If there’s one thing we’ve learned (or re-learned, again and again) from the Pentagon it’s that all governments lie and that the first casualty of war is truth. From the Pentagon Papers in the Vietnam War to the Afghan War Papers and the lies about WMD in Iraq, the American people have been deliberately and maliciously lied to about America’s wars and their true causes and purposes. And you can go back further to the infamous “Remember the Maine!” cry that touched off the Spanish-American War of 1898. When it comes to war, America’s leaders have always been economical with the truth.
At the Pentagon, Pomade Pete Strikes Again!
But wait, today’s Pentagon is about to outdo that! As usual with nefarious government decisions, it was announced on Friday when people are most distracted. A short summary from NBC News:
Journalists who cover the Defense Department at the Pentagon can no longer gather or report information, even if it is unclassified, unless it’s been authorized for release by the government, defense officials announced Friday. Reporters who don’t sign a statement agreeing to the new rules will have their press credentials revoked, officials said.
Multiple press associations quickly condemned the new rules and said they will fundamentally change journalists’ ability to cover the Pentagon and the U.S. military. They called for the Trump administration to rescind the new requirements, arguing they inhibit transparency to the American people.
The National Press Club denounced the requirement as “a direct assault on independent journalism at the very place where independent scrutiny matters most: the U.S. military.”
Remember that old saw that, “If you’ve done nothing wrong, you have nothing to hide” from your friendly government surveillance program? Looks like the Pentagon has decided it’s got plenty to hide, meaning it’s done and is planning to do a lot of wrong, and thus only government-approved information will be allowed to be released.
Any journalist worth her or his salt will never agree to this. Journalists who do agree, who sign the Pentagon statement, should just become paid spokespeople for the U.S. military (as indeed many of them already essentially are).
We’ve created a monstrous military, America, one that believes it should be completely unaccountable to us even as we feed it over a trillion dollars a year.
America, there’s only one way to rein in the military: cut the Pentagon budget in half. Show them who’s boss. Of course, Congress controls the purse strings, and Congress, as Ike noted, is intimately intertwined with the military-industrial complex, so it’s not going to be easy to do it.
But no one ever said it’ll be easy: it’s just necessary for the survival of our country as a quasi-democracy.
America’s war budget now exceeds $1 trillion a year—an almost unimaginable sum.
The Pentagon plans to spend $1.7 trillion “modernizing” a nuclear triad that should instead be downsized. A proposed “Golden Dome” missile defense system may cost $500 billion while making nuclear war more likely. And a “new” Cold War with China and Russia is already underway, with threat inflation as one of its defining features.
With military spending so high—and the military so valorized—Washington offers it as the solution to nearly everything: crime in D.C., eliminating drug cartels south of the border, containing China and Russia, “winning” in Somalia, preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons—the list is endless. Supporting and defending the Constitution, however, is rarely mentioned.
War has become America’s new normal. “Peace” is now a word that dare not speak its name. According to the Pentagon, the only peace worth pursuing is “peace through [military] strength.” A warrior ethos is marketed as if it were synonymous with democratic virtue.
I once called for a 10% reduction in Pentagon spending. That’s no longer enough. We need a 50% cut—we need a military dedicated to genuine national defense, not imperial dominance. Surely we can protect America for $500 billion a year rather than the $1 trillion we’re spending now.
Changing the narrative is crucial. Why do we need 750+ bases overseas? Why expand our nuclear arsenal when we already have 5,000 warheads? We don’t need these things—they are the hallmarks of wasteful militarism. They escalate tensions, endanger us, and drain the nation’s wealth.
And why do we have 17 or 18 intelligence agencies? Despite all that intelligence, we still lost in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Where is the accountability? Why are no generals relieved of command for such failures? In fact, they’re more likely to fail upwards.
“All governments lie,” as I.F. Stone warned. Combine that with the truth that war’s first casualty is truth itself, and you begin to see the rot in America today. Perpetual war fuels deception and government overreach. Almost anything can be justified when the cry is, “We’re at war!”—even when the reasons for going to war are false.
Consider the Gulf of Tonkin incident—revealed later as phony—and the Pentagon Papers during the Vietnam War. Consider Iraq’s mythical WMDs. Consider the lies revealed in the Afghan War Papers. Consider the weasel words of generals like David Petraeus, forever hedging “gains” as “fragile” and “reversible.” Consider the U.S. military’s record since World War II—generally ineffective because there’s been little accountability for failure. (And yes, civilian leaders share the blame.)
The military-industrial complex grows ever more powerful, sidelining the American people while democracy withers.
Something is rotten in the States of America.
Many thanks to Judge Napolitano for asking me to discuss some of these issues on his show, “Judging Freedom.”
In an ever-changing world, the one constant in Universe USA is rising Pentagon budgets. For President Trump, a trillion-dollar war budget is something to crow about. Of course, it’s sold as “peace through strength.” For what is more peaceful than more weaponry, especially nuclear-tipped ICBMs and SLBMs?
America is always arming, uparming, rearming for war allegedly to prevent war. The problem is arming for war usually leads to yet more war. You don’t “invest” in weaponry to keep it on a shelf, rusting away in armories.
Excuse my language, but Vietnam vets and war protesters put it well: Fighting (or bombing) for peace is like fucking for virginity.
Vintage 1969. Makes sense, right?
