Making Money on a New Cold War
One unstated reality about revived tensions between Washington and Moscow is that it will mean a bonanza in military spending – billions of additional dollars for anti-missile weapons systems, larger armies, construction of new bases in Eastern Europe, etc.
Indeed, the spending on Cold War II could dwarf what military contractors are now making on the “war on terror” – and the prospect of spending on both conflicts simultaneously should make arms industry executives drool.
Others who stand to profit grandly from a new East-West showdown include tough-talking politicians and their friends in Washington think tanks – like Heritage, AEI and CSIS – that have long fattened up on contributions from the defense industry and related corporations.
There would be losers, too, like taxpayers who would see more of their dollars go to “national security” and less to domestic needs, from repairs to the crumbling infrastructure to the costs of health care, education, the environment and Social Security.
But, in many ways, the exploitation of Cold War fears – to divert money away from domestic needs to the coffers of what Dwight Eisenhower dubbed “the military-industrial complex” – is nothing new.
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When George W. Bush became President in 2001, his administration welcomed back many of the key neocons and hardliners who had served in previous Republican administrations. Cheney was Vice President; Rumsfeld was Defense Secretary; Wolfowitz was Rumsfeld’s deputy.
On the other hand, Bush claimed to have forged a bond of personal trust with Vladimir Putin by looking into the Russian president’s eyes.
“I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country,” Bush said on June 16, 2001.
Neocon Strategy
Though many U.S. observers mocked Bush’s comment and cited Putin’s history as a KGB agent, the underlying reality was that Bush never treated Putin as a trustworthy partner. The kind words represented a façade for a continued U.S. campaign to box in and undermine Russia.......
