The strategic objectives of this system are carried out in East Asia and Oceania through a system of mutual defense treaties, bilateral security agreements, sometimes even through non-military regional formations that are now adopting “counter-terrorism” security agenda, as well as through proxy armies and continuing programs of military assistance, training, and war exercises.[11] Behind the regional reach (as far as East Asia and Oceania is concerned) of this web of defense decision making and implementation is the “invisible hand” of the U.S. corporate war industries sometimes called the military industrial complex.

Defense Incorporated

Under the Bush administration, the DoD is sometimes called the Department of Defense, Incorporated. Forty-three policy makers occupying key positions in various departments in 2002 were former CEOs, shareholders, directors, board members and other officials of arms contractors. Thirteen of these were in the DoD including the defense secretary, his undersecretaries, directors and secretaries of the air force, navy and army.[12] When he was the defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld ran the DoD using corporate management style, centered around a “Senior Executive Committee” that functioned as a business board of directors. Then there is the Defense Policy Board (DPB) composed of 30 members including former or active officials of America’s largest arms manufacturers, former CIA directors and executives of powerful neo-conservative think tanks. Although it serves as an advisory board, the DPB is a key player in the allocation of defense contracts and exerts a strong influence in the drafting of the Pentagon’s annual Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) that also serves as the basis for defense budget allocations including military contracts.[13]

Richard Stubbings, in his book The Defense Game (1986), says of the military-industrial complex: “…Not only is the defense budget the vehicle by which our nation plans how to fight the battles of tomorrow, but it is also a battleground by itself, where politicians, corporations, and military officers seek to serve their personal and parochial interests.”

The war blueprints, strategies and doctrines that are pursued by the U.S. government’s defense and military commands, and forces that, in turn, require the use of new arms technology, facilities, and weapons are formulated by policy consultants, think tanks and research institutions that are connected to the military industrial complex, including officials of the Pentagon, neo-conservatives and both the Republican and Democratic parties. Among these are the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), American Enterprise Institute, Council for Foreign Relations, Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Center for Security Policy (CSP) and the National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP).[14] These are also the same institutions, aided in no small measure by global media conglomerates and public relations agencies, that conjure false and scary scenarios – often peddled or cosmeticized as “policy strategies” – about “rogue regimes,” “terrorist threats,” arcs of instability and other security threats that justify not only America’s benign intervention but also new security strategies, major increases in defense budgets and the development of new weapons technology.

Every grim scenario that they paint creates expectations of bigger bonanzas of profits. By the way, they also cover up the fascist brutality, the disregard for the oppressed peoples’ rights to national sovereignty and self-determination and clothe these with 19th century moralisms of new imperialism and racism, assuming that America was pre-ordained to be the world hegemon acting with benevolence. They demonize nations that dare oppose U.S. imperialism as “rogue regimes” or “failed states” and national liberation struggles as “terrorists.” Showing neither remorse nor apology, they call the hundreds of thousands of recent victims of the “war against terrorism” as a mere collateral damage while they glorify invaders and murderers as “heroes” and “patriots.”[15]

Military-Industrial Complex

Prof. Edberto Villegas, in his “The U.S. Military-Industrial Complex: The Bane of Humanity,” comments on the U.S. military-industrial complex: “The highest social structure at present of the American monopoly bourgeoisie or monopoly capitalism is the U.S. military industrial complex…War and threat of war have always been good business for U.S. monopoly capitalism or imperialism. This is the reason why U.S. monopoly capitalism has established a firm foothold in Washington and closely influences the direction of U.S. domestic and foreign policies.”[16]

It is for this reason that, so long as the monopoly bourgeoisie that is at the helm of the military industrial complex holds the reins of power in the U.S. government, the policy directions and strategies that embody American objectives and interests in East Asia and Oceania will always be highly influenced by the war industries. They secure America’s trade and investment, its access to raw materials, energy sources and cheap labor. They suppress aroused masses who struggle in various ways against the impositions of monopoly capitalism through political and military intervention and support for repressive regimes such as in the Philippines. They use as enterprises for profit U.S. imperialism’s armed personnel, military infrastructures, operations and exercises, training programs and the like that are sustained and expanded through the constant drumming of security threats and the like. The U.S. military industrial complex of the monopoly bourgeoisie thrives on a war-driven economy and a “permanent war.” Posted by (Bulatlat.com)

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