More telling, however, is the constant state of war preparations that infect and influence our minds. Our “leaders” talk about “all options being on the table” when the only option they consider is military force. We are what we “invest” in. And weapons ‘r’ us.
In U.S. politics, strong and wrong is seen as far better than “weak” and right. And just about every politician inside the DC Beltway appeases the military-industrial complex, Israel, or both. That’s how you end up with disastrous wars of choice in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere, together with full-throated support for genocide in Gaza.
Who cares about right and wrong when might always makes right?
An anecdote: I have a friend who works in the belly of the beast (the DoD). He told me his job makes him think of Winston Smith in George Orwell’s “1984.” The Pentagon under Pete Hegseth has become an exercise in eliminating DEI bad speak and replacing it with doubleplusgood warrior-ethos speak. Lots of time is wasted sending “bad” terms and names down the memory hole.
Even as the DoD’s language is purged of bad speak about DEI, the Pentagon’s embrace of a permanent war economy is tightened. The very idea of a “peace dividend,” floated by Republican President George H.W. Bush in the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s collapse, is seemingly ancient history, an idea never to be considered again, not in Trump and Hegseth’s warrior-USA.
Preparing constantly for war is a powerful way to ensure more war. Overspending on esoteric and genocidal weaponry is a powerful way to hollow out one’s country while establishing the conditions for global mass death.
Perhaps our “leaders” need to recall that Orwell’s “1984” was meant to be a warning of what to avoid, not a how-to guide for authoritarian rule and perpetual war.
The “Big Beautiful Bill” passed recently by the House is petty and ugly. A sham. A reverse Robin Hood. It cuts SNAP benefits (food stamps) to the poor. It cuts Medicaid. Because who needs food and medical care, amirite? Meanwhile, it cuts taxes for the richest Americans and funds various weapons follies (a foolish and wasteful missile shield known as “Golden Dome,” more nuclear weapons, yet more billions for the wall on America’s border with Mexico). And it adds significantly to the national debt.
Remember when Republicans were once known as fiscal conservatives? Remember calls for a balanced budget? Those days are long gone. The “Big Beautiful Bill” is a fever dream, or a night terror if you prefer, of wanton and wasteful spending that rewards the already well-heeled and hurts the most vulnerable of Americans.
Trump, who is truly an expert at the craft of the con, concocts the most outrageous names to sell his BS. Thus a missile shield that may end up wasting $500 billion is a “golden dome.” Heck, the whole bill, which is contempuous toward the poor and punishing to workers organizing for higher wages, is sold as “big” and “beautiful.”
When Trump describes things as “golden” and “big” and “beautiful,” you should know to hold tightly to your wallets and purses, America, because you’re about to get scammed.
At his site, Stephen Semler has a superb chart that breaks down the petty ugly bill the House just passed. Here’s an excerpt. Read it and weep, America.
The bottom line: More money for the already affluent and for the Pentagon; less money and benefits for the poor. The rich get richer, the poor poorer, as America reinforces its turn to weapons, walls, police, domes, and warriors.
During World War II, the Nazi system of extermination camps was fairly efficient. Relatively small death camps like Belzec, Sobibor, and Treblinka killed an astonishing number of people, more than 1.6 million and nearly all Jews, quickly and efficiently. If there were a Nazi DOGE, I suppose these death camps may have won “efficiency” awards from it. They stripped the incoming victims of all their valuables and then killed virtually all of them. The loot stolen by the SS was then distributed, again fairly efficiently.
Yet, conducting a genocide, a mass murder, a horrendous atrocity, efficiently is nothing to praise. Right?
Today, America doesn’t need a government that wages wars more efficiently around the globe. We don’t need more efficient genocidal nuclear ICBMs. We don’t need more efficient weapons delivery to Israel so that Gaza can be leveled and its people murdered or displaced from their land.
What we need is an effective government that does the right thing.
The DOGE associated with Elon Musk can’t seem to recognize that you can’t do a wrong thing the right way. If you’re doing a wrong thing, you must stop doing it. Period.
Genocidal nuclear missiles are wrong. Stop building them.
Genocide in Gaza is wrong. Stop supplying Israel with weapons.
Waging war for peace is wrong. Stop doing it.
That said, efficiency does have some relevance. Consider the Pentagon. It has failed seven audits in a row. It is grossly inefficient even as it continues to be ineffective. How do you rein in a vast government bureaucracy that lacks both efficiency and effectiveness?
You don’t do it by rewarding it with more money. But that’s exactly what President Trump, Elon Musk, and Congress are doing. They all seek a trillion dollar war budget. They all want the Pentagon to grow and then grow some more.
If a sprawling bureaucracy is out of control, you must cut its budget in a big way, forcing it to confront its own waste, fraud, abuse, and related forms of corruption. That said, efficiency is again less important than effectiveness. Is the Pentagon effectively defending America? If not, how do you make it more effective?
Pentagon misadventures around the world are making Americans less safe. Incessant warfare is strengthening authoritarianism and militarism in America while weakening democracy and hollowing out infrastructure and finances.
A more effective Pentagon is one that would focus strictly on defending America proper while upholding the U.S. Constitution and the rule of law. After achieving that, one could then focus on efficiency. A Pentagon budget cut roughly in half would lead to a more effective defense of America. A much smaller Pentagon budget could then be more easily audited, leading to greater efficiency.
