing a plan that includes a series of detailed proposals to address this reality head-on. … My plan outlines why and how the United States should aim to spend an additional $55 billion on the military in the 2025 fiscal year and grow military spending from a projected 2.9 percent of our national gross domestic product this year to 5 percent over the next five to seven years.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Senate’s minority leader says,

It should not take another catastrophic attack like Pearl Harbor to wake today’s isolationists from the delusion that regional conflicts have no consequences for the world’s most powerful and prosperous nation. …

I was encouraged by the plan laid out last week by my friend, the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Roger Wicker, which detailed specific actions the president and colleagues in Congress should take to prepare America for long-term strategic competition.

How Will They Pay For The Military Buildup?

I do not wish to quarrel with the analysis presented by Wicker and McConnell. That is a discussion for another day. However, I would like to point out that nowhere do they say how they will pay for the military buildup that they propose. The military buildup that followed the attack on Pearl Harbor was supported by high taxes and by rationing civilian consumption but Wicker and McConnell along with their party have consistently supported low taxes and minimal government interference in civilian markets.

I fear that, instead of raising taxes or rationing civilian consumption to support the military buildup, the Republicans will use it as an excuse to dismantle important domestic programs. They will provide less money for education, healthcare, environmental protection, industrial policy and other domestic programs in order to finance military production. We are already spending too little in such areas, and we cannot allow a need for defense spending to destroy our already insufficient efforts.

Don't Destroy Our Society Or Our World To Save Them From the Chinese or the Russians

If we fail to educate our children or if we fail to deal effectively with global warming in order to defeat the threat presented by Russia and China, we will achieve at best a Pyrrhic Victory. If we deter Chinese military threats while allowing our industrial base to wither away, what will we have won? We do not want to destroy our society or our planet merely in order to prevent others from destroying them. If Wicker and McConnell are right, they need to tell us how they will pay for the buildup they propose without destroying our society or our planet.

The Gaza War and the Weakness of the American Left

The Protests Against the War in Gaza Show the American Left's Strength and Its Weakness 

Protests against American support for Israel in the War in Gaza have occurred on college campuses all over the United States. The protests showed the strength of the students’ political commitment and also its weakness. The strength comes from the movement’s ability to mobilize thousands of people in support of its causes[1]. The weakness is that the mobilization is momentary. It expresses moral outrage over an event, but it has no connection to an ongoing struggle for justice in the United States, and for that reason, the mobilization will not last. It will disappear as the moral outrage dies down. We saw a similar process in at the time of the Black Lives Matter protests. The death of George Floyd at the hands of the police touched off a national wave of protests, but the protests died down as the moral outrage faded.

Leftist Movements Are Unconnected to One Another

Why is this cycle of outrage so typical of the left in the United States? Why is it so hard for the American left to sustain its movements? The answer is that the American left lacks an organizational core. We have no broad leftist movement. Instead, we have a number of groups focused on specific issues. We have environmental groups; we have groups focused on racial justice; we have women’s groups. But we do not have a broad leftist movement that unites these them all.

Issue Groups Are Unconnected to the Labor Movement

One reason why we do not have a united, leftist movement is that there are no connections between the labor movement and the various issue groups. A strong labor movement must always be at the core of a united leftist movement for two reasons. First, the labor movement has more members and more money than any of our issue groups. Second, the labor movement’s goals are at the heart of the supreme issue that underlies the various issues that motivate our issue groups. As Wisconsin’s senator Robert M. La Follette said many years ago,[2]

The Supreme Issue, involving all others, is the encroachment of the powerful few upon the rights of the many. This mighty power has come between the people and their government. Can we free ourselves from this control? Can representative government be restored? Shall we, with statesmanship and constructive legislation, meet these problems, or shall we pass them on with all the possibilities of conflict and chaos, to future generations?

Unfortunately, our issue organizations do not see the supreme issue that unites their separate struggles. They see their issues as unconnected to one another. What does fighting climate change have to do with fighting for a woman’s right to choose whether or not to have an abortion? What does “Black Lives Matter” have to do with the suffering of working-class women? What does the fight for a decent national healthcare system have to do any of those things?

The Supreme Issue

A part of the answer is that underlying many of these issues is a question about money. Who will pay the cost of the changes that are needed? Wealth and income are extremely highly concentrated in a small upper class. This class dominates our political system. The wealthy know that many of the changes that are needed will require money, and that means higher taxes and increased regulation of business which inevitably affect profits. Such changes are opposed by the wealthy because they know that they will bear much of the cost of making the changes. Thus, underlying the various, specific issues that motivate our issue groups is a fundamental class conflict between the interests of the moneyed few and the interests of most of our people.

The Wealthy Use Cultural Issues to Divert Attention From the Need for Social Change

Second, as I wrote in an earlier post, the wealthy use cultural issues to divert attention from proposals that might lead to higher taxes or regulation of business. Is there a danger that we might have a real national healthcare system? That danger can be averted if people an be persuaded to vote their feelings about abortion. Is there a danger that businesses might be required to invest in reducing their carbon emissions? That danger may be averted if people can be persuaded to vote the feelings about “critical race theory.”

We Have Separated Economic Issues From Social Issues

So, we have separated economic issues from other political issues. Students are demonstrating against Israeli actions in Gaza, while at the same time, the AFL/CIO is working on organizing workers in southern automobile plants, but it does not occur to the students to support the unions, and neither does it occur to the unions to support the students. We have also separated cultural issues from other political issues. So, it does not occur to the women’s groups to support either the students or the unions. The unions have an organizational base, and so does the women’s movement. So, their respective struggles will continue, but they will be weaker than they would be if we had a united leftist movement. The protests against the war in Gaza will probably fade away, and the political left will continue to be weak because, because it lacks a united organizational base.

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[1] I put “causes” in the plural intentionally. The students’ views of the war run a gamut. On the one hand, there is the view that, while Israel is entitled to defend itself, it has gone too far in Gaza. On the other hand, there is the view that Israel is a colonialist enterprise that has no right to exist at all.

[2] Robert M. La Follette (author), Ellen Torelle (editor), The Political Philosophy of Robert M. La Follette as Revealed in His Speeches and Writings, Kindle Edition, Section: “The Supreme Issue.” Page numbers in the Kindle edition are not useful because readers may set different font sizes. So, I have used the section title to indicate where each quotation may be found in the book.