Cold War is Good for Business: US Contractors Rejoice at the New Red Scare

©  Getty Images / PhotoQuest; © REUTERS

US politicians and media peddling scary stories about Russia and China may have a more pedestrian motive than defending 'American values and way of life' – a return to the halcyon days of the Cold War and the Pentagon gravy train.

If there's one thing mainstream Democrats and Republicans agree upon, it's that Russia and China are the new global threat, ready to pounce at the first sign of a week spot in American defenses to topple the benevolent US dominance of the globe.

If there's another – never on the record, of course – it's that war is good for business. Not actual war, what the Pentagon calls 'kinetic military action', as that would be destructive. 

Actually, I don't think the word 'destructive' is a concern to the military industrial complex. There must be real kinetic military action in order to keep the inventory of death moving.

The ideal conditions for the political class in Washington is the bygone Cold War, when it could funnel billions of dollars in taxpayer money to defense contractors, with these corporations repaying the largesse with hefty contributions to politicians.

With a military budget of $717 billion in 2019 – which is about four times that of China and 15 times that of Russia ( I have my doubts about that) – Washington war hawks are still lamenting how the "underfunded" US military could lose the next war against either. There's only one way to avoid that – spend more.

F-35: Pie in the Sky

As the US aggressively asserted the right to intervene anywhere around the world, Russia and China began rebuilding their air forces and augmenting them with new-generation warplanes. For the US Air Force and the aerospace industry, this was like the answer to three decades of prayer.

Lockheed finally had the justification for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, which produced the first prototype in 2006. There were only two tiny little problems with the F-35: nobody could get the plane to actually work as intended, and it was incredibly expensive. The total lifetime program cost was estimated at $1.5 trillion in 2015 dollars, the bulk of which would be for "operations and sustainment."

The most expensive Pentagon project to date is plagued by some of the most expensive problems – but while Lockheed Martin could not make the F-35 actually work as advertised, it did manage to spread its production over 45 US states, ensuring the program is almost impossible to kill politically. Powerful Republican senators have thrown their weight behind the F-35, warning the Pentagon against taking funding away from it in favor of a simpler F15X update proposed by Boeing.

Lucrative digital battlegrounds

The looming shadow of the 'Russian hacker', infiltrating (not really) American political parties and power grids, has spurred the push for cyber security – and the contracts to go with it.

Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure (JEDI), a program that seeks to provide the US military with secure cloud services, has attracted big tech with its $10 billion contract – which Amazon now seems increasingly likely to win, thanks to its reported inroads with the US administration. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was unapologetic, saying the US is a "great country" that "needs to be defended." Executives at the other two big-name contenders – Microsoft and Google – were equally enthusiastic, with the Microsoft president vowing to give all the tech the company creates to the "ethical and honorable" US military.

Rank-and-file employees, however, were up in arms. Those at Microsoft penned an open letter saying they had joined the company hoping the tech they create would not "cause harm or human suffering." Employee outcry at Google caused it to drop JEDI altogether, despite company leadership's enthusiastic support.

Artificial Intelligence

The for-profit patriotism at Amazon and Microsoft is bound to be rewarded with even more contracts in the coming years, because the Pentagon believes it has some catching up to do with Russia and China when it comes to artificial intelligence. The DoD's first AI strategy, while loose on wording, clearly outlines who the main adversaries are.

The known investment figures are relatively minor so far – as far as Washington's gargantuan defense budgets go. For example, in July 2018, IT consulting company Booz Allen Hamilton was awarded an $885 million to work on AI programs over the next five years, and the Pentagon requested $93 million in 2019 for Project Maven – which aims to develop algorithms for automatic analysis of drone footage. Google was working on that one, but now says it won't renew the contract due to disastrous employee backlash – even though backing out means losing on potentially bigger IT-related defense contracts to come.

With Trump just recently ordering a boost in AI development for the sake of American dominance, those contracts are certain to keep rolling in in the foreseeable future.

Naval friction

The US answer to Russia venturing into the Arctic was to reestablish the 2nd Fleet – created in 1950 as a Cold War-era check on Soviet activity in the Atlantic and disbanded by the Obama administration in 2011 to cut expenses. Apparently, no expense is too much when the threat of Russian submarines is – according to 2nd Fleet chief Vice Adm. Andrew Lewis – "real," and Russians seek to tap the resources the US wanted for itself and its allies.

The US Navy also needs to keep up its "freedom of navigation operation" at the Chinese shores, and "rebuilding" the fleet is one of Trump's staple defense promises. As an example of the accelerated – and rewarding – build-up, the Navy signed a contract worth a whopping $14.9 billion with shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls for two Ford-class aircraft carriers. In another throwback to the good old days, this is the first time since the 1980s more than one of these has been commissioned simultaneously.