Committing murderous wrongs in an efficient way is nothing to celebrate. Didn’t the Nazis already provide us with the most horrifying example of this?
Replacing an older suicide vest with a newer one is not a sound plan
We are losing the struggle for the heart and soul of our country.
That much is apparent by the government’s embrace of genocide in Gaza, its boasts of trillion dollar war budgets, and its pride in global weapons sales, which the U.S. dominates (more than 40% of the global arms trade consists of weapons made in the USA).
I’ve been involved in efforts to criticize America’s “merchants of death” and to challenge America’s love affair with the military-industrial complex (MIC), but seemingly nothing we say or do changes the abusive and sociopathic power structure in DC. I suppose that’s none too surprising, given the power of the MICIMATT and the persuasiveness of propaganda.
Still, we must persist in these efforts, bringing a positive message, which I think should focus on the revival of democracy by reinvesting in America while rejecting militarism and restoring peace. Peace should be America’s normal, not war and constant preparations for the same. Yet “peace” seems to be the hardest word, one that’s rarely spoken in the halls of power.
Anyhow, in 2022 I wrote the following email to likeminded colleagues; I hope it’s worth sharing. As I think about it, three years later, I marvel at the death of idealism in America and the triumph of militarism. When more than half of the federal government’s discretionary spending goes to the military and weaponry, despite the Pentagon’s failure to pass audit after audit for seven years running, we must conclude we are one sick society.
The question is: How do we restore ourselves to health? Because I for one do not believe that war is the health of the state.
*****
Written in 2022 to colleagues seeking to reform the military-industrial complex (MIC).
When I was a college student in the early 1980s, and in Air Force ROTC, I wrote against the Reagan “defense” buildup. Caspar Weinberger, he of the “Cap the knife” handle for cost-cutting, became “Cap the ladle” as Reagan’s SecDef, ladling money in huge amounts to the Pentagon. History is repeating itself again as the Biden administration prepares to ladle $813 billion (and more) to the Pentagon.
How do we stop this? Of course, we must recognize (as I’m sure we all do) what we’re up against. Both political parties are pro-military and, in the main, pro-war. Our economy is based on a militarized Keynesianism and our culture is increasingly militarized. Mainstream Democrats, seemingly forever afraid of being labeled “weak” on defense, are at pains to be more pro-military than the Republicans. Biden, in Poland, echoed the words of Obama and other past presidents, declaring the U.S. military to be “the finest fighting force” in history. Think about that boast. Think about how Biden added that the nation owes the troops big. This is a sign of a sick culture.
Ike gave his MIC speech in 1961, and for 61 years the MIC has been winning. Even after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early ‘90s, the MIC held its own; after 9/11, it went into warp speed and is accelerating. To cite Scotty from Star Trek: “And at Warp 10, we’re going nowhere mighty fast.”
We need a reformation of our institutions; we need a restoration of our democracy; we need a reaffirmation of the U.S. Constitution; we need to remember who we are, or perhaps who we want to be, as a people.
Do we really want to be the world’s largest dealer of arms? Do we really want to spend a trillion or more dollars, each and every year, on wars and weapons, more than the next dozen or so countries combined, most of which are allies of ours? (“Yes” is seemingly the answer here, for both Democrats and Republicans.) Is that really the best way to serve the American people? Humanity itself?
Consider plans to “invest” in “modernizing” America’s nuclear triad. (Notice the words used here by the MIC.) What does this really mean? To me, it means we plan on spending nearly $2 trillion over the next 30 years to replace an older suicide vest with a newer one, except this suicide vest will take out humanity itself, as well as most other life forms on our planet.
As Ike said in 1953, “This is not a way of life at all … it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
We will need the broadest possible coalition to tackle this outrage against civilization and humanity. That’s why I applaud these efforts, even as I encourage all of us to enlist and recruit more people to join our ranks.
My father enlisted in the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1935 to do his bit for his family and his nation. He fought forest fires in Oregon and later became a firefighter after serving in the Army during World War II. That was the last formally declared war that America fought. It was arguably the last morally justifiable war this country has fought, waged by citizens who donned a uniform, not “warriors” who are told that the nation owes them big.
In “It’s A Wonderful Life,” Jimmy Stewart, a true war hero, played a man who never fought in WW2, who stayed at home and helped ordinary people even as his younger brother Harry went off to war and earned the Medal of Honor. Yet the movie doesn’t celebrate Harry’s war heroism; it celebrates the nobility, decency, and humility of George Bailey.
How do we get back to that America? The America from before the MIC, that celebrated decency and kindness and humanitarianism?
Yes, I know. It’s just a Frank Capra movie, and America has never been a perfect shining city. All I’m saying is we need more of that spirit if we are to prevail.
I read the news today, oh boy. About a lucky man named Elon Musk. But he lost out on one thing: he didn’t get a top secret briefing on Pentagon war plans for China. And the news people breathed a sigh of relief.
With apologies to John Lennon and The Beatles, a day in the life is getting increasingly tough to take here in the land of the free. I’m meant to be reassured that Musk didn’t get to see America’s top-secret plans for — yes! — going to war with China, even as I’m meant to ignore the constant drumbeat of propaganda, the incessant military marches that form America’s background music, conveying the message that America must have war plans for China, that indeed war in or around China is possible, even probable, in the next decade. Maybe in 2027?
