It’s amazing the enormous sums of money the U.S. government spends on destructive weaponry in the stated cause of deterring massive destruction. It’s MAD, of course, this notion that peace is only attainable via the promise of annihilating another people. And now we know that annihilation won’t be limited to Russia or China or Iran: that a “general” nuclear strike would likely produce a nuclear winter that would end most life on our planet. Yet the Pentagon persists in nuclear “modernization” and further “investments” in the Triad.
In the early 1960s, the Air Force wanted 10,000 ICBMs but “settled” for 1000 Minuteman missiles. To preserve “the American way,” they built a nuclear command center (Cheyenne Mountain) under 2000 feet of granite, which was rendered obsolete soon after it was built by more accurate Soviet ICBMs with warheads in the megatons.
As a young Air Force officer, I hunkered down in the 1980s in Cheyenne Mountain. I visited Los Alamos. I’ve walked the Trinity Test Site in Alamogordo, New Mexico, site of the first atomic test in 1945. Friends of mine have sat in ICBM silos, ready and able to unleash Armageddon. Imagine young lieutenants and captains in their twenties, sitting underground, waiting for the president’s command to launch missiles that will unleash a nuclear holocaust to kill millions, if not the planet itself.
All this fresh talk of “investment” in “modernized” nuclear weapons is sheer madness–a collective death wish–a “strange love” for world-destroying nukes. Yet again, we’ve come to love the bomb.
Recently, the Chief of Staff of the Air Force (CSAF) spoke of nuclear weapon “recapitalization”: truly an abomination of the English language. You don’t “recapitalize” genocidal weaponry. Both the Sentinel ICBM missile program and the B-21 bomber are unneeded weapons systems that will likely cost $500 billion or more over the next 20 years. Sadly, he isn’t the only general who’s positively gleeful about all the money being thrown at nuclear weapons, the Golden Dome, and weapons in space.
This mad (MAD) glee for money in the cause of mass destruction and madcap militarism is destroying not just our democracy. It’s like our “leaders” are out of Mordor, searching for the One Ring of Power, with AI data centers and surveillance the equivalent to Sauron’s eye that sees all.
Maybe Mordor isn’t the best model for our future?
I wonder if Sauron spoke of “modernization” and “recapitalization” in Orcs and Nazgûl and Balrogs?
The current CSAF promises to “advocate relentlessly” for new weaponry like the Sentinel ICBM and B-21 Raider. He says “readiness” to fight is an airman’s “first responsibility.” Actually, that first responsibility is to support and defend the U.S. Constitution. We must be guided by the law of the land, not by the beauty of our weapons (Brian Williams) or a warrior’s urge to use them (Pete Hegseth)
America, stop the MADness. A policy of Mutually Assured Destruction means we’re all dead. As the Outlaw Josey Wales said: “Dyin’ ain’t much of a living.” Nor is deterring our way to Doomsday.
Last week, the Secretary of the Air Force announced the U.S. has weapons in space. As Ken Klippenstein has noted, the announcement was in effect a bid for more mega-billions for the U.S. Space Force. Here’s a helpful chart, courtesy of Klippenstein:
Aerospace Center for Space Policy and Strategy
Greater than 120%: now that’s a budget increase!
Zealots and opportunists are ruling us. The zealots actually believe that America’s security is best attained through full-spectrum dominance, including space dominance. The opportunists don’t care one way or the other–they’re just pursuing the golden flow of money emanating in a steady stream from the Trump administration in the cause of that dominance.
Greed and bellicosity are the fundamental problems. These men (I’d wager they’re all men) define everything in terms of conflict and dominance. They are Klingons, proudly so, without a Klingon sense of honor. To mix movie references, they are imperial stormtroopers seeking their own Death Star wonder weapons.
Space should be a realm for exploration and inspiration, a place for humans to grow further in knowledge and wisdom. These morally impoverished souls are ruining space even as they poison the earth.
Again, it’s not just about space weapons. It’s a major money- and power play by America’s youngest service, the U.S. Space Force, complete with proposed fascistic uniforms for its “guardians” based on the movie “Starship Troopers.”
Love the jackboots
There just wasn’t enough money/influence for U.S. Space Force in its primary mission of defense and deterrence, so now it’s all about war fighting and weapons. That’s where the real money is at, and the Space Force wants a bigger slice of the fiscal pie, irrespective of the risk of a war in space.
