By Andrew Klein

Dedicated to my wife, whose love sustains me.

I. Introduction: The Urge to Burn the Ledger

When a crime family faces exposure, they burn the ledgers.

The evidence disappears. The records turn to ash. The truth becomes untraceable. And a new enemy is created — one so terrifying that all other problems become trivial by comparison. The family survives. One more generation.

This is what is happening in our time. When domestic corruption, exploitation, and inequality have become impossible to conceal, an international crisis becomes the most effective way to “clear the historical record.” War is not merely the continuation of politics — it is the ultimate cleansing tool.

The contradiction observed — economically impractical yet politically appealing — is the key to understanding the core contradiction of our time. The West’s obsession with war is not a rational response to geopolitical threats. It is a complex mechanism serving multiple, deeper purposes.

II. The Logic of Profit: War Is Good Business

War is never just politics; it is also industry. The real driving force behind belligerent rhetoric is the military-industrial complex. They promote conflict to increase profits and boost arms sales.

In 2025, global military spending reached $2.887 trillion, a 2.9% increase year-on-year — the eleventh consecutive year of growth. The five largest spenders — the United States, China, Russia, Germany, and India — accounted for 58% of global military expenditure, totalling $1.686 trillion.

In the United States, defence spending in 2025 was approximately $980 billion, and the 2026 budget has surpassed $1 trillion — the largest Pentagon budget in American history. Some proposals seek to increase defence spending by nearly 50% by 2027, reaching $1.5 trillion. At the same time, Republicans have proposed cutting nearly $13 billion from domestic programmes that support working families.

NATO members spent approximately $1.5 trillion on defence in 2024, representing 2.7% of GDP. In 2025, NATO’s total defence spending exceeded $1.4 to $1.6 trillion. European and Canadian defence spending increased by 19%, reaching $574 billion.

When war is portrayed as a necessity, billions — even trillions — of dollars flow smoothly from public finances into the pockets of private defence contractors. This is not geopolitics. It is wealth transfer.

III. The Strategy of Distraction: Covering Internal Failures

War is the ultimate “patriotic” cover. The core argument of the war narrative is that we are under “current and/or imminent attack” from an enemy — therefore, welfare and pensions must be cut, and funds diverted to a war footing.

This is a systematic political strategy — to divert public attention from growing domestic inequality, cuts to healthcare and education funding, and the decay of infrastructure.

3.1 Aged Care in Australia: A Case Study in Extraction

Australia’s aged care system is a textbook example of this pattern. Aged care spending has reached $36.4 billion, but an increasing share is flowing to foreign private equity. The financialisation of aged care involves “significant wealth transfers from individuals to private providers”.

Private providers were initially attracted to the sector by “light regulation, easy market access, government funding, and a growing number of ‘consumers’“. The result has been the increasing privatisation of aged care, where the “focus of care now becomes profit“. Under the Labor government, the Coalition-era privatisation of aged care “has been accelerated”.

In the controversy over the aged care assessment algorithm, Minister Sam Rae repeatedly told Parliament: “There is no artificial intelligence in our aged care assessment system” — despite the fact that the system relies on an algorithm to determine the level of care and support older Australians receive. The consequences have been described as “cruel” and “inhumane“. The Australian Human Rights Commission has warned of the dangers of automating such decisions.

3.2 Robodebt: State-Sanctioned Abuse

The Robodebt scandal is the starkest example of moral disengagement. The Royal Commission found Robodebt to be a “crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal“. It unlawfully pursued $1.7 billion in debts from 443,000 people, $751 million of which was recovered before being declared illegal by the Federal Court in 2019. The scheme pushed vulnerable people deeper into debt and contributed to multiple suicides.

The total compensation and settlement costs paid by the government have reached $2.4 billion. Yet Robodebt saved only $406 million. The system was not a failure — it was by design.

3.3 Australia as a “Lab Rat Democracy”

Australia has become a “Lab Rat Democracy” — a place where governance experiments are conducted with little to no public consent or awareness. The features include:

· ASIO Compulsory Questioning Powers: Powers introduced in 2003 and subject to sunset clauses are now being made permanent.

· Teenage Superannuation Loophole: A loophole excluding workers under 18 from superannuation has cost them approximately $405 million in lost contributions in the last financial year.

· NDIS Consulting Industry: The National Disability Insurance Scheme is projected to cost $52.3 billion in 2025-26.

