Random Sunday Thoughts

On Long Wars, the DSA, Aborigines, and Democracy in America

BILL ASTORE

AUG 09, 2026

On a very warm and humid Sunday morning, here are a few random thoughts for today:

1. It’s rather amazing that the U.S./Israel War against Iran has entered its six month with no end in sight. Remember when the Trump administration suggested it would last no longer than eight weeks? The war is holding the world economy hostage, apparently for “greater Israel” and continued U.S. dominance of trade in fossil fuels. I say “apparently” because the war doesn’t make much sense to most Americans, who are in the main against it. The only selling point Trump keeps repeating is that Iran must not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, even as Israel is allowed to have up to 300 of them. His own intelligence chief told Trump that Iran was not working to field a nuclear weapon, but the Israelis told him otherwise, and we know who Trump is most obeisant toward.

2. Patrick Lawrence has a great piece on the DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, and how they want to abolish ICE and possibly the presidency itself while defunding the police, the Pentagon, and other instruments of authority and coercion. One sympathizes, but it’s neither a practical nor a winning political message. So I wrote this comment at his site:

Echoing George McGovern, “Come home, America.” You can’t abolish or dismantle everything. But we can downsize the imperium and reinvest in America rather than “investing” in more wars and Zionist Israel.

If the DSA wants to make a contribution, it should focus on that — downsizing the empire, putting the American people first, rather than dreaming of abolishing everything. For what will replace it?

Make the lives of average Americans better, more affordable, more livable. Clean up our environment. And forget the magical thinking and empty posturing.

Come home, America. Come home from wanton, wasteful, and immoral wars.

3. I was breezing through “The Devil’s Dictionary” by Ambrose Bierce and stumbled on his acerbic definition of “Aborigines”:

1. Persons of little worth found cumbering the soil of a newly discovered country. They soon cease to cumber; they fertilize.

2. Considerate persons who will not trouble the lexicographer of the future to describe them.

Bierce, a veteran of the U.S. Civil War, didn’t mince words here. There are always “persons of little worth” to oppressors who’d prefer that they leave or die. What was true of aboriginal peoples of the 19th and early 20th centuries is true of the Palestinians today: they are seen as obstacles to be overcome, even as terrorists to be exterminated.

4. Antiwar forces in America remain fragmented, and that’s partly by design. To oversimplify, you have the so-called radical left, which is antiwar, sometimes anti-military, often as critical of America as it is of empire, versus the “unpatriotic” (to Trump) right, which is anti-dumb wars, generally pro-military, and animated by putting “America first.” Left and right have much in common: they want less war, less militarism, and more investment and support for Main Street USA. If they could combine, they would make a formidable force against the MICC and incessant warfare. Which is why each side is encouraged to distrust and even hate the other, i.e. the “radical left” is told the right is racist and reactionary and the “unpatriotic right” is told the left is woke, arrogant, and un-American.

The MICC and “Deep State” know that these two groups must be kept divided. They must never be allowed to cooperate in meaningful ways.

5. Ike said only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry could tame and reduce the anti-democratic forces unleashed by the MICC. Note how Ike said nothing about the left or right. Being for democracy, freedom, and liberty isn’t a right or left issue. The same applies to being against war and killing and massively wasteful military budgets. These are human issues that should unite everyone irrespective of political allegiances.

Caveat: Any foolishness written above is on account of the heat, but fortunately I’ve been told global warming is a Chinese hoax. Stay cool, everyone.

The Militarized Insanity of this American Moment

A “Top Ten” List

BILL ASTORE

AUG 04, 2026

There’s so much militarized crazy in America today that it’s entirely overwhelming. Here’s a “top ten” list:

1. The illegal and unconstitutional war against Iran.

Remember when Trump told us he wouldn’t start wars? Remember when attacks on Iran began, the Trump administration told us they’d be over in a matter of days, perhaps a few weeks, ending in Iran’s total defeat? Instead, the U.S. government and military is engaged in yet another disastrous losing undeclared war that is unsupported by most Americans. As if our opinions matter!

2. The continued blanket support of Israel’s genocide against Gaza, pogroms in the West Bank, and demolition/seizure of land in Lebanon.

