Interview: U.S. military complex to benefit from Russia-Ukraine conflict: ex-Pentagon analyst

GENEVA, March 15 (Xinhua) -- A former Pentagon analyst said the U.S. military complex stands to benefit from the conflict between Russia and Ukraine as it ramps up defense spending for what could be a protracted affair in Europe.

"The American Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex (MICC) will benefit from this war (the Russia-Ukraine conflict) because it is setting the stage for a second Cold War that will increase tensions over the long term," said Franklin C. Spinney, a former Pentagon analyst.

An increase in tensions over the long term "is needed to fund the bow wave of future defense spending that is already programmed in the Pentagon's computers ..." Spinney said in a recent interview with Xinhua, warning that militarization bodes ill for the U.S. economy.

The MICC refers to the network of multisectoral individuals and institutions promoting militarization, arms sales and political power. U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower made its creeping influence public in his 1961 farewell speech.

The MICC is partly responsible for and actively benefiting from the Russia-Ukraine conflict, according to Spinney, who served for nearly 30 years as an analyst at the U.S. Department of Defense's Office of Program Analysis and Evaluation.

He faulted the MICC's post-Cold War business strategy and its supporting lobbying activities for expanding the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) after the end of the Cold War.

For Spinney, thanks to the lobbying activities by special interest groups towards expansion, NATO has not only outlived its purpose to contain the Soviet Union but enjoyed five expansions since the demise of the latter.

Spinney believed that the conflict and the ensuing fear would be permanently politicized to justify more weapon sales.

The Pentagon has been rushing new weapon programs and their engineering and manufacturing, said Spinney. Since contracts will spread to hundreds of congressional districts, weapon production becomes virtually unstoppable.

Moreover, because manufacturers routinely over-promise performance and understate costs, the demands for more military spending beget further demands for even greater spending, Spinney said.

According to Spinney, the peculiar characteristics of the MICC reduce the U.S. foreign policy elite into an endless search for new enemies abroad, which is why the United States violated its promise not to expand NATO and has no empathy for the legitimate security concerns of others, especially Russia.

"The way we have handled the end of the Cold War with NATO expansion conducted by a succession of U.S. presidents, establishing the Committee to Expand NATO headed by a Lockheed vice president, encouraging the color revolutions, particularly in Georgia and Ukraine, demonizing our adversaries, have combined to inflame tensions," he said.

Spinney referred to the humiliation the United States inflicted on Russia since the demise of the Soviet Union, amplified by the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, and the U.S. withdrawals from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2019, all of which are perceived as critical threats by Russia.

Spinney believed the domestic politics shaped by the MICC commands the U.S. foreign policy. The MICC shapes domestic political agendas by engineering electoral district dependency on the arms industry.

He is convinced that the politico-economic addiction to defense spending makes the U.S. economy less competitive through anti-competitive contracting that incentivizes parasitic rent-seeking behaviors and corruption as well as poor engineering.

Spinney also said he sees the MICC as the result of processes that reward dysfunctional practices, like lying, cheating, bureaucratic gamesmanship, unfair appraisal practices, and corrupt personnel practices, including the infamous "revolving doors," as well as an utter absence of congressional oversight and sound accounting practices in accordance with the U.S. Constitution.

As a way forward, Spinney urged the United States to strive for peace instead of perpetually preparing for war.

He also recommended that foreign policy strategists learn a little empathy and acknowledge the legitimate concerns of other nations, warning that a domestic politics addicted to weapon purchases foments insecurity.

He summed up the political problem in America's defense addiction by quoting American writer and social crusader Upton Sinclair: "It's difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."