American Militarism: Arsenal of Democracy or Capitalism?

US invasion of Normandy, 1944

Military strength has always been a defining characteristic of the United States, ever since the nation's inception as an armed rebellion. We pioneered modern warfare during our civil war, which remains one of the bloodiest conflicts in history. By the end of the Second World War, America had achieved a position of military dominance rivaled only by the Soviet Union. After the collapse of this adversary in 1991, American dominance became unchallenged. Until that point, our investments in armed forces could be justified as "defense spending", protecting us from some external threat. Once the Cold War ended, however, no such threat existed. One would think that a military praised as the "Arsenal of Democracy" would reduce its size when democracy was no longer threatened. Instead, the US Military has continued to grow well into the 21st century. The only plausible explanation for this continued military expansion is that America is not an arsenal of democracy, but rather an arsenal of capitalism.

Industrial Workers of the World poster, 1911

Essential to any understanding of American militarism is the concept of resource competition. With military power comes control of key strategic resources, which can be used to further the interests of the nation that owns them. Undoubtedly, the most important strategic resources are energy resources, especially oil. The lifeblood of both the modern economy and the modern war machine, oil is an indispensable resource for any modern nation. It is therefore a strategic imperative of any nation, including the United States, to ensure that it has an adequate and reliable source of oil for the foreseeable future. A democratic nation's need for energy security is no less than that of a dictatorship, but the policies by which a nation pursues this strategic imperative reveal the extent to which it truly values democracy.

Lucas Gusher in Texas, 1901

There is a long-standing precedent in American foreign policy to use military force to guarantee our future supply of oil. During World War II, securing oil production was of course a military concern of paramount importance. After the war, however, the United States was faced with a choice about how to approach energy security. On one hand, we could have relied on the post-war spread of democracy in oil-rich regions. Considering our self-proclaimed role as the arsenal of democracy, it would not have been unreasonable to assume that emerging democratic states in the Middle East and elsewhere would be willing to sell us as much oil as we need. The policy we pursued instead was to continue to dominate these regions by military force, as if the war had never ended. This fateful decision has had profound consequences that we are still dealing with today.

Roosevelt's meeting with Saudi King, 1945

The best example of America's policy of controlling oil-rich regions is our relationship with Saudi Arabia. Since 1945, when President Roosevelt famously met with King Abdulaziz ibn Saud, Saudi Arabia has been one of the United States' closest allies. In return for access to their vast supply of oil, we promised to protect the kingdom from all threats, external and internal. Although not the first time America has made deals with less-than-democratic nations, this agreement shows how empty our commitment to democracy is. Our close ties with Saudi Arabia, a country marred not only by corruption but by outright feudalism, makes the United States hypocritical at best, and imperialistic according to some. American values, it seems, are trumped by American interests. Through the prism of cold-war thinking, this kind of alliance may seem like a necessary measure. But to the people living under US-supported authoritarian regimes, this argument must seem ridiculous. If a nation is fighting for democracy, it should fight for it everywhere. To repress democracy in one nation in order to protect it in another is on the same moral level as enslaving one group of people to protect the prosperity of another.

US military bases in the Middle East, 2007

American military expansion can be better explained in terms of economics. We use military force not to protect democracy, but rather to protect the global capitalist system and our interests within that system. The Cold War, perceived by Americans as a conflict between democracy and dictatorship, can be more accurately described as a conflict between two economic systems. Both superpowers viewed their own system as more democratic, and they feared each other out of self-preservation. If the Soviet Union had been successful in creating the worker's utopia that it claimed to be fighting for, it may well have caused the United States to become the "Evil Empire" in the eyes of future historians. After all, America had invaded the Soviet Union during its revolutionary beginnings between 1918 and 1920, an act of aggression never reciprocated against us. To explain the US foreign policy as simply a reaction to Soviet aggression is a politically convenient oversimplification. The reality is that both superpowers used military force to pursue their respective economic interests, with the fates of other nations being an afterthought.

US troops in Vladivostok, Russia, 1918

After the Cold War, when capitalism itself was no longer rivaled by any other economic system, the mission of our armed forces became even more selfish. If we truly believed, as Milton Friedman argued, that capitalism always leads to democracy, the triumph of capitalism would have meant the triumph of democracy. Therefore, we would no longer be able to justify our military as being the arsenal of democracy because democracy was no longer under threat, according to our ideology. While many repressive governments existed after the Cold War and continue to exist to this day, most have been integrated into the global capitalist system (most notably among them, Russia and China) and none come even close to rivaling our military dominance like the Soviet Union did. Although we continue to have wars, the massive amounts of money that the United States spends on its military can in no way be justified as defense spending.

Distribution of global military spending, 2008

Politicians filled the void by inventing the "War on Drugs" and the "War on Terror", distracting us from the fact that no real external threat exists. If any nation is a threat to democracy today, it is the United States itself. We fear the complete realization of our purported values, the spread of democracy everywhere in the world. The portrayal of Muslims and Arabs on the American media as fundamentalist, anti-democratic, and prone to extremism, which was especially common during the Bush era, is ignorant of the role played by the United States in suppressing democracy and supporting fundamentalist regimes in the region. In our efforts to secure our energy security, we take by force what we fear would not be given to us willingly. Because we fear that the people living in oil-rich regions would not give us what we need if they were under democratic government, we suppress their democracy by supporting dictators and invading if necessary. The nature of capitalism is competitive, and with many growing rivals to American economic dominance, this projection of military power for our own economic benefit has been accepted as sound policy by both major political parties. Despite the lofty ideals that many politicians invoke in their speeches, it's likely the money from war contractors that makes up their minds. If nothing else, America is guilty of hubris for trying to spread democracy to the world when it is so obviously lacking in its own government. If the 21st century is to be the golden age of democracy that the previous generations fought for, we must realize that the greatest threat to peace is the arsenal of capitalism.