The business of war: how capitalism makes a killing
Lei Feng
10/05/2023
Policy and media attention over the last decade clearly show that the government expects war with China. The recent AUKUS submarine deal is just a drop in the bucket as imperialist nations across the world prepare for war. Military budgets are constantly expanding with US military spending for 2023 standing at $842 billion and China’s own military budget doubling in the last ten years. Of course, America’s allies, such as the UK and Australia, have also joined the arms race. Imperialist nations are either going to war or preparing for war in order to protect market interests, exploit more resources or to maintain/expand their influence in certain regions.
China, as the rising imperialist nation, is contesting US hegemony. Tensions surrounding this rise call to mind the first and second world wars, both of which involved growing imperialist powers contesting the standing hegemons. In the case of WW1, Germany was trying to catch up with Britain and France, which had already invaded and colonised both Africa and Asia. With few options left for expansion, the imperialist powers began fighting each other over control of colonies and resources. As Lenin put it, “the world is completely divided up, so that in the future only re-division is possible.”
Similar events sparked WW2, as Germany, Italy and Japan attempted to strengthen their empires by colonising and exploiting nations across the world. These attempts initially didn’t concern the imperialist powers in the US, UK, and France. It was only once the upstarts began threating the dominance of the larger imperialist powers that war broke out. Japan was interfering with US colonial power in the Philippines, while Germany and Italy contested British and French authority in Africa and Eastern Europe.
Preparing to fight off emerging imperialist powers first requires the ruling class manufacture support for war among the home population. Today, regular reporting on China’s internal defects and international blunders encourages anti-PRC sentiments and may have contributed to an increase in racism towards Chinese people. In 2020, 77% of Australians expressed distrust towards China, while in 2006 only 38% held those views. Now, the Chinese government may have earned this distrust through its “wolf warrior” diplomacy, oppression of minority groups, weaponized trade against smaller countries and seizure of maritime territories from its neighbours.
Of course, Western governments don’t actually care about Uyghur genocide – just look at how indigenous people have been treated in the US and Australia – but these issues are milked to raise support for potential military adventures and help distract from ongoing exploitation at home. The Chinese spy balloon saga in February 2023 soaked up endless media attention while, at the same time, the East Palestine train derailment in Ohio barely rated a mention. While every major news source covered the balloon story, major networks only spent 3 hours of airtime across 92 segments on the rail disaster. Why is spying by an imperial rival more newsworthy than major corporate and government failings that destroy a local environment and potentially endanger millions of people?
We know that capitalist media is manufacturing consent for war, but who benefits most from these preparations? It is the private military industrial complex that profits when governments siphon social spending into the bottomless pit of war spending. Since it is good business, and benefits them personally, weapons manufacturers are one of the main advocates for war. The interests of weapons manufacturers are well represented in think tanks such as Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), as ASPI is funded by weapons manufacturers such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon. ASPI is a widely referenced source on China, with the media and government using this source as a justification for military expansion. In the US, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) prepared a detailed report wargaming a potential US-China conflict. Their conclusion – the US needs to buy more long range anti-ship missles (LRASM). CSIS is funded by, among other major corporations, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. Guess who makes LRASM for the US military?
Not only does ASPI, CSIS and similar outfits receive funding from weapons contractors, they also benefit from government agency funds. Between 2019-2020 ASPI received 69% of its funding from the Australian Department of Defence, with additional funding from foreign agencies such as NATO and the embassy of Israel. Essentially, the purpose of ASPI is to present itself as an independent think tank that provides unbiased information on foreign policy, when in reality ASPI is a tool to represent the interests of the state and major corporations.
The interests of arms manufacturers, major parties and Australian governments are tied. Both Labour and the Liberal/Nationals receive funding from major weapons corporations. Between 2014 and 2020 Raytheon donated $480,000 to the Liberal/Nationals. These donations towards political parties are financially motivated as Lockheed Martin was awarded a $1.4 billion contract in 2016 from the Department of Defence. Funding towards ASPI also results in government contracts as Naval Group contributed $16,666 towards ASPI and received a $605 million contract for submarine designs. These behind the curtain deals paved the way for the recent AUKUS submarine deal.
So a network of interests, comprised of government agencies, think tanks and arms manufacturers, exists to build support for war and military spending. How does this process work? First, think tanks and research institutions, such as ASPI, generate reports as “evidence” for claims made by the triad of interests. The evidence may be entirely factual or largely made up – it matters not for the purpose is the same. Next, reports from these think tanks are picked up by news sources and distributed across different news platforms, supporting efforts to manufacture consent. Third, governments cite these articles to justify their own military expansion, resulting in weapons corporations being granted billion-dollar contracts.
War is a racket. Enemies are selectively chosen and paraded in front of us to win our support for military adventures. Preparing to fight a war means spending billions on weapons – supplied of course by private corporations that profit handsomely at our expense. “Defence” spending does not exist in a vacuum. Every dollar spent pumping Raytheon’s stock price is a dollar not spent on affordable public housing or wage rises for nurses and teachers. When war actually comes, it is working people who fight and die while the military industrial complex profits off the carnage. Instead of fighting abroad, we should be fighting our exploiters at home. We should be fighting for public housing, better working conditions, better pay and many more issues that we currently face. We have more in common with our working comrades abroad than we do with the capitalists here!