[Peace-discuss] U.S. Takes Gold in Arms Olympics

[Lisa Chason]

Berrigan, U.S. Takes Gold in Arms Olympics

This post can be found at http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=196017

Hey, aren't we the most exceptional nation in history? George Bush and his
pals thought so -- and they were in a great American tradition of
exceptionalism. Of course, they were imagining us as the most exceptional
empire in history (or maybe at the end of it), the ultimate New Rome.
Anyway, explain this to me: Among all the exceptional things we claim to do,
how come we never take credit for what may be the most exceptional of all,
our success of successes, the thing that makes us uniquely ourselves on this
war-ridden planet -- peddling more arms to Earthlings than anyone else in
the neighborhood? Why do we hide this rare talent under a bushel? In the
interest of shining a proud light on an under-rated national skill, I asked
Frida Berrigan to return the United States to its rightful place in the
Pantheon of arms-dealing nations. Tom 


We're # 1!


A Nation of Firsts Arms the World
By Frida Berrigan 

They don't call us the sole superpower for nothing. Paul Wolfowitz might be
looking for a new job right now, but the term he used to describe the
pervasiveness of U.S. might back when he was a mere deputy secretary of
defense -- hyperpower -- still fits the bill. 

Face it, the United States is a proud nation of firsts. Among them: 

First in Oil Consumption: 

The United States burns up 20.7 million barrels
<http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/topworldtables3_4.html>  per day, the
equivalent of the oil consumption of China, Japan, Germany, Russia, and
India combined.

First in Carbon Dioxide Emissions: 

Each year, world polluters pump 24,126,416,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide
(CO2) into the environment. The United
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions>
States and its territories are responsible for 5.8 billion metric tons of
this, more than China (3.3 billion), Russia (1.4 billion) and India (1.2
billion) combined.

First in External Debt: 

The United States owes $10.040 trillion, nearly
<https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2079r
ank.html>  a quarter of the global debt total of $44 trillion.

First in Military Expenditures: 

The White House has requested $481 billion for the Department of Defense for
2008, but this huge figure does not come close to representing total U.S.
military expenditures projected for the coming year. To get a sense of the
resources allocated to the military, the costs of the global war on
terrorism, of the building, refurbishing, or maintaining of the U.S. nuclear
arsenal, and other expenses also need to be factored in. Military analyst
Winslow Wheeler did the math
<http://www.counterpunch.org/wheeler03072007.html>  recently: "Add $142
billion to cover the anticipated costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan;
add $17 billion requested for nuclear weapons costs in the Department of
Energy; add another $5 billion for miscellaneous defense costs in other
agencies.. and you get a grand total of $647 billion for 2008." 

Taking another approach to the use of U.S. resources, Columbia University
economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard Business School lecturer Linda Bilmes,
added
<http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12855294/national_affairs_the_2_
trillion_dollar_war>  to known costs of the war in Iraq invisible costs like
its impact on global oil prices as well as the long-term cost of health care
for wounded veterans and came up with a price tag of between 1 trillion and
$2.2 trillion. 

If we turned what the United States will spend on the military in 2008 into
small bills, we could give each one of the world's more than 1 billion
teenagers and young adults an Xbox 360 with wireless controller (power
supply in remote rural areas not included) and two video games to play:
maybe Gears of War <http://gearsofwar.com/>  and Command
<http://www.commandandconquer.com/game_details/default.aspx>  and Conquer
would be appropriate. But if we're committed to fighting
<http://www.postchronicle.com/news/sports/article_21277980.shtml>  obesity,
maybe Dance Dance Revolution would be a better bet. The United States alone
spends what the rest of the world combined devotes to military expenditures.

First in Weapons Sales: 

Since 2001, U.S. global military sales have normally totaled between $10 and
$13 billion. That's a lot of weapons, but in fiscal year 2006, the Pentagon
broke its own recent record, inking arms sales agreements worth $21 billion.
It almost goes without saying that this is significantly more than any other
nation in the world.

In this gold-medal tally of firsts, there can be no question that things
that go bang in the night are our proudest products. No one makes more of
them or sells them more effectively than we do. When it comes to the sorts
of firsts that once went with a classic civilian manufacturing base,
however, gold medals are in short supply. To take an example: 

Not First in Automobiles: 

Once, Chrysler, General Motors, and Ford ruled the domestic and global
roost, setting the standard for the automotive industry. Not any more. In
2006, the U.S. imported almost $150 billion
<http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/TableView.asp#Mid>  more in vehicles
and auto parts than it sent abroad. Automotive analyst Joe Barker told the
Boston
<http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2007/04/24/woes_may_loom_for_
us_auto_firms/>  Globe, "it's a very tough environment" for the so-called
Detroit Three. "In times of softening demand, consumers typically will look
to brands that they trust and rely on. Consumers trust and rely on Japanese
brands."

Not Even First in Bulk Goods: 

The Department
<http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/international/trade/tradnewsrelease.htm>
of Commerce recently announced total March exports of $126.2 billion and
total imports of $190.1 billion, resulting in a goods and services deficit
of $63.9 billion. This is a $6 billion increase over February.

But why be gloomy? Stick with arms sales and it's dawn in America every day
of the year. Sometimes, the weapons industry pretends that it's like any
other trade -- especially when it's pushing our congressional
representatives (as it always does) for fewer restrictions and regulations.
But don't be fooled. Arms aren't automobiles or refrigerators. They're sui
generis; they are the way the USA can always be number one -- and everyone
wants them. The odds that, in your lifetime, there will ever be a $128
billion trade deficit in weapons are essentially nil. 

Arms are our real gold-medal event. 

