A-Infos (en) France, OCL CA #355 - Behind the Apparent Militarization of the United States (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Are the United States experiencing a surge in militarization? This 
question arises today partly due to the ripple effect of increased 
military spending in Europe and beyond, and partly due to the dramatic 
and chaotic measures taken by Trump, from the bombing of Iran to the 
destruction of Venezuelan fishing boats (resulting in at least 83 
deaths), and including the deployment of the National Guard to 
intimidate the population of cities governed by the Democratic Party. 
Furthermore, the arms industry has played a significant role in the 
American economy since World War II, so much so that Republican 
President (and former general) Eisenhower warned, in his farewell 
address in January 1961, against the growing influence of the 
"military-industrial complex."

The problem is therefore not new, even if anti-imperialists regularly 
sound the alarm, generally citing the absolute figures for the national 
defense budget or arms production in the United States. Before 
considering the influence of either on the economy, exports, or social 
life of the country, let's take a brief look at the historical data.

As a share of GDP, American military spending reached its post-war peak 
in 1953 (Korean War): 13.58%. It subsequently fluctuated between 8% and 
10% during several years of the arms race; a slight dip followed by a 
rise to 9.42% in 1967 (Vietnam War); a continuous decline until 1978, to 
4.94%; and a further increase under Reagan to 6.81% in 1982. An average 
of 3.89% during the 1990s (the Clinton era); a moderate increase as part 
of the "war on terror" from 2002 to a peak of 4.9% in 2010 (under 
Obama), then another notable low between 2015 and 2024, with an annual 
average slightly below 3.4%. By comparison, the percentage of GDP 
devoted to military spending in 2024 was over 7% in Russia and Saudi 
Arabia (the main customer of American arms in the Middle East, ahead of 
Israel), 8% in Algeria, nearly 9% in Israel, but also 4.2% in Poland.

What is the situation today? Trump is making a catching-up effort... but 
only just, since the 2026 budget is equivalent in real terms to only 
3.2% of GDP (compared to approximately 3% for the previous fiscal year), 
given persistent inflation exacerbated by tariffs (1). Of course, this 
doesn't exhaust the subject, especially since the United States alone 
accounted for 37% of total global military spending in 2024. Moreover: 
"US arms exports increased by 21% between 2015-19 and 2020-24, and their 
share of global exports rose from 35% to 43% (2)." In this area, as in 
others, the continuity between Biden and Trump is worth noting.

The size of the American military budget is hardly mysterious when one 
considers the country's weight in the global economy and its role, since 
the 1940s, as the center of the capitalist empire, which presupposes the 
existence of military bases abroad and intervention forces. What must be 
grasped, rather, is its disproportionate impact on industry, basic 
research, employment, and social life in the United States; this is what 
some have called "military Keynesianism." The powerful arms industry 
immediately springs to mind, but without the centralization and planning 
instituted by the state during the Second World War and maintained in 
part afterward, sectors like electronics, especially semiconductors, 
would also not have experienced the takeoff that would secure such a 
lead for this supposedly liberal country. There's no need to look any 
further for the reasons behind the support given by so many American 
union leaders to the anti-Soviet crusade: fearing a return to the mass 
unemployment of the 1930s, they had understood during the war how 
beneficial nationalization and militarization could be.

"Waste, fraud, and abuse": this phrase, thrown around by the Republican 
Party to justify the dismantling of public services, applies nowhere 
more accurately than to the military procurement system up until the 
1980s. Dubious bidding processes, inflated prices upon delivery, missed 
deadlines, inconsistent quality... It was then that the wave of 
deregulation and "shareholder value" swept across the United States, and 
the arms industry, like so many others, fell prey to the infamous 
corporate raiders in a spiral of acquisitions, debt, and disappearances. 
In addition, with the end of the USSR and the election of Bill Clinton, 
military orders fell by 60% between 1989 and 1997. It was estimated in 
1995 that some 90,000 companies, roughly three-quarters of the sector, 
had vanished in the space of ten years (3). It was in this frenzy of 
consolidation that the behemoth Lockheed Martin was born. Even so, in 
1998-1999, the big names in the sector saw their stock prices plummet 
and their debt downgraded to "uninvestable." They were only saved by the 
wars in Afghanistan and then Iraq.

The old guard challenged by young wolves
Sensitive to the problem of corrupt, bloated, and atrophied monopolies, 
Obama turned to the tech sector, which was generally pro-Democrat and 
presumed to be more efficient. As early as 2014, startups from an 
emerging tech-defense coalition (SpaceX, Palantir, Anduril) were winning 
lawsuits for contracts awarded without real competition to dominant 
groups, creating an unexpected opportunity for venture capital and 
private equity firms. Companies in this new ecosystem thrived under 
Biden, but, believing that the major arms manufacturers continued to win 
the lion's share of contracts, they agreed to pledge allegiance to 
Trump, thanks to the mediation of Peter Thiel (PayPal, Palantir), David 
Sachs (head of AI and crypto in the current administration), and J. D. 
Vance.