We’re clearly entering a new “space race,” not a quest as in the 1960s to put a man on the Moon to upstage the Soviets, but one where the U.S. attempts to occupy and dominate space while projecting power, i.e. killing people, from orbit. U.S. weapons in space will provoke other countries like Russia and China to respond in kind; the proliferation of weapons, some likely controlled by AI, will greatly increase the likelihood of major disruptions in vital satellite communications here on earth–and that may be the least of our problems if satellites monitoring nuclear forces are disrupted.
Pete Hegseth’s “Department of War” is creating an escalatory dynamic that makes a war in space much more likely and the U.S. far less safe–yet another “war of choice” inflicted on the world. As the saying goes, it’s worse than a crime, it’s a mistake, a most grievous one for humanity.
Incredibly, the Air Force Academy football program is honoring a weapon system, the new B-21 Raider bomber, which is surely music to the ears of Northrop Grumman, the lead contractor.
Here’s the announcement from the Air Force:
The Air Force football team will honor the B-21 Raider with the 2026 edition of the Air Power Legacy Series uniform. The Falcons will wear the special uniform for the Navy game scheduled for Saturday, Oct. 3, at 10 a.m. MT at Falcon Stadium on the campus of the United States Air Force Academy. The game will be nationally televised on CBS.
The idea of preventing conflict by maintaining a force so capable, ready, and credible that no adversary will ever risk war. It is the promise that peace is preserved through unmatched strength and readiness 24/7/365.
Power Projection is ability to rapidly fly, fight, and deliver decisive airpower anywhere on the globe, anytime, through any contested airspace. It ensures America’s reach has no limits.
Ah, “America’s reach” may have no limits, but recent events surely prove that our reach has greatly exceeded our grasp, whether in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, or most recently in Iran.
And how is “preventing conflict” working for America’s massively steroidal military?
Perhaps one shouldn’t think too much about this. Focus on the cool uniforms and the sleek jets, am I right?
Here’s a slick Air Force PR image—if you can stand it.
Look at those gridiron warriors, embracing the new B-21 bomber! Truly inspiring.
The mixture of sports and militarism in America is increasingly deadly, especially for those people on the receiving end of America’s “projected” power.
A special sports uniform for a plane that isn’t even fielded yet, let alone combat-proven. What insanity.
By the way, if you go to the Northrop Grumman website, you see this proud statement:
Air Power Legacy Series
Northrop Grumman and the U.S. Air Force Academy partnered on the 10th‑anniversary Air Power Legacy Series, unveiling a B‑21 Raider inspired football uniform that connects Air Force heritage to the future of American air power. The uniforms debut October 3 vs. Navy at Falcon Stadium.
No better illustration of Ike’s military-industrial complex can possibly exist.
P.S. The projected cost of each B-21 bomber is roughly $700 million, a “conservative” estimate. Given the usual cost overruns, it’s likely the B-21 will cost $1 billion per plane. Total program cost is just over $200 billion, but that’s in Fiscal Year 2019 dollars. Again, given the usual cost overruns, that cost will likely double over the next 10-20 years, assuming Congress continues to fund the plane. And, guess what? America doesn’t even need the B-21. The Air Force already has more than enough planes, bombs, and missiles to end most life on earth.
Talk about unlimited “reach”!
P.P.S. By happy coincidence, today is the Air Force’s 79th birthday. Why don’t you chip in a few hundred dollars for the new B-21? Not that you have any choice in the matter.
The Trump administration plans to give 40 kilotons of “conventional” bombs to Israel. Put differently, that’s 40,000 bombs, each with a ton of HE or high explosive. Naturally, it’s the American taxpayer who foots the bill as it’s labeled as aid to Israel.
Forty kilotons is a little more than the combined yield of the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima (15 kilotons) and Nagasaki (21 kilotons) in 1945.
2000-pound bombs are not precision weapons. They flatten entire city blocks. Israel doesn’t need them for self-defense; it “needs” them to erase Gaza and its people from the map. (Or perhaps to attack Iran with in conjunction with U.S. forces. Or both.)
The other “Made in America” product that Israel orders in bulk is giant bulldozers. They’re in high demand to move the rubble around and entomb the bodies of the dead. A few of these bulldozers are now driverless or robodozers.
Mega-bombs and giant robodozers: all this death and destruction is explained away as “Israel’s right to exist.”
A Seven-Point Plan to Reduce the Risk of Nuclear War
AUG 25, 2026
If Stephen Covey can make millions off the “7 habits of highly effective people,” surely I can make millions off a seven-point plan to reduce the risk of nuclear Armageddon.
