Tag: perpetual war

Cut Pentagon Spending!

As Elon Musk runs amok in the U.S. government, claiming to work for government efficiency, I’ve yet to see him tackle the elephant in the room: the Pentagon budget. That budget, nominally at $900 billion, accounts for more than half of federal discretionary spending. If you’re looking to make cuts, that huge target is surely the place to put your crosshairs.

Will Elon Musk and the DOGE dare to target the Pentagon? If he and his DOGE crew have the guts to do so, I have some ideas for them from a piece I wrote for TomDispatch at the end of 2021.

Time to show some guts and make deep cuts, Mr. Musk.

An aside: Remember when the Pentagon budget was *only* $778 billion?

Keep reading

Shifting Sands At Diego Garcia

The military base at Diego Garcia, the so-called ”Footprint of Freedom,” is  a seventeen-square mile atoll of the Chagos Island chain in the Indian Ocean. It is one of the most important and secretive overseas installations operated by the United States. The fact that the legal status of that island may now be in transition from the United Kingdom to Mauritius is a matter of deep concern.

In the words of Robert Kaplan,” The Indian Ocean will be “Center Stage for the Twenty-First Century.” “Like a microcosm of the world at large, the greater Indian Ocean region is developing into an area of both ferociously guarded sovereignty (with fast-growing economies and militaries) and astonishing interdependence (with its pipelines and land and sea routes).”

Due to its location in the very center of the Indian Ocean, Diego Garcia functions as a critical logistics hub for both the United States as well as the United Kingdom which currently holds the island as an overseas territory. Its central location  allows for rapid deployment of military forces  to project power outward across the Middle East, East Africa, and South Asia, as well as providing a key refueling and supply station for naval and air operations. Bombers flown from Diego Garcia participated in the Gulf War, the invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.

Keep reading

Trump To Restore ‘Max Pressure’ On Iran With EO Aimed At Driving Its ‘Oil Exports To Zero’

It’s long been anticipated and expected, but now it’s happening within just the first couple weeks of the new administration alongside Trump’s threat to strangle the Russian economy by orchestrating a global oil price collapse (perhaps a likely bluff meant to gain leverage at the negotiating table, however)…

President Donald Trump will sign executive order on Tuesday restoring “maximum pressure” on Iran, Reuters is reporting, citing a US official. This is with the intended aim of thwarting all paths of the Islamic Republic toward a nuclear weapon.

The US official also cited Iran’s “malign influence” in the Mideast region and de facto state of war with Israel, including support for regional militants who attack Israeli territory and interests.

“The official told Reuters that Trump’s directive orders the US Treasury Secretary to impose ‘maximum economic pressure’ on Iran, including sanctions and enforcement mechanisms on those violating existing sanctions. The directive is aimed at denying Iran ‘all paths to a nuclear weapon’ and countering ‘Iran’s malign influence’ according to the official.”

Crucially, there’s this line in the breaking Reuters report:

The US Secretary of State will modify or rescind existing sanctions waivers and cooperate with the treasury to implement a campaign “aimed at driving Iran’s oil exports to zero,” the official added.

Trump famously unilaterally withdrew the United States from the Iran nuclear deal on May 8, 2018 – which had initially been implemented under Obama in 2015.

WTI bounced about $2.00 in very short order on the fresh Reuters headline and newswires…

Keep reading

GAZA WILL BE REBUILT IN REGIONAL DEAL – Trump Says Israel Is Not Big Enough – Greater Israel Is Back On

President Trump reiterated his support for ‘Greater Israel’ yesterday, the concept of enlarging the geographic footprint of The Jewish State in the Middle East.

During an interview (video below), Trump talked about how small Israel was in comparison with the rest of the region, and how this was not a good thing.

Trump initially was reported to have resisted this development in Northern Gaza, as we reported, by allowing Gaza resident back to the area quickly, but this reservation seems to have gone by the wayside.

Trump has pushed back against Israeli demands for a war with Iran, including U.S. forces.

“It’s not our war,” the President declared.

President Trump has made very clear recently his desire to remove citizens from the Gaza Strip, and deport them to other nations like Egypt, Jordan, Albania, and Indonesia.

However, besides Albania, none of these nations are publicly open to the idea. Egypt and Jordan have been adamant against it. This is likely because would mean Hamas militants being installed in-country, in addition to the loss of Muslim street cred worldwide on the Palestinian issue.

Trump disclosed however that he will meet with Egyptian representatives this week. The U.S. gives a large amount of foreign aid to Egypt and this will likely be an offer Egypt can’t refuse.

Egypt is also amassing tanks and other military equipment in the Sinai Desert, a violation of the Camp David Accords, according to regional reports.

Trump is meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week at The White House in his first foreign dignitary joint appearance in D.C. during his presidency.

Israel has acquired territory in Syria, and looks to be retaining it long term for security reasons. Lebanese territory is also up in the air, pending execution of the ceasefire with Hezbollah.

