It should not come as a surprise to any movie lover that sci-fi fans are still scouring through and discussing the depth of Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers (1997). A movie that was once derided as shallow or over pulpy has become an enduring cult classic – rightly so. Watching the film with a larger purpose in mind, one can dig up interesting and new viewpoints to consider. Specifically with regards to the conspiratorial machinations of the United Citizen Federation (UFC) and their necessity to wage war against the Arachnids, or any opponent for that matter.
Evident as far back as the days of ancient empires all the way up to the modern stream of events, human history is chock-full of ill-intentioned governing bodies. Often, when a government or ruling class aims to act in a way that would ordinarily be against the will or the desire of the common majority population, they must first fabricate a way to justify that action. As in, if a nation wanted to invade another nation, they would first devise a surprise attack against their own people but use the guise of their “enemy” nation. They could then cite this attack as a cause for war. This is called a false flag operation.
In Starship Troopers the justification for attacking the Arachnids is a meteor strike on Buenos Aires. In the first act of the movie, Johnny Rico and countless other young adults are going through boot camp to train for military service in the Federation. This is the only way for someone to become a citizen in this government system (more on this later). At the time of their training, there was not yet a war against the bugs, only a perceived threat. Remember that the news POV footage of the invasion of Klendathu where Johnny gets stabbed in the leg at the beginning of the movie happens after the meteor attack on Buenos Aires. There is a one-year time jump backward to catch up the audience.
The Bug Meteor
A propaganda reel at the very beginning of the movie mentions how the Bugs can hurl asteroids across the galaxy to hit Earth. These meteors allegedly derive from an asteroid belt near the twin star of the Bug solar system. The newsreel also shows how an armed space station ring around Earth’s Moon can destroy an asteroid before it hits Earth. The narrator tellingly says, “the bugs send another meteor our way.” It concludes that the only way to save the solar system from the bugs is to eliminate Klendathu.
While Rico is in training, cadet Carmen Ibanez flies through space on the starship Rodger Young. Using a new flight course plotted by Ibanez, the ship encounters the asteroid that later hits Earth. They are able to dodge and survive collision at the expense of their communication array. Consequently, they cannot report the asteroid to Earth defense. Right when Rico decides to wash out of Bootcamp, the asteroid strikes Buenos Aires. Immediately, the Federal Council unanimously votes for mobilization to destroy the Arachnid threat. The UFC is now happily on the warpath.
The Military-Industrial Complex
Why does the UFC need a false flag to wage war on the Arachnids, anyway? The United Citizen Federation, as explained by high school teacher and future Roughneck Lieutenant Rasczack, is a government imposed by veterans from a previous series of terrestrial wars. It is fascistic and highly militarized. However, in being militarized, it requires a fresh batch of veterans to lead it and to continue to justify its legitimacy. To serve in the government, one must become a citizen. To be a veteran one must survive a war. Citizenship hinges on military service.
Here is a crystal-clear case of a military-industrial complex. The military-industrial complex can be explained with this simple analogy: if one buys a carton of milk, one is compelled to consume it before it expires lest it curdles, and their money is wasted. Hence, if the government purchases, trains, and fields an entire military, they better wield it before the troopers age out and the materiel becomes obsolete – or else the entire conceit is wasted. War with the Arachnids was a necessity of sustenance for the UFC. If not war with the Arachnids, they would have had to pick a fight with some other opponent. Or worse, descend into civil war.
War! We’re Going to War!
Putting the pieces together, the UFC sacrificed Buenos Aires to have a cause to wage war across the galaxy. Even if the Rodger Young failed to report the sighting of the asteroid, it is probable that the Moon space station had some form of asteroid radar detection, and clearly already had missile capabilities. Under normal operation, the space station would have fired at the asteroid and erased it as a threat well before it reached Earth’s radius. The UFC conspired otherwise, and let it smash into what was once known as the Latin paradise.
The government of Starship Troopers’ very existence hung on the constant manufacture of war. To create the supreme class of citizens, it needed a glorified army. To justify a government of veterans, it needed a steady supply of wars. To veer the planet into war with an unfamiliar and far more sizeable race far across the galaxy, it needed to “avenge” the innocent people of Buenos Aires.