Is War Addiction Really Something to Celebrate?
By Yves Engler
We won. But please don’t ask exactly what.
For the foreseeable future a major Canadian city is set to be a central node in linking global finance to arms production. Montreal, Toronto, or whichever city ‘wins’ hosting rights for the global war bank will become a symbol of militarism for decades to come.
Last month Canada was formally selected to host a new multilateral war bank. It’s now up to the federal government to decide which city will host the Defense, Security and Resilience Bank.
The DSRB will further marry investment agencies and major banks to arms producers. One aim of the multilateral financial institution is to draw the major commercial banks and large investment agencies, like the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, into closer ties with the arms industry. The war bank, explains Palestinian Youth Movement campaigner Umer Azad, will “raise capital on global markets, issue bonds, and extend loans to governments and defense companies. That means funding for military supply chains, weapons systems, and defense infrastructure would increasingly flow through financial markets rather than direct public expenditure. In doing so, war itself risks being transformed from a political decision subject to public scrutiny into a financial product embedded in portfolios.”
Think ‘military-industrial-financial complex’ as Canadian capitalists get increased profits from the financial part.
The DSRB will offer low-cost loans to ‘allied’ countries to facilitate their military buildup. The war bank is part of retooling Canada and most NATO economies to a perpetual war economy. It is designed to assist a historic increase in war spending. In discussing the project, the Canadian president of the DSRB Development Group, Kevin Reed, said NATO military spending is expected to grow from $1.6 trillion to $4 trillion annually over the next nine years. For its part, Canada has agreed to the Donald Trump-inspired target of 5% of GDP (3.5% direct and 1.5% associated) devoted to the military that will grow spending from $40 billion last year to $150 billion in a decade.
In his first year in office Mark Carney has radically boosted military spending. He’s also laid out a long-term plan to further link economic development to war, establishing a $6.6 billion Defense Industrial Strategy.
At the same time, Carney has slashed health transfers and spending on pharmacare. Thousands of federal service jobs are being cut while the Department of National Defence workforce will grow.
Irrespective of the social programs it starves or the violence it will likely spur, all politicians support the War Bank. The NDP premier of BC, the former NDP MP who is now Toronto mayor, and Quebec Solidaire have all joined in the effort to bring the war bank to their respective cities. The new left-ish NDP leader Avi Lewis has kept silent on the DSRB -- despite the fact that it is generally easier to stop a project before it has taken root.
While social democratic politicians back their cities’ bid for the war bank, some resistance is brewing. Some educators have protested the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan’s support for the bank. A coalition involving the Council of Canadians, 350.org, Canadian Federation of Students, and dozens of other organizations was launched to “Stop! The Global War Bank”. Its statement notes, “we reject the DSRB war bank. Not in Toronto, not in Canada, not on this planet.”
But we need a massive resistance to prevent the economy becoming ever more addicted to war. Because that growing addiction is what Canada actually ‘won.’