Seriously, I recently came up with seven ideas to reduce the risk of nuclear war, and then I used the amazing power of ChatGPT to turn those seven ideas into a policy platform statement (see below). It did a fair job of it, though the prose is a bit boring.
I believe my seven-point plan would make the world a safer place. It would save America trillions of dollars through the cancellation of the Sentinel ICBM, the B-21 bomber, and the Golden Dome missile shield.
Here’s my simple seven-point plan of highly effective Americans:
1. A U.S. policy of no first use of nuclear weapons.
2. A commitment to global START talks to make major reductions to nuclear weapons arsenals, with the eventual goal (if possible) of total nuclear disarmament.
3. The end of Golden Dome and a revival of the ABM treaty.
4. Reconfiguration of the U.S. nuclear triad. Cancellation of the Sentinel ICBM and the B-21 Raider. Gradual retirement of Minuteman III ICBMs. U.S. nuclear deterrence to be centered on the most survivable leg of the triad: the Navy’s Ohio– and Columbia-class submarines.
5. Job loss associated with the cancellation of major nuclear weapons systems to be alleviated through investment in civilian infrastructure (roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, and the like).
6. Major educational efforts to alert the world to the dangers of nuclear winter, weapons, and war.
7. An end to the Russia-Ukraine War and the alleviation of tensions between the U.S./NATO and Russia. Similarly, a reduction in tensions around similar potential nuclear flashpoints (e.g. the U.S./Taiwan versus China).
This devastating scene from “Terminator 2” must always remain science fiction.
*****
And here’s the policy statement generated using ChatGPT to flesh out that plan.
The continued existence of nuclear weapons remains the gravest threat to the survival of modern civilization. Although the Cold War ended more than thirty years ago, approximately 12,000 nuclear warheads remain in the arsenals of the world’s nuclear powers, with the overwhelming majority held by the United States and Russia (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute [SIPRI], 2025). At the same time, deteriorating arms control agreements, renewed great-power competition, and regional conflicts have increased the risk that nuclear weapons could again become instruments of war. The objective of U.S. nuclear policy should therefore be clear: maintain strategic stability while steadily reducing the probability that nuclear weapons are ever used. This platform advances seven mutually reinforcing initiatives designed to move the United States and the international community toward a safer and more secure world.
The first pillar of this platform is the adoption of a No First Use policy. The United States should formally declare that it will never initiate the use of nuclear weapons and will employ them only in retaliation against a nuclear attack. Such a declaration would reduce the danger of miscalculation during international crises and lessen the incentives for adversaries to launch their own weapons out of fear of a preemptive American strike. A No First Use doctrine would also strengthen the long-standing principle that nuclear weapons exist solely to deter nuclear aggression rather than to serve as instruments of battlefield warfare or coercive diplomacy. By embracing this doctrine, the United States would signal that nuclear weapons are political weapons of last resort, not usable military tools. Such leadership could encourage reciprocal restraint by other nuclear powers and reinforce global norms against nuclear use.
Second, the United States should recommit itself to comprehensive strategic arms control negotiations. Building upon the achievements of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) process and the New START Treaty, Washington should seek substantial bilateral reductions with Russia while laying the groundwork for future multilateral negotiations involving China, France, the United Kingdom, and other nuclear-armed states. The long-term objective should remain the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons if rigorous verification mechanisms and international security conditions make that goal achievable. Although complete nuclear disarmament cannot occur overnight, history demonstrates that negotiated reductions are possible. Since the late 1980s, U.S. and Russian arsenals have declined dramatically through verified agreements without undermining either nation’s security (U.S. Department of State, 2024). Renewed arms control would reduce costs, increase transparency, and decrease the likelihood of nuclear confrontation.
Third, the United States should discontinue pursuit of the proposed Golden Dome missile defense system and instead seek negotiations leading to renewed limitations on nationwide strategic missile defenses comparable to those established under the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty. Strategic stability has historically depended upon the recognition that neither side can realistically expect to escape devastating retaliation following a nuclear attack. Large-scale missile defense systems risk undermining this stability by encouraging competitors to expand or modernize their offensive arsenals to overcome perceived defensive advantages. The result is an action-reaction cycle that fuels expensive arms races without improving long-term security. Reviving mutual constraints on strategic missile defenses would restore an important principle of Cold War arms control: that deterrence is strengthened when neither nation believes it can successfully fight and win a nuclear war.