The Trump administration remains 100% committed to the project of a “Greater Israel,” no matter how many Palestinians suffer and die in the process.

3. The obscene $500 billion increase in military spending in FY2027.

The U.S. military hasn’t won a major war since 1945. It’s failed eight audits in a row. The “punishment” is a vast increase in military spending in the next fiscal year.

4. The escalatory and nearly impossible Golden Dome proposal.

The golden dome missile defense system is a golden boondoggle for weapons makers. It’s unlikely to work, and if it does, if only partially, it may make nuclear war more likely.

5. The unnecessary “modernization” of the nuclear triad at a projected cost of $2 trillion.

U.S. militarists still believe the nuclear triad is the Holy Trinity. It isn’t. Land-based ICBMs and nuclear bombers should be scrapped as obsolete. The Navy’s Trident-missile-firing submarines are all the U.S. needs for nuclear deterrence.

6. The continued headlong pursuit of artificial intelligence (AI) and the ongoing empowerment and enlargement of the surveillance state.

AI combined with ever-more intrusive cameras and digital monitoring is creating a dystopic “Big Brother” state. Imagine sweeping AI with a steroidal Homeland Security; now imagine the total disappearance of privacy.

7. The war against the ICC and UN and indeed any legal check on U.S./Israeli aggression.

As the U.S. and Israel engage in global aggression, they attack institutions such as the International Criminal Court and the United Nations that attempt to limit and stop that aggression.

8. Related to (7), the proposal to merge the U.S. military with Israel’s for research and development, intelligence sharing, and the like.

Incredibly, the Trump administration is proposing a merger between the U.S. and Israeli militaries that would compromise U.S. national security at the highest levels of classification. Obedient to Aipac and Israeli imperatives, Congress seems prepared ultimately to support it.

9. Continued environmental damage due to war and military operations and the complete disregard of climate change.

Rarely in the U.S. do you hear any talk of how war and global military actions accelerate global warming and aggravate environmental damage. Check out the documentary by Abby Martin, “Earth’s Greatest Enemy,” and her interview with Chris Hedges.

10. The abandonment of the citizen-soldier tradition in the U.S., the embrace of a warrior ethos, and the increasing contempt for diversity within the military.

The last war America won (with serious help from allies like the Soviet Union) was World War II, also the last time America had a true citizen-soldier military. Since then, America has increasingly embraced a warrior ethos. And while diversity used to be a hallmark of the U.S. military, it is now under attack as “woke” by Pete Hegseth.

There you have it: ten signs of America’s increasingly militarized madness. Greater sanity would involve the reversal of all of these.

Extractive Capitalism

Gusher Up, Trickle Down, Leads Me to a Sinking Feeling

BILL ASTORE

AUG 02, 2026

Extractive capitalism is the economic model for the United States.

We’ve been living through a brutal experiment of how much work and wealth can be extracted from the working- and middle classes and funneled upward before the former are exhausted. The same brutal experiment is being inflicted on Mother Earth: how much lithium, gold, fossil fuels, strategic metals and minerals, even drinking water can be commodified and extracted before the earth itself is exhausted.

It’s a gusher up, trickle down system where almost all the profit is absorbed by corporations and the oligarchs. It’s a system we’re told that’s inevitable—the best possible system, the most efficient, market-driven, a reflection of the “genius” of men like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. And it is indeed a reflection of those men—and their boundless greed.

It’s truly amazing how much wealth is being extracted from workers. The tax code targets wages more than capital gains. Inflation (gas, groceries, and other essentials) cuts into largely fixed incomes. Health care costs continue to rise and are the leading cause of personal bankruptcies. Higher education often leads to onerous student debt that cannot be discharged through personal bankruptcy. Workers are bombarded with ads to bet money on sports using apps on their phones. Lottery tickets are everywhere, selling the dream of a financial windfall at very long odds. Expensive prescription drugs are sold as a solution to excessive weight and even to addiction to other drugs such as opioids.

The term “debt slavery” describes the status of many Americans; they own so little, not their houses (assuming they can afford one), not their cars and trucks, in some cases not even their furniture.

