Military Spending and the International War Machine

Analysis of military spending patterns and a 400-year timeline of international conflict.

Military Spending and the Abuse of Power

Military establishments represent a unique vector for government overreach. They combine massive resource consumption, inherent secrecy justifications, concentrated interests, and—ultimately—the state's capacity for organized violence. Understanding military overreach requires examining how defense spending escapes normal accountability.

Why Military Spending Is Prone to Overreach

Information Asymmetry

Fear as Political Resource

Concentrated Benefits, Diffuse Costs

Revolving Door

Institutional Momentum

Patterns of Military Overreach

Threat Inflation

Historical pattern of systematically exaggerating adversary capabilities:

Pattern: Initial estimates favoring higher spending rarely corrected; careers built on threat inflation, not deflation.

Weapons Programs That Serve Contractors More Than Defense

Common features: Costs exceed estimates, timelines slip, performance disappoints, but programs continue because cancellation would affect contractors and jobs.

Base Structure Exceeding Strategic Need

Forever Wars and Mission Creep

The Military-Industrial Complex

Eisenhower's 1961 warning has proved prescient:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Structure of the Complex

How It Perpetuates Overreach

  1. Contractors fund think tanks that identify threats
  2. Think tanks recommend responses requiring new systems
  3. Military requests funding for systems
  4. Contractors donate to legislators who approve funding
  5. Legislators protect contracts and bases in their districts
  6. Retired officers join contractor boards, maintain Pentagon relationships
  7. Cycle continues regardless of actual threat environment

Comparative Military Spending

Global Context

What Would Non-Overreach Look Like?

Difficult to determine, but questions include:

Countries With Different Approaches

These examples involve special circumstances (US security guarantees, geographic isolation) but demonstrate alternatives exist.

Military Overreach Beyond Spending

Domestic Military Deployment

Covert Operations

Surveillance Capabilities

Influence on Foreign Policy

Why Democratic Oversight Fails

Classification

Complexity

Political Risk

Capture of Oversight

Reform Attempts and Their Limits

Procurement Reform

Base Closure Commissions

Audit Requirements

Threat Reassessment

The Opportunity Cost

Military overreach consumes resources unavailable for other purposes:

Direct Costs

Indirect Costs

What Alternatives Would Citizens Choose?

If presented with clear tradeoffs:

These choices are obscured by budget complexity and threat framing that presents military spending as non-negotiable.

Polling Evidence

Revealed Preferences

The Unfalsifiable Claim

Security establishments argue: “You don't know what threats we've deterred.” This may be true but:

What Would Accountability Look Like?

Transparency Requirements

Structural Changes

Cultural Shifts

International Coordination

The International War Machine: A 400-Year Timeline

This section traces the evolution of organized state violence from early colonialism to the present, marking the technological and political developments that shaped global power. The timeline is divided by a singular threshold: the moment humanity acquired the capability to extinguish itself.

PART ONE: THE ERA OF LIMITED DESTRUCTION (1600-1945)

In this era, wars could devastate nations, depopulate regions, and collapse civilizations—but life itself would continue. The worst atrocities killed millions; survivors rebuilt. The scale of destruction was bounded by the energy humans could harness.

1600-1700: The Corporate Conquest Model

Key Events – 1600: British East India Company chartered—a private corporation granted monopoly on Eastern trade, with authority to wage war, negotiate treaties, and govern territories – 1602: Dutch East India Company (VOC) founded—world's first multinational corporation, first to issue stock, and for two centuries the most powerful non-state actor on Earth – 1619: First enslaved Africans brought to Virginia; beginning of Atlantic slave trade's industrialization – 1648: Peace of Westphalia—establishes state sovereignty as organizing principle of international order – 1652-1674: Anglo-Dutch Wars—European powers fight for control of global trade routes

Technologies – Ocean-going sailing ships enabling global force projection – Early gunpowder weapons (matchlock muskets, cannon) – Fortification engineering (star forts) – Navigation instruments (compass, astrolabe, early chronometers)

Character of Violence Wars remained limited by logistics. Armies of tens of thousands. Campaigns seasonal. Sieges could last years. Disease killed more soldiers than combat. Violence was brutal but geographically contained.

