CLASSIC ESSAYS
This is a repost. Originally published on January 19, 2017
Seventy years ago president Harry Truman signed the National Security Act into law, a decision even he came to regret. We could say the rest is history, except that it is decidedly not. With a new White House occupant in place, Aussie writer Greg Maybury explores herein why this isn't the case. As already amply shown by Trump's actions, his analysis is spot on and prescient.
(Crossposted with OpedNews.com)
The Great American Perpetual Motion War Machine
[dropcap]O[/dropcap]f all the major actions taken by presidents since 1945, it is surely President Harry Truman's decision to sign off on the 1947 National Security Act (NSA)--thereby 'nodding' the National Security State, the so-called 'military-industrial complex' (MIC)--that has triggered the most unremitting, far-reaching and profound blowback for America, its allies and the rest of the world.
Few would argue that in order to expand and perpetuate its monolithic existence, there's much to show for the investment of blood and treasure the "complex" has extracted from the rest of humanity. This to say little of the propaganda, lies, corruption, debasement of the public good, and 'divide, conquer 'n rule' abuse of power and privilege that have long sustained it, or the social, cultural, environmental and economic destruction, geopolitical instability, abject futility and all too human suffering, tragedy and farce that's been its hallmark. As an exemplar for the Law of Unintended Consequences hard at work, this decision doesn't simply tick all the boxes; seventy years later, the 'gift' keeps on giving.
The inescapable reality from all this is that there are some extraordinarily powerful folks the like of which insist to this day this is the way it should be, with some doubtless seeing it very much how it was always meant to be. Barack Obama's tenure was ample evidence of this prevailing, depressing reality. They will resist by any and all means open to them, attempts by anyone to question or challenge the status quo, much less any serious efforts to reverse the course. Which is to say, no one should expect any divestment by the power elites in the machinery of war after January 20, 2017.
In fact for these folks (we all know who they are), the biggest threat facing America was that it faced no threat at all! Like their Cold War architectural 'ancestors' circa '45, talk of any "peace dividend" was anathema--nay, heresy--to their way of thinking. For them, there really wasn't any point in having this great military machine if "we" weren't going to use it.
Notwithstanding what freshly minted POTUS Donald Trump said on the campaign trail about scaling back America's commitment to foreign wars, defusing the tensions between Moscow and Washington, developing better relations with key international partners, and curbing the 'coups and colour revolutions' crowd, there is much to be concerned at how foreign and national security policy and military doctrine will play out under his administration. Regardless of what Trump does or says from this point onwards, such is the collective 'psychopathology' of the Great American War Machine, it retains a perpetual momentum all of its own that will proceed inexorably with or without his cooperation, and/or he and/or any of his team even knowing about it. We might even say, with or without him at all!
For William Engdahl, there's "no good side" to what we will experience under Trump, and he seems to take this view not necessarily because of who Trump is, what his intentions are, and/or what he might or might not do. Engdahl isn't buying the feverish talk of elements of the national security state pulling out all stops to thwart his presidency or even prevent his inauguration. Even if he doesn't know it himself, 'Trump was put into office to prepare America for war', albeit one he says, 'Wall Street and the military industrial complex' aren't presently in a position to win. For Engdahl,
'[T]rump's job will be to reposition the U.S....[so as] to reverse the trend to disintegration of American global hegemony, to, as the Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz Project for the New American Century (PNAC) put it in their 2000 report, "rebuild America's defenses."'
Seemingly pursuing like themes, Finian Cunningham suggests Trump is being (White?) 'house-trained' as it were. His view is that the ruling elite is using 'media orchestration and dirty tricks' to ensure its desired election result prevails, which is 'a hostile policy toward Russia, China and the rest of the world', serving of course U.S. corporate interests.
[dropcap]A[/dropcap]fter observing the 'shift' by Trump and his people toward a 'more frosty stance' on all things Russia, Iran and China (clear in secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson's confirmation hearing testimony and that of his fellow nominee for defense James "Mad Dog" Mattis), Cunningham suggests a 'coercive taming process' is in play within the Beltway, with, he notes unnervingly, 'sinister implications for...U.S. democracy'. He had this to say:
'[I]t's a truism US presidents are determined by elite corporate power, the Deep State military-intelligence apparatus, and their controlled news media...In Trump's case, the outcome appeared to be an exception. So now [he's] being ''processed'' to produce the desired 'result.''
