Larry Wilkerson: The price of Empire and the military industrial complex

The United States is an imperial power, driven by predatory capitalism with a foreign and security policy aimed at supporting the maintenance of an American Empire. So runs the controversial thesis of Colonel Larry Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell. He asserts that the long running wars which the US has fought in the wake of September 11,2001 have been waged for the deep state and the maintenance and extension of Empire. In his view, US support for Ukraine is motivated by a desire to maintain US hegemony over Europe.

In an extended conversation with Discern This host Lonzo Cook, Colonel Wilkerson shares his independent view of US defense spending, a view at variance with establishment orthodoxy one might expect from a former senior military and government official. He charges that defense contractors have been massive beneficiaries of America’s post 911 foreign and security policy and lambasts the inefficiencies of prominent military procurement programs like the F-35 fighter. In an echo of President Eisenhower’s warnings about the military-industrial complex, Colonel Wilkerson explains how defense spending is not as productive as investments in health, education or business and laments the bloated defense budget as “a drain on the body of America”.

Drawing on his experience at the highest levels of the Army and State Department, Colonel Wilkerson points out that the militarization of US foreign policy dulls the knife of diplomacy and chides the poor quality of senior US diplomats. And in a warning that all Empires run their course, he warns that US adventurism abroad could lead to an expanding global coalition of opponents to the US.