1700-1800: The Colonial Framework Solidifies

Key Events – 1707: Mughal Empire begins decline after Aurangzeb's death—creates power vacuum Europeans exploit – 1757: Battle of Plassey—East India Company defeats Bengal's Nawab with 3,000 troops, begins transformation from trading company to territorial ruler of India – 1756-1763: Seven Years' War—first truly global conflict, fought in Europe, Americas, Africa, India, Philippines. Britain emerges as dominant colonial power – 1776: American Revolution—colony successfully rebels; limited impact on broader colonial system – 1789: French Revolution—introduces mass conscription (levée en masse), nationalism as military force multiplier – 1791-1804: Haitian Revolution—only successful slave revolt creating independent nation; terrifies colonial powers

Technologies – Flintlock muskets (faster firing) – Improved artillery (standardized calibers) – Better ship designs (74-gun ship-of-the-line) – Early industrial production (interchangeable parts experimented)

Character of Violence Armies grow larger through conscription. Napoleonic wars mobilize millions. Colonial violence becomes systematic—not just conquest but administrative control of populations. Company rule means profit-motivated violence; extracting value from conquered peoples becomes bureaucratized.

1800-1850: Industrial Power Begins Transforming War

Key Events – 1803-1815: Napoleonic Wars—6 million dead; demonstrates mass mobilization and national warfare – 1820s-1830s: Latin American independence movements—Spanish colonial empire collapses (but economic dependence continues) – 1830: France invades Algeria—beginning of “second wave” colonialism in Africa – 1839-1842: First Opium War—Britain forces China to accept opium imports, cedes Hong Kong. Beginning of China's “Century of Humiliation” – 1845-1852: Irish Famine—British policy choices during crop failure kill 1 million, force 1 million to emigrate. Colonial extraction logic applied within British Isles – 1848: Revolutions across Europe—all suppressed, but demonstrate popular challenges to state power

Technologies – Steam power (ships no longer dependent on wind) – Railways (rapid troop movement, supply lines) – Telegraph (instant communication across distances) – Percussion caps, early rifled weapons – Iron-hulled ships beginning to appear

The Opium Wars and the Century of Humiliation China in 1800 was the world's largest economy, producing roughly one-third of global GDP. The Qing dynasty had restricted European trade to one port (Canton) and demanded payment in silver. Britain, facing trade deficit, began smuggling opium grown in India into China—creating mass addiction and reversing silver flows. When China tried to stop the drug trade, Britain deployed industrial-age warships against a pre-industrial navy. The result was not just military defeat but forced opening of ports, extraterritoriality (foreigners immune from Chinese law), and the beginning of territorial dismemberment. This trauma—foreign powers dictating terms to a civilization that considered itself the center of the world—shapes Chinese strategic thinking to this day.

1850-1900: High Colonialism and Industrial Warfare

Key Events – 1853-1856: Crimean War—industrial logistics, telegraph reporting, nursing reform (Nightingale), proto-trench warfare – 1856-1860: Second Opium War—Anglo-French forces burn Summer Palace in Beijing; more “unequal treaties” imposed on China – 1857: Indian Rebellion (Sepoy Mutiny)—nearly overthrows British rule; East India Company dissolved, replaced by direct Crown rule (British Raj) – 1861-1865: American Civil War—first industrial total war: 620,000 dead, railroads, telegraph, ironclads, trench warfare, Sherman's March demonstrates targeting civilian infrastructure – 1870-1871: Franco-Prussian War—Prussian military efficiency; Paris besieged; German unification; France loses Alsace-Lorraine (grievance leading to WWI) – 1884-1885: Berlin Conference—European powers partition Africa without African representation; “Scramble for Africa” formalized – 1894-1895: First Sino-Japanese War—Japan defeats China, takes Taiwan; demonstrates Asian power can master industrial warfare – 1898: Spanish-American War—US acquires Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam; begins American overseas empire – 1899-1902: Boer War—Britain uses concentration camps against civilian population (26,000 deaths in camps)

Technologies – Breech-loading rifles (faster reloading) – Machine guns (Gatling, Maxim—enables small forces to defeat large armies) – High explosives (dynamite, TNT) – Steel warships, early submarines – Smokeless powder – Early aircraft experiments

Character of Violence Machine guns create radical asymmetry: at Omdurman (1898), 10,000 Sudanese killed versus 47 British. Colonial conquest becomes industrialized slaughter. The technology gap between industrial and non-industrial peoples reaches maximum. Entire continents subjugated by small European forces. Meanwhile, wars between industrial powers become dramatically more lethal—the American Civil War previews what's coming.

