We are facing an ever-looming threat to our freedom and livelihoods. According to The Economist, our legislators are increasingly funded by lobbyists: businesspeople who fund political campaigns. In fact, the military-industrial complex depleted an astonishing 57% of the 2015 fiscal budget (Representative Ilhan Omar). With the US Department of Defense contracting with over 50,000 companies (Clearance Jobs), America’s defense industry is the largest in the world. With increased defense spending, the leaders of major defense contractors gain the most power at the expense of civilians.

Our tax money helps the government fund private corporations to spy on the public. The Economist observes that US cybersecurity firms such as Booz Allen have developed programs to monitor online communications and the Technology Review observes that other companies such as DigiTask have developed software to steal encryption keys used to help the government spy on anyone they want. With the impending rise of video surveillance and the Patriot Act, it is increasingly easy for the American government to spy on its people. This is a violation of our freedom. It’s not just Americans that are getting hurt; the weapons that have killed hundreds of civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria are also due to the billions apportioned to the military. 

Even worse, the huge portion of the government budget given to the military overshadows the money spent on healthcare by eleven times (Politifact). In other words, America spends more on war than the well-being of its citizens. To analyze this surprising trend, we need only to look at America’s wars over the past two decades. Why did the Iraq War start? News outlets reported false claims that Saddam Hussein was hoarding huge stashes of chemical weapons. The claims were largely unfounded. News outlets tend to point to our growing defense budget as a sign that we have the capability to jump into military incursions as soon as a small conspiracy theory arises. This leads a vicious cycle to develop, which makes potential victims feel more insecure and allows more of this news to propagate. The only way to end this cycle is to reduce military spending. In the long run, this will cause news outlets to stop advocating for the military to be used in every situation and competing nations will stop developing new weapons more rapidly to challenge the US. Even better for us, reducing our hotheaded military posture will calm relations with many nations and entities. Al Qaeda attacked America due to our rampant military campaigns in Islam nations throughout the 1990s in Iraq, Somalia, and Yemen, among others. Without America’s military interfering in local politics in different world regions, there will be fewer reasons for foreign bodies to oppose America.

Who runs the world? It’s none other than the industrial contractors themselves. They are the ones who develop designs and carry out military contracts. With that power, they can alter designs to their own tastes and develop capabilities that suit their interests as executives. After all, these executives do not need incentives to create game-changing designs when they can make minor tweaks to force America to continue spending government funds on their corporations year after year.