Productive capitalism is possible. So too is a “share the wealth” system centered on communal health rather than the greed of billionaires. But we are fed constant BS that “lifestyles of the rich and famous” are what we should all aspire toward.

How long a top-heavy system of extractive capitalism can last before it collapses under the weight of its own greed and waste is an experiment we’re currently conducting. What will come after the collapse is unknown. 

To me, it seems the idea of a social contract is dead. America’s oligarchs and corporations are driven by profit margins, and workers’ jobs are being ruthlessly curtailed or eliminated in the process. AI is being pushed largely to make salaried employees redundant. Who needs people when machines can perform the same function, even if the machines are limited and only as reliable as their (faulty) programming?

Corporations say they exist to maximize shareholder value. Billionaires say they deserve all the money they can extract because they are the “makers” and creators (the rest of us, of course, are takers and drones). They owe us (the little people) nothing, so they say, and if we complain, we are told to work harder toward the American dream, even if it takes three jobs, none of which may provide health care benefits.

Small wonder that the American people want a different system; small wonder we are so heavily propagandized against anything that smacks of “communism” or even democratic socialism.

It’s laughable that Trump and Company sell communism (!) as a leading threat to America when it’s so obviously extractive capitalism that threatens to bury us. Meanwhile, extractive capitalism is protected (and accelerated) by unbridled U.S. militarism as the Pentagon’s budget soars to $1.5 trillion (or higher) in FY2027.

A militant extractive system is very good for a few at the expense of a great many. I suppose this is why my dad warned me that “the rich get richer and the poor poorer” and that tough times were ahead that might rival his experience of surviving the Great Depression in the 1930s.

I don’t know if it’s too late to change course. Whether we’ve already hit the iceberg and are just fighting over the lifeboats as the ship of state goes down remains to be seen. America, I like to think, still has the potential to rally. What is so deeply frustrating is that we’re being led by rogues and villains who seek to keep us in steerage even as they dance in the ballroom.

And when the ship finally slips beneath the waves, they won’t be onboard, dressed in their best while waiting for their demise. They will be long gone, motoring away on their luxury yachts.

Military Intelligence Is Increasingly Artificial Intelligence

Of General ChatGPT and Admiral Claude

BILL ASTORE

JUL 31, 2026

If you’ve been in or near the military, you’ve heard quips about military intelligence being the ultimate oxymoron or that it’s akin to military music, i.e. not very musical, unless you love pompous marches. But increasingly military intelligence isn’t even human anymore (some troops might argue it never was) as officers in particular look to AI programs like ChatGPT and Claude to do their “thinking” for them.

Reports indicate the Pentagon used Anthropic’s Claude AI to script the order for the attack on Venezuela, and apparently Claude was used again to plot attacks on Iran that led to the destruction of a girls school at Minab. (It’s unclear whether AI contributed to that disaster, though I’m guessing AI provides an illusion of certainty that could exacerbate targeting errors.) Americans in general place too much faith in technology, but AI modules aren’t immune from GIGO, or garbage in, garbage out. Or perhaps GIDO: garbage in, death out.

A colleague reports that military officers now routinely use AI to write orders and evaluations, with self-styled Secretary of War Pete Hegseth pushing the wonders of AI. The military’s increasing use of AI, my colleague notes, “completely circumvents the use of human intelligence, emotion, and critical thought,” concluding that “When they’re in the trenches – they [officers] won’t have time to check Chat GPT when giving orders in this next war.”

AI, in short, is becoming a force unto itself in military circles, so much so that General ChatGPT and Admiral Claude may soon be the most influential “officers” within the flag ranks.

Flush with cash, the Pentagon also sees AI as an easy way to spend money while calling it an “investment,” as William Hartung notes here:

The task of getting Pentagon money has become less daunting as the department focuses on missions impossible like a leak proof missile defense system (Golden Dome), plus all manner of (potentially) AI-driven systems — from drones, to driverless military vehicles to uncrewed ships to targeting systems that facilitate dropping more bombs per minute (which is how Palantir’s systems were used to enable and accelerate Israel’s genocide in Gaza.)