My fellow Americans, we should be far more alarmed by such secret U.S. war plans, along with those “pivots” to Asia and the Indo-Pacific, and the military base-building efforts in the Philippines, than reassured by the “good news” that Comrade Billionaire Musk was denied access to the war room, meaning (for Dr. Strangelove fans) he didn’t get to see “the big board.”
It’s war, war, everywhere in America. We do indeed have a strange love for it. I’ve been writing for TomDispatch for 18 years now — this is my 111th essay (the other 110 are in a new book of mine) — most of them focusing on militarism in this country, as well as our disastrous wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, the ruinous weapons systems we continue to fund (including new apocalyptic nuclear weapons), and the war song that seems to remain ever the same.
A few recent examples of what I mean: President Trump has already bombed Yemen more than once. He’s already threatening Iran. He’s sending Israel all the explosives, all the weaponry it needs to annihilate the Palestinians in Gaza (so too, of course, did Joe Biden). He’s boasting of building new weapons systems like the Air Force’s much-hyped F-47 fighter jet, the “47” designation being an apparent homage by its builder, Boeing, to Trump himself, the 47th president. He and his “defense” secretary, Pete Hegseth, continually boast of “peace through strength,” an Orwellian construction that differs little from “war is peace.” And I could, of course, go on and on and on and on…
Occasionally, Trump sounds a different note. When Tulsi Gabbard became the director of national intelligence, he sang a dissonant note about a “warmongering military-industrial complex.” And however haphazardly, he does seem to be working for some form of peace with respect to the Russia-Ukraine War. He also talks about his fear of a cataclysmic nuclear war. Yet, if you judge him by deeds rather than words, he’s just another U.S. commander-in-chief enamored of the military and military force (whatever the cost, human or financial).
Consider here the much-hyped Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by that lucky man Elon Musk. Even as it dismantles various government agencies like the Department of Education and USAID, it has — no surprise here! — barely touched the Pentagon and its vast, nearly trillion-dollar budget. In fact, if a Republican-controlled Congress has any say in the matter, the Pentagon budget will likely be boosted significantly for Fiscal Year 2026 and thereafter. As inefficient as the Pentagon may be (and we really don’t know just how inefficient it is, since the bean counters there keep failing audit after audit, seven yearsrunning), targeted DOGE Pentagon cuts have been tiny. That means there’s little incentive for the generals to change, streamline their operations, or even rethink in any significant fashion. It’s just spend, spend, spend until the money runs out, which I suppose it will eventually, as the national debt soars toward $37 trillion and climbing.
Even grimmer than that, possibly, is America’s state of mind, our collective zeitgeist, the spirit of this country. That spirit is one in which a constant state of war (and preparations for more of the same) is accepted as normal. War, to put it bluntly, is our default state. It’s been that way since 9/11, if not before then. As a military historian, I’m well aware that the United States is, in a sense, a country made by war. It’s just that today we seem even more accepting of that reality, or resigned to it, than we’ve ever been. What gives?
The Face of War: Confederate Dead at Antietam (Matthew Brady)
Remember when, in 1963, Alabama Governor George Wallace said, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever”? Fortunately, after much struggle and bloodshed, he was proven wrong. So, can we change the essential American refrain of war now, war tomorrow, and war forever? Can we render that obsolete? Or is that too much to hope for or ask of America’s “exceptional” democracy?
Taking on the MICIMATT(SH)
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern did America a great service when he came up with the acronym MICIMATT, or the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex, an extension of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex, or MIC (from his farewell speech in 1961). Along with the military and industry (weapons makers like Boeing and Lockheed Martin), the MICIMATT adds Congress (which Eisenhower had in his original draft speech but deleted in the interest of comity), the intelligence “community” (18 different agencies), the media (generally highly supportive of wars and weapons spending), academia (which profits greatly from federal contracts, especially research and development efforts for yet more destructive weaponry), and think tanks (which happily lap up Pentagon dollars to tell us the “smart” position is always to prepare for yet more war).
You’ll note, however, that I’ve added a parenthetical SH to McGovern’s telling acronym. The S is for America’s sporting world, which eternally gushes about how it supports and honors America’s military, and Hollywood, which happily sells war as entertainment (perhaps the best known and most recent film being Tom Cruise’s Top Gun: Maverick, in which an unnamed country that everyone knows is Iran gets its nuclear ambitions spanked by a plucky team of U.S. Naval pilots). A macho catchphrase from the original Top Gun was “I feel the need — the need for speed!” It may as well have been: I feel the need — the need for pro-war propaganda!
Yes, MICIMATT(SH) is an awkward acronym, yet it has the virtue of capturing some of the still-growing power, reach, and cultural penetration of Ike’s old MIC. It should remind us that it’s not just the military and the weapons-makers who are deeply invested in war and — yes! — militarism. It’s Congress; the CIA; related intel “community” members; the mainstream media (which often relies on retired generals and admirals for “unbiased” pro-war commentary); academia (consider how quickly institutions like Columbia University have bent the knee to Trump); and think tanks — in fact, all those “best and brightest” who advocate for war with China, the never-ending war on terror, war everywhere.
