> You pay American soldiers and contractor salaries. You buy weapons and technology from American companies.
While there are wealthy individuals who profit from the military-industrial complex, it's hard to shake the impression that the majority of our bloated military budget is a federal make-work jobs program (with deaths of American troops and foreign civilians as a negative externality).
> it's hard to shake the impression that the majority of our bloated military budget is a federal make-work jobs program
The majority of it is precisely that. It's the only jobs & wealth redistribution program Republicans are willing to fund (though they never call it that). Pity it's so inefficient for that purpose.
It is, and you have whole communities being completely reliant on it for survival. But listen to Eisenhowers speech about the military-industrial complex. This reliance is created by design, and it is making some people extremely rich.
I think it's something of an open secret how much public policy (military and otherwise) is manipulated by wealthy donors and corporate lobbyists. What perhaps goes underexamined, is the extent to which Congress members (even those who grandstand on "fiscal conservatism") are extremely reluctant to cut any federal expenses that would result in a loss of jobs in their state/district (be it a closed military base, or a reduced contract with Lockheed Martin).
Middle-class voters may not actively be lobbying for the perpetual [Military/Prison/etc]-Industrial Complex; but the mere fact of who writes the checks for those voters' salaries and benefits makes the racket extremely difficult to unentrench, above and beyond the already problematic influence of the 0.001% who are shamelessly fleecing the taxpayer. It's a truly wicked problem.
That's the point of the whole War is a Racket we are discussing.
If the choice is between immeasurable human suffering, domestic corruption and jobs or just solving the problem, the war racket wins. Removing the profit motive is the key suggestion in the War is a Racket.
That is the wrong way to look at it. By this token digging holes in America is a profitable enterprise. If you pay hole diggers in America, hey all the money goes the American economy.
Whenever talking about an economic issue people have to stop thinking in terms of money and start thinking in terms of goods and services made.
The point of an economy is not to circulate money for kicks and giggles. Money is just to facilitate exchange of goods and services.
A working economy creates a large number of goods and services which the inhabitants wants and needs. You pay a worker to build a car and he makes something people benefit from. You pay a worker to make a missile and he makes something which does not improve the lives of anything. It is a complete waste of time and effort.
The money will funnel back into the US eventually anyways. Unless you have some reason to prefer giving defense contractors the money, the money might as well go to whatever middle eastern people like to buy from the US. The advantage of this scheme is that fewer lives need to be lost, the regions in question can become more stable and productive, and US interests are better promoted.
A bigger question is who did it flow back to and how can we track that? Certainly we have contractor operations that are US based, but it is not always clear if what they are doing aligns with American interests. Giving them more money may actually be increasing corruption.
Last I checked the lower middle class wages and wealth have been stagnant for years, healthcare not improved either. I see no strong indicator of this flow you mention (not saying it doesn't exist).
There is ample evidence of defense contractor stock values appreciating, including a network of contractors that are hard to fully track, so not always assured they are US based, and same for the investors in those companies.
Ex. Mercenaries from other countries, airplane wiring from India, etc.
I find it helps to think of the military as a socialist style make-work jobs program. That's not it's only function, but it is an important one. For the poor (boots on the ground types) it educates them, feeds/houses them, teaches them self discipline. During peace time it's an important economic ladder. For the middle class, it's about creating work for engineers, programmers, and scientist types.
During peace-time, I think there's a lot to be said about the ROI for the military, if the military is at some reasonable scale (which I think it is not).
With regards to the many Middle East (ME) wars, I think a lot of that is about maintaining and enforcing the petro-dollar. If the ME decides to start selling their oil in Euros or gold or some other currency, it will mean the end of the USA as we know it. The dollar will collapse and China or Russia will take over as the world hegemon. Many people really have a distaste for US hegemony, but unfortunately the real options on the table are not US vs nobody. It's US vs probably China. So the ROI is much more complicated in that regard.
The military has and will continue to be the politically-correct [to them] means of implementing a welfare state for republicans. I mean you get free high-quality insurance via tricare, free college via the post911 GI bill, subsided home loans via the VA — all the trappings of the welfare state but politically acceptable to most Republicans and centrist Democrats. The military-industrial-congressional complex is alive and well.
IMO there is no reason we should be killing people outside our borders or even have military outside our borders when there are much larger domestic problems that are unaddressed. I walk by homeless people shooting up right next to million+ dollar houses (yay Seattle + AMZN/MSFT) every day and fixing this shoes not seem to be the priority as the defense contractors and American people themselves are from this porkbarrel.
Of course war is a racket. And I agree with you that the US has been fighting wars of aggression and generally behaving in a despicable manner. Now, let's imagine what happens if/when the US decides to stop being so aggressive. I believe the Middle East begins to trade oil in Euros, gold, Yuan, or some other currency. Demand for the dollar collapses. The US economy collapses in a spectacularly violent way. Like a Venezuela/Zimbabwe kind of spectacular economic collapse. Then China, who is already putting Muslims (Uyghur) men in concentration camps and assigning rapists to live with their families and educate them into being good Communists. China who is committing mass murder to fill the market for human organs. China who is already colonizing Africa. China which is an etho-state with a dictator for life. China is going to start really flexing more around the globe.
What is your hypothesis on what happens across the globe in the absence of US hegemony and crazy wars. Do you believe a loss of the petro-dollar would lead to US collapse? Do you believe Chinese hegemony would happen, and if so, would it be better or worse than US hegemony?
You pay American soldiers and contractor salaries. You buy weapons and technology from American companies.
Bribes don't have the same economic effect.
For these large dollar amounts, how you spend it matters as much as how much you spend.