Establishment foreign policy commentary is loud and not helpful

Speaking Security Newsletter | Advisory Note for Activists and Candidates, n°147 | 4 March 2022

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Stephen Semler @stephensemler

Joe Biden will reportedly propose increasing the military budget to more than $800 billion in his FY2023 spending plan. It’s safe to assume well over $400 billion of that would go to for-profit contractors. My latest in @jacobin:

jacobinmag.comBiden Proposes Massive Military Spending, to Private Contractors’ DelightJoe Biden has requested more than $800 billion in military spending for the coming fiscal year. His spending plan won’t make the world safer, but it will probably funnel more than $400 billion in public money to private sector firms.

Situation

By and large, the foreign policy establishment seems genuinely exhilarated by the US sanctioning Russia and sending weapons to Ukraine. Each round of sanctions and shipment of weapons is followed up by the same demand for still more sanctions and weapons.

Analysis

There doesn’t seem to be much thought by establishment analysts as to how either policy choice (sanctioning Russia, arming Ukraine) expedites reaching a peace settlement. For example, the US has no plan in place to lift sanctions should Russia de-escalate or withdraw. And, given how quickly sanctions piled up on Russia, no one’s sure if the US would even be able to remove all of them even if it wanted to. Attempting to stop wars with sanctions usually doesn’t work, anyways.

Amid all their tough talk, mainstream political commentators are also reluctant to acknowledge that 90% of the world’s nukes are owned by either the US or Russia, and because of that, we’d really ought to do our best to avoid policy choices that augment the risks inherent to these weapons.

-Stephen Semler (@stephensemler; stephen@securityreform.org)

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