A Gerald R. Ford-class nuclear powered aicraft carrier under construction ©  Reuters / Ricky Thompson / US Navy

The two ships will replace aging ones, keeping the number of active dedicated carriers in the US service at 11 – while China has two, and Russia one.

The final frontier

Another Trump staple, the Space Force, is shaping up to be a fount of profit for the enterprising contractor, though the new branch of the US military is still in the early stages of its creation.

While no deals have been made with the Space Force specifically in mind, there is profit to be had in it for companies like Lockheed Martin. In 2018, Lockheed was contracted to create three satellites that can survive counter-space weaponry, for $2.9 billion – and as America's "adversaries are training forces and developing technology to undermine our security in space," as Trump put it, more of that is bound to come.

Military Industrial Complex (Deep State)

Way back in 1961, President Dwight Eisenhower – who commanded US forces in Europe during WWII – warned in his farewell speech about the dangers of a "military-industrial complex" dictating government priorities and foreign policy. 

He spoke from experience: the 'Red Scare' of the 1950s had already driven the US into an arms race based on the 'bomber gap' and 'missile gap' favoring the USSR – both of which turned out to be entirely imaginary.

"We were doing things we didn't need to do. We were building things we didn't need to build. We were harboring fears we didn't need to harbor," President Lyndon Johnson told a gathering in 1967.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

As I have been saying for several years now, the military industrial complex has a vested interest in maintaining a state of war, or, at least, a threat of war on one or more fronts, in order to keep their destructive inventory moving, and in order to fund the creation of even more deadly forms of weaponry. 

This is the main factor contributing to America's financial resurgence in the last couple years. It is, however, ultimately dangerous and destructive, and it is an astonishing waste of money that could be used so easily elsewhere to make the world a better place, rather than a more frightening one. 

For instance, if American resources were spent wisely in Central and South America, there wouldn't have to be a half million children in Brazil prostituting themselves because it's the only way they can get something to eat. Improved economies in Central America might reduce the power of criminal gangs that run the streets of their cities. It would also greatly reduce the number of migrants trying to make their way into the USA making a wall unnecessary.

I suspect that Jesus Christ is not amused by the astonishing amount of time, money and energy being used for the sole purpose of making wealthy people wealthier. I also believe there will be a reckoning.

Peaceful Transfer of Head-of-State in Autocratic Cuba

Raúl Castro's departure ends decades of

family rule in Cuba

By Daniel Uria 

Fidel Castro (L) and brother Raul, then the leader of the Cuban Armed Forces, are seen in Havana, Cuba, on December 21, 1988. Thursday, Raul Castro stepped down from the Cuban presidency -- marking the first time anyone but the two siblings have occupied the post since 1976. UPI File Photo | License Photo

UPI -- For the first time in decades, someone outside the Castro family has assumed the presidency of Cuba, as Raúl Castro stepped down Thursday.

Cuba's election commission on Wednesday nominated First Vice President Miguel Díaz-Canel as the only candidate to succeed the 86-year-old Castro as the island nation's next president.

Castro originally intended to step down from the presidency on Feb. 24, but Cuba's National Assembly voted in December to extend the legislative term to Thursday, saying damage from Hurricane Irma delayed the process.

Confirmed by the National Assembly's 605 deputies, Díaz-Canel became president Thursday morning. He has said he will stick close to the Communist Party ideals of his sibling predecessors.

"I believe in continuity," he said. "I think there always will be continuity."

New leadership

Díaz-Canel represents a new generation of Cuban leadership, which for decades has only known rule under Raúl Castro and his older brother Fidel Castro -- the latter overthrowing the prior government on New Year's Day 1959, after a six-year revolutionary insurgency.

"This will be the first time that you have in power as president someone who was born after 1959, after the Cuban revolution, somebody who was not part of the historic struggles of the 1950s to overthrow the [Fulgencio] Batista dictatorship," said Jorge Duany, director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University.

While Díaz-Canel will take over the role occupied by the Castros for decades, Raúl Castro will maintain his role as the head of the country's Communist Party until 2021 and will remain in charge of the Cuban armed forces.

Fidel Castro died in 2016.

"Given the fact that the Constitution of Cuba states that the Communist Party is the leading sector of society and that there is no room for any other political party, Raúl Castro will still remain a very powerful figure," Duany said.

University of Miami political science professor Michael Touchton said the transfer of power is an attempt to renew the Cuban Revolution from an internal perspective, and allow the Castro brothers' children -- and a new generation of other leaders -- to move into positions that will allow them to one day continue the family dominance under the island's Communist party regime.

"By extending beyond the immediate Castro family, at least symbolically, it suggests that this is not a personalistic dictatorship," Touchton said. "Communist Party membership, ideology, loyalty and service are important and Diaz-Canel has all of those credentials."

