The phrase “military industrial complex” fell our of common use in the US after the war in Vietnam, but that doesn't mean the alliance between big defense contractors and the government halted. The U.S. has been in many armed conflicts since the WWII, which was (apparently too optimistically) called the War to End All Wars. the US has fought in Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf, Granada, Bosnia, Iraq, and we are currently fighting in Afghanistan. This is not counting the skirmishes in Panama, the Dominican Republic, Somalia, and the Bay of Pigs. It appears that some force has been working behind the scenes to keep America in a never-ending state of war.
US Military Spending versus Other Nations
According to Reuters, the cost of the wars to US taxpayers since 2001 has topped $1 trillion. (Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan Tops $1 Trillion, Reuters, January 14, 2010) The wars and still going on at this point and the cost continues to escalate. According to the Council on Foreign relations, the Congressional Budget Office now estimates " the costs of the Iraq war, projected out through 2017, might top $1 trillion, plus an extra $705 billion in interest payments, and says the total cost of Iraq and Afghanistan combined could reach $2.4 trillion." (Lee Hudson Teslik, "Iraq, Afghanistan and the US Economy,"Council on Foreign Relations, march 11, 2008)
US Military Spending: Differing Calculations
Determining the extent of the military industrial complex is difficult, because figures are juggled by various interested parties, but according to 2005 data from SIPRI (PDF), the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the US spends more on military endeavors than any other country in the world. If war spending and allocations to the “Global War on Terror” are excluded, the U.S. military budget is still more than seven times that of its next closest competitor, China. If war spending and the Global War on Terror are included, the U.S. spends more on military endeavors than all other countries of the world combined.