Fourth, the United States should restructure its nuclear forces to emphasize the most survivable component of its deterrent. This platform therefore supports cancellation of the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program and the B-21 Raider nuclear bomber while gradually retiring the aging Minuteman III ICBM force. America’s nuclear deterrent should instead rest primarily upon the Navy’s Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines and their Columbia-class successors. Because ballistic missile submarines are exceptionally difficult to detect and destroy, they provide a secure second-strike capability that guarantees retaliation against any nuclear aggressor. Maintaining a credible submarine-based deterrent would preserve strategic stability while eliminating the unique dangers posed by land-based missiles, which must remain on constant alert and may create pressure for rapid launch decisions during crises. A submarine-centered deterrent would continue to protect the United States while reducing the risks associated with hair-trigger nuclear postures.
Fifth, reductions in nuclear weapons programs should be accompanied by a robust economic transition strategy for affected workers and communities. Defense conversion should not leave engineers, skilled tradespeople, or manufacturing workers unemployed. Instead, federal investment should redirect this highly skilled workforce toward rebuilding America’s civilian infrastructure. Roads, bridges, water systems, electrical grids, schools, hospitals, public transportation, and renewable energy facilities all require substantial modernization. Redirecting resources from unnecessary nuclear modernization programs toward infrastructure would strengthen both national prosperity and national resilience while ensuring that communities dependent upon defense spending continue to enjoy stable employment opportunities. National security should be understood not only in military terms but also in terms of economic strength and public well-being.
Sixth, the United States should undertake a major educational initiative concerning the humanitarian consequences of nuclear war. During the Cold War, public awareness of nuclear dangers contributed significantly to support for arms control agreements. Today, however, much of that awareness has faded. Educational programs in schools, universities, museums, and public media should explain the immediate effects of nuclear explosions as well as the broader environmental consequences identified by contemporary scientific research. Studies indicate that even a limited regional nuclear conflict could inject sufficient soot into the upper atmosphere to reduce global temperatures, disrupt agriculture, and threaten food supplies for billions of people (Robock et al., 2007; Xia et al., 2022). Greater public understanding of these consequences would encourage informed democratic debate and reinforce international efforts to prevent nuclear war.
Finally, this platform recognizes that arms control cannot succeed without diplomacy. The United States should actively pursue negotiated settlements that reduce tensions among the world’s major nuclear powers. Ending the Russia-Ukraine War through diplomacy consistent with international law and the sovereignty of states would substantially reduce the risk of direct confrontation between NATO and Russia. Likewise, sustained dialogue with China should seek to reduce military tensions surrounding Taiwan and establish reliable crisis communication mechanisms that lessen the danger of accidental escalation. Military deterrence remains necessary, but deterrence alone cannot provide lasting peace. Stable diplomatic relationships, confidence-building measures, and regular communication among adversaries are indispensable components of nuclear risk reduction.
Taken together, these proposals offer a coherent strategy for reducing the likelihood of nuclear catastrophe while maintaining a credible national defense. They reject the assumption that greater security necessarily requires ever-expanding nuclear arsenals and instead affirm that diplomacy, strategic restraint, and international cooperation provide more durable foundations for peace. The nuclear age has demonstrated that humanity possesses the capacity to destroy itself. The challenge of the twenty-first century is to demonstrate that it also possesses the wisdom to prevent that outcome. This platform seeks to move the United States toward that safer future.
References
Robock, A., Oman, L., & Stenchikov, G. L. (2007). Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals. Journal of Geophysical Research, 112(D13).
Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. (2025). SIPRI Yearbook 2025: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security.
U.S. Department of State. (2024). New START Treaty.
Xia, L., Robock, A., Scherrer, K., et al. (2022). Global food insecurity and famine from reduced crop, marine fishery and livestock production due to climate disruption from nuclear war soot injection. Nature Food, 3, 586–596.
If you’ve read this far, thank you! Let’s help rid the world of nuclear weapons, or at least greatly reduce global nuclear arsenals.
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, 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.
Mark Twain was right when he said history may not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.
Consider America’s approach to nuclear weapons. Under Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s, America’s strategic nuclear triad was modernized at immense cost. One hundred B-1 bombers were built. The stealthy B-2 bomber followed. MX “Peacekeeper” ICBMs were deployed. New Ohio-class nuclear subs armed with Trident missiles were launched. Pershing II and GLCMs (ground-launched cruise missiles) were fielded in Europe. And Reagan presented his idea of a missile defense shield, known as the strategic defense initiative (SDI) or informally as “Star Wars.” All this cost enormous sums of money.
