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The Peter McCormack Show · Peter McCormack

#163 - Scott Horton - How Debt, Inflation and War Are All Connected

April 7, 2026·1 hr 15 min·5 clips
Horton reads from Orwell's 1984 to argue Big Brother's method of 'blasting wealth into space' is an accurate description of US war finance.
The premise is blunt. Horton argues that debt and war work together to drain public wealth. He starts with 1984, using perpetual war as the opening frame: strip money away, keep people desperate, make control easier. Then the debt arrives. Horton cites the official $40 trillion national debt and says the government is now borrowing money to pay interest on what it already owes. The empire has a tab, and it is not getting smaller. His view is that unfunded liabilities make the real number impossible to know, while debt service sits next to the costs of the world empire. The incentives are not hard to spot. Donor pages, firms, lobbyists, and media controversy all show up as pieces of a conflict sales machine. Lockheed is the example. Horton describes a company with government as its customer, which makes war policy sound less like strategy and more like moving inventory. The host presses on Ukraine. Is the war a way to recycle old military hardware while new hardware gets fresh investment? Horton says yes. He connects that answer to think tanks, military officer circles, and his own antiwar work around Afghanistan. The mood is heavy, even when the conversation gets dryly funny. The claim stays the same: ordinary people pay for institutions that gain when conflict keeps running. The ending gets practical, with the host pointing listeners to antiwar.com, Horton's books, the Scott Horton Academy, and a briefing site about America's relationship with Iran.

As heard by us

A sharp antiwar case that links the budget, the war machine, and everyday strain.

Scott Horton presents debt and war as one connected machine. The conversation moves from the official national debt and unfunded liabilities to borrowing just to cover interest, then into the roles of arms makers, Congress, and media incentives in keeping the cycle going.

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Why you'd press play

You want the war-budget argument turned into a pressure on your daily life.

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