In reality, neither of the two conflicts that he tried comparing have anything to do with one another since they’re derived from completely different origins, nor are they connected to democracy in the way that he spun them as being.
Biden’s second presidential address last Thursday strongly implied that World War III is either rapidly approaching or is already being fought but has yet to be acknowledged. He pushed this innuendo through his comparison of the NATO-Russian proxy war in Ukraine with the latest Israeli–Hamas war, which he spun as part of a global struggle between democracies and dictatorships. Biden also referenced World War II by adding that Americans are once again “building the arsenal of democracy”.
His fearmongering sought to explain why he planned to ask Congress to fund both conflicts to the tune of $75 billion as part of a $106 billion national security package, with $61 earmarked for Ukraine and $14 for Israel. The larger context within which this rare Oval Office speech took place is the congressional dysfunction caused by the removal of former House Speaker McCarthy and the lack of a replacement thus far. Biden’s remarks were obviously meant to pressure lawmakers to reach a compromise on this.
There’s more to it than just that, however, since the real reason is to maintain the military-industrial complex’s (MIC) profits after they were abruptly thrown into uncertainty as a result of this month’s congressional dysfunction. Further funding for Ukraine was already more controversial than ever due to next year’s upcoming elections, the consequent exacerbation of partisan divisions on all issues, and Kiev’s disastrous counteroffensive, which proved that all the tranches this year failed to defeat Russia.
These factors combined to create a formidable challenge to Biden’s funding plans, which can’t be secured without first electing McCarthy’s replacement, ergo the need to scare lawmakers into a compromise to this end through his fearmongering about WWIII. In reality, neither of the two conflicts that he tried comparing have anything to do with one another since they’re derived from completely different origins, nor are they connected to democracy in the way that he spun them as being.
The Eastern European one was provoked by the US unilaterally eroding Russia’s legitimate national security interests over the years to the point where the latter finally felt that it had no choice but to kinetically react in defense of them. By contrast, the latest West Asian one was indirectly caused by the US’ refusal to force the Israel into granting Palestine independence per international law, which led to the political conditions that Hamas exploited to justify its terrorist attack that directly sparked this war.
The US is therefore responsible for both conflicts in its own way, which broke out as a result of its aforementioned policies that were driven by the desire to uphold its declining unipolar hegemony in each region. As for the democratic dimension of these conflicts, it’s the opposite of what Biden spun it as being. The US planned to Balkanize Russia after militarily blackmailing it in Eastern Europe while at the same time supporting Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine in West Asia.
Viewed from this perspective, it’s revealed that each conflict was actually triggered by the US’ anti-democratic prioritization of its hegemonic interests in Eastern Europe and West Asia, not by Russia and Hamas’ supposed obsession with “completely annihilating neighboring democracies”. This insight exposes Biden’s rhetorical fallacies and sheds light on the real reason why he’s so desperate to have Congress secure more funding for these conflicts, namely to maintain the MIC’s profits.
There are geostrategic motives as well, but precedent proves that neither conflict’s goals are achievable by funding alone after the over $110 billion given to Ukraine over the past 20 months failed to defeat Russia while the $124 billion given to Israel since 1946 failed to subdue the Palestinians. That’s not to say that funding plays no role in implementing strategy, but just that it’s not the determining factor in these two conflicts, whose respective goals have yet to be achieved despite overly generous funding.
That objectively being the case, the only reason why Biden is pressuring Congress to urgently compromise on McCarthy’s replacement in order to then pass his latest $106 billion funding request is to maintain the MIC’s profits, which are nowadays predicated on the “new normal” since February 2022. Russia’s special operation was a godsend to these companies since it created the pretext upon which they could resecure their Old Cold War-era funding and thus reach similar profit margins once again.
All their plans from that point onward were based on the expectation that Congress would continually be pressured to rubberstamp their requests on the grounds that refusing to do so would be both unpatriotic and recklessly endanger what they were told are the US’ national interests. That’s why these companies weren’t all that concerned about the grassroots and partisan pressure that combined to make further funding for Ukraine more controversial than ever in recent months.
What none of them accounted for, however, was the Republicans’ “Ultra-MAGA” faction successfully carrying out a “regime change” against House Speaker McCarthy, which threw Congress into chaos and thus abruptly threatened their business plans after further funding could no longer be guaranteed. They’re desperate to get everything back on track as soon as possible, which is why their lobbyists pulled some strings to get Biden to fearmonger about World War III for this purpose, but it might not succeed.
Source: the author’s blog
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