First in Sales of Surface-to-Air Missiles: 

Between 2001 and 2005, the United States delivered 2,099 surface-to-air
missiles like the "Sparrow" and the "AMRAAM" to nations in the developing
world, 20% more than Russia, the next largest supplier.

First in Sales of Military Ships: 

During that same period, the U.S. sent 10 "major surface combatants" like
aircraft carriers and destroyers to developing nations. Collectively, the
four major European weapons producers shipped thirteen. (And we were first
in the anti-ship missiles that go along with such ships, with nearly double
(338) the exports of the next largest supplier Russia (180).

First in Military Training: 

A thoughtful empire knows that it is not enough to send weapons; you have to
teach people how to use them. The Pentagon plans on training the militaries
of 138 nations in 2008 at a cost of nearly $90 million. No other nation
comes close.

First in Private Military Personnel: 

According to bestselling author Jeremy Scahill
<http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070528/scahill> , there are at least 126,000
private military personnel deployed alongside uniformed military personnel
in Iraq alone. Of the more than sixty major companies that supply such
personnel worldwide, more than 40 are U.S. based.

Rest assured, governments around the world, often at each others' throats,
will want U.S. weapons long after their people have turned up their noses at
a range of once dominant American consumer goods. 

Just a few days ago, for instance, the "trade" publication Defense News
reported that Turkey and the United States signed a $1.78 billion deal for
Lockheed Martin's F-16 fighter planes. As it happens, these planes are
already ubiquitous -- Israel flies them, so does the United Arab Emirates,
Poland, South Korea, Venezuela
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4398914.stm> , Oman and Portugal,
not to speak about most other modern air forces. In many ways, F-16 is not
just a high-tech fighter jet, it's also a symbol of U.S. backing and
friendship. Buying our weaponry is one of the few ways you can actually join
the American imperial project! 

In order to remain number one in the competitive jet field, Lockheed Martin,
for example, does far more than just sell airplanes. TAI -- Turkey's
aerospace corporation -- will receive a boost with this sale, because
Lockheed Martin is handing over responsibility for parts of production,
assembly, and testing to Turkish workers. The Turkish Air Force already has
215 F-16 fighter planes and plans to buy 100 of Lockheed Martin's new F-35
Joint Strike Fighter as well, in a deal estimated at $10.7 billion over the
next 15 years. 

$10.7 billion on fighter planes for a country that ranks 94th on the United
Nations' Human Development Index, below Lebanon, Colombia, and Grenada, and
far below all the European nations that Ankara is courting as it seeks to
join the European Union -- now that's a real American sales job for you! 

Here's the strange thing, though: This genuine, gold-medal
manufacturing-and-sales job on weapons simply never gets the attention it
deserves. As a result, most Americans have no idea how proud they should be
of our weapons manufacturers and the Pentagon -- essentially our global
sales force -- that makes sure our weapons travel the planet and regularly
demonstrates their value in small wars from Latin America to Central Asia. 

Of course, there's tons of data on the weapons trade, but who knows about
any of it? I'm typical here. I help produce one of a dozen or so sober
annual (or semi-annual) reports quantifying the business of war-making. In
my case: the Arms Trade Resource Center report, U.S.
<http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/arms/reports/wawjune2005.html>  Weapons
at War: Fueling Conflict or Promoting Freedom? These reports get desultory,
obligatory press attention -- but only once in a blue moon do they get the
sort of full-court-press treatment that befits our number one product line. 

Dense collections of facts, percentages, and comparisons don't seem to fit
particularly well into the usual patchwork of front-page stories. And yet
the mainstream press is a glory ride, compared to the TV News, which hardly
acknowledges most of the time that the weapons business even exists. 

In any case, that inside-the-fold, fact-heavy, wonky news story on the arms
trade, however useful, can't possibly convey the gold-medal feel of a
business that has always preferred the shadows to the sun. No reader
checking out such a piece is going to feel much -- except maybe overwhelmed
by facts. The connection between the factory that makes a weapons system and
the community where that weapon "does its duty" is invariably
missing-in-action, as are the relationships among the companies making the
weapons and the generals (on-duty and retired) and politicians making the
deals, or raking in their own cut of the profits for themselves and/or their
constituencies. In other words, our most successful (and most deadly) export
remains our most invisible one. 

Maybe the only way to break through this paralysis of analysis would be to
stop talking about weapons exports as a trade at all. Maybe we shouldn't be
using economic language to describe it. Yes, the weapons industry has
associations, lobby groups, and trade shows. They have the same tri-fold
exhibits, scale models, and picked-over buffets as any other industry;
still, maybe we have to stop thinking about the export of fighter planes and
precision-guided missiles as if they were so many widgets and start thinking
about them in another language entirely -- the language of drugs. 

After all, what does a drug dealer do? He creates a need and then fills it.
He encourages an appetite or (even more lucratively) an addiction and then
feeds it. 

Arms dealers do the same thing. They suggest to foreign officials that their
military just might need a slight upgrade. After all, they'll point out,
haven't you noticed that your neighbor just upgraded in jets, submarines,
and tanks? And didn't you guys fight a war a few years back? Doesn't that
make you feel insecure? And why feel insecure for another moment when, for
just a few billion bucks, we'll get you suited up with the latest model
military. even better than what we sold them -- or you the last time around.


Why does Turkey, which already has 215 fighter planes, need 100 extras in an
even higher-tech version? It doesn't. but Lockheed Martin, working the
Pentagon, made them think they did. 

We don't need stronger arms control laws, we need a global sobriety coach --
and some kind of 12-step program for the dealer-nation as well. 

Frida Berrigan is a Senior Research Associate at the World Policy
Institute's Arms Trade Resource Center.

Copyright 2007 Frida Berrigan

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