But perhaps the “soft power” of the sporting world and Hollywood is even more effective at selling war than the hard power of bombs and bullets. National Football League coaches patrol the sidelines wearing camouflage, allegedly to salute the troops. Military flyovers at games celebrate America’s latest death-dealing machinery. Hollywood movies are made with U.S. military cooperation and that military often has veto power over scripts. To cite only one example, the war movie 12 Strong (2018) turned the disastrous Afghan War that lasted two horrendous decades into a stunningly quick American victory, all too literally won by U.S. troops riding horses. (If only the famed cowboy actor John Wayne had still been alive to star in it!)
The MICIMATT(SH), employing millions of Americans, consuming trillions of dollars, and churning through tens of thousands of body bags for U.S. troops over the years, while killing millions of people abroad, is an almost irresistible force. And right now, it seems like there’s no unmovable object to blunt it.
Believe me, I’ve tried. I’ve written dozens of “Tomgrams” suggesting steps America could take to reverse militarism and warmongering. As I look over those essays, I see what still seem to me sensible ideas, but they die quick deaths in the face of, if not withering fire from the MICIMATT(SH), then being completely ignored by those who matter.
And while this country has a department of war (disguised as a department of defense), it has no department of peace. There’s no budget anywhere for making peace, either. We do have a colossal Pentagon that houses 30,000 workers, feverishly making war plans they won’t let Elon Musk (or any of us) see. It’s for their eyes only, not yours, though they may well ask you or your kids to serve in the military, because the best-laid plans of those war-men do need lots of warm bodies, even if those very plans almost invariably (Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.) go astray.
So, to repeat myself, how do you take on the MICIMATT(SH)? The short answer: It’s not easy, but I know of a few people who had some inspirational ideas.
On Listening to Ike, JFK, MLK, and, Yes, Madison, Too
Militarism isn’t exactly a new problem in America. Consider Randolph Bourne’s 1918 critique of war as “the health of the state,” or General Smedley Butler’s confession in the 1930s that “war is a racket” run by the “gangsters of capitalism.” In fact, many Americans have, over the years, spoken out eloquently against war and militarism. Many beautiful and moving songs have asked us to smile on your brother and “love one another right now.” War, as Edwin Starr sang so powerfully once upon a time, is good for “absolutely nothin’,” though obviously a lot of people disagree and indeed are making a living by killing and preparing for yet more of it.
And that is indeed the problem. Too many people are making too much money off of war. As Smedley Butler wrote so long ago: “Capital won’t permit the taking of the profit out of war until the people — those who do the suffering and still pay the price — make up their minds that those they elect to office shall do their bidding, and not that of the profiteers.” Pretty simple, right? Until you realize that those whom we elect are largely obedient to the moneyed class because the highest court in our land has declared that money is speech. Again, I didn’t say it was going to be easy. Nor did Butler.
As a retired lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Air Force, I want to end my 111th piece at TomDispatch by focusing on the words of Ike, John F. Kennedy (JFK), Martin Luther King, Jr. (MLK), and James Madison. And I want to redefine what words like duty, honor, country, and patriotism should mean. Those powerful words and sentiments should be centered on peace, on the preservation and enrichment of life, on tapping “the better angels of our nature,” as Abraham Lincoln wrote so long ago in his First Inaugural Address.
Why do we serve? What does our oath of office really mean? For it’s not just military members who take that oath but also members of Congress and indeed the president himself. We raise our right hands and swear to support and defend the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, to bear true faith and allegiance to the same.
There’s nothing in that oath about warriors and warfighters, but there is a compelling call for all of us, as citizens, to be supporters and defenders of representative democracy, while promoting the general welfare (not warfare), and all the noble sentiments contained in that Constitution. If we’re not seeking a better and more peaceful future, one in which freedom may expand and thrive, we’re betraying our oath.
If so, we have met the enemy — and he is us.
Ike told us in 1953 that constant warfare is no way of life at all, that it is (as he put it), humanity crucifying itself on a cross of iron. In 1961, he told us democracy was threatened by an emerging military-industrial complex and that we, as citizens, had to be both alert and knowledgeable enough to bring it to heel. Two years later, JFK told us that peace — even at the height of the Cold War — was possible, not just peace in our time, but peace for all time. However, it would, he assured us, require sacrifice, wisdom, and commitment.
How, in fact, can I improve on these words that JFK uttered in 1963, just a few months before he was assassinated?
What kind of 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. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living…
I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age… when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn… surely the acquisition of such idle [nuclear] stockpiles — which can only destroy and never create — is not the only, much less the most efficient, means of assuring peace.
I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war — and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.
Are we ready to be urgently rational, America? Are we ready to be blessed as peacemakers? Or are we going to continue to suffer from what MLK described in 1967 as our very own “spiritual death” due to the embrace of militarism, war, empire, and racism?
Of course, MLK wasn’t perfect, nor for that matter was JFK, who was far too enamored of the Green Berets and too wedded to a new strategy of “flexible response” to make a clean break in Vietnam before he was killed. Yet those men bravely and outspokenly promoted peace, something uncommonly rare in their time — and even more so in ours.
More than 200 years ago, James Madison warned us that continual warfare is the single most corrosive force to the integrity of representative democracy. No other practice, no other societal force is more favorable to the rise of authoritarianism and the rule of tyrants than pernicious war. Wage war long and it’s likely you can kiss your democracy, your rights, and just maybe your ass goodbye.
America, from visionaries and prophets like MLK, we have our marching orders. They are not to invest yet more in preparations for war, whether with China or any other country. Rather, they are to gather in the streets and otherwise raise our voices against the scourge of war. If we are ever to beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks and make war no more, something must be done.
