Arguably, ever since entering World War II, the United States of America’s economy has been a war economy. Starting or fostering wars became essentially, independently of geopolitical reasons, a “good” business proposition. The early 1940s marked the start of the era of  systematic wars for profit. War defined as the ultimate capitalist enterprise. The extraordinary war efforts of World War II turned the United States  into a giant global arms factory for the war in Europe and in the Pacific. It was even, cynically, credited as the main factor in ending the Great Depression of 1929.

 

This trend continued at a slower pace, but without any real interruption, with the Korean war in the early 1950s, the Vietnam war in the 1960s until the early 1970s, and various proxy wars worldwide- including Afghanistan in the 1980s- against the Soviet Union. The event of 9/11/ 2001 gave American politicians the unique opportunity to start the perfect war on behalf of their friends and patrons of the military industrial complex. It is the endless war: the “war on terror” without any geographic boundaries, time frame or even the necessity to have a well defined enemy.