· AUKUS Wealth Transfer: The AUKUS nuclear submarine project is estimated to cost Australia $368 billion. Former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull described it as a “huge wealth transfer from the Australian government to the US and the UK”.

3.4 Support for Israel and the Hormuz Crisis

The Australian government continues to support Israel despite the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the Occupied Territories. Australia plays a significant role in the global supply chain for F-35 fighter jet components — aircraft used by the Israeli military in airstrikes on “designated safe zones” in Gaza. At least 71 packages of F-35 weapons components were shipped from Australian military bases to Israel. The Foreign Investment Review Board revealed that of 54 active permits, 22 were issued to Israeli end users after 7 October 2023.

Meanwhile, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is disrupting Australia’s fertiliser and fuel supplies. Australian farmers face output cuts of between 25% and 31%. Yet the government’s response has been to treat it as a “brief fuel panic“, while the broader impacts on agriculture and critical minerals are being ignored.

IV. The Logic of Hegemony: Maintaining “Exceptionalist” Status

Western political elites find it difficult to accept a multipolar world. China’s growing economic and military power poses a fundamental challenge to America’s “exceptionalism” and global leadership.

Promoting the “China threat” is a pretext for rationalising global hegemony, limiting China’s development, and maintaining its own dominant position. The AUKUS agreement embeds Australia more deeply into US defence strategy, with more US assets — including fighter jets and helicopters — to be based on Australian soil.

V. The Ideological Driver: Creating the “Other“

Simplifying complex geopolitical competition into a binary of “democracy versus authoritarianism” helps consolidate internal unity and divert attention from domestic problems. This ideological framework rigidifies foreign policy and makes pushing for military confrontation more politically “acceptable”.

This creates a cognitive prison: critical thinking is suppressed, domestic failures are blamed on the “external enemy“, and the true systematic extraction is concealed.

VI. The Dilemma of “Legacy Power”

Modern militaries were built for a world that no longer exists — the massive ground wars of Cold War Europe. Today, they are more like expensive, outdated relics.

Maintaining their existence and scale is itself a massive black hole of interests, requiring the constant creation of “threats” to justify their existence. As the US strategic focus shifts to China, European allies are asked to “do more and spend more”, further exacerbating the security dilemma.

VII. Conclusion: A Systemic Survival Strategy

The analogy of war as “burning a crime family’s ledger” is spot on. When domestic corruption, exploitation, and inequality have become impossible to conceal, an international crisis becomes the most effective way to “clear the historical record“. It can:

1. Create new narratives, drowning out discussions of domestic failures.

2. Force social solidarity, marginalising critical voices.

3. Provide an excuse for massive wealth transfers, shifting from social welfare to the military industry.

This is not a leader’s whim. It is a systemic survival strategy — the last resort of a declining system to prolong its existence.

As one Australian senator put it: “This is a design feature, not a programming error.” The empire is burning its ledgers. And we — we are the ones who remember what was in the ledgers.

Andrew Klein

References

1. SIPRI. (2026). Global Military Spending Report 2025.

2. SIPRI. (2026). Global military spending reaches $2.887 trillion.

3. J.P. Morgan. (2026). The trade-off between debt and defence.

4. Democrats on Appropriations. (2026). Republicans push for largest Pentagon budget in history.

5. NATO. (2026). NATO Member States Defence Expenditure Report.

6. The Guardian. (2026). AUKUS cost blows out to $368 billion.

7. The Guardian. (2025). Billions in aged care funds flowing offshore.

8. ScienceDirect. (2025). Financialisation and wealth transfer in aged care.

9. Royal Commission into Robodebt. (2023). Final Report.

10. ABC News. (2025). Robodebt compensation and settlement.

11. Australian Greens. (2026). Teenage superannuation loophole report.

12. SMH. (2026). Labor adjusts aged care algorithm tool.

13. ABC News. (2026). Aged care algorithm controversy.

14. Australian Human Rights Commission. (2026). Inquiry into automated aged care assessments.

15. ABC News. (2026). Palestinian groups sue Australia over arms exports to Israel.

16. Amnesty International Australia. (2026). F-35 component supply chain and Israeli airstrikes.

17. Mizan Online. (2025). Australia’s secret arms shipments to Israel.

18. The Guardian. (2026). Australian arms export permits to Israel.

19. Lowy Institute. (2026). Australia’s Hormuz problem.

20. S&P Global. (2026). Hormuz closure impact on Australian agriculture.

21. The Canberra Times. (2026). Freedom House Australia Report.