Let’s put an end to militarism in America. Let’s be urgently rational. To cite John Lennon yet again: You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. Together, let’s imagine and create a better world.
Meanwhile, Institute of War Is Going Full Throttle
Surprise! America’s Institute of Peace (USIP), admittedly a think tank that is neither that peaceful nor successful, is being shut down by the Trump administration. Meanwhile, the Institute of and for War, otherwise known as the Pentagon, is going full throttle and likely getting even more money to crank up conflict around the globe.
The symbolism here is almost too obvious for words. The budget for the Peace Institute is roughly $55 million. The budget for the War Institute (Pentagon) is roughly $900 billion. That means America spends 16,000 times as much money preparing for war than it does thinking about peace. That might be one reason why we always get war—we get what we pay for.
For the yearly budget of the USIP, we could buy roughly one-half of an F-35 fighter jet. Now there’s some meaningful cost savings.
A Reminder: My new book, American Militarism on Steroids, goes live on Amazon Kindle tomorrow. It gathers all the essays I’ve written for TomDispatch, which amazingly add up to over 230,000 words. Prolix? Prolific? Profane? It must be profane if it criticizes our beloved Institute of War. Available for downloading for $7.50 at this link. Thank you.
Coming soon to a Kindle store near you: all my articles for TomDispatch, with a new introduction by me and a foreword by Tom Engelhardt. You can preorder it by clicking on this link. Thanks!
Speaking of American militarism on steroids:
It’s been called the “House of War” by esteemed author James Carroll. Within the military, it’s jokingly referred to as the five-sided puzzle palace on the Potomac. It’s a monetary black hole that consumes eagerly and without bounds (in light of seven failed audits in a row) roughly a trillion dollars in yearly military expenditures. It’s a place where full-bird colonels, who should be leading regiments in the field, become errand boys and girls to a grossly inflated number of generals. Yes, it’s America’s very own Pentagon, built in record time in the early months of World War II to manage that colossal war—and never shuttered since because perpetual global war is very much fundamental to the American way of life.
If there’s a symbol of America that captures current and past governmental budgetary priorities and foreign policy commitments, it’s the Pentagon. Forget the Statue of Liberty. Never mind Freedom Towers and national parks and bald eagles and the like. Increasingly, the Pentagon is America, a highly militarized version of our country, which is precisely why it needs to be closed down. Where’s Elon Musk and the DOGE wunderkinds when you need them?
Nearly 30,000 people work in the Pentagon on a daily basis. It makes for some crowded parking lots—and cramped offices even for those aforementioned bird colonels. It’s a hotbed of intrigue and competition among the services for money and resources. It’s depressingly short on natural light. It’s a repository for hidebound thinking, a place where good ideas go to die. A line from the original “Star Wars” has been used more than once to describe it: “You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.”
And (again) it’s time to shut it down.
Here’s an idea to make the U.S. military far more efficient. Empty the Pentagon of all its worker-bees and from them create infantry battalions. An average battalion consists of roughly 800 “effectives,” so demobbing the Pentagon work force and mobilizing them instead for action in the field would create roughly 35 battalions. Send these battalions to all combat zones where U.S. troops are deployed today. Does Ukraine need more troops at the front? Does Israel need more stormtroopers in Gaza? We’ve got some Pentagon legions for you, Bibi.
Of course, I jest. I want to close the Pentagon to weaken militarism, not to wage war and genocide. Nevertheless, I’m guessing putting the entire Pentagon workforce at the point of the spear might serve to dull it a bit. Perhaps war boosterism might decrease if the cheerleaders were sent directly into the trenches instead of remaining safely on the sidelines?
Today, I learned the Trump administration is proposing 8% cuts in Pentagon spending each year for the next five years. This is indeed a welcome—and long overdue—initiative.
Here’s the report from the Guardian:
*****
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth has ordered senior leaders at the Pentagon and throughout the US military to develop plans for cutting 8% from the defense budget in each of the next five years, according to a memo obtained by the Washington Post.
Pete Hegseth ordered the proposed cuts to be drawn up by 24 February, according to the memo. Photograph: Ron Sachs/EPA
Hegseth ordered the proposed cuts to be drawn up by 24 February, according to the memo, which includes a list of 17 categories that the Trump administration wants exempted. Among them: operations at the southern US border, modernization of nuclear weapons and missile defense and acquisition of one-way attack drones and other munitions. If adopted in full, the proposed cuts would include tens of billions of dollars in each of the next five years.
*****
Just over two years ago, I called for a 50% reduction in Pentagon spending in an article for TomDispatch. I’m reposting the article below, in full. Maybe SecDef Hegseth can mine some ideas from it. 🙂
Can the Military-Industrial Complex Be Tamed?
Cutting the Pentagon Budget in Half Would Finally Force the Generals to Think
My name is Bill Astore and I’m a card-carrying member of the military-industrial complex (MIC).
Sure, I hung up my military uniform for the last time in 2005. Since 2007, I’ve been writing articles for TomDispatch focused largely on critiquing that same MIC and America’s permanent war economy. I’ve written against this country’s wasteful and unwise wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, its costly and disastrous weapons systems, and its undemocratic embrace of warriors and militarism. Nevertheless, I remain a lieutenant colonel, if a retired one. I still have my military ID card, if only to get on bases, and I still tend to say “we” when I talk about my fellow soldiers, Marines, sailors, and airmen (and our “guardians,” too, now that we have a Space Force).
