Israel Katz stood in a sterile briefing room to announce a massive military expansion. The Defense Minister confirmed a new INS 350 billion budget for the next decade. This plan includes the purchase of two new squadrons of F-35I and F-15IA combat aircraft from Boeing. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved the deal to preserve what he called strategic air superiority. The first of six new tanker planes has already made its maiden flight in the United States. These jets are designed to strike targets across a crumbling regional map.

While Israel buys jets, the United States is also ramping up its own production. The Air Force requested 24 F-15EX fighters to be built monthly by Boeing. These aircraft feature advanced electronic systems to defeat modern air defenses. At the same time, Israel is acquiring 10,000 precision kits from the U.S. to intercept drones. These deals are valued at nearly $1 billion. This surge in military spending happens as the U.S. government remains in a state of civilian payroll default. The state has found billions for the machinery of death but nothing for the families of DHS employees.

This paper’s reading of the budget is that it represents the final form of the hollow state. Governance has been reduced to the procurement of high-tech weaponry and the fortification of borders. The non-stealth fighters and the precision rockets are the new monuments of a dying order. They are built using the labor of workers who are increasingly unable to afford the products they manufacture. The Boeing factory line and the IDF squadrons are the physical evidence of a world that has chosen kinetic attrition over human welfare. In the Ghost Era, the state is a predator that starves its own people to feed its arsenal.