Diaz-Canel was named first vice president of Cuba in 2013, an early signal that he might become the heir to the Castro presidency, following years of service in the Communist Party.

"This guy's been loyal, he's made a few calls for reform, but very few recently," Touchton said. "He was moderate, in no way fomented dissent from his position and he's been there for a long time."

Rocky U.S. relations

The transfer of power in Cuba is complicated by a simultaneous shift in the United States, as President Donald Trump has looked to roll back many of former President Barack Obama's efforts to normalize diplomacy with the Caribbean island nation.

"Since the Trump administration took office, there has been less warmth in the relationship and actually quite a lot of hostility," Duany said.

In November, a year after he was elected, Trump implemented more restrictive regulations on American travel to Cuba to forbid Americans from engaging in business with 180 entities identified by the State Department as having ties to Cuban military, security or intelligence agencies.

The Trump administration also permanently scaled down staff at the U.S. Embassy in Havana after officials divulged that 24 embassy employees were victims of "sonic" attacks, which left mysterious symptoms -- including mild traumatic brain injury, permanent hearing loss, loss of balance, headaches and brain swelling.

Authorities still aren't sure what happened, but the attack indicated that years of frosty relations between Havana and Washington could continue.

Trump's policies have led many observers in Cuba to believe the Obama-era efforts to thaw what had been substantially poor diplomatic relations, and the former president's moves to relax sanctions, are being pushed aside.

Additionally, since becoming first vice president, Diaz-Canel has adopted a hard-line stance on Cuba-U.S. relations, more in line with that of Fidel Castro, who ruled Cuba during the tumultuous 1960s and was a key figure in events like the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) and Cuban trade embargo (1961), which continues today.

"There's an argument internally for hard-liners to retain control and a hard-line approach to Cuban-American relations to be the dominant diplomatic strategy and policy choice on the island," Touchton said.

Touchton added Diaz-Canel isn't likely to fulfill the expectations of observers both inside and outside Cuba, who believe the change in leadership could result in reforms of civil liberties and political rights on the island.

"What happens in Cuban domestic policy colors Cuban relations with the United States because it offers hard-liners in the U.S. government ammunition for strengthening sanctions, undoing the Obama-era reforms and returning to the status quo, pre-Obama," he said.

The Castro legacy

While Castro will hand the reins of the presidency to someone beyond his family Thursday, experts say the Cuban landscape will continue to be shaped by the brothers' decades of dictatorial Communist rule.

Born in 1926 in Biran, Cuba, to a wealthy farmer, Fidel Castro grew up to study politics and at the age of 32 led a revolution to overthrow Batista's regime. He became Cuban prime minister in 1959 after the New Year's Day coup.

In 1961, the United States formally ended diplomatic relations with Cuba and backed a group of some 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles to invade the Bay of Pigs -- with the intention of ending Castro's communist regime. The Cuban fighters were defeated by Castro's army, largely because U.S. President John F. Kennedy refused to provide air cover for the armed exiles.

In October 1962, the United States discovered the Soviet Union was building missile installations in Cuba -- which would open the island's capability to conduct a nuclear strike on the United States. Kennedy decided to blockade the island with Navy warships, which lasted for a month, until the Soviet nuclear stash in Cuba were dismantled.

During the crisis, some U.S. forces were set to defense condition, of DEFCON, 2 -- one of only two times in U.S. history that alert level was reached. Many scholars contend that the crisis marked the closest point the world has come to nuclear war.

Fidel Castro assumed the post of Cuban president in 1976, in addition to his role as Communist Party first secretary, and drove the island nation to become a one-party Communist state bent on ending years of government corruption he said operated under the Batista regime.

In 1980, Castro opened the Mariel Harbor in Cuba to 125,000 Cuban citizens who sought life in the United States. The Mariel Boat Lift, as it became known, landed a sizable Cuban population on the shores of Miami, including thousands of dangerous criminals who'd been released by Castro from Cuban prisons.

Cuba-U.S. relations were further strained in November 1999, following a lengthy custody battle between the Cuban father of 5-year-old Elian Gonzalez -- the lone survivor of a group who'd attempted to reach the United States by boat -- and the boy's relatives in Florida.

Fidel Castro served as Cuba's president until he abdicated power to his brother Raúl Castro in 2008, following years of declining health. Raúl Castro acted as president during the last two years of his brother's tenure and served two more five-year terms.

Fidel Castro lived for eight more years after leaving Havana's government and died on Nov. 26, 2016.

During their rule, the Castros placed tight restraints on Cuba's private sector and prohibited many citizens from owning computers, cellphones and other technology and running many types of private business.

While Raúl Castro helped modernize the nation during his decade as president, he also stymied Cuba's growing private sector by again limiting contracts for private businesses and continued to control information by making Internet access prohibitively expensive for the average citizen.