War Machine Wins in Washington: House Passes $858 Billion Defense Bill

The bill will also end the Pentagon’s COVID vaccine mandate for troops

An Aegis Ashore Ballistic Missile Defense System is set up at U.S. Naval Support Facility in Deveselu, Romania, Aug. 9, 2019. (Navy)

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The House of Representatives easily passed the mammoth $858 billion defense policy bill that was $45 billion more than even President Biden dreamed of.

The New York Times reported that the bill includes $800 million in military aid to Ukraine and does away with the Pentagon’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for troops.

Both Republicans and Democrats voted in favor of the bill because, as we’ve noted in earlier issues, there is no difference when it comes to keeping the military industrial complex satisfied.

It is unclear if the vaccine issue will be a deal breaker for the Biden White House. More than 8,000 active-duty service members were discharged for failure to take the jab.

The bill now heads to the Senate.

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TRENDPOST: As our 8 November cover noted: The War Machine Always Wins, no matter which political party is in power. 

Bill La Plante, the undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, said months ago that he expected Congress—no matter what party was in control—would approve new weapons purchasing power at levels not seen since the Cold War. 

“They are going to give us multiyear authority, and they’re going to give us funding to really put into the industrial base,” he told George Mason University at the time. “And I’m talking billions of dollars into the industrial base—to fund these production lines. That, I predict, is going to happen, and it’s happening now. And then people will have to say: ‘I guess they were serious about it.’ But we have not done that since the Cold War.”

Earlier this month, Lloyd Austin, the Secretary of Defense, unveiled the U.S.’s newest bomber that is designed to evade the world’s best air defense systems. The Associated Press reported that almost every aspect of the program is classified. The price tag is not known but could be around $753 million per plane. There are currently six in production and the Air Force wants 100.

“This isn’t just another airplane. It’s the embodiment of America’s determination to defend the republic that we all love,” Austin said.

Deborah Lee James, the Air Force secretary when the Raider contract was announced in 2015, told The AP that the “U.S. needs a new bomber for the 21st Century that would allow us to take on much more complicated threats, like the threats that we fear we would one day face from China, Russia.”

TREND FORECAST: While much of the world’s population suffers from the devastation of the COVID War which has destroyed lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions… politicians keep stealing more of We the People’s money to enrich the military-industrial complex. 

America’s other “great threat,” Russia allocated just $67 billion for its military budget. And Statista, citing SIPRI data, reported that China has increased its military expenditure by almost 800 percent since 1992, reaching about $245 billion 2020… which is a fraction of what the U.S. spends. 

As we have forecast, the 20th century was the American century—the 21st century will be the Chinese century. The business of China is business; the business of America is war. (See “TOP TRENDS 2021: THE RISE OF CHINA.”)

While America spent countless trillions waging and losing endless wars and enriching its military-industrial complex, China has spent its trillions advancing the nation’s businesses and building its 21st-century infrastructure. 

And while America and Europe have outsourced their manufacturing to China and developing nations to increase profit margins, China’s dual circulation/self-sustaining economic model is directed toward keeping jobs and trade and profits within the nation, thus relying less on global trade.