President Biden and senior Republicans looking to persuade Americans to spend $106 billion more on foreign wars have adopted a political approach: The U.S. defense industry needs the customers.
Warning that the arsenal of democracy is rusting, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, told colleagues last week that shipping weaponry to Ukraine is a good way to get the defense plants humming again as the U.S. eyes adversaries in China and Iran.
“These investments are not just replacing what’s being used to destroy Russia’s military strength. They’re expanding production capacity to meet soaring demand from allies,” Mr. McConnell said. “And they’re helping equip U.S. forces for our own long-term competition with China.”
The White House sides with Mr. McConnell.
In a prime-time speech last month announcing his $106 billion war spending bill, the president said the money would go toward new equipment for U.S. stockpiles to replace older gear sent to Ukraine.
It also means jobs, he suggested.
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“Patriot missiles for air defense batteries made in Arizona; artillery shells manufactured in 12 states across the country — in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas and so much more,” Mr. Biden said. “You know, just as in World War II, today, patriotic American workers are building the arsenal of democracy and serving the cause of freedom.”
Call it the revenge of the military-industrial complex.
Thirty years after the post-Cold War peace dividend and 10 years after the post-Iraq War dividend, Democrats and Republicans are now competing to funnel more cash to the Pentagon as the U.S. bankrolls two wars on the other side of the globe.
Meanwhile, a public scorched by the global war on terror and increasingly fed up with the U.S. effort in Ukraine is demanding answers.
Gallup’s polling shows 41% of Americans say the U.S. is doing “too much” for Ukraine, the highest rate dating back to when the pollsters started asking the question in August 2022, when just 24% said the U.S. was too involved.
Among Republicans, 62% say the U.S. is doing too much, up 12 percentage points in just four months.
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“The jobs thing is clearly a political ploy to keep people on board and also for public consumption,” said William D. Hartung, an expert on the Pentagon and the arms industry for the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “Especially now, where there’s more skepticism, especially on the Republicans’ side, I think that’s why they’re shifting to the jobs argument. I don’t know if it’s going to work.”
It also doesn’t help that the jobs argument is dubious.
“I think there’s a national security argument for modernizing our weaponry and making sure we have sufficient updated resources. I just don’t think that’s an economic argument,” said Brien Riedl, an economist at the Manhattan Institute who supports Ukraine funding.
He said defense spending is no more beneficial than another type of government investment.
“In a full-employment economy, the effect on GDP is roughly zero because every dollar that government is spending on these munitions, for instance, is one less dollar the private sector is spending. And this is because every dollar the government injects into the economy must be taxed or borrowed out of the economy,” he said.
He said it’s a particularly tough sell for those who want smaller government.
“If government investment in defense weaponry is pro-growth, then so would government investment in all kinds of industries liberals support,” Mr. Riedl.
Mr. McConnell ticked off specific weapons systems and where they are built. Billions of dollars of U.S. spending for artillery shells have put workers in plants in Arkansas, Ohio, Texas and Virginia. The Patriot interceptor, deployed from Europe through the Middle East and into the Pacific region, is produced in Tucson, Arizona, from components sourced throughout the U.S., Mr. McConnell said.
“The truth is the investments we’ve made in expanding production capacity to respond to Putin’s escalation are helping American manufacturers produce more of the weapons Israel and Taiwan need,” the minority leader said.
The U.S. sold some $200 billion in weaponry worldwide last year. Much of it went to democracies, but not all.
While Abrams tanks went to Poland, Patriot missiles went to Saudi Arabia.
Being the world’s arsenal hasn’t always worked out for the U.S.
The Islamic State group used American equipment intended for Iraq’s security forces to build its vicious caliphate in the middle of the last decade. The U.S. government is also trying to figure out exactly what U.S. equipment the Taliban have salvaged from America’s 20-year war in Afghanistan.
The eagerness to pump money into the defense industry has ignited a new round of questions about the military-industrial complex, a phrase coined by President Eisenhower. In his 1961 farewell address, he warned about the dangers of yielding to the lure of the “military machine.”
Mr. Hartung said the comparison strains over some key factors. For one thing, defense spending at the time of Eisenhower’s warning was 9% of GDP. Now it’s about 3.5%.
He said the defense industry has more political clout today, with massive companies at the center of vital areas of the economy that employ armies of lobbyists and hire retired generals to build relationships.
“Now, because of Ukraine, they really want to embrace this arsenal of democracy concept,” he said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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