As the government approached a “fiscal cliff” for the second time, drone spending continued to skyrocket. Massive military spending has long helped keep the U.S. economy afloat. It is no surprise, then, that the Pentagon’s newest military obsession—drones—are extremely profitable for the military-industrial complex (MIC).
Drones are highly sophisticated killing machines. Compared to a manned aircraft, they can last up to 24 hours in the air. But their value to U.S. imperialism is primarily political, not technological. They decrease the potential for U.S. casualties and, and thus opposition to the war by soldiers and the U.S. population.
There is also economic value. In this era of budget-slashing, drones can be upheld as a more cost-effective way of projecting hegemony and power all over the world. They are, after all, far cheaper than the deployment of troops to foreign countries, but able to carry out destructive attacks.
What appears as a “bargain” to the Pentagon and policymakers is no bargain for poor and working people. If anything, drones are just another way to drain badly needed public resources and tax dollars, instead pouring them into the pockets of military contractors and banks.
Wall Street’s price tag
Companies like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, and General Dynamics have long manufactured and profited from drones.
Compared to manned aircraft like Lockheed Martin’s F-22 fighter jets that cost about $150 million each to produce, F-35s for $90 million, or F-16s for $55 million, a Reaper drone costs $28.4 million. Predator drones cost only about $5 million to make. The government is planning on spending $885 million in the fiscal year of 2013 on the purchase of 24 Reaper drones alone. That is $36 million per drone, which means the MIC private companies are profiting massively off the production of these murderous weapons.
The warplanes, tanks, cruise missiles and equipment made by these private companies are ultimately paid for by the government.
Cutting social services, building up drones
The debt ceiling, “fiscal cliff” and sequestration negotiations created the illusion that there is an inescapable budget crisis in the richest country in the world. The artificial crisis can only be resolved, wide sections of the ruling class claim, by slashing “entitlements,” such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and vital social programs on which tens of millions of poor and working people rely. Both parties, by contrast, react in horror and blame each other about the possibility of the military budget being cut by any significant margin.
Today, the United States spends nearly $1 trillion every year on militarism and war. The Pentagon’s enormous budget alone accounts for 57 percent of all discretionary spending. The amount spent by the United States on “defense” is greater than the rest of the world combined.
While 147 million people in the United States are in or near poverty, millions have simply given up looking for work and students are avalanched under crushing debt, the political “representatives” are signing away enormous sums to build drones, fighter jets and bombs.
The PSL calls for shutting down the military-industrial complex and all U.S. military bases around the world. The troops need to return home to meaningful jobs, education and full health care.
The real solution to the “budget crisis” would be a massive jobs program for the people, which could be funded with the Pentagon’s trillion-dollar budget. This will not happen in a capitalist system that relies on constant war and intimidation in order to dominate world markets. But it is worth remembering anytime someone in front of a camera claims the country is broke. There is a lot of money out there, and it could go to meeting people’s needs.