Fortunately, the Pershing IIs and GLCMs were retired under talks that eliminated intermediate-range nuclear missiles. The Peacekeeper missiles are already gone. The B-1s are due to be retired over the next decade and no longer fly nuclear missions. And the Ohio-class submarine force, the most survivable leg of the nuclear triad, remains on station, with just one submarine capable of destroying much of the world.
Air Force B-2 bomber being refueled
The U.S. today possesses an enormous nuclear overkill capacity. The arsenal consists of roughly 5000 nuclear bombs and warheads. Again, just one submarine carries up to 20 Trident II D5 missiles with multiple nuclear warheads, each warhead being far more powerful than the bombs used against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. To borrow a line from Daniel Ellsberg, each submarine is capable of 100 Holocausts. They are genocidal weapons to a degree that is unimaginable. By the way, the U.S. has fourteen Ohio-class “boomer” submarines.
Here is where history rhymes. Under yet another tough-talking Republican president, the U.S. today is yet again “modernizing” its nuclear triad while imagining a missile defense shield (now known as “Golden Dome”). The Air Force wants a new nuclear bomber (the B-21 Raider) and ICBM (the Sentinel), and the Navy wants a new ballistic-missile-firing submarine, the Columbia-class.
None of this is really necessary. ICBMs are obsolete; they are static targets and destabilizing ones at that. Bombers are superfluous and besides, the Air Force still has B-52s and B-2s for nuclear missions. Missile shields like “Golden Dome” are easy to conceptualize but impossible to build. They can be fooled by decoys and overwhelmed by an enemy with sufficient warheads (Russia).
But logic doesn’t matter here. Nor does morality. What matters is money, power, jobs, and the military-industrial-Congressional complex. That’s why history is rhyming here. The MICC will always fight for more ICBMs, more bombers, more submarines because that is its health, its wealth, its reason for being. To the MICC, the nuclear triad really is the holy trinity. It is something to be worshipped and preserved irrespective of cost and logic.
The U.S. should lead the world in reducing the deployment of nuclear weapons. Instead, the U.S. leads in nuclear escalation. And it does so always in the stated cause of “deterrence” when the real reason is the health and wealth of the MICC.
No one really knows how much nuclear triad modernization and the “Golden Dome” will cost; estimates for both reach $3 trillion over the next thirty years. But it’s not just the cost in dollars that matters — it’s the cost to our collective existence. These weapons systems are making the U.S. and the world less safe, less stable, rather than more so. They are possibly the very worst examples of human folly, and that’s truly saying something.
I very much doubt the average American wants more nuclear bombs and missiles, but what we want doesn’t seem to matter. The MICC wants — and it gets what it wants. It does so by scaring us about Russia or China or Iran while selling these genocidal weapons as job-creators. It’s a living, they might say. But as the Outlaw Josey Wales once said, “Dyin’ ain’t much of a living,” especially when you’re talking about murdering most of humanity in a genocidal nuclear war.
We must put a stop to this madness while we still can.
Almost fifteen years ago, I wrote an article for TomDispatch with the title, “Weapons ‘R’ Us.” It was a play, of course, on Toys ‘R’ Us, echoing the old saw about the difference between men and boys being the price of their toys. Nowadays, I guess “real men” play with F-35s, Ford-class aircraft carriers, Sentinel ICBMs, and the like, to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars each year. And if that’s not enough, Americans can always spend billions of dollars more on private weaponry like assault- and sniper rifles. Rather amazingly, there are more firearms than people in America, with the only amendment SCOTUS won’t dare abridge being the Second Amendment.
Back in 2012 I gave a Tomcast interview with Timothy MacBain about my own weapons “addiction”; it started the usual way with toy soldiers, GI Joes, and cap pistols and escalated from there. As a teenager, I built a lot of model military planes, tanks, warships, and the like. All gone now, though I kept and used a few when I was teaching a course on “technology and warfare.”
The military loves to speak of weapons as “investments,” but President Dwight D. Eisenhower was far more honest in calling them a form of theft from those who hunger, from those who need health care, from those who want a better education. Weapons, I think Ike would agree, have a very narrow band of winners, specifically those who profit from making and selling them. They are the real band of (gun-running) brothers, with a few sisters thrown in as well.
If wars were won purely by weapons, America would never lose, such is our commitment to winning through “superior firepower.” But they’re not, so losing has become an American habit.
