Military Bribery

The local NPR station did a story this morning about Fort Drum and its impact on the local economy in the North Country.  As you might imagine, with 14,000 soldiers and many of their "dependents" living in the area around Watertown their is a large trickle down effect in that area.  The base population is down from a high of over 20,000 during the zenith of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but it is still the major economic engine of the area.  Plattsburgh experienced a similar boom/bust military economy in the 1970s to late 1990s when the Air Force closed its base.  Areas like these are held hostage by the military activity in their environs.  The relatively easy money spent by the service personnel stunt the local economy into dependency on the military.  This situation is repeated throughout the US and does two things.  First it lulls the locals into a false sense of security and second creates a constituency for continued increases in military spending.  Instead of protesting the Trump administration's plans to increase military spending by $54 billion dollars at the expense of infrastructure and social needs, places like Ft. Drum are plotting how they can expand and hoover more sweet federal dollars into the area.  Repeat this in every location where a large military base or contractor is the largest local employer and you have a recipe for a militaristic state engaged in war for economic reasons with the support of a significant portion of the population.  I am old enough to remember the political power wielded by the Grumman corporation on Long Island in the 1950s and 60s.  Because the population of that area was growing so fast and Grumman began to lose some of its lucrative contracts, eventually the power was diluted by other economic activity.  In places like Watertown, with a shrinking non military population, the locals will remain boosters of the army base and its problematic imperatives.