Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – March 10, 2024
by Tony Wikrent
Global power shift
[X-Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 03-06-2024]
.
Ukraine war and Western system’s fatal flaw
Alex Krainer, Marck 6, 2024 [substack]
One of the talking points that has been making rounds among the West’s true believers, is that we can outspend Russia by a factor of 10 in military expenditures….
As the New York Times reported last September, Russia is producing at least seven times more ammunition than the US and its Western allies combined, and she is producing it at about 1/10th of the cost of western manufacturers. For example, while the cost per round for a Russian 152 mm round is about $600, NATO must budget between $6,000 and $8,000 per each 155 mm round.
Not only is Russia vastly ahead in terms of sheer production volumes but also in terms of innovation, quality and overall effectiveness. Her arsenal spans a very large array of weaponry from ultra-sophisticated hypersonic precision-guided missiles, world's most effective air-defense complexes and cheap but deadly drones, to the basic stuff like field artillery and ample ammunition to keep it firing 24/7 for months on end. At the same time, the United States and NATO still rely on legacy weapons systems that were state-of-the art in the 1990s, but are in large part obsolete today.
Purpose-driven vs. profit-driven systems: it’s no match
In a superb and important piece of analysis referencing the recent US Department of Defense National Defense Industrial Strategy (NDIS), former Marine and military affairs analyst Brian Berletic dissected many of the reasons why the combined West is now clearly losing the arms race, not only against Russia but also against China. He points out the key differentiator: while Russia's defense industry is purpose-driven, that of the West is profit-driven....
The undiagnosed malignancy
... Even as it endeavors to maintain a dominant geostrategic position in the world, Western powers have cannibalized their own capability to enforce and defend that position. The inescapable conclusion is that there is a deep, systemic flaw in the Western model of governance.
For generations, we'd all been educated to worship at the altar of private capital's unrestrained pursuit of profit for the greatest benefit of its shareholders, as Milton Friedman argued in his 1970 essay entitled “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits” (PDF). No other considerations can shape the development of production and distribution of goods and services in our economies, else someone will shriek, SOCIALISM! Worse, we’ve even allowed ourselves to become convinced that individuals’ unrestrained pursuit of their own interests can somehow automagically lead to the best possible outcome for the whole society.
As it turns out, those ideas were the owner class’s self-serving delusions that incubated the fatal flaw within their system, rendering it fragile and weak. The flaw has festered as an undiagnosed malignancy because it enabled the interests who own our Military Industrial Complex and other key industries (the big banks, big tech, big ag, and big pharma) to become extremely wealthy. They also became deeply entrenched in society’s power networks. As such they’ve grown and wholly resistant to any curtailment of their extraordinary privileges, even when it becomes clear that they are driving their nations to destruction….
China and Russia, the industrial production superpowers that could win a war
[bne Intellinews, via Naked Capitalism 03-03-2024]
