Tag: Pentagon

Wrecking Democracy in America

A Meditation on Trump’s “Dream Military”

BILL ASTORE

FEB 05, 2026

Hi Everyone: Here’s my latest post for TomDispatch.com. It was inspired by President Trump’s notion of a “dream military,” a dream that consists of throwing another $500 billion at the Pentagon while building a “golden dome,” more nuclear weapons, and a new class of naval battleship named after—you guessed it—Donald Trump.

Once upon a time, in the aftermath of a devastating civil war, Americans recognized that “war is all hell.” Do we need the antidote of another calamitous war to move us to rethink our imperial march and global warmongering? If that war should go nuclear, it will be far too late to rethink anything as humanity (what’s left of it) struggles to survive a post-apocalyptic hellscape.

What does not kill us does not necessarily make us stronger. 

Trump’s $1.5 Trillion “Dream Military”

Or What National Nightmares Are Made Of

BY WILLIAM J. ASTORE

What constitutes national security and how is it best achieved? Does massive military spending really make a country more secure, and what perils to democracy and liberty are posed by vast military establishments? Questions like those are rarely addressed in honest ways these days in America. Instead, the Trump administration favors preparations for war and more war, fueled by potentially enormous increases in military spending that are dishonestly framed as “recapitalizations” of America’s security and safety.

Such framing makes Pete Hegseth, America’s self-styled “secretary of war,” seem almost refreshing in his embrace of a warrior ethos. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham is another “warrior” who cheers for conflict, whether with Venezuela, Iran, or even — yes! — Russia. Such macho men revel in what they believe is this country’s divine mission to dominate the world. Tragically, at the moment, unapologetic warmongers like Hegseth and Graham are winning the political and cultural battle here in America.

Of course, U.S. warmongering is anything but new, as is a belief in global dominance through high military spending. Way back in 1983, as a college student, I worked on a project that critiqued President Ronald Reagan’s “defense” buildup and his embrace of pie-in-the-sky concepts like the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), better known as “Star Wars.” Never did I imagine that, more than 40 years later, another Republican president would again come to embrace SDI (freshly rebranded as “Golden Dome”) and ever-more massive military spending, especially since the Soviet Union, America’s superpower rival in Reagan’s time, ceased to exist 35 years ago. Amazingly, Trump even wants to bring back naval battleships, as Reagan briefly did (though he didn’t have the temerity to call for a new class of ships to be named after himself). It’ll be a “golden fleet,” says Trump. What gives?

For much of my life, I’ve tried to answer that very question. Soon after retiring from the U.S. Air Force, I started writing for TomDispatch, penning my first article there in 2007, asking Americans to save the military from itself and especially from its “surge” illusions in the Iraq War. Tom Engelhardt and I, as well as Andrew Bacevich, Michael Klare, and Bill Hartung, among others, have spilled much ink (symbolically speaking in this online era) at TomDispatch urging that America’s military-industrial complex be reined in and reformed. Trump’s recent advocacy of a “dream military” with a proposed budget of $1.5 trillion in 2027 (half a trillion dollars larger than the present Pentagon budget) was backed by places like the editorial board of the Washington Post, which just shows how frustratingly ineffectual our efforts have been. How discouraging, and again, what gives?

Sometimes (probably too often), I seek sanctuary from the hell we’re living through in glib phrases that mask my despair. So, I’ll write something like: America isn’t a shining city on a hill, it’s a bristling fortress in a valley of death; or, At the Pentagon, nothing succeeds like failure, a reference to eight failed audits in a row (part of a 30-year patternof financial finagling) that accompanied disastrous wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere. Such phrases, no matter how clever I thought they were, made absolutely no impression when it came to slowing the growth of militarism in America. In essence, I’ve been bringing the online equivalent of a fountain pen to a gun fight, which has proved to be anything but a recipe for success.

