Patterns of propaganda for higher military spending

.

A recent post deconstructed a propaganda article that argued for a larger U.S.Navy.

This time I will stay more general and more abstract and present the general patterns of propaganda for higher military spending.

Appeal to (tainted) authority

It's a general pattern, but most obvious in the United States where calls for more naval and air power are often supported by the claim that combatant commanders have called for more forces. 

You should never ask a child about what's the right amount of toys when you're in a toy store, so why would one ask the combatant commander about how many ships and fighters he should have?

Use of faux legal reasons for more military spending

The most widespread one is the "2% GDP military spending in NATO obligation" myth. There's no such obligation, just a memo that has no force as it was written by politicians lacking the authority to dictate the budget policies of their countries.

Proponents of higher military spending love such faux legal reasons, and it appears that they are the driving force behind the creation of such faux legal arguments. Such faux legal reasons have an air of inevitability, of obligation and duty - and you don't need any more reasons once you have an obligation. Except there's never any such obligation.
 

Inflationary use of the world "ally"

This is a close relative to the faux legal reason deception. Lots of more or less politically friendly countries get called allies that need be defended - often including countries such as Taiwan and Israel, which definitely are NOT allies of the United States. Neither would come to aid the U.S. if it was under attack. Military spending hawks pretend that there's an obligation to provide security assistance and reassurance (by presence) to such countries even if and though there's no such obligation.

Never mention allies as a factor that reduces the need for national military strength

Unless their think tank's sponsors want to sell weapons to said allies and the article is all about pressuring them to increase their military spending.

Alliances don't reduce the need for high military spending: Alliance obligations justify high military spending!

This is a close relative to the former and the faux legal reasons thing. In reality, to have an ally means that you need less national military strength.

Threat inflation

The description of the Russian as emerging and generally as scary as in the deconstructed article is quite typical. Sometimes such military spending hawks even pretended that Venezuela is a threat.

Not a single word about cost efficiency

What they want is never cost-efficient, thus they don't talk about cost efficiency.

Avoiding to irritate anyone

Those are smart influencers and lobbyists. They do not draw the ire of any political interest group needlessly. You'll hardly ever hear or read them going on an attack against wasteful spending*, wrong hawkish doctrines or them singling out an armed service for its failures (unless they get funded by interest groups with no interest in that particular armed service).

They do not criticise troops or question the quality of training, either. The reason is that troops and those who sympathise with them are compliant and free opinion multipliers to the military budget hawks.

Guaranteed careers

No matter how often their advice was disastrous to the nation, their careers are secured. The only career-ending move would be to become less hawkish or politically ineffective.

Appeal to primitive instincts

There's no complicated reasoning in their propaganda. It's more on the level of "Ugh! My clan is stronger! Ugh!"

Newspeak
To bomb some huts on a distant continent is "defense".

Never mentioning civilian alternatives to spending

The opportunity costs of military spending are never mentioned.

Never promote the purchase of all-foreign hardware

That is, unless the foreign company sponsors their think tank or a domestic arms industry giant is the sales partner.

Unlimited extremism

There's never enough. The ability to force one's way deep into the airspace of huge countries on a different continent or to force one's way into the coastal waters on a distant ocean is "defense" to them. There's no such thing as a "2 power standard" or any other kind-of-moderate idea in their arsenal. Nothing short of the ability to conquer the world would be sufficient military strength to them. And then they would want to conquer space next. Scratch that. They would want a military to conquer space in parallel to conquering the planet.

The rule of the Friedman unit

Military spending hawks are always proponents of the Friedman unit in times of war: Always give the military six more months to turn around the war. Six months later, give them six more months. Rinse and repeat. Making peace is acceptable only if maximalist objectives are met. Then the success would be used to promote the next war(s).

Fixation on platforms

This is a bit weird; military contractors sure make much profit with spare parts, munitions, maintenance and other services, but military spending hawks are obsessed about platforms and other nominal and quantitative measurements of military power. The rationale appears to be that the other expenditures follow the acquisition and operation of the platforms.

They do rarely discuss personnel increases compared to big ticket hardware buys
...because the economic interests behind them are about procurement, not employment. This is a variation of the fixation on platforms, of course.
 

They are utterly silent about veteran's care

This is a close relative to the fixation on platforms. Hospitals aren't among the sponsors of military-focused think tanks.
 

Movement within an established mainstream narrative

You won't read much original stuff from military spending hawks. They use an established mainstream narrative and enjoy its support. Most commonly, they make lots of assertions that are accepted by the mainstream regardless of how badly their thread to reality is severed.

They're pro-war on first opportunity

They know but one tool; a hammer. The world is covered with nails.

They haven't served in a major war.

Almost all military spending hawks are chickenhawks. A few of them served in the military, but I'm not aware of a single one of them having been in the midst of a mess that a war usually is.

They know but one answer: "more"

Sometimes they set goals for military strength. All such goals are but preliminary, though: Once reached, they want more. Always more. They don't know optimisation - they're all about maximisation.

Military spending hawks have almost never a good case for their recommendations. There's rarely a good case that more spending will reduce the risk of war, and it's outright impossible with the state of the economic sciences to make up a legitimate projection that an increase in military spending will be cost-efficient. The input variables are simply unknown.

Military budget hawks thus have to use logical fallacies, lies, nonsensical narratives and deception instead of rational arguments for their recommendations.

Many military spending hawks in the United States (where military spending is insanely high) are professional propagandists with a guaranteed career. Those with economic interests in higher military spending do sponsor such propagandists more or less directly. Other military spending hawks are politicians who represent a region with much arms industry. That's why the U.S. senator was listed as one author of the deconstructed piece, and that's why additional useless corvettes for the German navy were proposed recently. Such politicians raise special (regional) interests over national interests; they fail one decisive litmus test for patriotism.

It should be disqualifying, a career-ending event if one is revealed as such a military spending hawk. Such one trick ponies are utterly useless and indeed terribly damaging to their society.
Sadly, they make careers of such worthless commentary and the press & TV stations treat them as very serious people.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

*: A few pundit-for-hire types do deviate: They build a faux "balanced" reputation by criticizing certain military programs. Those criticised programs are invariably from competitors of their sponsors.

.