Many in US establishment want war with Russia for economic profits: Grossman

International lawyer Barry Grossman says there are people in the United States who are seeking a military conflict with Russia for their own economic profits.

“There are many people in the US establishment who would be ecstatic about a shooting war with Russia since that would send the US economy and their own profits in to overdrive,” he told Press TV on Thursday.

He added that the latest comments made by US Air Force Secretary Deborah James about considering Russia as the “biggest threat” to American national security is an indication of Washington’s addiction to militarism.

“The United States, in short, is addicted to militarism and these comments, like Russia is the biggest threat to America are best seen as being comments made in a marketing campaign,” he said.

“When they say things like this, they are conceding that they cannot compete with countries like Russia unless that country fully embraces the US dominated international system, with all that entails about the financial sector, ownership, and unqualified commitment to this military stage of the Pax Americana,” the analyst explained.

According to Grossman, Washington is putting pressure on its NATO allies to commit to spend two percent of their Gross Domestic Product on military purposes and those countries, however, have been very slow to contribute and make the commitment.

“Under a plan developed by former secretary of defense Chuck Hagel, the US aims to slash the size of its own active duty army while relying more and more on NATO to contribute to the US military effort around the world,” said Grossman.

“In practical terms, this means that the United States is increasingly expecting its allies and its client states to carry the cost of establishing US hegemony around the world, even if it will continue to insist on controlling all such operations,” he added. 

The analyst argued that this NATO-related rhetoric “is all just a ploy to get Europeans to pay a larger slice of the cost of the United States Pax Americana foreign policy which is about anything but peace.”

“In order to achieve that agenda and at the same time goad the public into being suitably frightened, the US establishment feels it is necessary to trot out these military administrators from time to time to make ludicrous statements like this one. But make no mistake about it. The financial cost of this militarization whether it is paid for by US taxpayers or European taxpayers will continue to overwhelmingly flow into private US coffers.”

“So when talking heads and administrators like Deborah James are rolled out to make absurd comments like ‘Russia is the biggest threat to US national security,’ we should not understand this as being intended to mean that the US is speaking about Russia being a military threat,” he said.

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