America's Perpetual War: Six Questions(1)

Introduction

Former American President Jimmy Carter said, in 2018, that in America, there were 226 years of wars since its independence which took place 242 years ago thus leaving only 16 years of peace.

Since WWII, there were 32 American military conflicts involving dozens of countries. Some of these military conflicts have lasted even twenty years and some others are still continuing.

In other words, the U.S. is a country of perpetual war. War is terribly destructive human activity. Millions of human beings have been sacrificed. Tens of trillions of dollars worth of housing, school, factories, hospitals and other infrastructure facilities have been destroyed in the countries which have been the target of American military attacks.

The perpetual war has destroyed the very foundation of freedom and democracy; it has prevented healthy and equitable economic development of the world; it has led to the violation of human rights; it has ruined traditional values of many countries and, above all, it has caused lasting human suffering.

The perpetual war has deprived millions of Americans of decent income, adequate housing, needed foods, necessary health care, safety on the street, reliable infrastructure facilities, essential education and other goods and services needed for descent living.

Before I go any further, I would like to quote the historical statement of President Dwight Eisenhower.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone, it is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hope of children. (President Dwight Eisenhower address to the North American Society of News editors, April 16, 1953)

In this paper I am asking the following six questions

• How many wars has the U.S undertaken since WWII?

• How are the American wars organized?

• What is the purpose of the American wars?

• Who are the beneficiaries of the American wars?

• What are negative impacts of the American wars?

• Will the American wars continue?

1. How many wars has the U.S. undertaken since WWII?

There are undoubtedly several ways of defining wars. In this paper, I define war in terms of American military interventions. Defined thus, I have counted 32 wars undertaken by the U.S. since WWII.

I have classified these wars in terms of the following categories: invasion (23 cases), civil war (7 cases), and multi-targets war (2), which gives 32 wars that took place since the WWII.

There are reasons to believe that there are still many undeclared military interventions conducted by war contractors and Special Operation Forces units spread in 1,000 bases in 191 countries. The following shows the list of American wars

Invasions

Korean War (1950-1953), Vietnam War (1955-1975); Cuban-Bay Pig (1961), Lebanon (1982-1984), Grenada (1983), Libya bombing (1984),Tanker War-Persian Gulf (1984-1987),, Panama (1989-1990), Gulf War (1989-1991), Iraq War (1991-1993), Bosnia War (1992-1995), Haiti (1994-1999), Kosovo (1998-1999), Afghanistan (2001-2021),Yemen(2002-present),Iraq (2003-2011), Pakistan (2004-2018), Somalia (2007-present) Libya (2011), Niger (2013-present) Iraq (2014-2021), Syria (2014-present), Libya (2015-2019)

Civil Wars:

Indo-China (1959-1975), Indonesia (1958-1961) Lebanon (1958), Dominican Republic (1968-1966), Korea DMZ (1966-1969), Cambodia (1967-1975) Somalia (1991-present)

Multi-target wars:

Operation Ocean Shield: location, Indian- Ocean (2008-2016), Operation Observant Compass: location, Uganda and Central Africa (2011-2017)

2. How are the American wars organized?

To understand the nature and the implication of the perpetual war in the U.S. it is necessary to introduce the concept of American Pro-War Community (APWC).

In literature and media, we use the notion of military-industry complex (MIC) to describe the vast system of perpetual U.S wars. But, actually, the system of perpetual war involves many more individuals and organizations than in the MIC.

The APWC is a tightly knit community promoting its community interests at the expense of the wellbeing of ordinary Americans and the interests of the people of the war-target countries. It is so well organized and so well rooted and so powerful that it is quasi impossible to dissolve it.

The AWPC's core group comprises the war corporations and the federal government led by the Pentagon, the Congress, the Senate and other government agencies.

There are two supporting groups comprising all sorts of institutions and organizations. There is the group supporting the supply of war goods and services. Then, there is the group supporting the creation of demand for war goods and services.

The efficiency of the whole system of producing and selling war goods and services depends on how the core group and the supporting groups can work in harmony together to attain the objectives of wars, namely, the maximization of profit and the intra-APWC sharing of the profit.

2.1. Supply of War Goods and Services

The supply of war goods and services is assured by war corporations which produce weapons, building contractors which build all sorts of buildings and manage them, catering services companies that provide foods and drinks for the GIs, information firms which offer information needed for wars and even the academics that offers ideas and technologies.

In the U.S. 40 major war corporations have annual sales of almost $ 600 billion.

The following table shows the importance of the five leading war corporations in U.S.

(다음 호에 계속)