The Arms Industry

The head of the GMB union in Britain, Sir Paul Kenny, is opposed to Jeremy Corbyn's attempts to change Labour Party policy on Trident because it would affect the jobs of members of his union. He has threatened to mobilize workers at 50 defence industry sites across the UK to oppose any attempt by Labour to scrap Trident.

The ghastly position adopted by Kenny tells us a lot about the role of the arms industry in Western economies. (Kenny's knighthood tells us something about it too.) I don't know what percentage of the prosperity of developed economies (some anyway but they are all connected) is dependent on the arms industry but I think I once saw a figure of 25%. Whatever it is, it is significant.

The arms industry is now a key part (not far off being the only part) of what is left of Britain's manufacturing industry. Its influence on British foreign policy is enormous and deadly. In his article about the GMB union's opposition to scrapping Trident, in the Irish Times on 12th January, Denis Staunton failed to refer to the baleful influence of jobs in the arms industry on Britain's foreign policy. It is no coincidence that Britain has been to the forefront of every murderous policy being pursued by the West in recent years, including in Libya. They need the wars to preserve Britain's prosperity but the wars are getting closer to home.

In general, the media says little or nothing about the link between the arms industry and foreign policy, not always through wanting to bury the link but sometimes due to a simple failure to see the connection. It would help a great deal if economic history was a core subject at secondary level. It would teach everyone to make the necessary connection between economics and politics. It would also teach those who become senior journalists to probe issues that need probing and to bring to the surface the shocking link between the arms industry and the relentless wars that the arms industry demands. (Their editors and proprietors might not let them of course.) During the Cold War the arms industry (on both sides) was on to a good thing. They had a guaranteed market without (for the most part) the need for actual warfare although the Vietnam War was driven by the arms industry.

The end of the Cold War changed the situation and the the arms industry now needs (and is getting) hot wars all over the place. The fact that the wars are getting closer to home doesn't matter to the industry. Indeed, it helps their bottom line. The industry has no loyalty to any state or society (other than the need for societies to be sufficiently stable to allow them to pursue their murderous activities), only to profits. They are likely to welcome anything that boosts their profits. (58,000 dead US troops in Vietnam meant nothing to the arms industry as the figure was low enough not to generate a revolution and many of the dead were no doubt poor or black or probably both.) The next step is to ensure that their own societies are attacked (in a small way but big enough to generate an appropriate policy response from governments) as that will generate even more profits.

Joseph Heller's character, Milo Minderbinder, in Catch-22, captures the reality of the arms dealer perfectly. Heller deliberately and cleverly paints Milo as an attractive character but with something fundamental missing from his moral make-up. It is difficult for most of us to understand the mindset of the arms manufacturer and the arms dealer. We can't understand Milo Minderbinder's character in Catch-22 and we can't understand the amorality of the industry in real life either. We are not like them. Most people would recoil in horror at the thought that they were contributing to terrible suffering in the Middle East and elsewhere through the jobs held by their friends, neighbours and fellow citizens. It gets more difficult, however, when they have to be told that they will have to make a choice between generating wars in the Middle East or seeing their standard of living drop by 25%. So their governments and their media don't tell them. If, however, citizens were taught at school to think about the relationship between economics and politics it would make it more difficult to hide the horrors of the military industrial complex before it is too late.