UK think tank joins calls to free West’s war machine from pesky politicians

(Originally published Oct. 11 in “What in the World“) Israeli airstrikes Thursday hit central Beirut, killing 22 people. Another airstrike, on a school in central Gaza, killed 28.

A U.K. think tank has added its voice to the chorus calling for a sort of Federal Reserve for Western weaponry, at arm’s length from the caprice of democratic politicians—and one politician in particular, Donald Trump.

New Diplomacy Project’s report calls for the creation of an allied Western bank for defense spending, which could make long-term loans for arms purchases to its shareholder nations. That way, they wouldn’t be so dependent on the political whims of any particular benefactor, like, say, the White House.

The report in many ways echoes earlier calls for defense budgets to be insulated from the political cycle. Thomas Mahnken, who heads a non-profit think tank funded largely by the Defense Dept., the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, and is a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, argued in June that dire shortages of ammunition in Ukraine highlighted the need for larger and steadier production by the U.S. defense industry so the Pentagon can stockpile weapons.

The 2022 National Defense Authorization Act enabled the Pentagon to make multi-year purchase orders and adjust spending for inflation. But Congress’ delay in passing the defense budget earlier this year highlighted how efforts by the U.S. and its allies to mount increasing opposition to China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia remain vulnerable to their own domestic politics. Those concerns have grown more acute as the Pentagon and Washington’s European allies contemplate the possible reelection of Donald J. Trump as President. Both the White House and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have thus been trying to bake in continued military aid to Ukraine to future-proof it against the possibility that a second-term Trump would try to cut it off.