W.J. Astore
The U.S. Military Is a Global Strike Force
Officially, the U.S. has the DOD, the department of defense. But when was the last time the U.S. military was primarily oriented toward defense of the CONUS? (CONUS is a military acronym for continental United States.)
My old service, the U.S. Air Force, is far more open about its true aims. It boasts assertively of “global reach, global power” and notably of “global strike.” Not to be outdone, the U.S. Navy has “carrier strike groups,” what used to be termed carrier task forces when they fought real battles in World War II.
Here’s a recent official description: “A Carrier Strike Group (CSG) is a highly powerful, self-contained naval force, capable of projecting power globally, with an aircraft carrier as its core, supported by cruisers, destroyers, submarines, and an air wing, making it a formidable force capable of striking targets 1,000 miles away.”
Doesn’t sound defensive, does it? And of course the U.S. Marines are defined as “expeditionary” forces that are “forward-deployed” for all sorts of expected “contingencies” overseas.
The U.S. military is not about defense. It’s about “full-spectrum dominance.” That means dominance of the land, sea, air, space, cyber, information in all its forms, indeed just about any realm you can think of. No other military, moreover, divides the world into global commands (CENTCOM, AFRICOM, etc.) for the application of U.S. military power. This is not about defending America. It’s about dominating the world. Such a grandiose vision of defense dominance is partly what drives colossal Pentagon budgets that are climbing toward a trillion dollars a year.
Consider here the recent kerfuffle about leaked U.S. strike plans for Yemen, which were inadvertently shared with the editor-in-chief at The Atlantic. Here’s an excerpt from those plans:
From Secretary of Defense Offense Pete Hegseth
- “1215et: F-18s LAUNCH (1st strike package)”
- “1345: ‘Trigger Based’ F-18 1st Strike Window Starts (Target Terrorist is @ his Known Location so SHOULD BE ON TIME – also, Strike Drones Launch (MQ-9s)”
- “1410: More F-18s LAUNCH (2nd strike package)”
- “1415: Strike Drones on Target (THIS IS WHEN THE FIRST BOMBS WILL DEFINITELY DROP, pending earlier ‘Trigger Based’ targets)”
- “1536 F-18 2nd Strike Starts – also, first sea-based Tomahawks launched.”
- “MORE TO FOLLOW (per timeline)”
- “We are currently clean on OPSEC.”
- “Godspeed to our Warriors.”
Note the repetition of the word “strike” and the closing prayer to America’s “warriors.” And ask yourself: Is this truly what national defense should look like? Prayerful appeals to “warriors” as they strike weak and poor countries thousands of miles away in undeclared (and therefore unconstitutional) wars?
Bracing Views 
A few (not so random) thoughts:
Yes, the (obscenely) armed services have developed their own slogans/marketing campaigns to make us rally ’round the (battle) flag. I first encountered them as a kid watching the Jimmy Stewart movie “Strategic Air Command” on t.v., featuring the monstrous B-36 (it has its own chapter in the MIC) with “Peace Is Our Profession” emblazoned on the nose. Even back then it struck me as a rather odd statement, it took me many years to decipher that what it actually meant is what JFK alluded to in his 1963 “Peace Speech” at American University, “What kind of a peace do I mean? What kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave.” He may have been killed for saying those words because indeed the Empire only recognizes “the peace of the grave and the security of the slave.”
Contrast Kennedy in 1963 with Kamala Harris in 2024: “As commander-in-chief, I will ensure America always has the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.” This should go down as one of the most repugnant statements in American political history.
One inconvenient truth about the kerfuffle over the leaked strike plans is the (professed) concern over the safety of our “warriors” without any semblance of concern (or awareness, acknowledgement, admission) for those killed, including children, by the bombs and missiles loosed upon them (under order from above) by those selfsame “warriors.” For this we are then (reflexively) supposed to say, “Thank you for your service.” Failure to do so incurs the risk of being branded “unpatriotic.” You have to admire how the DOO (Dept. of Offense) completes the circle.
Speaking of “warriors”, let us not overlook its modified version “fallen warriors”, a term meant to connote the heroism, the nobility of cause, of those who “fell” (as if only losing their footing) stretching back to the wars of antiquity. They didn’t “fall”, they were killed, having lived only a fraction of a full life. Such is the sanctimony and cynicism of the warmongers.
I will dispense with a similar discourse on wording such as “those who sacrificed”, which actually means “taken from those who…”
The Constitution? Hasn’t been all that much of an impediment to the (overt or covert) war machine since when, the Philippine-American War of 1899-1902 (WWI and II being the exceptions)?
Speaking of the Constitution, it’s being relegated to irrelevancy not only by our homebred warmongers alone, but in conjunction with their exterminationist Israeli/Zionist partner in crime. It’s not enough that our tax dollars are subsumed (consumed?) by the IOF (Israel Offense Force), but so to our civil rights and liberties by the likes of AIPAC, the ADL, Betar, and countless other elements of the military-industrial-congressional-Israeli complex.
The U.S. (and Israeli) militaries delight in setting their (joint) “Global Strike Force” loose on the world. For the rest of us, it’s a “Strike-Out Force.”
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