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“THE PROJECT ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT (POGO)”
“A pair of new reports published February 25 cast stark light on what the U.S. military is doing in our name, and how much it’s costing us. The U.S. conducted counter-terrorism operations in 85 nations around the world in 2018, 2019, and 2020, the Costs of War project reported (PDF).
After some quick flicks on The Bunker’s abacus, that works out to about 44% of the world’s 195 countries.“
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“Maybe we should call it the Nearly-Half-Global War on Terror.
The activities range from ground warfare to bombing to training foreign military forces in the anti-terror fight. “Despite the Pentagon’s assertion that the U.S. is shifting its strategic emphasis away from counterterrorism and towards great power competition with Russia and China, examining U.S. military activity on a country-by-country basis shows that there is yet to be a corresponding drawdown of the counterterror apparatus,” said the study, authored by Stephanie Savell, co-director of the project at Brown University. “If anything, counterterrorism operations have become more widespread in recent years.”
And that may explain a second study, which seemed to generate headlines everywhere except in the U.S. The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) publishes its authoritative Military Balance every year to chart the ups and downs of defense spending worldwide. “Global military spending hit record levels in 2020 amid Covid-19 pandemic,” read the headline on an Agence France-Presse story published widely around the globe.
“The United States remained the world’s largest defence spender in 2020, IISS said, accounting for 40 per cent of US$738 billion globally,” AFP added.
But it wasn’t ignored by all American papers. “Global defense spending, led by US and China, hits new high,” read the headline in Stars and Stripes. But, then again, S&S is the in-house newsletter for the U.S. military.”
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