They’re creating an AI “killer drone” system that makes one wonder how long it’ll be before Skynet takes over and starts killing all humans everywhere. Admittedly, that might be a “Terminator” fantasy, the real problem being mass surveillance and selective targeting by our human “leaders” directed against anyone with the temerity to resist them.

The AI industry, notes Caitlin Johnstone, “is a mix of military technology, mass surveillance technology, and people trying to become billionaires by turning human laziness and narcissism into a chatbot product.”

So much for an AI-driven utopia. They’re even destroying books now and feeding their contents to AI modules. Book shredding has replaced book burning with the goal of creating “smarter” AI modules.

Save your books, everyone, before they’re fed into the maw of Claude and similar AI behemoths.

I remember from “Lost in Space” there was an android that intoned “crush, kill, destroy.” I guess it’s now “slice, scan, shred.” It doesn’t bode well.

Note: No AI programs were consulted in the construction of this rant.

Golden Dome as a Golden Boondoggle

And Perhaps a Golden Ticket to Nuclear War

BILL ASTORE

JUL 29, 2026

Golden Dome, President Trump’s ambitious dangerously escalatory missile defense shield, may cost Americans as much as $18 billion in the next fiscal year. According to my AI friends (perhaps soon to be running Golden Dome under the name of Skynet), here’s where the bulk of the money is slated to go:

  • Missile Warning and Tracking: $6.8 billion to develop Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and Medium Earth Orbit (MEO) satellite constellations.
  • Space-Based Interceptors (SBIs): $3.2 billion for initial contracts with defense developers like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Anduril Industries.
  • Space Domain Awareness: $1.6 billion specifically to monitor and safeguard the dome’s own network from adversarial threats.
  • Personnel Expansion: Funding to hire 506 full-time civilian employees to accelerate homeland missile defense development. 

What scares me the most about Golden Dome is that it might eventually work — somewhat. Thus it could weaken deterrence and increase the chances of a nuclear exchange.

Allow me to explain. In theory, the U.S. could attack a weaker nuclear state with an incapacitating “first strike,” with Golden Dome being used to intercept the few missiles/warheads remaining to the adversary. This scenario, more than possible under leaders like Trump and Hegseth, might force a cornered adversary to launch everything they have in an all-out strike on the U.S., with the goal of overwhelming whatever system is fielded under the Golden Dome moniker.

Fear of scenarios such as this led to the ABM Treaty that greatly restricted the deployment of missile defense interceptors. The policy of MAD, or mutually assured destruction, was kept in place as a form of deterrence. It’s grotesque but it worked. What would happen if one side with nukes had to worry far less about a nuclear attack because they possessed a shield or dome of sorts?

We laugh to hide the tears …

It’s certainly possible Golden Dome will never prove that effective while wasting colossal sums of money. Indeed, that might be the “best case” scenario. It’s also possible it could prove moderately effective, emboldening a nuclear power in possession of the same to threaten others, even as other nuclear powers, China for example, expand their arsenals and plans for a large-scale first strike.

The sensible way ahead is to scrap this ultra-expensive “dome” and to work toward negotiated reductions in nuclear weapons globally. You don’t need to intercept missiles and warheads if they’re never built.

More than 600 U.S. Casualties in the Iran War

Ministry of Truth Strikes Again

BILL ASTORE

JUL 27, 2026

An article at the New York Times today cites the creative accounting of the Trump administration on U.S. casualties in the Iran War. That count now exceeds 600 wounded, with eighteen service members killed. And for what, exactly?

Words fail…

President Trump claims America’s service members are being killed and wounded so that Iran doesn’t get a nuclear bomb. However, his former Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, testified that Iran wasn’t actively trying to acquire said bomb. In fact, because of the Iran War and U.S. and Israeli attacks, Iran now seems much more determined to acquire nuclear weapons. Can’t say that I blame them.

U.S. and Iran attacks in the region are suspended for the moment, which is one small bit of good news. However, with Netanyahu set to visit the White House tomorrow, we should expect more bellicose rhetoric and surely more bellicose action soon.

One more point: Iranian attacks have done far more damage to U.S. bases and facilities in the region than the Trump administration is prepared to admit. The New York Times also did a story on that. Here’s a report on that from March and a recent onethis month.