Returning to an old American obsession-that everything can be solved by 
yet another technological breakthrough-Palantir, Anduril, and others 
offered cutting-edge solutions that proved disappointing in Ukraine, 
where the fighters preferred Chinese or locally manufactured drones, 
which were cheaper and more reliable. The same poor performance was seen 
with established suppliers, infamous among American soldiers for their 
helicopters that frequently crash and their assault rifles that were too 
heavy to carry. Meanwhile, Trump announced the "Golden Dome," a future 
missile defense shield estimated to cost $175 billion. Although 
considered just as unrealistic as Reagan's "Star Wars," it should 
delight the tech-defense right.

Is this essentially what the defense budget is for? In any case, Stephen 
Miran, a Trump supporter recently appointed to the Federal Reserve, 
argues for increased military spending as a surer path to 
reindustrialization than the measures adopted by Biden (4).

"Okay," some will object, "but what about foreign policy, the violence 
against America's 'enemies'?" Let us recall that Trump had to promise 
during his campaign that there would be no more "endless wars," so 
thoroughly had the population-and especially the MAGA base-suffered. 
Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq: American aggressions filled the country with 
demoralized and traumatized veterans, as well as soldiers who were 
sometimes dangerous, as revealed by a recent study on the country's 
largest military base, a hotbed of drug trafficking and murder. 
Moreover, one of the few armed engagements under Trump II ended in a 
pitiful defeat... against the Houthis: "In the space of a month, the 
United States had exhausted the bulk of its stockpile of guided missiles 
and lost numerous aircraft, without having imposed air superiority on a 
country whose GDP per capita is six times lower than that of Haiti (5)." 
And what about the bombing of Iran? Courageous but not reckless, Trump 
only dared to do so after the Israelis had destroyed its air defenses.

Intimidation as a method of governance
This leads us to a key dimension of the "Trump method": intimidation on 
all fronts. Aware of the gradual erosion of America's former hegemony, 
the ruling team seeks to instill fear and create illusions, while 
retreating to the Western Hemisphere, its historical preserve (now to be 
closed to Chinese influence). Hence the fixation on Venezuela, which 
has, in fact, lasted for a quarter of a century and which currently 
accounts for the largest concentration of American air and naval forces 
since the Gulf War. As we write these lines, this looks more like 
another show of force aimed at extracting concessions on oil production 
and, if possible, a change of government, especially since invading the 
country would require the deployment of 50,000 troops and risk causing 
unmanageable chaos (including for Exxon, Chevron, and their ilk). All 
this at a time when Trump's hitherto unwavering supporters are beginning 
to abandon ship (6).

One striking aspect of this "militarization" remains to be considered: 
the deployment of armed forces to enforce control over the inhabitants 
of cities governed by Democrats and the use of the massively budgeted 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE and CBP) services as a kind of 
Gestapo under the orders of the White House. Deportations of foreigners 
since January have already exceeded 500,000, but it is not clear that 
they will satisfy a population preoccupied with economic insecurity and 
increasingly shocked by the brutality of federal agents (7).

Domination without decorum abroad, a police state at home: force has 
become an end in itself; no large-scale project underpins its use. If 
militarization exists in the United States today, it seems primarily 
performative. Behind it, one can discern at most the need to maintain a 
specific sector of the economy and the state bureaucracy, the fantasy of 
restoring the country's former glory, the delusion of a semi-mafia head 
of state and his entourage, who aspire to unlimited and unchallenged 
power. The massive demonstrations in June and then in October, and 
especially the almost daily acts of solidarity with immigrants, express 
a vigorous and welcome reaction. But as long as the social order that 
produced these disruptions remains unchallenged, it's difficult to see 
where this will lead.

Larry Cohen, November 24, 2025

Notes
(1) The budget reconciliation law passed in July 2025 does, however, 
significantly supplement this budget, and with far fewer controls on 
spending.

(2) Press release, SIPRI, March 10, 2025.

(3) See, on this point and what follows, Susannah Glickman, "The War 
Over Defense Tech," New York Review of Books, October 4, 2025. This is a 
far cry from the common notion of an arms industry calling the shots in 
the United States.

(4) Some even see it as a way to counter the "crisis of masculinity," 
since it would mean a shift from a feminized, service-based economy to a 
more masculine one structured around manufacturing...
(5) Seth Harp, *The Fort Bragg Cartel*, Penguin Random House, 2025, 
summarized in his article "Mission Impossible: The Sad State of the 
American Armed Forces," *Harper's Magazine*, September 17, 2025.

(6) Cornered, he could certainly opt for war in the hope of restoring 
his image. A risky gamble, but given the man, it's not out of the question.

(7) See our article in CA No. 353, "The situation in the United States", 
our article "United States: political revolution and chaotic 
reorganization at the top of capitalism", in Temps critiques No. 23, 
and, in the same issue of this journal, J. Wajnsztejn, "Power and 
decline: the fragile Trumpian synthesis".

http://oclibertaire.lautre.net/spip.php?article4581
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en