So, when I talk to organizations that are antiwar, that seek to downsize, dismantle, or otherwise weaken the MIC, I’m upfront about my military biases even as I add my own voice to their critiques. Of course, you don’t have to be antiwar to be highly suspicious of the U.S. military. Senior leaders in “my” military have lied so often, whether in the Vietnam War era of the last century or in this one about “progress” in Iraq and Afghanistan, that you’d have to be asleep at the wheel or ignorant not to have suspected the official story.
Yet I also urge antiwar forces to see more than mendacity or malice in “our” military. It was retired general and then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower, after all, who first warned Americans of the profound dangers of the military-industrial complex in his 1961 farewell address. Not enough Americans heeded Ike’s warning then and, judging by our near-constant state of warfare since that time, not to speak of our ever-ballooning “defense” budgets, very few have heeded his warning to this day. How to explain that?
Well, give the MIC credit. Its tenacity has been amazing. You might compare it to an invasive weed, a parasitic cowbird (an image I’ve used before), or even a metastasizing cancer. As a weed, it’s choking democracy; as a cowbird, it’s gobbling up most of the “food” (at least half of the federal discretionary budget) with no end in sight; as a cancer, it continues to spread, weakening our individual freedoms and liberty.
Call it what you will. The question is: How do we stop it? I’ve offered suggestions in the past; so, too, have writers for TomDispatch like retired Army Colonel Andrew Bacevich and retired Army Major Danny Sjursen, as well as William Hartung, Julia Gledhill, and Alfred McCoy among others. Despite our critiques, the MIC grows ever stronger. If Ike’s warning wasn’t eye-opening enough, enhanced by an even more powerful speech, “Beyond Vietnam,” by Martin Luther King, Jr., in 1967, what could I and my fellow TomDispatch writers possibly say or do to make a difference?
Maybe nothing, but that won’t stop me from trying. Since I am the MIC, so to speak, maybe I can look within for a few lessons that came to me the hard way (in the sense that I had to live them). So, what have l learned of value?
War Racketeers Enjoy Their Racket
In the 1930s, Smedley Butler, a Marine general twice decorated with the Medal of Honor, wrote a book entitled War Is a Racket. He knew better than most since, as he confessed in that volume, when he wore a military uniform, he served as “a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.” And the corporate-driven racket he helped enable almost a century ago by busting heads from the Caribbean to China was small-scale indeed compared to today’s thoroughly global one.
There’s an obvious lesson to be drawn from its striking endurance, never-ending enlargement, and distinct engorgement in our moment (even after all those lost wars it fought): the system will not reform itself. It will always demand and take more — more money, more authority, more power. It will never be geared for peace. By its nature, it’s authoritarian and distinctly less than honorable, replacing patriotism with service loyalty and victory with triumphant budgetary authority. And it always favors the darkest of scenarios, including at present a new cold war with China and Russia, because that’s the best and most expedient way for it to thrive.
Within the military-industrial complex, there are no incentives to do the right thing. Those few who have a conscience and speak out honorably are punished, including truth-tellers in the enlisted ranks like Chelsea Manning and Daniel Hale. Even being an officer doesn’t make you immune. For his temerity in resisting the Vietnam War, David M. Shoup, a retired Marine Corps general and Medal of Honor recipient, was typically dismissed by his peers as unbalanced and of questionable sanity.
For all the talk of “mavericks,” whether in Top Gun or elsewhere, we — there’s that “we” again (I can’t help myself!) — in the military are a hotbed of go-along-to-get-along conformity.
Recently, I was talking with a senior enlisted colleague about why so few top-ranking officers are willing to speak truth to the powerless (that’s you and me) even after they retire. He mentioned credibility. To question the system, to criticize it, to air dirty laundry in public is to risk losing credibility within the club and so to be rejected as a malcontent, disloyal, even “unbalanced.” Then, of course, that infamous revolving doorbetween the military and giant weapons makers like Boeing and Raytheon simply won’t spin for you. Seven-figure compensation packages, like the one current Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin gained from Raytheon after his retirement as an Army general, won’t be an option. And in America, who doesn’t want to cash in while gaining more power within the system?
Quite simply, it pays so much better to mouth untruths, or at least distinctly less-than-full-truths, in service to the powerful. And with that in mind, here, at least as I see it, are a few full truths about my old service, the Air Force, that I guarantee you I won’t be applauded for mentioning. How about this as a start: that the production of F-35s — an overpriced “Ferrari” of a fighter jet that’s both too complex and remarkably successful as an underperformer — should be canceled (savings: as much as $1 trillion over time); that the much-touted new B-21 nuclear bomber isn’t needed (savings: at least $200 billion) and neither is the new Sentinel Intercontinental Ballistic Missile(savings: another $200 billion and possibly the entire Earth from doomsday); that the KC-46 tanker is seriously flawed and should be canceled (savings: another $50 billion).
Now, tote it up. By canceling the F-35, the B-21, the Sentinel, and the KC-46, I singlehandedly saved the American taxpayer roughly $1.5 trillion without hurting America’s national defense in the least. But I’ve also just lost all credibility (assuming I had any left) with my old service.
