It is not generally understood how few people direct the flow of the hundreds of billions the U.S. spends every year on defense. The senators and representatives on the Armed Services and Appropriations committees of the Congress are easy targets for the lobbyists of the defense corporations. The weapons makers spend about $70 million a year on lobbying in Washington, and they donate generously to members of the key committees that control the defense budget.
Which is why I refer the above the Military-Industrial-Congressional Complex.
The committee staffers responsible for advising on defense budget items are out-gunned by the industry lobbyists, who earn considerably more, and are proficient in the arts of persuasion. As of 2023 there were 708 active Washington lobbyists working for defense corporations. Most of these lobbyists have gone through the “revolving door” of military or government jobs and are intimately familiar with the political terrain.
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Nothing new under the sun department. At the turn of the last century, the Senate Naval Affairs Committee was chaired by Senator Hale, of Maine. In Maine, is the Bath Iron Works shipyard, which is still building ships for the Navy today. Hale forced undersized, ineffective, battleships, on the Navy, in the hopes that Bath Iron. which could not build full size battleships, would win the contract. From March. 1903
Steve
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100 B 21’s not enough.
You knew this was coming as soon as the Air Force general in charge of dropping nuclear bombs dropped one last month: The Pentagon’s planned buy of 100 B-21 bombers isn’t enough. He really, honestly, truthinessly needs 145 of the bat-winged warplanes.
Things have changed since that original number was set in 2011, and it just won’t do in today’s world, General Anthony Cotton, chief of the U.S. Strategic Command, said March 18. “The production rate that was agreed upon was, I think, in [that] geopolitical environment. That’s a little different than the geopolitical environment that we will face for decades to come,” he said. “Hence, I, as a customer, would love to see larger production rates.”
