https://sputnikglobe.com/20230526/arms-industry-rips-off-us-taxpayer-to-the-tune-of-trillions-for-sub-par-systems-1110601538.html
Arms Industry Rips Off US Taxpayer to the Tune of Trillions for 'Sub-Par' Systems
Arms Industry Rips Off US Taxpayer to the Tune of Trillions for 'Sub-Par' Systems
Sputnik International
The Pentagon huge sums for weapons systems of questionable usefulness. Daniel McAdams, Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, explained how the military-industrial complex sets its own budget.
2023-05-26T13:34+0000
2023-05-26T13:34+0000
2023-05-26T17:07+0000
americas
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ron paul institute for peace and prosperity
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Political palm-greasing and a corrupt "revolving door" relationship between the Pentagon and the arms industry is why so many US weapons systems are expensive flops, a peace campaigner told Sputnik.The US spends an astronomical $1 trillion of taxpayers' money annually on defence — 40 per cent of all world military spending and more than the next 10 countries combined.Yet the humiliating US retreat from Afghanistan in 2021 and Washington's attempts to arm Ukraine for a proxy conflict with Russia have exposed the impotence of the bloated military-industrial complex.Daniel McAdams told Sputnik the Pentagon's failure to get 'bang for the buck' was just a "symptom of a bigger problem.""The American public has been propagandized for decades... that we basically have to be the unipolar power," he said. "We have to rule the entire world. And threats are everywhere. Everyone is just itching to take us over: 'the Chinese can't wait to take California'."The core problem was the US "philosophy" of US military hegemony, dubbed "Full-spectrum dominance."The end result of that philosophy is "weapons systems that don't work as well as they should" — as seen in Ukraine."The Ukraine war has been a disaster in terms of advertising for US weapons systems, because each new wonder-weapon has shown itself on the battlefield to be not all it's cracked up to be," McAdams pointed out. "So we're getting sub-par weapons. But the real problem is that we have an incorrect philosophy."The peace campaigner pointed to the cozy relationship between the the arms industry, the top military brass and politicians for why "we're getting less for the more we're paying.""It's what my old friend Chuck Spinney, who worked at the Pentagon for his entire career, who knows more about this probably than anyone in America, what he would call it is a soft looking ice cream cone, because the enormous profits that come into the to these defense contractors, they plow some of those profits into the think-tanks," he said.A prime example is the Lockheed-Martin F-35 stealth strike fighter, sold in large numbers to the US Air Force, US Navy and Marine Corps along with dozens of overseas air forces, but which is still suffering numerous serious technical issues."It's manufactured, I think, in all 50 states and in five foreign countries," McAdams noted. "So everyone gets a little piece of the pie. So is any member of Congress going to get up and say: 'hey, you know what, This thing doesn't work very well'?"He also slammed the "revolving door" arrangement between the Pentagon and the arms industry, exemplified by General Lloyd Austin's stint as a director of Raytheon Technologies from when he stood down as commander of the Pentagon's Middle East Central Command in 2016 until his nomination for secretary of Defense by president-elect Joe Biden in 2020. For more incisive analysis of current affairs, check out our Sputnik Radio show Fault Lines.
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us defense secretary lloyd austin, us military0industrial complex (mic), raytheon systems, us president joe biden, russia's special military operation in ukraine, lockheed martin f-35 joint strike fighter
us defense secretary lloyd austin, us military0industrial complex (mic), raytheon systems, us president joe biden, russia's special military operation in ukraine, lockheed martin f-35 joint strike fighter
Arms Industry Rips Off US Taxpayer to the Tune of Trillions for 'Sub-Par' Systems
13:34 GMT 26.05.2023 (Updated: 17:07 GMT 26.05.2023) The Pentagon spends huge sums for weapons systems of questionable usefulness. Daniel McAdams, Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity, explained how the military-industrial complex sets its own budget.
Political palm-greasing and a corrupt "revolving door" relationship between the Pentagon and the arms industry is why so many US weapons systems are expensive flops, a peace campaigner
told Sputnik.
The US spends an astronomical $1 trillion of taxpayers' money annually on defence — 40 per cent of all world military spending and more than the
next 10 countries combined.
Yet the humiliating US retreat from Afghanistan in 2021 and Washington's attempts to arm Ukraine for a proxy conflict with Russia have exposed the impotence of the bloated military-industrial complex.
Daniel McAdams told Sputnik the Pentagon's failure to get 'bang for the buck' was just a
"symptom of a bigger problem.""The American public has been propagandized for decades... that we basically have to be the unipolar power," he said. "We have to rule the entire world. And threats are everywhere. Everyone is just itching to take us over: 'the Chinese can't wait to take California'."
The core problem was the US "philosophy" of US military hegemony, dubbed "Full-spectrum dominance."
"That's the basis upon which this enormous military budget is built. The idea that we have to be number one, the Wolfowitz Doctrine, that nobody can ever challenge our power," McAdams explained. "So when you start from that philosophical basis, the sky's the limit when it comes to spending. You can spend as much as you want, because if you oppose any of that spending war, you're just un-American."
The end result of that philosophy is "weapons systems that don't work as well as they should" — as seen in Ukraine.
"The Ukraine war has been a disaster in terms of advertising for US weapons systems, because each new wonder-weapon has shown itself on the battlefield to be not all it's cracked up to be," McAdams pointed out. "So we're getting sub-par weapons. But the real problem is that we have an incorrect philosophy."
The peace campaigner pointed to the cozy relationship between the the arms industry, the top military brass and politicians for why "we're getting less for the more we're paying."
"It's what my old friend Chuck Spinney, who worked at the Pentagon for his entire career, who knows more about this probably than anyone in America, what he would call it is a soft looking ice cream cone, because the enormous profits that come into the to these defense contractors, they plow some of those profits into the think-tanks," he said.
Those think-tanks "produce policy papers about threats, the China threat, the threat from Asia, the threat from here, the threat from there," McAdams explained. "So the more money they make, the more they plow into the think tanks and the media to hype up the threats to make America believe that we need to spend more."
A prime example is the
Lockheed-Martin F-35 stealth strike fighter, sold in large numbers to the US Air Force, US Navy and Marine Corps along with dozens of overseas air forces, but which is still suffering numerous serious technical issues.
"It's manufactured, I think, in all 50 states and in five foreign countries," McAdams noted. "So everyone gets a little piece of the pie. So is any member of Congress going to get up and say: 'hey, you know what, This thing doesn't work very well'?"
He also slammed the "revolving door" arrangement between the Pentagon and the arms industry, exemplified by
General Lloyd Austin's stint as a director of
Raytheon Technologies from when he stood down as commander of the Pentagon's Middle East Central Command in 2016 until his nomination for secretary of Defense by president-elect Joe Biden in 2020.
"Who wouldn't want to go over to Raytheon and make a half a million a year? Who wouldn't want to be Defense Secretary Austin, back and forth, back and forth?" McAdams asked. "There's no way when you're in the military, you're going to say, you know what, We really don't need to spend that much on that system because you're not going to get a job with the company that makes that system. So the whole entire system is corrupt and it has nothing to do with defending the US or protecting Americans."
For more incisive analysis of current affairs, check out our Sputnik Radio show Fault Lines. 