In America, nothing — and I mean nothing! — seems capable of reversing massive military spending and incessant warfare. President Ronald Reagan, readers of a certain (advanced) age may recall, was nicknamed the “Teflon president” because scandals just didn’t seem to stick to him (at least until the Iran-Contra affair proved tough to shed). Yet history’s best candidate for Teflon “no-stick” status was never Reagan or any other president. It was and remains the U.S. warfare state, headquartered on the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. And give the sclerotic bureaucracy of that warfare state full credit. Even as the Pentagon has moved from failure to failure in warfighting, its war budgets have continued to soar and then soar some more.

Forgive the repetition, but what gives? When is our long, national nightmare of embracing war and (wildly overpriced) weaponry going to end? Obviously, not anytime soon. Even the Democrats, supposedly the “resistance” to President Trump, boast openly of their support for what passes for military lethality (or at least overpriced weaponry), while Democratic members of Congress line up for their share of war-driven pork. To cite a cri de coeur from the 1950s, have they no sense of decency?

The Shameless Embrace of Forever War and Its Spoils

I’m just an aging, retired Air Force lieutenant colonel. Who cares what I think? But America should still care about the words of Dwight D. Eisenhower, also known as Ike, the victorious five-star general of D-Day in 1944 and beyond, and this country’s president from 1953 to 1961. Ike was famously the first significant figure to warn Americans about the then-developing military-industrial complex (MIC) in his farewell address to the nation. Yet, even then, his words were largely ignored. Recently, I reread Ike’s warning, perhaps for the 100th time and was struck yet again by the way he highlighted the spiritual dimension of the challenge that is, all too sadly, still facing us.

In case you’ve forgotten them (or never read them), here are Ike’s words from that televised address in January 1961, when he put the phrase “the military-industrial complex” in our language:

“This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

“We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

Those were the prescient words of the most senior military man of his era, a true citizen-soldier and president, and more than six decades later, we should and must act on them if we have any hope left of preserving “our liberties and democratic processes.”

Again, wise words, yet our leaders have seldom heeded them. Since 1961, the “disastrous rise of misplaced power” when it comes to the MIC has infected our culture, our economy, even — to steal a term from the era of the disastrous American war in Vietnam — our hearts and minds. Indeed, despite the way the MIC failed so spectacularly to win the hearts and minds of the Vietnamese, the Afghans, the Iraqis, and other embattled peoples across the globe in various misbegotten and mendacious wars, it did succeed spectacularly over the years in winning the hearts and minds of those who make the final decisions in the U.S. government.

In an astonishing paradox, a spendthrift military establishment that almost never wins anything, while consistently evading accountability for its losses, has by now captured almost untrammeled authority within our land. It defies logic, but logic never was this country’s strong suit. In fact, only recently, we reached a point of almost ultimate illogic when America’s bully-boy commander-in-chief insisted that a Pentagon budget already bloated with cash needs an extra $500 billion. That, of course, would bring it to about $1.5 trillion annually. Apologies to my Navy friends but even drunken sailors would be challenged to spend that mountain of money.

In short, no matter what it does, the Pentagon, America’s prodigal son, never gets punished. It simply gets more.

More, More, More!

Not only is such colossal military spending bad for this country, but it’s also bad for the military itself, which, after all, didn’t ask for Trump’s proposed $500 billion raise. America’s prodigal son was relatively content with a trillion dollars in yearly spending. In fact, the president’s suggested increase in the Pentagon budget isn’t just reckless; it may well wreck not just what’s left of our democracy, but the military, too.

Like any massive institution, the Pentagon always wants more: more troops, more weapons, more power, invariably justified by inflating (or simply creating) threats to this country. Yet, clarity of thought, not to speak of creativity, rarely derives from excess. Lean times make for better thinking, fat times make for little thought at all.

Not long ago, Trump occasionally talked sense by railing on the campaign trail against the military-industrial complex and its endless wars. Certainly, more than a few Americans voted for him in 2024 because they believed he truly did want to focus on domestic health and strength rather than pursue yet more conflicts globally (and the weapons systems that went with them). Tragically, Trump has morphed into a warlord, greedily siphoning oil from Venezuela, posturing for the annexation of Greenland and all its resources, while not hesitating to bomb Iran, Nigeria, or most any other country. Meanwhile, China and Russia lurk in the wings as scary “near-peer” rivals and threats.