Colonial Extraction in Numbers – Belgian Congo under Leopold II: estimated 10 million deaths from murder, starvation, disease during rubber extraction (1885-1908) – British India: repeated famines under colonial rule kill tens of millions; economic historians debate whether 12-29 million died in famines between 1876-1902 alone – German Southwest Africa (Namibia): Herero and Nama genocide (1904-1908), 80% of Herero population killed—first genocide of 20th century

1900-1914: The Armed Peace

Key Events – 1900: Boxer Rebellion—eight-nation alliance (including US, Japan, European powers) invades China to suppress anti-foreign uprising; more humiliation, more concessions – 1904-1905: Russo-Japanese War—Japan defeats European power; first non-Western nation to defeat Western power in modern war; shapes anti-colonial movements globally – 1911: Chinese Revolution—Qing dynasty falls; Republic of China established; decades of warlordism and civil war follow – 1912-1913: Balkan Wars—preview of WWI; demonstrates lethality of modern weapons

Technologies – Dreadnought battleships (naval arms race) – Aircraft becoming militarily viable – Improved machine guns, artillery – Radio communication – Automobiles beginning military use

Character of the Period Europe's great powers built massive armies, created alliance systems, and engaged in arms races while maintaining belief that war would be short and decisive. Military planning assumed offensive warfare would succeed quickly. None anticipated what industrial warfare between equals would produce.

1914-1918: THE FIRST WORLD WAR

What Made It Different For the first time, industrial powers turned their full productive capacity toward mutual destruction. The technologies of colonial conquest—machine guns, artillery, railways—were deployed by both sides. The result was stalemate and slaughter on an unprecedented scale.

Scale – 20 million dead (10 million military, 10 million civilian) – 21 million wounded – Empires destroyed: Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, German – Entire generation of European men decimated in some regions

Key Developments – Trench warfare: Western Front became 400-mile line of fortifications; offensives gained yards at cost of hundreds of thousands of lives – 1915: Poison gas first used (chlorine, then phosgene, mustard gas) – 1916: Battle of the Somme—1 million casualties in five months; 20,000 British dead on first day – 1916: Battle of Verdun—700,000 casualties in ten months; German strategy explicitly to “bleed France white” – 1917: Russian Revolution—war's strain collapses Tsarist state; Bolsheviks seize power; USSR emerges – 1917: US enters war—industrial capacity tips balance – 1918: Germany defeated; punitive Treaty of Versailles creates conditions for next war

New Technologies – Tanks (break trench stalemate) – Military aircraft (fighters, bombers) – Chemical weapons (normalized then partially banned) – Submarines (unrestricted warfare) – Improved artillery (caused most casualties) – Radio, aerial reconnaissance

The Century of Humiliation Continues China joined the Allies hoping to recover German concessions. At Versailles, those territories were transferred to Japan instead—betrayal that sparked the May Fourth Movement and fueled both Nationalist and Communist movements.

