Thread by @GraduatedBen

The money earmarked for Ukraine is largely going to the U.S. weapons industry. The defense establishment sees the transfers as a way to offload aging inventory and rearm with newly manufactured weapons, while also testing new weapons systems against a peer competitor in theater.

There is a pervasive idea that this is all just some benevolent giveaway to a foreign country but the reality lurking under the surface is that the defense establishment is making rational strategic moves to assure American military dominance for the future.

Europe is now spending significant amounts of their budgets for rearmament and building their militaries. The American defense industry will profit handsomely from this, with NATO becoming much more militarily powerful as well.

There is always chance of unexpected events to derail planning, but from a forecastable perspective the American empire looks to be very strong for many years to come. There are weaknesses in this regime, but other regimes have even bigger weaknesses.

Most America Firsters have a sort of schizophrenic demand for a post-war 50s/60s consumerist economy and lifestyle coupled with a pre-war noninterventionist foreign policy and traditionalist culture.

But these can’t be coupled, you can only pick one set.

I’ve seen no convincing signs that the masses are willing to return to a republican form of government if it means giving up the privileges that come with empire. Therefore, the political system will continue to act as an imperial power rather than a national one.

Under that framework, this kind of prioritization makes sense. I don’t like it, but I understand it.

https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1605301253952589824

The add-on effect is that boosting the US munitions industry is a means of reviving American industry.

Builds expertise and capital which can be later used in non-military manufacturing sectors.

See explosion in 50s/60s U.S. manufacturing dominance as a consequence of WWII.