Of course our outrageous military spending is enormously beneficial to our economy, isn't it?
Well, no. For a start we might ask why, if military spending has, since early in World War II, given our economy such a boost, why are we a country now in economic doldrums (and not for the first time since the 1940's) and why -- most potently -- are we a country with such a huge gap between rich and poor? With the poor getting poorer and the rich getting richer?
Now is a good time to ask ourselves, on the 50th anniversary of Eisenhower's famous warning against the "military-industrial complex" what we can do to turn this around. Let's not forget the Kennedy statement a couple of days later in his inaugural address, "Ask not what your country can do for you..." What we could do for our country -- no question about it -- is get off the military-industrial roller coaster, quit making war "more patriotic" than peace, bring our military down to scale, and rethink our role in the world.
Andrew Bacevich takes on the big lie(s) we have told ourselves about our love affair with perpetual war, our overreaching military power, and Eisenhower's powerful words.
This national-security state derived its raison d’être from—and vigorously promoted a belief in—the existence of looming national peril. On one point, most politicians, uniformed military leaders, and so-called defense intellectuals agreed: the dangers facing the United States were omnipresent and unprecedented. Keeping those dangers at bay demanded vigilance, preparedness, and a willingness to act quickly and even ruthlessly. Urgency had become the order of the day.
In his 1956 book, The Power Elite, C. Wright Mills, a professor of sociology at Columbia, dubbed this perspective “military metaphysics,” which he characterized as “the cast of mind that defines international reality as basically military.” Those embracing this mind-set no longer considered genuine, lasting peace to be plausible. Rather, peace was at best a transitory condition, “a prelude to war or an interlude between wars.”
Ever think of the parallel between the belief that America is in constant peril and the belief of many American individuals that their lives and liberties are in constant peril from either malefactors or their government? Those beliefs in the nation's and each citizen's peril are fostered by two powerful lobbies in the US Congress: the defense lobby and the gun lobby. The industries those lobbies represent, the lobbyists themselves, and most members of Congress all gain enormously from selling people those beliefs. In other words, you may think you're being rational and patriotic to be on the side of personal weaponry and a "strong defense" when in fact you're being had. You're just another taxpayer who is supporting unlimited, senseless violence at home and abroad.
As a citizenry, we have turned over our defense to people whose chief interest is in making money from exaggerating our defense needs. We tolerate "black budgets" and "preemptive strikes." We declare who our enemy of the moment is and then go to war with a country where the enemy can't be found. We start wars we can't finish but find ourselves unable to pull out of them. We watch as military officers become corporate leaders and corporate leaders take top jobs in the Pentagon.
Bacevich writes: "With corporate officials routinely claiming the Pentagon’s top posts, and former military officers hiring themselves out to defense contractors, fundamental values were at risk," and he quotes General Eisenhower.
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.
But we have allowed our liberties and democratic processes to become hostages of a national security conglomerate. We take everything for granted. We should have listened to Eisenhower before and we certainly should pay attention to him now.
Having defined the problem, Eisenhower then advanced a striking solution: ultimate responsibility for democracy’s defense, he insisted, necessarily rested with the people themselves. Rather than according Washington deference, American citizens needed to exercise strict oversight. Counting on the national-security state to police itself—on members of Congress to set aside parochial concerns, corporate chieftains to put patriotism above profit, and military leaders to hew to the ethic of their profession—wouldn’t do the trick. “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.”
The reaction to Eisenhower's speech in January 1961, Bacevich says, was "tepid." It's tepid now, though many of us feel serious unease about the gradual loss of our democracy and the rise of a military-industrial oligarchy. Some fear the label "unpatriotic" if they demand a change. Of course, it's just the opposite. We're being deeply unpatriotic if we don't, finally, confront the evils , one of which Eisenhower was the first to admit is on its way to destroying our democracy.
The other evil is the extent to which we are in thrall to a gun industry which -- while its big brothers are lobbying for weapons that can blow the world apart in less than a day -- lobbies for putting as much weaponry in the hands of individual Americans as they're willing to buy.