America truly has its very own Orwellian Ministry of Truth.

Retrograde Trump

And An Unconditional Congressional Surrender

BILL ASTORE

JUL 22, 2026

Odds and ends from my notebook:

  • Donald Trump’s vision as president is aggressively retrograde. He wants to make America more white, less diverse, more violent, less tolerant, more fearful, less accepting, again. In short, he wants to make America far less great.
  • When it comes to the U.S. Constitution, the Trump administration is assertively renegade.
  • The U.S. government has become something of a moral midget with a distastefully large military hammer. Under such conditions, what could possibly go wrong?
  • Authorizing war is supposed to be a Congressional act, an exercise of the people’s will. While Trump can’t get Iran’s unconditional surrender, he has certainly gained the unconditional surrender of Congress.
  • Maybe the Biden and Trump administrations’ blank-check support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza has something to do with the fact that America knows something about being a genocidal expansionist state that sees indigenous people as “savages.”
  • Data, data, everywhere, but intelligence, empathy, judgment and compassion are increasingly difficult to find.
  • Two or three times a year, I buy a couple of lottery tickets for fun. They are of course a regressive tax on the working classes. They represent the selling of (largely) false hope. And my state of Massachusetts has something like 100 or so lottery tickets you can buy with a face value from $1 to $50. Yes — $50 lottery tickets! Something about this is so wrong and exploitative. And of course now you have “Draft Kings” and all the “legal” betting on sports. It’s a system designed to impoverish workers and enrich the already rich, the reverse of what we should have. And it’s the working classes who get sent to die in America’s various illegal wars, also for the benefit of the rich, as the latter stay home with heel spurs and “other priorities.”
  • It’s fascinating that as oil and gas prices soar due to the Trump administration’s warmongering policies, there’s been absolutely no talk of conservation or cutting back on consumption of fossil fuels. It’s “drill, baby, drill” or even steal, baby, steal (as in commandeering oil tankers on the high seas).
  • I find it shameful that dead American troops are used to justify further attacks on Iran that might lead to yet more dead American troops. For what, exactly?
  • The proposed merger of the Israeli and U.S. militaries (Section 224, now 219, of the NDAA, and Section 1217 in the Senate) includes an Executive Agent who’d report directly to the Secretary of Defense, in this case Pete Hegseth, with no Congressional oversight. Once again, Congress willingly abdicates its responsibilities, this time to a foreign power. The U.S. military and intelligence agencies should not be intermingled with those of any foreign power, yet Congress is preparing to do exactly that with Israel.
  • Pete Hegseth testified the Iran War has cost roughly $38 billion so far. The true figure is closer to $100 billion. The self-styled Secretary of War can’t do basic math.
  • When escalation is seen as a way to end wars, whether with Iran or between Russia and Ukraine, my mind goes back to the Yom Kippur War of 1973 and the Israeli warning: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Deep penetrations will be met with deep penetrations. (That was the Israeli response to Egyptian incursions in the Sinai Peninsula.) Which brings me to an eye for an eye and pretty soon we’ll all be blind. 
  • Put differently, as David Bowie sang for the movie “Cat People,” it’s like putting out fire with gasoline. Or with Tomahawk and Hellfire missiles. It doesn’t work.

Not Another Article about the Military-Industrial Complex

1.5 Trillion Reasons to Focus on the MICC–the Blob that Ate Washington

BILL ASTORE

JUL 20, 2026

Last week, I was chatting with an old friend, fellow veteran, and loyal reader when he suggested I should write less about the military-industrial complex. I laughed. I wish I could, I replied, but I’ve got 1.5 trillion reasons to write about it.

The MICC (we must add Congress to the mix) won’t leave me and America alone. If a trillion dollar military wasn’t bad enough, we’re now approaching $1.5 trillion for the Pentagon’s war and weapons budget, an absurd amount that represents roughly 75% of federal discretionary spending. (Estimates vary from 63% to as high as 81% of federal discretionary spending.) Meanwhile, as the Pentagon gobbles up even more money, it still can’t pass Congressionally-mandated audits. Talk about absurdity! Eight failed audits and the reward is more money—much more.

