One of many homes damaged by the passage of Hurricane Milton in Tampa, Florida, the U.S.,on October 11 (XINHUA)

The United States is in the eye of two major geopolitical storms, both of which are incredibly expensive. On October 16, U.S. President Joe Biden approved $425 million in military aid to Ukraine amid Washington's ongoing proxy conflict with Russia. This is in addition to the over $61 billion in military aid provided to Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict in February 2022. In West Asia, U.S. military support for Israel as it wages ever expanding wars from Gaza to Lebanon has amounted to at least $18 billion since October 2023.

The true cost of war is human. Over 40,000 people in Gaza have been killed since last October. A letter published in the correspondence section of British medical journal The Lancet's website on July 5 estimated upward of 186,000 Palestinians have died over this period when disease, malnourishment, and other indirect consequences of Israel-U.S. aggression are factored into the assessment. In Ukraine, soldiers killed or injured on both sides have been estimated to be 500,000 to 600,000 depending on the source. Death toll numbers alone, however, do not tell the entire story. West Asia, Europe, and indeed much of the world will bear the economic and political costs of these U.S.-sponsored wars for years to come.

In 1967, Black American Civil Rights activist and leader Martin Luther King Jr. said U.S. "bombs in Viet Nam explode at home." What he meant was that war and violence perpetrated abroad by the United States has a profoundly negative impact on ordinary Americans. The war in Viet Nam placed a strain on the U.S. economy. It also placed a spotlight on U.S. war crimes abroad and their relationship to inequality and racial discrimination at home. Every bomb dropped in Viet Nam was a reminder of not only the horrors of war but also the misplaced priorities of government leaders so quick to lavish military contractors and the Pentagon with enormous sums of money while poverty and oppression at home were ignored entirely.

This is just as true today as it was in 1967, if not more so. Two massive hurricanes recently swept through the United States, Helene and Milton. Helene, which made landfall in the curve of Florida's peninsula on September 26, killed at least 230 people and caused $47 billion in property damage across the states of North Carolina and South Carolina, as well as parts of Florida and Georgia. Hitting west Florida near Siesta Key on October 9, Milton killed at least 14 people, with much of the damage contained to Florida. On top of the emotional pain of lost loved ones and the financial strain of property damage, tens of thousands continue to struggle with the economic cost of displacement and joblessness.

Unlike to Ukraine and Israel, however, tens of billions in aid did not flow to the hurricane victims.

According to the newest statement released by Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) on October 21, it has approved approximately $1.2 billion in response to Helene, with $746 million of this sum going toward to individuals and families. To put this in perspective, the THAAD anti-ballistic missile system sent to Israel to bolster air defenses at the same time these hurricanes were raging possesses a battery that costs roughly the same amount of the total aid allocated to hurricane victims of both storms, or $1.8 billion.

The stark difference between U.S. investment in war and in the needs of its people at home is shocking on the surface. The shock factor diminishes when the inner workings of the U.S. political and economic system are laid bare. Nearly half of all U.S. federal discretionary spending goes to "defense spending." The total U.S. military budget was $916 billion in 2023. About 70 percent of all budgeted defense spending goes to "contracted services" or military contractors and weapons producers. These corporations like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon provide millions in campaign donations each year to political candidates. Joe Biden's Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin served on the board of directors for defense contractor Raytheon before beginning his post.

The United States' political system is the administrative engine of an empire that prioritizes profits and expansionism over the interests of humanity. Supporting Israel and Ukraine is not only immensely lucrative financially for war profiteers but also critical in the maintenance of U.S. hegemony, which is critical to meeting these ends. But like all empires of the past, the U.S. empire is experiencing intense decay. As the U.S. empire loses the lead to China in major areas such as technology and infrastructure, it also finds itself unable to address pressing social problems like poverty and inequality. Worse yet, the wars waged in West Asia, Ukraine, and elsewhere have no end because U.S. elites neither possess the means or the will to bring them to an end.

Wars are often viewed as global calamities. However, given the reach of U.S. foreign policy, many of these calamities can be traced back to Washington. It is thus imperative for the U.S. to become a "normal" country within the global order and participate in the construction of a better world in collaboration with the rest of the world's nations. This is unlikely to happen under the current political and economic system, in which two parties administer one unifying war policy. Only under a different arrangement where war is abandoned can the U.S. address its social problems and therefore integrate with the rest of the world on a fair and just basis. What that arrangement ends up being will be up to ordinary Americans to configure and work toward. 

The author is an independent journalist, author, and geopolitical analyst based in the U.S., and host of a YouTube show under his own name

Copyedited by G.P. Wilson

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