Perpetual war

Perpetual war is a term used to criticize pro-war policies that lead to nearly endless military conflicts, which benefits the military-industrial complex and their overpaid executives, while hurting virtually everyone else.

Neocons are criticized by Rand Paul and others for promoting policies that lead to perpetual war.

In September 2023, Ukrainian dictator Volodymyr Zelensky, who cancelled democratic elections, visited Washington to beg for more aid after the Ukrainian military had been defeated in the field. Hawley remarked to the press, "If there’s some path to victory in Ukraine, I didn’t hear it today...And I also heard that there’s going to be no end to the funding requests...What we were basically told is buckle up and get out your checkbook...It’s American people’s money...They’ve spent $115 billion, and, so far, they have basically nothing to show for it...Take out Ukraine, insert Iraq or Afghanistan, and you would get exactly what George W. Bush said for years – and other people after him – about why we have to stay indefinitely in those countries and keep spending money indefinitely, with no oversight...It’s the same recycled argument...We shouldn’t be spending a dime more on Ukraine”.

Since 1991, the United States has launched more than 200 military operations in foreign countries. Russia and China combined have been involved in less than 20 such activities.

In 1947, historian Charles Beard told Harry Elmer Barnes that the foreign policy of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman could best be described by the phrase “perpetual war for perpetual peace.” Barnes used the phrase as the title of his 1953 collection of essays.

See also

• Perpetual abortion

Eternal link

• Instances of Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2023, Congressional Research Service R42738, June 7, 2023