Todd M. Siebert: War and the health of the state

“With the shock of war… the State comes into its own again. The Government, with no mandate from the people, without consultation of the people, conducts all the negotiations, the backing and filling, the menaces and explanations, which slowly bring it into collision with some other Government, and gently and irresistibly slides the country into war. For the benefit of proud and haughty citizens, it is fortified with a list of the intolerable insults which have been hurled toward us by the other nations; for the benefit of the liberal and beneficent, it has a convincing set of moral purposes which our going to war will achieve; for the ambitious and aggressive classes, it can gently whisper of a bigger role in the destiny of the world. The result is that, even in those countries where the business of declaring war is theoretically in the hands of representatives of the people, no legislature has ever been known to decline the request of an Executive, which has conducted all foreign affairs in utter privacy and irresponsibility, that it order the nation into battle… The moment war is declared, however, the mass of the people, through some spiritual alchemy, become convinced that they have willed and executed the deed themselves. They then, with the exception of a few malcontents, proceed to allow themselves to be regimented, coerced, deranged in all the environments of their lives, and turned into a solid manufactory of destruction toward whatever other people may have, in the appointed scheme of things, come within the range of the Government’s disapprobation. The citizen throws off his contempt and indifference to Government, identifies himself with its purposes, revives all his military memories and symbols, and the State once more walks, an august presence, through the imaginations of men. Patriotism becomes the dominant feeling, and produces immediately that intense and hopeless confusion between the relations which the individual bears and should bear toward the society of which he is a part.” — Randolph Bourne, “The State”

Wars and the push for more wars are directly related to the health of the state; with the state being the ruling class and the “framework of the administration of laws, and the carrying out of the public force,” as Randolph Bourne wrote in “The State.”

As the state and respect for it collapses, the ruling elites seek out new enemies and new causes in order to rally the people and bring them back into line.

This election cycle has seen the ruling class soundly rejected by the hoi polloi, so it’s not surprising that the establishment is increasing its saber rattling to bring the people back into the fold. The Middle East and parts of Africa have been thoroughly obliterated by 26 years of war (there has been perpetual war in region since Bush the Elder’s first Gulf War) and despite the creation of new enemies and atrocities there funded and organized by the U.S. shadow government and its allies, that conflict has lost its luster with the people.

The hoi polloi recognize that the so-called “War on Terror” has bankrupted America both fiscally and morally. Rather than a “War on Terror,” it is a war of terror and it was expanded into Iraq, Libya and Syria on false pretenses and propaganda.

So the globalist ruling class has begun doing anew what it has always done. Last month, the Center for American Security, a tentacle of the globalist beast that is the Council on Foreign Relations, released a report titled, “Extending American Power: Strategies to Expand U.S. Engagement in a Competitive World Order.”

The paper is as frightening as the title implies. It tells us “an extraordinary group of scholars, practitioners, and journalists” were brought together “to consider how a new administration should respond to the complex challenges confronting the United States and the established international order… [to fulfill] a mandate to examine the degree to which the United States can and should play a leadership role internationally, and with an eye toward policymaking (sic) in a new administration.”

It is, in other words, laying out the future for the next president’s foreign policy regardless of who it is. Further it states:

The U.S. military provides the strategic foundation of the international order, preserving peace, keeping international waterways and trade routes open, defending international rules on the use of and access to space, and deterring aggression. The United States remains the primary provider of security in three regions of the world, Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East, and this is not going to change. Therefore, the resources we devote to the nation’s defense must be sufficient to meet these requirements. If there are better and cheaper ways to accomplish these objectives, we should adapt. But even if we were able to implement the most far-reaching defense reforms that have been proposed, we are not likely to free up sufficient resources within current budget proposals to meet the challenges we face.

These “challenges” we’re told, come:

From a resurgent Russia to a rising China that is challenging the rules-based international order to chaos and the struggle for power in the Middle East…

It’s doubtful that the people considered “collateral damage” in the U.S. efforts to “preserve the peace” by bombing Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Yemen, etc., appreciate that “strategic foundation.” Nor do, it seems, our trading partners Russia and China.

The U.S. been prodding and poking Russia and China for months, so it’s not surprising those countries would be “challenging the rules-based international order.” With Russia, conflict began first in Ukraine where a Russia-friendly regime was thrown out in a U.S.-backed coup at the behest of international banksters, and then by provocatively putting troops (through NATO) along Russia’s border (in violation of past agreements); and in Syria where a proxy war has been underway on behalf of corporatocracy and Saudi Arabia.

So it’s no coincidence that we see a Pentagon-financed war games report produced by the RAND Corporation is getting some attention.

“The outcome was, bluntly, a disaster for NATO,” the RAND researchers wrote in their report. In each simulation, the Russians were able to either circumvent the outnumbered NATO units, or even worse, destroy them. Between 36 and 60 hours after the beginning of hostilities, Russian troops stood before the gates of Riga or Tallinn — or both.

Not so curious timing that, given the recent Pentagon budget proposal by SecDef Ashton Carter calling for a quadrupling of funding for the so-called European Reassurance Initiative, which is being increased from $789 million to $3.4 billion. (Let the scope of that increase sink in for a bit before you move on.)

And National Security News tells us in separate articles just days apart, the U.S. Army wants more money for investment in new reactive armor for its fleet of M1-A1 Abrams tanks and cross-domain fire capabilities specifically to confront Russia, and the U.S. Air Force must immediately have a way to pay for more aircraft, of course to confront Russia and China.

All this increased funding is necessary even though, as Bionic Mosquito points out, 15 of 28 NATO states have announced they are increasing their military spending. NATO countries already spend $920 billion, all of that but $293 billion is spent by the U.S. and Canada. Other U.S. allies (Saudi Arabia, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Israel, and Taiwan) spend about $210 billion.

Combined, NATO’s and other U.S. allies’ military spending tops a whopping $1.13 trillion while Russia spends just $52 billion and China spends $145 billion.

In other words, NATO outspends Russia by a factor of 18-1; the European NATO countries outspend Russia by 5.5 to 1; and NATO and all U.S. allies outspend Russia and China by almost 6 to 1.

And NATO (and by extension the U.S.) is on the verge of war with Russia over Syria (there are new reports troops from NATO “ally” Turkey have crossed into Syria) and over former Soviet States in Eastern Europe in which the U.S. has no strategic connection – beyond world domination on behalf of the globalists and the New World Order.

All this military spending has been a boon to the establishment and the military industrial complex. But the people have suffered and the economy is collapsing.

Wars are not for our freedom or patriotism or democracy, as we are propagandized. Wars are to kill and to benefit big business — which reaps massive profits from the killing and sacrifice of young men (lambs) on all sides of combat – and for the banksters.

There is always inflation when there is a war; and when there is a war, there is always inflation. War is the best excuse to print money. Wars aren’t created with gold and silver but with printing press money. It’s all very simple.

Wars prevent deflation and depression, or at least wars put off deflation and depression for a time.

Hence, wars and rumor of wars reflect the health of the state.

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from PropagandaGuard https://propagandaguard.wordpress.com/2016/06/06/war-and-the-health-of-the-state/