Although Trump’s supporters may indeed have been conned into imagining him as a prince of peace, this country’s militarism and imperialism clearly transcend him. Generally speaking, warfare and military boosterism have been distinctly bipartisan pursuits in America, making reform of any sort that much more difficult. Replacing Trump in 2028 won’t magically erase deep-rooted militarism, megalomaniacal imperial designs, or even the possibility of a $1.5 trillion military budget. Clearly, more, more, more is the bipartisan war song being sung inside the Pentagon, Congress, and the White House these days.

Taking on the MICIMATTSHG, or Blob

Ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern coined a useful acronym from the classic military-industrial complex, or MIC. He came up with MICIMATT (the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank complex) to highlight its blob-like growth. And it’s true that Congress and the rest are all deeply implicated in the blob. To which I’d add an “S” for the sporting world, an “H” for Hollywood, and a “G” for the gaming sector, all of which are implicated in, influenced by (as well as influencing), and often subservient to Ike’s old MIC. So, what we now have is the MICIMATTSHG. Recall that Ike warned us about the “disastrous rise of misplaced power” if we failed to challenge it back in 1961. Recall that he also warned us that the MIC could change the very structure of our society, making America far less democratic and also far less free. And most subtly, he warned us that it might also weaken America spiritually.

What did he mean by that? To reference a speech Ike made in 1953, he warned then that we could end up hanging ourselves from a cross of iron. He warned that we could become captives of militarism and war, avid believers in spending the sweat of our laborers, the genius of our scientists, and the blood of our youth, pursuing military dominance globally, while losing our democratic beliefs and liberties at home in the process. And that, it seems to me, is exactly what did indeed happen. We the people were seduced, silenced, or sidelined via slogans like “support our troops” or with over-the-top patriotic displays like military parades, no matter that they represented something distinctly less than triumphant in their moment.

And it never ends, does it? Americans in various polls today indicate that they don’t want a war against either Venezuela or Iran, but our opinions simply aren’t heeded. Increasingly, we live in a “might makes right” country, even as military might has so regularly made for wrong since 1945.

And what in the world is to be done? Many things, but most fundamentally it’s time as a society to perform an “about-face,” followed by a march in double-time away from permanent war and toward peace. And that, in turn, must lead to major reductions in Pentagon spending. The best and only way to tackle the inexorable growth of the blob is to stop feeding it money — and stop worshipping it as well. Instead of a $500 billion increase, Congress should insist on a $500 billion decrease in Pentagon spending. Our task should be to force the military-industrial complex to think, improvise, become leaner, and focus on how most effectively to protect and defend America and our ideals, rather than fostering the imperial dreams of the wannabe warlords among us.

Trump’s current approach of further engorging the imperial blob is the stuff of national nightmares, not faintly a recipe for American greatness. It is, in fact, a sure guarantee of further decline and eventual collapse, not only economically and politically but spiritually as well, exactly as Ike warned in 1961. More wars and weapons simply will not make America great (again). How could they when, as Civil War General William T. Sherman so famously observed, war is “all hell”?

Americans, we must act to cut the war budget, shrink the empire, embrace diplomacy, and work for peace. Sadly, however, the blob has seemingly become our master, a well-nigh unstoppable force. Aren’t you tired yet of being its slave?

On the 250th anniversary of America’s founding, which was predicated on resistance to empire and military rule, it should be considered deeply tragic that this country has met the enemy — and he is indeed us. Here the words of Ike provide another teachable moment. Only Americans can truly hurt America, he once said. To which I’d add this corollary: Only Americans can truly save America.

As we celebrate our nation’s birthday this July 4th, wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could save this deeply disturbed country by putting war and empire firmly in the rearview mirror? A tall task for sure, but so, too, was declaring independence from the mighty British Empire in 1776.

