The field of political science is an academic discipline that studies political power. When that field of study is trained on Washington D.C. and a political scientist wants to examine which institutions and organizations in the national government have the most power, the two most prominent institutions are the military and the national security state apparatus. As the American economy continues to limp out of its worse recession since the end of the Second World War, the political power of the these institutions is proving to be one of the key reasons why the American economy will continue to stagnate over the next decade and the national treasury will flirt with insolvency. Like any bureaucracy, the institutions of the military and the national security state apparatus pursue their own interests first to the detriment of the average hard working American that these institutions were created to protect. Although it seems to be an impossible task, the key to solving America’s economic and constitutional crisis lies in the American people reigning in the power of these institutions and demand that resources these institutions currently have, be redirected and spent on at helping Americans living in America, instead of pursuing the interests of ineffective and bloated government agencies.
Consuming over 900 billion dollars a year, the Pentagon and the related bureaucracies such as the Department of Veteran Affairs, the Department of Energy (nuclear weapons) and the Department of Homeland Security definitively show that the institution of the military has the most power in the national government. Following the military, the second most powerful institution in Washing D.C. belongs to the national security state apparatus. Some of the more prominent and powerful bureaucracies in the national security state apparatus include the Central Intelligence Agency whose budget is estimated to be over 50 billion a year, and the National Security Agency. Although the Constitution of the United States requires that every government entity publish its expenditures, the Central Intelligence Agency since the beginning of the Cold War has ignored this requirement written in the United States Constitution. This a prominent example of how the institutions of militarism undermine democracy and the rule of law in the United States.
Although some supporters of a strong national defense will defend their viewpoint by arguing that the United States spends only 4 percent of its gross domestic product on national defense, which is in line with other developed countries in the world, this viewpoint is flawed in several ways. First, the size of the American economy and its GDP as compared to other countries allows supporters of a bloated military to use this argument. While this viewpoint of military industrial complex think tanks is true to a certain extent, the argument is flawed when taking into consideration that the United States in order to fund their national defense (power projection), the U.S. Treasury has to borrow money from other countries. Second is the fact most often ignored or played down by conservative think tank authors and fellows is that the percentage of GDP argument ignores the fact that the value of the U.S. dollar is weakened from all this borrowing and ultimately weakens both the hard (military) and soft (US dollar, world reserve currency) power of the United States.
In addition to the institutions of the military industrial complex undermining the power of the United States and the economic prosperity of most Americans, the misplaced and unethical actions of the national security state apparatus also take away a great deal of resources from the American public and impact the level of American democracy. Although many Americans are indoctrinated not to question the secret budget of the CIA, NSA and the other 14 alphabet soup intelligence agencies, the amount of misplaced government funding of these bureaucracies being spent in other countries does little to improve the American economy or provide jobs to average Americans.
Starting with the CIA involvement in over throwing a democratically elected government in Iran, which the Iranian people still have not forgotten or forgiven the United States and Britain for, the CIA has not had a very good track record and if it was a publicly traded company, would have long since gone out of business for failing to deliver a good product.
In this decade alone, the CIA has had a central role in the biggest intelligence failure the US has ever had. This follows its second biggest failure at not foreseeing the collapse of the Soviet Union, for which it was created by the United States to investigate and keep tabs on America’s main economic and military challenger in the post Second World War era. In addition to these pillars of failures, the CIA has recently in the last decade implemented a torture program; operated ghost prisons in countries such as Bulgaria; conducted kidnapping operations in countries such as Italy; and provided support for drug warlords in Afghanistan undermining the efforts of the US military and putting thousands of troops at risk.
The list could be made much longer, but at at this point a conclusion can be drawn that the Cold War relics of the CIA and and a over bloated military does more to threaten than protect America’s national security.
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