A munitions plant was built near my hometown in the 40s and used on and off until the 70s(though it stayed intact for decades longer). They took some of the best quality farmland in the state despite protests when they built it. Now the ground is quite contaminated, and so is the groundwater.
I would hope we someday learn to stop polluting our world in the pursuit of killing each other.
> Asked about the Iran War's effect on defense stocks, Lockheed Martin CEO says: "Investors need to know and understand that this demand is not fleeting — it's permanent."
https://x.com/kenklippenstein/status/2111132777449959923
There will be a judgement call made, a balance struck. Some amount of business, not enough to invest in catching contaminants or keep workers off food stamps, but enough to fund lobbying and other efforts to maintain that comfortable permanence.
Any ceo is driven by profit and will make the same claims. But the military’s industrial complex shows no sign of slowing down. And from one angle that’s fine: Ukraine needs bombs. But killing people shouldn’t be a blue chip stock! IMHO.
What do you reckon the chances are of the current administration sending the bombs to Ukraine rather than Israel? I'd say the current lack of munitions is a good thing since that means they're not being used against Iranian school children and Gaza civilians.
Sadly, these days the warmongers are having real boom times, which ironically means a tramsfer of power to people who benefit from wars becoming more frequent in the name of making us more safe.
Their most reliable play is "jobs". Which is usually in the form of a new military contract to build some factory. Because that's really the only way we allow our government to invest in the economy.
In a more sensible world, we could be achieving those jobs by hiring ecological restoration workers, building public transit, etc
Americans need an “us vs them” proposition to get emotionally invested enough to get off the couch and vote.
The tariffs costing us jobs play well because we’re told we’re making “them” pay, just like we made “them” build the wall.
Half the country has been conditioned to associate ecological and public transit work as woke socialism, and only get emotionally motivated by hurting/punishing whoever “them” is during election season.
The people with enough money to buy media empires will invest whatever it takes to make sure they’re not the next “them.”
I don't know how someone can look at what's going on in Ukraine and then scoff at military forces as just "killing each other." We are humans. Humans have been fighting since we were on the grasslands of Africa, and if we conquer the stars we'll fight there, too.
The only way you can protect a society is by being strong enough to intimidate the people in the world who would otherwise look at you and go "I want, I take." Wars are a great evil, but being prepared to fight one is a necessary evil.
That's why you have a Department of Defense, and strong defensive weapons - like a nuclear deterrent.
Calling it the "Department of War", maintaining a fleet of over a dozen aircraft carriers, and having over a hundred overseas bases? Your goal is to invade, not to defend. You are the reason everyone else is forced to spend a fortune on maintaining a defensive military.
Where does defense stop in an integrated world? Aircraft carriers and a strong navy are necessary to protect waterways and freedom of navigation, which the peaceful side of USA absolutely needs in its pursuit of freedom, peace and liberty. East Asia's history is a great example of what happens when you focus only on your internal world and close off to the rest of the planet. Also why they're not falling for the same mistake again and not having these qualms in the modern era.
Peace requires policing, a credible deterrent to abuse. On the world's stage, there's no actual hegemon for the planet. You gotta choose who will police by mere "I'm stronger than you". I think the US is the most acceptable police, at least it's an elected democracy with individual freedom at its core.
At the end of the day, a government is whoever is strong enough to prevent the other one from governing: provide protection and services to your people in exchange for being the boss. Roaming bands overthrow each other, still visible in Afghanistan and Syria, and dictate who's effectively Government on a given day in a given area. Who applies the laws, who provides justice, who keeps you safe. Scale that up to modern nations and we look at it as if it was the natural order of things: just stick to you backyard and all will be good. But no, it was never like that and even less so these days: the world is shrinking rapidly.
Can't have peace without deterrence against bad actors. And deterrence doesn't stop only on your turf.
Great. Now do the British nuclear deterrent, the French one, the Russian one, the Chinese one, the (all-but-confirmed) Israeli one, the Pakistani one, the Indian one, and the North Korean one. You know, because Murica Bad and all. Also the access that Belgium, Italy, Turkey, Germany, and the Netherlands have given to base US nukes on their soil and share them in the event of a nuclear war.
And the US has 11 carriers, not "over a dozen." And we do that to keep world trade flowing because it's good for business, Trumpian idiocy notwithstanding. We have 11 carriers so we can keep about 3 or 4 on patrol at any given time, because that's the level of maintenance and staffing that's required to do that.
I would hope we someday learn to stop polluting our world in the pursuit of killing each other.