Doug Bandow discusses the creation of the Vandenberg Coalition, the latest in a long string of neocon think tanks that do little more than promote American interventionism halfway across the world. Bandow reminds us of two strong motivating factors behind this strain of foreign policy: On one hand, there really are a lot of true believers in the American empire—people who think that the U.S. military is a force for good in the world that spreads democracy and maintains relative peace through supremacy. On the other hand, there’s also a huge amount of money to be made for special interest groups as long as the wars keep going. Ending America’s imperial interventionism, then, will require that people see both the human cost of war and also the massive economic costs to everyone except those special interests.
Discussed on the show:
- “Washington War Party Creates Another Organization to Promote Endless Wars” (Cato Institute)
- “The Redirection” (The New Yorker)
- “Let Someone Else Worry About Central Asia” (The American Conservative)
Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a regular contributor at Forbes Magazine, the National Interest, and elsewhere. He’s on Twitter @Doug_Bandow.
This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: The War State, by Mike Swanson; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott; Photo IQ; Green Mill Supercritical; Zippix Toothpicks; and Listen and Think Audio.
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Scott Horton is director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of Antiwar.com, host of Antiwar Radio on Pacifica, 90.7 FM KPFK in Los Angeles, California and podcasts the Scott Horton Show from this website. He’s the author of the 2017 book, Fool’s Errand: Time to End the War in Afghanistan. Visit https://scotthorton.org