Perpetual war
- Dependence on war
Incidence
The USA has bombed at least 23 countries since 1945 and is the the only country to have deployed nuclear weapons. In 2023, it has more than 700 military bases and over 200,000 US troops in foreign countries and spends more than any other countr(ies) on military spending (approaching $1 trillion annually).
Claim
"It does not matter whether the war is actually happening, and, since no decisive victory is possible, it does not matter whether the war is going well or badly. All that is needed is that a state of war should exist.” Emanuel Goldstein, The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism (in George Orwell’s 1984)
The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous. … The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects and its object is not the victory over either Eurasia or East Asia, but to keep the very structure of society intact. (George Orwell, 1984)