Speaking of losing, I recently read a terrific article by Patrick Lawrence that argues it’s high time for America to embrace defeat and to learn from it. He’s right about that, but how to tell “winner” Trump that his war against Iran has been a big loser?
Thinking about that led me to make this comment in response to Lawrence’s article:
Yes, but this is America, where the worst insult is to be called a “loser,” and where to criticize even the stupidest war is to be labeled a “defeatist.”
Meanwhile, management gurus speak of “win-win” scenarios, because talk of losing must be avoided at all costs. Even compromise is suspect.
To modify an old expression, if not he who dies with most toys, wins, it seems we in America believe that he who dies with the most weapons, wins.
So, we’ll embrace our weapons–very tightly indeed–before we [ever] embrace defeat.
So, no matter how poorly America’s wars go, the demand for weapons continues to rocket upwards. That old “arsenal of democracy” of World War II fame has for the last sixty years or so mutated into merely an arsenal, ever-growing in cost if not in effectiveness.
The F-35, often unavailable to fly, and still very expensive (USAF Photo)
Today’s big-ticket weapons like the F-35 are becoming so expensive, and often so unreliable, that America is almost disarming itself by accident. All the more reason, weapons proponents will say, for America to spend even more on weapons!
Abandon all logic, ye who wish to curb America’s “investment” in more weaponry.
I was reading an old Atlantic Monthly from November 2007 and came across this quote:
We’ve got to be patient and committed [in Iraq], but we’ve got to multitask … We’ve got to talk about Iran—Iran is more dangerous than Iraq—and we have got to get the job done in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.
That was Rudolph Giuliani, speaking as a Republican presidential candidate in July 2007.
Back then, the saying was that everyone wants to go to Baghdad but that real men want to go to Tehran. Weirdly, neither Iran nor Iraq had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks in 2001. What those countries did have was oil—and lots of it.
The Iran obsession persists, of course, and it’s shared by both political parties. When she ran for president in 2024, Kamala Harris identified Iran as the greatest adversarythe United States faced in the world.
The truth is that neither Iran nor Iraq posed a direct or imminent threat to the USA. What each country possessed was an enormous amount of oil and political leaders who didn’t want to kowtow to U.S. economic imperatives.
A joke I learned circa 1975 involving calculators (fairly new back then) remains revealing of what drives the American obsession with the Middle East. It goes like this: 142 Israelis fight 154 Arabs over 69 oil wells for 5 years. Who wins? Punch 14215469 into your calculator, multiply by 5, then invert your calculator.
The result, which was amusing when I was about twelve years old:
Shell Oil!
Of course, U.S. and British meddling in Iran dates back to 1953 with the overthrow of its democratically elected leader Mohammad Mosaddegh so that British oil interests wouldn’t be threatened by efforts to nationalize Iran’s huge oil reserves.
Which brings me back to 1975 and one of my favorite movies, Three Days of the Condor, and a little honesty about what Americans expect from the CIA. I’ve always loved the speech near the end by CIA deputy director Higgins, played memorably by Cliff Robertson:
Higgins: It’s simple economics. Today it’s oil, right? In ten or fifteen years, food. Plutonium. Maybe even sooner. Now, what do you think the people are gonna want us to do then?
Higgins: Not now – then! Ask ‘em when they’re running out. Ask ‘em when there’s no heat in their homes and they’re cold. Ask ‘em when their engines stop. Ask ‘em when people who have never known hunger start going hungry. You wanna know something? They won’t want us to ask ‘em. They’ll just want us to get it for ‘em!
*****
And yet, despite what Higgins says, today the US government isn’t even that effective at stealing the oil, though it is true that Shell Oil and other fossil fuel conglomerates are making a killing as oil and gas prices soar.
Addendum: Shell Oil is now Shell plc or Shell Global. Judging by the Shell quarterly dividend report from the first quarter of this year, things are looking very bright indeed:
Shell delivered strong results enabled by our relentless focus on operational performance in a quarter marked by unprecedented disruption in global energy markets… Last week we announced the acquisition of ARC Resources, accelerating our strategy by adding complementary, high-quality, low-cost liquids and gas assets that we believe will deliver value for decades to come. Today, consistent with our value driven capital allocation philosophy, we are rebalancing our shareholder distributions, with a $3 billion share buyback programme for the next 3 months and a 5% increase in the dividend, in line with our existing 40-50% of CFFO distribution policy.
Excuse the snark, but the real green energy surge, “green” as in money, remains dirty fossil fuels.