Copyright 2026 William Astore

The Trillion Dollar War Machine

A Disturbing Primer on the Military-Industrial Complex

BILL ASTORE

JAN 27, 2026

Wow. Just wow. That was my response after reading “The Trillion Dollar War Machine” by Bill Hartung and Ben Freeman. The book’s subtitle captures the “wow” part succinctly: “How runaway military spending drives America into foreign wars and bankrupts us at home.” And now, naturally, President Trump wants even more money for that runaway war machine: an almost unimaginable $500 billion more for FY2027. Egads! How did America’s so-called elites come to embrace war and weapons so wholeheartedly, so lustily, so greedily?

Follow this link to order your copy.

Many of the answers to that question are provided by Hartung and Freeman. They cite and explore President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s famous warning from 1961 about an emerging military-industrial complex. They explain how Congress is complicit in the growing power (and dangers) of the MIC, funding incessant warfare overseas and explosive spending on (often overpriced and largely ineffective) weaponry like the F-35 fighter and the Littoral Combat Ship (known colloquially as “little crappy ships”). Corruption, they show, is baked into the system: the corruption of the revolving door that spins so easily between the military, think tanks, the government, and weapons makers like Boeing and Lockheed Martin. It’s all thoroughly shocking as well as depressing.

Hartung and Freeman, both experienced researchers, know the MIC well. They also know it’s more than the MIC: it’s more like the MICIMATTSHG, or the military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academe-think-tank-sports-Hollywood-gaming complex, so thoroughly has profiteering through militarism and war permeated American culture and society. Military and weapons funding is so colossal it’s seemingly everywhere even as it adds inexorably to the U.S. debt while contributing to military adventurism that further deepens that same debt. Small wonder that our national debt clock is fast approaching $39 trillion. It’s a golden dome of debt!

Reading this book made me think back to another classic account of the MIC and its many follies: James Fallows’s “National Defense.” That book came out in 1981, just as the “defense” buildup under President Ronald Reagan began. Timely as that book was, the Pentagon and its many camp followers were and are rarely forced to retreat when confronted by sensible and logical analysts. I fear this latest effort by Hartung and Freeman, much needed as it is, will similarly be ignored by a purblind Pentagon always in pursuit of power irrespective of the cost.

That would truly be a shame, not only for Americans in general but for the Pentagon as well. Hartung and Freeman aren’t anti-military: they’re pro-defense when defense is smart, effective, thrifty, and focused on upholding the U.S. Constitution. Everyone in uniform, indeed everyone without a uniform, should read this book. You really should know where so much of your taxpayer dollars go—and how much of that money is being wasted by a system that is not only burning your money but weakening America as a democracy. (Indeed, when it comes to money, the Pentagon may be the ultimate burn pit.)

Buy it, study it, absorb it. As Sun Tzu said, it’s smart to know your opponent. Far too often, the military-industrial complex is exactly that.

If the Pentagon’s Done Nothing Wrong, It Has Nothing to Hide

BILL ASTORE

SEP 21, 2025

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.

Something Is Rotten in the States of America

Look No Further than Colossal Pentagon Spending and Perpetual War

BILL ASTORE

AUG 14, 2025

Something is Rotten in the States of America.

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.”

Appeasing the Military-Industrial Complex

Orwell’s 1984 Wasn’t Meant As a How-To Guide

BILL ASTORE

JUL 15, 2025

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.

Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” Robs the Poor and Rewards the Rich

More Walls, A “Golden” Dome, More Weapons, Higher Deficits, Make this a Petty Ugly Bill

BILL ASTORE

MAY 23, 2025

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.

The DOGE Is All Wrong

W.J. Astore

You can’t do a wrong thing the right way

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?

Revive Democracy!

W.J. Astore

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.

Merchants of Death

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.

Wars Make the Rich Richer and the Poor Dead

W.J. Astore

On Ending Militarism in America

Also at TomDispatch.com

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…

Buy the Book

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 years running), 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.

Copyright 2025 William J. Astore.

Surprise! Institute of Peace in Shutdown

W.J. Astore

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.