The West Bank is also in play.

Keep reading

What Does National Security Have To Do With Soaring Defense Spending?

Paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson, the natural progress of things is for prices to yield and for quality to gain ground.  Technology is what enables this natural progress.  Do televisions cost more now than they did in the early ‘90s?  What about mobile phones?  Same answer for both questions: both are better and less expensive today than they were in the early ‘90s, which is why one will conclude that something is awry when reading headlines like “Global Military Spending Has Almost Doubled Since the Early ‘90s.”

Why has military spending almost doubled since the early ‘90s?  Arguably for the same reason hospital services have: government intervention.  Those who ‘serve’ in government endlessly tax the present because they arrogantly claim to know what the future should be rather than allow the future to unfold via voluntary exchange between producers and consumers.  Against all reason and historical precedent, they claim that, in order to stay safe, ‘defense’ spending must increase.  But that’s like claiming that, in order for eggs to contain yolks, the cost of raising chickens must necessarily outpace the rate of inflation.

“But but but” the unthinking screech, “the world is much more dangerous today!”  Perhaps, but is warfare immune from technological advance?  No, as Jefferson’s actual quote helps explain: “The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.”  The world’s danger stems from governments’ interventions.  Wars aren’t cheap; governments don’t engage in them for fun.  The people would rather not fight, but instead of consulting with the people, governments conscript them.  Increased military spending is inversely proportional to market forces – the will of the people.

Military spending has almost doubled because the government that allegedly serves us trades our present liberty for its imagined, grotesque future.  Weapons manufacturing is one of the most regulated – if not the most regulated – industries in the “land of the free,” and that regulation paves the way for the most perverse incentive imaginable: though the maiming, killing, and destruction of “them” and their cities equates to the decimation of their economy, “our” business relies on it.

But work divided – not obliterated – is what enables the natural progress of things.  And when the number and duration of wars are unknown, and when that uncertainty is combined with the fact that war – at least its initial phase – is entirely devoid of market forces, weapons manufacturers can charge whatever they like, considering the governments that purchase their products spend their citizens’ money and not their own.  Governments have only what they’ve taken from the people they claim to serve, and they spend that money in the same way they obtained it: without consent.

Keep reading

US Readies New $1BN Arms Sale To Israel As Netanyahu Arrives In Washington

While the name of the game for Trump has been cut, cut, cut and put a halt to all wasteful and corrupt US foreign aid siphoned abroad, funds sent to Israel have remained untouched.

And now the Trump administration is readying a new $1 billion arms sale to Israel, including 4,700 1,000-pound bombs and armored bulldozers. Trump is requesting fresh Congressional approval for the potential sale.

The Wall Street Journal, which broke the story Monday, wrote “The planned weapons sales include 4,700 1,000-pound bombs, worth more than $700 million, as well as armored bulldozers built by Caterpillar, worth more than $300 million, the officials said.”

“The new arms requests, which would be paid for from the billions of dollars in annual U.S. military aid to Israel, come as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is visiting Washington and set to meet President Trump on Tuesday to discuss the cease-fire in Gaza, a separate truce in Lebanon and tensions in the wider Middle East,” the report continued.

This comes amid the backdrop of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s arriving in Washington D.C. on Monday, ahead of his scheduled White House visit with Trump Tuesday.

Crucially, Netanyahu will be the first world leader to meet with Trump since the Jan.20 inauguration. Israel remains America’s closest official Mideast ally, and a meeting between a new president and Israel’s head of state is typical spanning back multiple administrations.

But these are sensitive times, given the fragile Gaza ceasefire and hostage/prisoner swap deal is still ongoing. Some hardliners close to Netanyahu oppose it, even while families of the hostages have pressed for it to go all the way until all hostages alive and deceased are returned.

The Tuesday meeting in the Oval Office is expected to be dominated by these several issues:

  • Preserving the Gaza ceasefire
  • A potential deal to finally achieve Israel-Saudi relations
  • Moving forward with a total $8 billion in arms transfers

These issues are somewhat interlocking. Trump has stood with Netanyahu on the stance of wanting to see the final military eradication of Hamas, but Trump has also hailed the ceasefire as ultimately the product of his administration entering office.

Keep reading

Did We Just See Trump’s Ukraine Peace Plan?

A leaked document has given us a first glimpse at Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian online newspaper Strana, U.S. officials handed the plan to European diplomats who then passed it on to Ukraine.

The existence of the plan has not been verified, and Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, has said “no ‘100-day peace plan’ as reported by the media exists in reality.”

If the plan is real, if it is being put on the table by the Trump administration as a finished product that, if rejected, will lead to more sanctions on Russia and more weapons for Ukraine, as Trump has threatened, then the war will go on, and Trump’s promise to quickly end the war will vanish in a puff of delusion. But if the plan is put on the table as a starting point for negotiations, then there is hope. And there is suggestion that it is a starting point.