1918-1939: The Interwar Period

Key Events – 1919: Versailles Treaty—war guilt clause, reparations, territorial losses create German resentment – 1920s: Soviet Union consolidates; Stalin's rise – 1927-1949: Chinese Civil War—Nationalists vs. Communists, interrupted by Japanese invasion – 1929: Great Depression—economic collapse destabilizes democracies, enables extremist movements – 1931: Japan invades Manchuria—League of Nations fails to respond effectively – 1933: Hitler takes power in Germany – 1935-1936: Italy invades Ethiopia—League again fails – 1936-1939: Spanish Civil War—testing ground for WWII weapons and tactics; fascist victory – 1937: Japan invades China proper—Nanjing Massacre (200,000-300,000 killed); WWII begins in Asia

Technologies Developed – Improved tanks and armored warfare doctrine – Modern fighter and bomber aircraft – Radar (British development crucial) – Early computers (codebreaking) – Rocket research (German V-weapons program begins) – Nuclear physics advances (fission discovered 1938)

1939-1945: THE SECOND WORLD WAR

Scale of Destruction – 70-85 million dead (3% of world population) – 6 million Jews murdered in Holocaust – 20-27 million Soviet dead – 15-20 million Chinese dead – Entire cities destroyed; industrial extermination of peoples

Key Developments – Blitzkrieg: Combined arms mobile warfare; Poland falls in weeks, France in six weeks – 1940-1941: Battle of Britain—air power alone fails to defeat nation; radar and fighter coordination decisive – 1941: Germany invades USSR—largest military operation in history; Eastern Front sees most intense combat – 1941: Japan attacks Pearl Harbor—US enters war – 1942-1943: Stalingrad—turning point in Europe; 2 million casualties – 1942-1945: Strategic bombing—Allied air campaigns destroy German and Japanese cities; Hamburg, Dresden, Tokyo firebombing kill tens of thousands per raid – 1944: D-Day—largest amphibious invasion in history – 1945: Germany surrenders (May); Soviet capture of Berlin

Technologies – Jet aircraft (German Me-262, too late to matter) – V-1 cruise missiles, V-2 ballistic missiles (first space-reaching weapons) – Improved radar, sonar – Proximity fuzes – Mass production of everything (US builds 300,000 aircraft) – Penicillin, blood transfusion (medical advances) – Early computers (Colossus, ENIAC) – Nuclear weapons

THE THRESHOLD: JULY 16, 1945

At 5:29 AM in the New Mexico desert, the Trinity test detonated the first nuclear weapon. J. Robert Oppenheimer later recalled the Bhagavad Gita: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Three weeks later, Hiroshima (August 6): 80,000 dead instantly, 60,000 more by year's end. Nagasaki (August 9): 40,000 dead instantly. Japan surrendered.

But this was not yet the threshold of total destruction.

The Hiroshima bomb yielded 15 kilotons—devastating to a city, but not existential. The threshold came later:

By the early 1960s, the US and USSR possessed enough nuclear weapons to: – Destroy every major city on Earth – Ignite firestorms covering entire regions – Loft enough debris to cause “nuclear winter”—global cooling that would collapse agriculture

The actual threshold: approximately 1960-1962

This is when arsenals reached levels sufficient for civilizational—possibly species—extinction. The Cuban Missile Crisis (October 1962) brought humanity to the edge.

PART TWO: THE ERA OF EXISTENTIAL CAPABILITY (1945-Present)

From this point forward, human conflict occurs under a new condition: the species possesses the means to destroy itself. Every decision about war, every arms race, every crisis carries this background reality. The logic of statecraft fundamentally changes when the worst case is not defeat but extinction.

1945-1991: The Cold War

Character Two superpowers with civilization-ending arsenals engaged in global competition while avoiding direct war. Violence was displaced to proxy conflicts, covert operations, and the developing world.

Key Events – 1947: Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan—US commits to containing Soviet expansion – 1948-1949: Berlin Blockade—first Cold War crisis; airlift prevents war – 1949: USSR tests atomic bomb; NATO formed; Communist victory in China ends Century of Humiliation (in CCP narrative) – 1950-1953: Korean War—3 million dead; first “hot” proxy war; ends in stalemate – 1954: CIA overthrows Guatemalan government—establishes pattern of intervention – 1955: Warsaw Pact formed – 1956: Hungarian Revolution crushed by Soviet tanks; Suez Crisis shows European powers' decline – 1959: Cuban Revolution – 1961: Bay of Pigs; Berlin Wall built – 1962: Cuban Missile Crisis—closest approach to nuclear war – 1965-1973: US Vietnam War—58,000 US dead, 2-3 million Vietnamese; US defeat – 1967: Six-Day War; Israeli nuclear capability achieved – 1968: Prague Spring crushed; Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty signed – 1971: India-Pakistan war; Bangladesh independence – 1973: CIA-backed coup in Chile; Yom Kippur War; oil crisis – 1975: Fall of Saigon; Khmer Rouge takes Cambodia (1.5-2 million dead by 1979) – 1979: Iranian Revolution; Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; Three Mile Island – 1980-1988: Iran-Iraq War—1 million dead; chemical weapons used; US and USSR both involved – 1983: Able Archer exercise nearly triggers Soviet nuclear response – 1986: Chernobyl disaster; Reykjavik summit (near-agreement on abolishing nuclear weapons) – 1989: Fall of Berlin Wall; Tiananmen Square massacre – 1991: Soviet Union dissolves; Cold War ends

