Why The U.S. Is Always At War

This episode is best in video form. Check out the video version alongside 200+ other videos on the Our Changing Climate YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@OurChangingClimate

Help me make more episodes like this by supporting the channel on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/OurChangingClimate

In this Our Changing Climate climate change essay, I explore the perpetual war economy. Examining why the U.S. is always mired in conflict and war, I look at the driving forces of war as well as the human and environmental consequences of forever war.

Email List: https://ourchangingclimateocc.substack.com/
Bluesky: http://ourchangingclimate.bsky.social/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/occvideos/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/occ.climate/
Reddit: www.reddit.com/r/OurChangingClimate/
_______________________

Further Reading and Resources: https://ourchangingclimate.notion.site/War-Economy-Resources-2813e9ecd9cb800bb1c9c33e57ce18f5?source=copy_link
_______________________

For music, I use Artlist. You can get 2 months free with this link: https://artlist.io/artlist-70446/?artlist_aid=occ_2345&utm_source=affiliate_p&utm_medium=occ_2345&utm_campaign=occ_2345

I also use Epidemic Sound for some of my music: http://epidemicsound.com/creator

Support Our Changing Climate on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/c/OurChangingClimate

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

In shambles, fleeing from the capital of Philadelphia with the British hard on their heels, the American Continental Army found itself in Valley Forge in the dead of winter. It was December 1777, and as snow and frost crept in, George Washington's soldiers needed warm shelter to survive what will become a six-month encampment. So they took their axes to the surrounding white oaks and laid the landscape bare. To construct their makeshift military base, the Continental Army cut down an estimated 127,000 trees for firewood and building materials. Valley Forge, one of the foundational stories of the American Revolutionary War, was not just a turning point in the war, but an exemplar of just how destructive military conquest is on the land. War is hell, not just for people, but for the planet. In a vicious cycle, the dual destruction of the environment and humanity feed off each other, creating unlivable scenes of apocalypse. Valley Forge is just a minuscule blip in the storied history of military destruction. The damages of war are well documented, and as time marches forward, that destruction has exponentially increased. And in the end, we all lose in war. War kills our empathy, it kills our kin, it kills our planet. And yet nations continue to load bullets into their guns and pull the trigger. Warmongering has become a political constant. And for that, we have the ruling class to blame. Today we'll trudge through the trenches of war, uncovering the forces behind an economy that is based on perpetual war that crushes the global working class and the planet under its combat boots. We'll travel from the jungles of Vietnam to the cornfields of Iowa, uncover the fiscal recklessness of the Pentagon, and unpack the hidden truths this man exposed. This is the story of endless wars and endless destruction. This is the story of a capitalist ruling class unleashed. In the twilight hours of his tenure in the White House, Dwight D. Eisenhower was surprisingly candid. Free from the shackles of his presidential duties, Eisenhower laid bare his thoughts on a growing threat to the U.S. and the world in his farewell address.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Now, this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the councils of government. We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

SPEAKER_01 2:40

This is straight from the horse's mouth. Eisenhower was not only one of the most decorated generals in U.S. history, but also the sitting president. He warned that the confluence of the military establishment and the arms industry was a grave threat to the possibility of peace. Unfortunately, those words were all too prescient. Since 1961, military spending has ballooned, and so too have the pocketbooks of war profiteers. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. To understand our present, we have to understand our past. Because the history of the United States is a history of perpetual war. Since its founding, the settler colonial nation has been embroiled in armed conflict. From the settler colonial wars and genocides that decimated indigenous populations across Turtle Island to the imperialist conquests in the Philippines, to World War I and II, and now the long list of regime change wars and proxy conflicts masquerading as anti-communist or anti-terror campaigns. With each treaty and conflict ended, comes a new threat. This is not by chance. This is the path of a capitalist war economy that craves manufactured crisis.