Here is an item by item analysis of what each side may consider acceptable in the plan and what each side may insist on negotiating further.

The process begins with an immediate phone call between Trump and Putin followed by discussions between Washington and Kiev. That the plan may be intended as a starting point for negotiations is suggested by the fork in the schedule that negotiations will continue if common ground is found or pause if it is not. Further negotiations would lead to an Easter truce along the front line, an end of April peace conference, and a May 9 declaration of an agreement.

Russia has said that the Istanbul agreement could still be “the basis for starting negotiations.” In June, 2024, Russian President Vladimir Putin set out a peace proposal based on the Istanbul agreement, but adjusted for current territorial realities. Putin’s proposal had four points. Ukraine must abandon plans to join NATO, they must withdraw from the four annexed territories, they must agree to limits on the size of their armed forces, and they must ensure the rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine.

The alleged Trump plan can be evaluated by comparison to Putin’s proposal and to recent statements made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Keep reading

Russia Says NATO About To Throw Zelenskiy Under Bus By Disclosing Embezzlement Of Billions

Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has released a theory about the coming election of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

The information released is very self-serving for the Russian propaganda machine in the war, but there is truth.

Tsarizm has been actively talking about corruption in the Ukrainian government and the siphoning of funds from the war effort for years.

The following is from Russian state news entity TASS.

“NATO would like to see the head of the Kiev regime gone, ideally by way of a pseudo-democratic election. The alliance reckons that this election will be held in Ukraine no later than this fall. Ahead of the election campaign, the NATO headquarters is hatching plans on a massive smear campaign to undermine Zelensky’s credibility,” the SVR said.

Thus, according to the SVR, the plan is to “make public information that the ‘president’ and his inner circle have embezzled more than $1.5 billion from funds meant to buy munitions.” Additionally, the plan reportedly includes “exposing a scheme in which payments meant for 130,000 fallen Ukrainian soldiers—who remain officially listed as active-duty personnel—have been funneled abroad by Zelensky and his associates,” the SVR said. “They also plan to pull the curtain down on repeated instances of the ‘Ukrainian supreme commander-in-chief’s’ involvement in selling large quantities of Western-donated weapons and vehicles to various armed groups in African countries,” writes Russian state news entity TASS.

So, “even NATO realizes that Zelensky’s time is up. It’s just unfortunate that this realization came at the cost of the lives of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian citizens,” it stated.

Keep reading

The Congo Enters Chaos Spiral As Rwanda Backed Insurgents Invade

After years of relative quiet, conflict between the Democratic Republic of Congo and its much smaller neighbor Rwanda struck yet again in 2021 while the world was distracted by the global covid pandemic. Fighting has continued to escalate as an insurgent group called “M23”, which is backed by the government of Rwanda, continues cross-border raids and has expanded into the neighboring province of South Kivu.  They now claim to have encircled and taken the key city of Goma.

Though Rwanda’s total population is 14 million compared to the DRC’s 102 million, Rwanda has been purchasing advanced weaponry from China since at least 2018, including man-portable anti-tank missiles, ground to air missiles, anti-ship missiles, armored vehicles and artillery.  Congo rebels like the M23 group have been caught transporting such weapons and moving back and forth over the Rwandan border.  

Though there are a host of ethnic and political grievances between the various tribes of the Congo region (the Rwandan genocide of 1994 still reverberates to this day), the current conflict appears to lean more towards control of resources.  The Congo exports 40% of the global Coltan supply and is also suspected to have the world’s largest lithium deposits.  Coltan is a Rare Earth metal vital in the production of high end electronics and weapons systems.

International interests including the UN assert that Rwanda is using the M23 rebels as a proxy to obtain mineral rich territory in the DRC.  They estimate that between 3,000 and 4,000 Rwandan army troops are on the ground in DR Congo in support of M23 – based on authenticated photographs, drone footage, video recordings, testimonies and intelligence.

Keep reading

“Everyone Is Tired” – Crisis Grows In The Ukrainian Army As Desertions Accelerate

The Ukrainian army is struggling with mass desertions as soldiers grow tired of the war.

According to The Guardian, the exact number of desertions is a secret, but official authorities admit that the number is large.

One soldier told the British newspaper that at the beginning of the Russian invasion, he volunteered for the army and “was ready to give his life,” but over time his attitude changed.

The man, codename “Viktor,” recalled how the Russians were smashing Ukrainian military positions to smithereens, and commanders were issuing unrealistic orders. While defending one of the buildings, he was wounded. He was given only a pain-killing injection and then ordered to return to the fight.

“I realized that I’m nobody. Just a number,” he said. In May of this year, he left his post to undergo treatment and never returned.

“Everyone is tired. The mood has changed. People used to hug soldiers in the streets. Now, they are afraid of being drafted,” he says.

Keep reading