Technologies – ICBMs (1957 onward)—nuclear weapons deliverable in 30 minutes anywhere on Earth – SLBMs and nuclear submarines—invulnerable second-strike capability – Hydrogen bombs—yields measured in megatons – Reconnaissance satellites—surveillance from space – MIRVs—multiple warheads per missile – Precision-guided munitions (developed) – Early internet (ARPANET) – Stealth technology

The Proxy War Toll Because direct superpower war risked extinction, violence was channeled into: – Korea: 3 million dead – Vietnam/Indochina: 3-4 million dead – Afghanistan (Soviet): 1-2 million dead – Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Indonesia... – Total Cold War proxy deaths: estimates range from 10-20 million

1991-2001: The Unipolar Moment

Character US as sole superpower; brief optimism about “end of history”; globalization accelerates; new conflicts emerge from collapsed empires.

Key Events – 1991: Gulf War—US demonstrates precision warfare; 100-hour ground campaign – 1991-2001: Yugoslav Wars—140,000 dead; ethnic cleansing in Europe; Srebrenica massacre (1995); NATO bombing of Serbia (1999) – 1994: Rwandan Genocide—800,000 killed in 100 days; international community fails to intervene – 1996: Taliban takes Kabul – 1998: US embassy bombings; India and Pakistan test nuclear weapons

Technologies – GPS-guided weapons (demonstrated in Gulf War) – Stealth aircraft operational – Internet goes mainstream – Mobile communications spread

2001-Present: The Forever Wars and Great Power Return

Key Events – 2001: September 11 attacks; US invades Afghanistan – 2003: US invades Iraq (false WMD claims)—destabilizes region; 200,000-1 million Iraqi dead – 2010-2012: Arab Spring—revolutions across Middle East; mostly fail or produce civil war – 2011: Libya intervention; Syrian Civil War begins (500,000+ dead to date) – 2014: Russia annexes Crimea; ISIS declares caliphate – 2021: US withdraws from Afghanistan—Taliban returns to power after 20 years, $2 trillion spent – 2022: Russia invades Ukraine—largest European war since WWII; ongoing

New Technologies Defining This Era – Drones/UAVs—remote killing normalized; thousands of strikes in countries US not at war with – Cyber weapons—Stuxnet (2010) destroys Iranian centrifuges; attacks on infrastructure possible – AI and autonomous systems—emerging; lethal autonomous weapons in development – Precision strike—can destroy specific buildings, vehicles, individuals – Social media—weaponized information; new domain of conflict – Commercial satellite imagery—surveillance democratized – Hypersonic weapons—evade missile defense; Russia, China, US developing

Current Nuclear Status (2024) – ~12,500 nuclear warheads globally – Nine nuclear-armed states (US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea) – US and Russia possess 90% of weapons – Several near-misses and false alarms since Cold War ended – Modernization programs underway in all nuclear states – Arms control architecture eroding (INF Treaty abandoned 2019, New START uncertain)

China's Return The Century of Humiliation narrative shapes Chinese strategic thinking: – Military modernization explicit goal of “national rejuvenation” – 2049 (centenary of PRC) target for “world-class military” – Taiwan as “unfinished business” of civil war and century of weakness – South China Sea claims, Belt and Road Initiative—restoring historical centrality – Second-largest military budget globally; nuclear arsenal expanding