To modify an old saying, Americans may not be interested in the MICC, but the MICC is interested in them. It’s most certainly interested in their money. And their obedience.

I remember a time, 40-50 years ago, when you’d see informed and critical articles about the MICC in the mainstream media (MSM). I grew up reading them in newspapers like the Boston Globe. Such articles have just about vanished in the MSM today, and we know why: the newspapers are owned by billionaires and corporations that profit from that same MICC. They are not about to bite the hand that feeds them. 

There’s a sense of resignation today (I think) where the average American just goes along to get along, or, worse, Americans who simply don’t have the time and who also believe national security issues are beyond them. Thus they wave the flag and defer to the “experts” they see on TV and cable, all those retired generals and admirals who shill for the arms makers (and takers of our tax dollars), who repeat talking points they get from the Pentagon.

That’s why America needs a “big tent” movement of “alert and knowledgeable” citizens that incorporates critical voices from the left, right, and center. Instead, “hot button” cultural issues are used to divide and distract us. Somehow we must come together and resist wanton and wasteful spending on wars and weapons before the U.S. empire collapses under the weight of its own folly and greed.

We must fight the good fight against wars and ultra-expensive preparations for the same while we can.

I’d like to see a U.S. military focused on true national defense, and maybe we once had one in World War II, but of course it’s morphed into a global Goliath where naked aggression is twisted as “preemptive defense.”

Thirty-five years ago, when I was a young captain, there was a fleeting opportunity for “peace dividends” with the collapse of the Soviet Union. We had a precious opportunity, as Jeanne Kirkpatrick said back then, of becoming “a normal country in normal times.” But the vested interests and the pursuit of wealth triumphed over peace dividends and greater economic equity. Under Bill Clinton, the Democrats happily shifted to the right and adopted much of Reaganism. U.S. workers were abandoned for the pursuit of profit. Anger at this treachery helped to strengthen the BS populism of men like Donald Trump and his ilk.

Hope is dying, as is our trust in government. After all, why should we trust the government? It gave us the Pentagon Papers, the Afghan War Papers, the missing WMD in Iraq, and now we’re engaged in another disastrous war with Iran, basically for Israel.

And that’s not all. Congress is bought by AIPAC and major corporations. Members of Congress are selected, not elected, with big-money donors doing the selecting. SCOTUS said money is speech so those with lots of money control things and those with very little have no say at all. That’s not democracy, it’s plutocracy, and the plutocrats often double as kleptocrats (Trump and Pelosi, for example, using their offices to get richer, though Pelosi is a piker compared to Trump).

Run for your lives … before it’s too late!

We’ve drifted a bit from the MICC, but then again cutting the MICC’s budget and influence is a big part of the solution to America’s problems. For FY2027, the proposed Pentagon budget is the blob that ate Washington. We’ll never free ourselves of wasteful weapons and even more wasteful wars if we keep feeding that same blob.

Trump, running in 2024, complained about the MICC’s greed and sold himself as anti-war. As president, he’s worked to enlarge and engorge the blob while feverishly fighting new wars. In that sense, he’s much like other U.S. presidents, only more so. He’s become increasingly consumed by war, so much so that he’s reinforcing failure in Iran. The MICC, naturally, is happy to reap the benefits in more money, never mind the troops dying for no defensible or sensible reason.

So, despite my friend’s well-intended advice, I find myself once again writing about the MICC, the blob that ate Washington. And I guess I will continue to do so until the blob consumes me—or until we combine to put a stop to it.

War Is Too Easy

We’ll End the War by Escalating It?

BILL ASTORE

JUL 18, 2026

War is too easy in America today. We’ve come to accept it as normal. Peace is now aberrant. As war grows ever easier, peace becomes ever harder.

“Escalation,” not diplomacy, is touted as the smart way to end wars. Logic doesn’t seem to matter. How do you end a war by launching more damaging and deadly strikes? How is killing even more people a way to peace?

President Trump now seems to believe that climbing the “escalation ladder” in the Iran War and in the Russia-Ukraine War is the best way to resolve these deadly conflicts. It reminds me of that Vietnam-era quip that waging war for peace is like screwing for virginity.