SPEAKER_04 3:52

The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

And we can see this epitomized in the United States following World War II, where we're met with a war machine looking for a fresh enemy to sink its teeth into. Having dispensed with fascism, the massive war effort that had jumpstarted the economy after the Great Depression was winding down. And the U.S. needed a new meal to sate its violent appetite, and it found its juicy stake in communism.

SPEAKER_03 4:23

Complete world domination is the ultimate goal. The communists have never deviated from this master plan.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Anti-communism efforts throughout the second half of the 20th century gave rise to a massive military industry that funneled public dollars into private profits. From Nixon to Carter to Reagan, politicians continuously increased defense spending, setting various enemies at the gates, and in the process creating a constant treadmill of violence and intervention that siphoned money away from the public safety net. Because these wars and conflicts don't arise spontaneously. They don't explode mysteriously into the air, dispersing destruction like the pyroclassic flow of a volcano. Conflicts, especially American ones, have a purpose. And it's rarely for peace or safety. The US military protects the interests of multinational corporations abroad. It's used to control raw materials, to open up new markets for capitalist overproduction, and most importantly, to generate profits for the ruling class. Specifically, the arms and defense industries that supply the guns, technologies, chemicals, and infrastructure to the military. These are the multinational corporations like Halliburton, which netted $900 million in defense and infrastructure contracts from the Iraq War. Or Raytheon, which has made billions selling bombs and missile systems to Israel by way of the US, which has facilitated the Palestinian genocide. A company whose CEO in the aftermath of October 7th licked his chops at the potential profits soon to be reached.

SPEAKER_03 5:52

Across the entire Raytheon portfolio, you're gonna see a benefit of this restocking.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Or Lockheed Martin, who made $71 billion in profit in 2024, while Israel used their F-35 fighter jets to flatten Gaza with bombs. These corporations form the military-industrial complex, the very specter Eisenhower warned us about. They now have a stranglehold on global political agendas. And thanks to that tight grip capitalist arms dealers enjoy on American foreign policy, the US military budget has ballooned since 1960. When adjusted for inflation, it's almost doubled from $475 billion in 1960 to nearly 900 billion in 2025. That's more than the next nine countries combined, 40% of all global military spending. Worse still, the Pentagon doesn't even know where all that money goes. It has failed seven consecutive audits and cannot account for nearly 40% of its budget. And much of the money that we can account for is spent on private contractors. The Raytheons, the Lockheed Martins, the Halliburton. These corporations enjoy exclusive no-bid contracts that funnel taxpayer dollars into their coffers. Like Lockheed Martin's recent $2.98 billion 10-year contract with the Department of Defense to deliver missile defense systems. Or this one with Raytheon or this one with Airbus. And these contracts come easy to private arms dealers because in the US there is a oneness of military and business. Defense contractors lobby Congress, and in turn, Congress gives lavish contracts to those very same contractors in a revolving door relationship. Indeed, a recent investigation from the Quincy Institute found that out of the 32 four-star military officers who retired after June 2018, 26 took executive positions in the arms industry. This is the military-industrial complex in the 21st century. Generals and politicians assure war continues in return for fat checks and rich stock options. In other words, people in the imperial periphery must die so capitalists in the core can get rich. But before we talk about how much damage this permanent war economy is causing to the people and planet, I want to make one thing clear. This massive US military expenditure necessarily means an austerity politics for the country. Because instead of investing heavily in its people, the US has turned towards funneling taxpayer dollars into a massive military apparatus that blankets the globe with violence. Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and the capitalist ruling class in general, continue to spurn the programs that will actually increase the well-being of the working class, while funneling more and more money into the military. We somehow never have enough cash to expand healthcare for all, or build clean, renewable infrastructure and housing, yet there's always enough in the budget for a $45 million military parade or $134 million to deploy Marines in Los Angeles or $2.98 billion for a missile defense system. This is called military Keynesianism. Instead of attempting to ward off the inevitable economic crises caused by capitalist overproduction by investing in public works and a welfare state, the US instead ensures a perpetual war economy so that the military-industrial complex creates demand instead. In short, jumpstarting the economy through state spending, but not for the people, and instead for war. As economist Joan Robinson writes, the most convenient thing for a government to spend on is armaments. The military industrial complex thus took charge. I do not think it's plausible to suppose that the Cold War and several hot wars were invented just to solve the employment problem, but certainly they have had that effect. And here is where we see the United States' obsession with war begin to reveal itself. Because war has become, and indeed has always been, about so much more than defense, peace, or safety. War is all about a profit. At the turn of the 21st century, the Imperial Corps was itching for conquest. Without the threat of the Soviet Union and communism looming large, the military-industrial complex needed new enemies to justify its insatiable appetite for expansion. Indeed, as American diplomat George Keenan predicted in 1987, were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy. So the US ruling class was looking for answers at the turn of the century. That is until two planes hit the World Trade Center in the financial district of Manhattan, while another struck the Pentagon. In the smoking rubble of collapsed buildings on American soil, the U.S. had found its war.

