CONNECTING FOREIGN POLICY TO DOMESTIC NEEDS

Harry Targ

As the tragedy of the Russian invasion and the devastation of Ukraine unfold, the war machines (policymakers, arms manufacturers, educators, media propagandists) of various countries-Russian, NATO alliance partners, and the US-ramp up their calls for more war. These advocates for more violence, more nuclear threats, and more great power chauvinisms increasingly take center stage. Rumors of “back channel” negotiations are demeaned. Feelers for negotiation articulated by key leaders are ignored.  And hints of negotiations and compromises and concessions are ridiculed. Finally, any suggestions that China, an “authoritarian state” could play a role in deescalating the crisis are condemned.

And, in the midst of the escalating tensions and finally the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the significant Biden program of substantial social, economic, and environmental changes has been allowed to flounder and die. Now Congress and the Administration eagerly legislate more money for the military and more money for our beleaguered Ukrainian ally (the latest over $40 billion) and increasingly remind the population that China, the real enemy, is lurking in the global background. Biden’s efforts this week to resuscitate an Asian trade bloc and warnings about the US commitment to defend Taiwan are the most recent examples. Health care, debt relief for students, shifts to a Green Jobs Agenda, tax reform, raising the minimum wage all need to be put off for another day.

Last year the New Poor Peoples Campaign showed in an informative flyer how money projected for the military could be used for human needs. 

https://ips-dc.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/PPC-BBB-fact-sheet.pdf

And elsewhere the NPPC pointed out that:

“Since Vietnam, the United States has waged an ongoing war against diffuse enemies, siphoning massive resources away from social needs. Out of every dollar in federal discretionary spending, 53 cents [go] towards the military, with just 15 cents on anti-poverty programs.”

 

Many of us remember the dramatic policies proposed, some implemented, of the Great Society. And twenty-five years earlier, during World War and before “the Great Society,” Henry Wallace, spoke of the the prospect of creating the “Century of the Common Man,” the absence of war, social and economic justice, and freedom. President Roosevelt called for a “New Economic Bill of Rights,” in 1944 embodying economic security and justice for all, and even Harry Truman advocated for a national health care system.

And what happened every time, the 1940s, the 1960s, the 1990s, and now-threats of war, demands for preparations for war, escalating military expenditures. The tragedy of how war and the mythology of its inevitability is vividly reflected in the defeat of the Great Society programs.

In sum, since the establishment of the permanent war economy in the 1940s millions of proclaimed “enemies” have been killed and seriously injured, mostly in the Global South. Permanent physical and psychological damage has been done to U.S soldiers, predominantly poor and minorities as they too are victims of war.

In addition, military spending has distorted national priorities and invested U.S. financial resources in expenditures that do not create as many jobs as investments in construction, education, or healthcare. And, as Andrew Bacevich, Seymour Melman and others have called it, “the permanent war economy” has created a culture that celebrates violence, objectifies killing, dehumanizes enemies, and exalts super-patriotism through television, music, video games, and educational institutions.

There is no doubt that there is an inextricable connection between war-making abroad and human suffering at home. Now is the time for peace and justice movements to act on these connections.