Journalist Aaron Maté’s piece today also cites Washington’s belief in escalation:

Shortly before returning to the White House for a second term, Donald Trump criticized the exiting president, Joe Biden, for letting Ukraine fire long-range US missiles into Russia. “Why are we doing that?” Trump complained. “We’re just escalating this war and making it worse.”

Just as his campaign pledge of “no new wars” gave way to a regime-change war on Iran, Trump’s professed aversion to a US-fueled escalation in Ukraine is no more. At this month’s NATO summit in Turkey, Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio endorsed Ukraine’s drone attacks deep inside Russia. With the Russians “finding it more difficult to defend their own airspace,” Rubio explained, this will “create the space now to negotiate the end of this war.” Added Trump: “It’s an escalation, but it’s also an escalation that could help lead to an end.”

How often do “escalations” help to end wars? Does anyone remember how escalation in Vietnam turned out?

Maybe if we truly seek to end a war, we should deescalate attacks, then engage in diplomacy. No, that makes too much sense.

Spock learns that logic often doesn’t apply to murder or war

There’s a great line in an old Star Trek episode, “Journey to Babel,” where Spock is advised he’d do well to “forget logic and devote yourself to motivations of passion and gain,” for “those are the reasons for murder” — and often for war as well.

Of course, these aren’t the only reasons for war, but logic often has little to do with how and why wars are waged. That much is obvious as “climbing the escalation ladder” is seen or sold by Washington as the best way to deescalate in Iran and in Russia and Ukraine.

18 Intelligence Agencies!

So Much Intel, So Little Insight

JUL 15, 2026

Yes, it’s staggering. The U.S. government has eighteen intelligence agencies—euphemistically known as the IC or the intelligence community. Interestingly, the infamous DOGE, searching for government efficiency, never challenged that “community.” 

And that “community” doesn’t come cheap. Courtesy of my AI friends, here’s a rough budget breakdown:

National Intelligence Program (NIP) $81.9 billion, Director of National Intelligence (DNI)

Military Intelligence Program (MIP) $33.6 billion, Department of Defense (DoD)

Total Requested Funding $115.5 billion

The true figure is probably higher and also classified. So many “black ops” and black op sites. Nothing screams transparency like black programs.

I won’t bore you with the list of all 18 agencies. I wonder if there might be some overlap, redundancies, inefficiencies, and bloat? Of course not. Even if there was, surely it would be classified.

I once worked a bit with AIA, the air intelligence agency, but that’s the extent of my limited exposure to the IC. Lucky me.

The IC generates an enormous amount of intel but insight remains limited. You don’t always get what you pay for.

And, let’s be honest. As international lawyer John Whitbeck put it: “I often wonder why the United States needs 18 hugely expensive and massively staffed ‘intelligence’ agencies when all of the country’s most important decisions are made at the unconstrained whim of a single individual of no intelligence whatsoever.”

(I do like the rumors that President Trump only pays attention to intelligence briefings when his name is featured prominently. It’s Trump in a nutshell.)

In keeping with a five-sided Pentagon, America should probably have five intelligence agencies, as follows: the CIA, NSA, DIA, DOJ/FBI, and DHS. All others could be folded under those five.

Not that I’m a fan of the CIA etc. These agencies have far too much power (and resources) in our society.

Efficiency is less important than effectiveness, and based on recent events (e.g. disastrous wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Iran) the IC doesn’t seem that effective. Unless you define “effective” as enlarging its own power. In that sense, the IC is superb at protecting and enlarging its own turf.

The whole IC is antithetical to democracy and the idea of oversight being exercised by the people. The “community” should be as small as possible and as focused as possible on protecting Americans from real threats, rather than protecting itself from budgetary cuts.

Amazingly, something like 1.3 million Americans hold a “top secret” clearance, and the IC itself taps into a far-flung network of private contractors and related organizations. To say that it’s everywhere may be only a slight exaggeration.

As Chuck Schumer once said, the IC has “six ways from Sunday” of screwing with anyone who gets in their way. So I’d like to conclude by saying I love the IC. I really do!