Look, what matters to the military-industrial complex isn’t either the truth or saving your taxpayer dollars but keeping those weapons programs going and the money flowing. What matters, above all, is keeping America’s economy on a permanent wartime footing both by buying endless new (and old) weapons systems for the military and selling them globally in a bizarrely Orwellian pursuit of peace through war.
How are Americans, Ike’s “alert and knowledgeable citizenry,” supposed to end a racket like this? We certainly should know one thing by now: the MIC will never check itself and Congress, already part of it thanks to impressive campaign donations and the like by major weapons makers, won’t corral it either. Indeed, last year, Congress shoveled $45 billion more than the Biden administration requested (more even than the Pentagon asked for) to that complex, all ostensibly in your name. Who cares that it hasn’t won a war of the faintest significance since 1945. Even “victory” in the Cold War (after the Soviet Union imploded in 1991) was thrown away. And now the complex warns us of an onrushing “new cold war” to be waged, naturally, at tremendous cost to you, the American taxpayer.
As citizens, we must be informed, willing, and able to act. And that’s precisely why the complex seeks to deny you knowledge, precisely why it seeks to isolate you from its actions in this world. So, it’s up to you — to us! — to remain alert and involved. Most of all, each of us must struggle to keep our identity and autonomy as a citizen, a rank higher than that of any general or admiral, for, as we all need to be reminded, those wearing uniforms are supposed to serve you, not vice-versa.
I know you hear otherwise. You’ve been told repeatedly in these years that it’s your job to “support our troops.” Yet, in truth, those troops should only exist to support and defend you, and of course the Constitution, the compact that binds us all together as a nation.
When misguided citizens genuflect before those troops (and then ignore everything that’s done in their name), I’m reminded yet again of Ike’s sage warning that only Americans can truly hurt this country. Military service may be necessary, but it’s not necessarily ennobling. America’s founders were profoundly skeptical of large militaries, of entangling alliances with foreign powers, and of permanent wars and threats of the same. So should we all be.
Citizens United Is the Answer
No, not that “Citizens United,” not the case in which the Supreme Court decided corporations had the same free speech rights as you and me, allowing them to coopt the legislative process by drowning us out with massive amounts of “speech,” aka dark-money-driven propaganda. We need citizens united against America’s war machine.
Understanding how that machine works — not just its waste and corruption, but also its positive attributes — is the best way to wrestle it down, to make it submit to the people’s will. Yet activists are sometimes ignorant of the most basic facts about “their” military. So what? Does the difference between a sergeant major and a major, or a chief petty officer and the chief of naval operations matter? The answer is: yes.
An antimilitary approach anchored in ignorance won’t resonate with the American people. An antiwar message anchored in knowledge could, however. It’s important, that is, to hit the proverbial nail on the head. Look, for example, at the traction Donald Trump gained in the presidential race of 2015-2016 when he did something few other politicians then dared do: dismiss the Iraq War as wasteful and stupid. His election win in 2016 was not primarily about racism, nor the result of a nefarious Russian plot. Trump won, at least in part because, despite his ignorance on so many other things, he spoke a fundamental truth — that America’s wars of this century were horrendous blunders.
Trump, of course, was anything but antimilitary. He dreamed of military parades in Washington, D.C. But I (grudgingly) give him credit for boasting that he knew morethan his generals and by that I mean many more Americans need to challenge those in authority, especially those in uniform.
Yet challenging them is just a start. The only real way to wrestle the military-industrial complex to the ground is to cut its funding in half, whether gradually over years or in one fell swoop. Yes, indeed, it’s the understatement of the century to note how much easier that’s said than done. It’s not like any of us could wave a military swagger stick like a magic wand and make half the Pentagon budget disappear. But consider this: If I could do so, that military budget would still be roughly $430 billion, easily more than China’s and Russia’s combined, and more than seven times what this country spends on the State Department. As usual, you get what you pay for, which for America has meant more weapons and disastrous wars.
Join me in imagining the (almost) inconceivable — a Pentagon budget cut in half. Yes, generals and admirals would scream and Congress would squeal. But it would truly matter because, as a retired Army major general once told me, major budget cuts would force the Pentagon to think — for once. With any luck, a few sane and patriotic officers would emerge to place the defense of America first, meaning that hubristic imperial designs and forever wars would truly be reined in because there’d simply be no more money for them.
Currently, Americans are giving the Pentagon all it wants — plus some. And how’s that been working out for the rest of us? Isn’t it finally time for us to exercise real oversight, as Ike challenged us to do in 1961? Isn’t it time to force the Pentagon to pass an audit each year — it’s failed the last five! — or else cut its budget even more deeply? Isn’t it time to hold Congress truly responsible for enabling ever more war by voting out military sycophants? Isn’t it time to recognize, as America’s founders did, that sustaining a vast military establishment constitutes the slow and certain death of democracy?
Just remember one thing: the military-industrial complex won’t reform itself. It just might have no choice, however, but to respond to our demands, if we as citizens remain alert, knowledgeable, determined, and united. And if it should refuse to, if the MIC can’t be tamed, whether because of its strength or our weakness, you will know beyond doubt that this country has truly lost its way.
P.S. Since I wrote this early in 2023, the Pentagon has failed two more audits as its budget has soared toward $900 billion and above. Yes: It’s high time for major cuts to the Pentagon war budget. Make it so!
Bracing Views 