The Unholy Trinity: How Bankers, Generals, and Politicians Are Driving America Toward Perpetual War

The Facts: America’s War Addiction and Economic Collapse

The United States finds itself trapped in a cycle of perpetual warfare that spans Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and now potentially Venezuela. Despite public war fatigue spanning 25 years, the war drums beat louder than ever. This occurs against a backdrop of alarming realities: America lacks the economic, technological, and manufacturing capacity to sustain conventional warfare, and would likely lose unconventional conflicts involving nanotechnology, biotechnology, and information warfare.

The statistics reveal a disturbing trend: defense employment has surged by 40% in the last decade, reaching 1.4% of total employment. In 2022-2023 alone, the defense workforce expanded by 4.8% compared to an average growth of 1.7% elsewhere. Military spending has become the only growing government budget item while infrastructure, education, and social services decline precipitously.

The Economic Context: From Production Economy to War Economy

America’s economic transformation explains this militaristic turn. Until the 1950s, most goods were produced locally, supporting community economies. Today, multinational corporations control global supply chains, funneling wealth upward while leaving communities dependent on military and security jobs. The relocation of manufacturing overseas means police officers, prison guards, and soldiers represent the only employment options in many regions.

The concentration of wealth has reached unprecedented levels, with a handful of billionaires effectively determining national policy. Since the government was captured by the super-rich over the last 20 years, the basic interests of citizens have been entirely ignored. The republic and participatory democracy have been consigned to history’s trash bin.

The New Power Structure: Bankers, Generals, and Politicians

The article reveals a fundamental shift in American governance. The traditional executive, legislative, and judicial branches have been replaced by three real centers of power: politicians, bankers, and generals. This unholy trinity operates beyond constitutional constraints, with bankers controlling money, generals commanding force, and politicians forming temporary alliances among interest groups.

In this distorted system, politicians serve bankers and generals rather than citizens. The financial kings can pay off everyone and gain complete economic control, reducing politicians to puppets and generals to mercenaries. This concentration of power has eliminated citizen influence on policy, creating a speculative economy that has destroyed trust in government and business.

The Military-Industrial-Digital Complex

Companies like Oracle, Palantir, Google, and Amazon feed on military and intelligence budgets while merging with banks to control money itself through digitalization. Larry Ellison’s Oracle grew through CIA contracts, and his December 2025 takeover of TikTok operations exemplifies the merger of surveillance, entertainment, and financial control.

The Ellison family’s media domination campaign—through Paramount Skydance and potential Warner Brothers takeover—represents unprecedented control over American information and entertainment. The cancellation of CBS’s 60 Minutes report on El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison demonstrates how this power suppresses inconvenient truths.

Opinion: The Imperial Project Turns Inward

What we witness is not merely policy failure but the logical endpoint of imperial capitalism. The United States, having exported exploitation globally, now turns its imperial machinery inward. The military economy becomes necessary precisely because consumption-based capitalism has reached its limits—workers can spend no more, so banks must find new profit sources through perpetual war.

This represents the ultimate betrayal of the American people. The same system that promised prosperity through free trade now sacrifices citizens at the altar of corporate profits. The military buildup serves as wealth transfer, not security enhancement, while the nation collapses under debt, crumbling infrastructure, and cultural decay.

The Global South Perspective: A Cautionary Tale

For those of us committed to Global South development, America’s descent offers crucial lessons. This is what happens when nations prioritize corporate interests over human dignity, when wealth concentration destroys democracy, when military power replaces economic productivity.

China and India, as civilizational states, understand that true development requires balancing economic growth with social harmony, technological progress with cultural preservation. The Westphalian nation-state model—with its inherent tendencies toward conflict and exploitation—shows its bankruptcy in America’s current crisis.

The Human Cost: Beyond Statistics

Behind these economic analyses lie human tragedies: families destroyed by endless deployments, communities hollowed out by deindustrialization, generations burdened by debt for wars that serve only oligarchs. The psychological toll of militarized culture—propagated through newspapers, movies, and television—creates a population conditioned to accept war as normal rather than as the failure of policy it represents.

Conclusion: The Choice Ahead

America stands at a crossroads: continue down the path of militaristic oligarchy or reclaim its democratic soul. The solution requires dismantling the banker-general-politician triad and restoring citizen sovereignty. It demands rejecting the false choice between economic collapse and perpetual war.

The international community, particularly the Global South, must recognize America’s crisis as the death throes of an unsustainable model. We must build alternatives based on mutual development, respect for civilizational differences, and rejection of imperial domination. The multipolar world emerging offers hope for a future where nations cooperate rather than dominate, where development serves people rather than profits.

America’s tragedy serves as warning: when wealth concentrates too extremely, when corporations capture government, when military power becomes the only growth industry—the nation loses its soul. May we in the Global South learn this lesson and build more humane, more balanced, more sustainable futures.