The defense spending bonanza

"Corruption has evolved, it has become much more refined. We no longer find situations where someone takes a bag of money or an envelope in the middle of the street. Instead, there has been a shift toward hiding these amounts through consulting contracts, payments through offshore accounts, or consecutive commercial transactions." Laura Codruța Kövesi then head of Romania's National Anticorruption Directorate, in an interview with ProTV September 30, 2015

The corruption involved in defence contracts is particularly hard to uncover and no doubt particularly widespread because defense contracts are confidential for reasons of national security. The bonanza in defence spending is going to involve very widespread corruption of a kind that hasn't been seen for years. 

n 2025, Romania spent almost €9 billion on defence, over 2% of the country’s GDP, a very large part of which goes to Western defence contractors. A lot of money is stolen at the level of sub-sub-contracts to Romanian companies. 

This is where politicians come in. The whole thing makes a great deal of money for their friends and associates. The new PSD-dominated government will busily award contracts after a hiatus of five months when there was no government to sign off on contracts. (It is also required to sign off an incredibly large amount of cash the judges are rewarded themselves for pensions but that's another story.) 

The USA gets a very good deal indeed because it spends only about $200 million a year on defence in Romania. The American Empire is more than self-financing. It makes the American economy a very big profit.