SPEAKER_04 10:42

On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against Al Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

America and its allies beat their war drums and defense contractors licked their chops. Business was about to boom and people were about to die. This is the cycle of our current state of perpetual war under capitalism. As I've already mentioned, the US is constantly at war and is often provoking proxy wars via settler colonial projects like Israel. I'll say it one more time to be clear. The majority of the wars the US has fought and the massive military structure it's built have rarely been in the name of peace or safety. More often than not, they've centered around profit and control. The United States has a long history of using military power to assert dominance over potentially strategic or profitable entities. Like in Panama in 1989, when George H.W. Bush deployed 25,000 troops to oust the military leader and previous CIA asset General Noriega, who began acting against U.S. interests. In Noriega's stead, Bush propped up Guillermo Endara, who was much more loyal to the US global agenda and willing to allow the US to maintain control over the Panama Canal. Or in 1973, when the United States supported a coup to overthrow democratically elected Chilean socialist leader De Salvador Allende, replacing him with ruthless dictator Augusto Pinochet, who, in the months following his rise to power, imprisoned, tortured, and killed thousands of supposed leftist sympathizers in order to establish an economy that a New York Times reporter called a banker's delight. Or the US-backed indiscriminate slaughter of the East Timorese by Indonesian forces, or the multi-decade war raising Iraq to the ground to protect the flow of fuel from Middle Eastern oil fields into American cars. The same oil fields, which Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, Halburton, secured a non-competitive contract for up to $7 billion to rebuild. The list drags on. But the point here is this: wars often have ulterior motives other than national defense or spreading democracy. And one of the most decorated Marines in U.S. history, Major General Smedley Butler, rams this reality home in his book, War is a Racket.

SPEAKER_05 12:56

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service. And during that period, I spent most of my time as a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

