The last time the United States achieved lasting peace with its former enemies was in 1945. Since then America has been dragged into an endless succession of regional wars, with its diplomats being forced to play second fiddle to the hawks in various US administrations.
Nowadays it's not diplomats who come up with solutions to solve tensions between states, but the direct or indirect representatives of the American, Russian or French military-industrial complexes, that is - military attachés or secret service chiefs posted in embassies. The situation arose after 1945 and gradually worsened as the military-industrial complexes in question gained increasing levels of influence over politicians.
Of course, unlike diplomats, the people of the military-industrial complex (MIC) do not aim to settle conflicts between states, but to stall solving them in order to keep the level of arms sales as high as possible.
A recent example from Australia illustrates how toxic a MIC can be for the conduct of normal diplomatic relations between states. Thus, a country like France - hitherto known to have the oldest and most prestigious diplomatic service in Europe - recalled its ambassadors from 2 of its oldest Western allies, namely the US and Australia, simply because the French MIC lost an order to supply submarines to the Australian Navy in favour of the Americans.
The Russian MIC is also a strong competitor to the American MIC when it comes to sales of military hardware.Thus, the Russians have succeeded in selling sensitive military hardware even to NATO members like Turkey. Cash-strapped nations like India are also traditional customers. The huge success of the Russian MIC, however, lies elsewhere. Twenty-odd years ago one of their own - Vladimir Putin - took over the presidency and made sure that no traditional politician will ever gain power in Russia again. The domination of the Russian MIC over state institutions is so complete due to the fact that no alternative power centres have been allowed to exist.
" Russian defense companies do not need to spend money on lobbyists (as their U.S. counterparts do) because key individuals working for them simultaneously hold senior political posts and already take part in high-level decision-making. Thus, Russia’s defense-industry lobbying, such as it is, focuses on access to the federal budget—funds distributed by the government with the active participation of the presidential administration and Putin himself for arms procurement, R&D and industrial modernization programs. " ( Pavel Luzin )
Many analysts and Western politicians have mistakenly compared Putin to the likes of Stalin or Hitler. For a start, unlike them, Putin is not a politician and has never aspired to be one. Secondly, unlike Stalin, he has an excellent working relationship with the top generals of the Russian army, or with the heads of Russia's main secret services like the GRU and the FSB. Thirdly, Vladimir Putin has demonstrated that when his country is backed into a corner, he and his army commanders act as one in pushing back against what they see as trespassers to the Russian security sphere. And finally, Putin and the other top leaders of the Russian MIC take a dim view not only of traditional politicians, but also of the role diplomats can play in solving international crises. In other words, unlike his Western counterparts, Putin is not a politician but the leading PR representative of the Russian MIC.
In the United States, the typical political representatives of the MIC are the neo-conservatives, the most belligerent of Americans. They are often found in important positions, either in the White House or in the state or defense departments , where they exert a strong influence on US foreign and defense policy. (Two best-known such people are Paul Wolfovitz or Victoria Nuland.)
Even worse, four of the top 5 corporations in the military-industrial complex in the US are run by women , who unfortunately have a dubious reputation for being more aggressive in negotiations than men ...
Whenever the issue of diplomatic negotiations between states comes up - such as the planned Biden Administration negotiations with Russia this month - representatives of the mass media associated with the complex fill up the public space with articles describing the diplomatic efforts as being a sign of weakness on the part of the US, insisting instead on the need to send more weaponry to the US' allies.
In other words, when it comes to extinguishing armed conflicts, the tactic of the American military-industrial complex is to pour more gas on the fire, in order to be able to provide as many weapons as possible to the conflict zones of the world.
