the psychology behind the 'Military Industrial Complex'

It's been a long time since America fought a war where it was under any serious threat, and that was World War II, following that war mainland USA was left virtually unscathed after emerging victorious.

However the threat in 1940 was the biggest direct threat to the United States in recent history:



In the liberation of Western Europe the Americans were on the side of common decency and actually liberating the European people from oppression.

The same cannot be said about the war against Imperial Japan, it was high in cost of not only military hardware and the recovering US economy but also on human life, half of Japan was burned and then the two famous nuclear bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were executed, most likely to deter the Soviets!

From then on America took to introducing its free market to the rest of the world setting up military bases overseas and riding on the high seas in massive aircraft carriers, intervening where it served their "National interests".

Such interventions were over economic greed and in several cases bankrupted other nations, but to this day the idea of a foreign army invading was always the threat if America lapsed in securing its far away foreign security interests.



This has seen it develop into a hyperpower with a greater military than the old Roman, British and Russian empires!

But even after promoting democracy militarily in recent years in Iraq and Afghanistan (over 7,000 miles from the US) Americans don't consider themselves a militant nation, however when one looks at the hard facts its hard to ignore the fact that it really is!



The United States may be the sole hyperpower and may be the only superpower left in the 21st century to influence an ideology as the Soviets once had, however in trying to secure the vast resources in Eurasia a whole ocean away to serve their hefty economic needs may lead to a costly war with Iran and Pakistan.

During the 1990's it failed to reach the top of the global market and meantime several new economic superpowers such as China, Brazil and India have emerged.

As the US continues to send its army into the 'empire graveyard' that is Afghanistan while suffering serious economic burdens the eastern world is once again gone down the road of autocracy and communism.

Bottom Line: If the US continues such expensive oversea wars and military developments while swindling the budget it could see itself collapsing entirely in a manner similar to that of the Soviet Union, if this does happen not only may the North American continent be plunged into it's own 'Dark Ages' period of uncertainty, but with a new power in the east rising it may not be able afford the rich capitalistic society it had thrived on.

If this does happen and the world gradually goes down the road reform of the best option available the last years of the United States in history will be seen as wasteful and irrelevant, regardless of how big their military was!

why global defence should be our major defence

In 1983 Ronald Reagan delivered his speech initiating the Strategic Defense Initiative system dubbed 'Star Wars', this envisioned a hi-tech defense ground and space defense network, but throughout the years it has changed from global to regional, Ronald Reagan who among other things claimed to have seen UFO's when he was a child living in California had hinted at clear aims to make SDI as a global defense against the unknown, in 1986 he had even offered the Soviets the technology they were working on, Gorbachev had this to say:

"Excuse me, Mr. President, but I do not take your idea of sharing SDI seriously. You don't want to share even petroleum equipment, automatic machine tools or equipment for dairies, while sharing SDI would be a second American Revolution."

Now that the Soviet Union is gone the Cold War is over (theoretically), America has lost a lot of initiative since the 1990's and the Military Industrial Complex has gone out of control, building tilt rotor aircraft to fight insurgents in pickup trucks and failed fighter jets that cost a fortune.

But what about Star Wars?

The system has since been renamed and moved to regional defense with the suggestions of $6.6 billion to be spent on ballistic missile defense systems to protect mainland USA against attacks from North Korea or "accidental" launches from Russia or China.

The money for all of this can be put to much better use, technologically the world today is tiny, better economic ties should be made between east and west considering its the start of a new century and we've pretty much spent the last nine years being indifferent to the other side of the world one way or another.

The SDI should be resurrected on a global scale, with interlinked missile and radar bases spread across the world along with satellites and space vehicles with kinetic energy and/or laser weapons in space because we don't know what is out there and if there is anything hostile it would be better not to be caught with our pants down and at least be able to mean a little bit of business.



Maybe in practical terms the $300 billion plus spent on the War on Terror would go a long way funding different guided surface launched missiles, along with that simple kinetic energy weapons mounted on space vehicles would be a start, and when something gets a good kick start there is no telling on how far its development would evolve over a fifty year period. *


F-15 Eagle launching ASAT anti satellite missile

Along with this interlinked system a shared colony on the moon along with short range defensive missiles would help spread the system along way and give it a good start on its evolution, while ideas similar to these have been played around with its about time they got a solid start!

* I suppose that can't be said about after the moon landing