And as these gangsters of capitalism help line the pockets of the elite, they sow death and destruction across the planet. 241 years after continental soldiers chopped down white oaks at Valley Forge, 50 Israeli settlers were similarly wielding axes. Their aim, however, was not to provide warmth or shelter, but to destroy a Palestinian olive group, a tree essential to Palestinian economies and way of life. As soldiers from the Israeli Defense Force watched in approval, the vigilantes chopped down branch after branch, permanently felling trees that had been there for centuries. Unfortunately, this wasn't an isolated incident. Since 1967, Israel has clear-cut over one million olive trees throughout Palestine. This is Ecocide, killing the land to kill the people. Much like the American military did to the bison as a means to eradicate those indigenous to Turtle Island. As perpetual war envelops the globe, millions die at the barrels of gas-guzzling tanks and fossil-fueled war machines that then kill the planet in their wake. Genocide and eco-cide are tightly intertwined. Over 61,000 dead in Gaza, while the US funnels more and more money into the Israeli war machine, which has, since the start of this current spike in genocidal violence, caused more emissions than whole countries like Estonia or Costa Rica. Or in Iraq, as the US military killed over 100,000, it decimated the landscapes with toxic chemicals and shrapnel and created roughly 141 million metric tons of emissions. Or in Vietnam, after 1 to 3 million died in the US's imperialist war, the people and landscapes are still healing from the damage of chemicals and destruction like DDT. And as the US military kills, it also emits copious amounts of carbon dioxide. If it were ranked as a country in terms of emissions, the US military would rank above almost 140 other countries. And this gas-guzzling nature of the military-industrial complex creates a vicious death spiral. Fossil-fueled war machines create environmental destruction and climate change, and then climate change makes conflict and destabilization more likely. War creates a cycle of emissions and violence. And looking along the lines of history, war has always been impacted or spurred on by climatic shifts. In ancient China, dynastic wars and nationwide social unrest often occurred during cold phases, revealing that climate often nudges people into conflict, but certainly can't be claimed to directly cause it. More recently, studies unpacking the factors leading to the Syrian civil war pointed towards climate change as one of the many factors that ignited the fires of conflict. Climate change is now, in the words of the Department of Defense, a threat multiplier. So although there are many more apparent consequences of war, death, the massive emissions output of war machines, there are also indirect consequences. Consequences that can be equally as devastating, like the birth of the modern chemical fertilizer and herbicide industry after World War II that has decimated soil health, given rise to massive monocrop fields exemplified in the corn and soy farms of Iowa, and has flung us headlong into a fossil-fueled agricultural system that's headed for potential soil fertility cliff. Or that war often causes oil price spikes, which means more profits for the fossil fuel industry and ultimately a slower and greater reluctance to transition away from oil and gas. So even if we're not counting direct destruction from combat, conflict means planetary harm. Whether it's the environment, climate change, millions dead, an austerity economy, or soil collapse, one thing is clear. War never benefits everyday people and almost always benefits the capitalist ruling class. War is good for business, after all. So ending this perpetual war economy means more than just ceasefires or tenuous trees. It means radical change. Since 2013, the people of Tinian, an island in the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana, have been fighting the US military. Again and again, the Navy has sought to expand operations at their base at Tinian and conduct what Earth Justice calls live war games, including artillery, mortars, rockets, amphibious assaults, attack helicopters, and warplanes. The expansion would destroy farmland, native ecosystems, and coral reefs, and would also be a constant intrusion of sound for all those who call the island home. But, against all odds, those indigenous Tatinian, known as Chamaros, have fought back. For years, they successfully delayed and blocked expansions and restorations of the military base that has existed on the island since World War II. Unfortunately, the US war machine and the ruling class that exit on are insatiable. Just a few days before making this video, the US Navy released a new proposal that they claim is more environmentally friendly and better for the people of the island.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

As one local reporter notes, there will be no high-impact artillery and no rockets. But of course, there will still be live fire and demolition ranges, ammunition storage, and radar infrastructure.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

And so the battle continues to this day. A battle that the people of Tinian will seemingly have to fight until the military-industrial complex takes its last breath. Until there is lasting peace. But peace will never come in a capitalist system, where profits reign supreme, and the most profitable thing to do is to kill and destroy. Capitalism thrives on and indeed wields crisis to adapt and change. As Stala Hugerson writes in his book Against the Crisis, crises have a double function. They both shake capitalism and keep the system alive. Crises both change and consolidate. Capitalism needs a turbulence to survive. And there are no better manufactured crises than wars. So although states might solve individual conflicts with diplomacy, in the long run, there will always be another war. Unfortunately, I by no means have the answer to how to end all wars. But it feels to me that ending the ballooning military budgets and eventually transforming our economy away from a profit-centered model is a good start. Demilitarization across the globe, but especially in the US, is how we must begin the work of repairing the harm of war. But peace ultimately must be the goal, which means developing systems, both economic and social, that eradicate the profit incentives of war, as well as working to repair harms and conflicts through nonviolent means. Because at the end of the day, no person should ever have to die, just so someone on the other side of the world can make a little bit more money.