SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: EMPIRE’S MILITARY INDUSTRY AND THE FOREVER WARS What are the factors driving the US military establishment to follow Trump and Netanyahu into an unprovoked, losing war?

EMPIRE’S MILITARY INDUSTRY AND THE FOREVER WARS What are the factors driving the US military establishment to follow Trump and Netanyahu into an unprovoked, losing war? Professor David Gibbs offers a stark explanation for America's unending wars: the system itself demands them. "When you create this enormous military, you have to use it periodically," he argues. "There's no way you can justify the existence of this enormous, outsized military, far larger than any in the world." The numbers support his claim. The United States maintains at least 128 overseas bases across 51 countries, with a 2026 defence budget of $895 billion—more than the next ten nations combined. China, by contrast, spends approximately $267 billion on defence, just 1.5% of its GDP, with only one overseas base in Djibouti. Yet Washington frames Beijing as the existential threat. With the end of the Cold War, Gibbs explains, the US "was basically looking for new enemies." This institutional need—what Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex—encompasses think tanks, elite academics, and journalists who benefited from Cold War funding. "Lots of grants and scholarships and book contracts. Secret work for the Central Intelligence Agency, paying you to write books and then editing them for you in secret." Enter the 1% Doctrine, formalised by Dick Cheney. "If there's a 1% chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al-Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty," Cheney declared. The logic transforms hypothetical threats into justification for preemptive war. This doctrine now targets Iran. Despite IAEA confirmation that Iran has "no structured program to manufacture nuclear weapons," the US-Israeli onslaught has killed over 1,300 civilians, including 165 schoolgirls in Minab. As Gibbs notes, "The idea that if somebody might hypothetically threaten you, you should treat it as a certainty and attack them... makes no sense. But that really is the neoconservative idea." The system, built for a Cold War that ended decades ago, requires enemies. It has manufactured them—from Iraq's nonexistent WMDs to Iran's hypothetical nukes—and the machinery of war grinds on.

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8:25 PM · Mar 29, 2026