From Harry Truman to Donald Trump at least then, if not before, well might we say, [that] falling into line with the powers that be whilst preparing America for war has been part of the presidential job description. No sooner for example had Truman stopped one war with two very large bombs, he then set in motion another that went on for 45 years, the very one for which the national security state was ostensibly established to fight. The rest we might say is "history" except it is not, with most presidents viewing their lasting legacy through the prism of warlike enterprise.
We'll return to Donald Trump and the present soon, but for context and perspective, we should revisit some post World War Two--or more specifically, Cold War--history.
- Where Have all the Wise Men Gone? -
Throughout the Cold War, by any measure George Kennan was a towering figure in the geopolitical firmament, a crucial player in the realm of Cold War foreign policymaking. Of Kennan, historian Wilson Miscamble remarked that '[O]ne can only hope....present and future makers of foreign policy might share something of his integrity and intelligence'.
To be sure, given how U.S. policy has played out since Kennan's heyday, it's difficult to think of too many folks who've measured up in this respect, or are likely to anytime soon. The man's "integrity and intelligence" was evident when he seemed to question the myth/delusion of American exceptionalism, suggesting that,
'...[the] tendency to see ourselves as the center of political enlightenment and as teachers to a great part of the rest of the world strikes me as unthought-through, vainglorious and undesirable.'
Born in 1904 in Minnesota and educated at Princeton University, Kennan was a 'Kremlinologist' and Cold War intellectual and policy wonk, one of the so-called Wise Men of American statecraft of the era. He was the key architect of 'containment', the cornerstone of the rules of engagement by which America sought to manage (that is contain, but not directly confront) the purported Soviet menace.
Broadly defined, said "menace" was Communist-inspired, 'full-spectrum domination' of the Big Blue Ball, attended by the overthrow of capitalism and the purging of the bourgeoisie, represented by the much-reviled capitalist power elites. It was this much-touted existential threat that inspired and defined the Cold War itself; for almost five decades it informed international relations and shaped the geopolitical landscape. As noted, under the aegis of Truman's NSA--and the so-desigated Truman Doctrine--it both precipitated the establishment of the 'complex' and justified--at least in the eyes of its beholders--its aims and objectives.
For his part Kennan, who died in 2005, continued making his views on policy known to the Beltway Bedlamites throughout retirement, whether they were interested or not, which for the most part they weren't. Notably, two years before the Berlin Wall fell and four years before the implosion of the Soviet empire, in a foreword to Norman Cousins' classic 1987 tome The Pathology of Power, Kennan--presumably after having reflected much on how containment had played out since its inception and any implications this might have for America's future national interest and security--had this to say:
'Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the military-industrial establishment would have to go on, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented. Anything else would be an unacceptable shock to the American economy.'
Putting aside the inference in his remarks the foundation for the Cold War--and the justification for the military-industrial complex ostensibly created to fight it--may have been premised on less than legitimate security concerns or noble ideals about freedom, democracy and the pursuit of happiness, given the widely unforeseen nature of the event he imagined, it's tempting to assume he knew something others didn't. This however was not the case.
At the same time, whilst Kennan by his own admission later had a struggle coming to terms with his 'what-if' musing about this putative unipolar world, he lived long enough to see the Great American War Machine "go on", albeit in a much changed--and for the majority of folks, unexpected--form. As the U.S. entered this post Cold War era--what Andrew Bacevich termed the Age of Great Expectations--most folks expected a 'peace dividend'.
But as history tells it, the much hyped and hoped for "peace dividend" revealed itself as a chimera, wishful thinking on the part of those people who'd breathed a sigh of relief at the disappearance of the Soviet threat. (Of course we should recall here that most Americans and Russians amongst others expected a global "peace dividend" after 1945, which as history tells us, also failed to materialize.)
True to Kennan's 'prophecy' then, the Soviet Union had barely sunk, Titanic like, 'under the waters of the geopolitical ocean' when a group of folks in the U.S. began busying themselves inventing new adversaries, devising new threats and drafting commensurate doctrines to meet and challenge them so as to pre-empt the "unacceptable shock" Kennan hinted at.
In fact for these folks (we all know who they are), the biggest threat facing America was that it faced no threat at all! Like their Cold War architectural 'ancestors' circa '45, talk of any "peace dividend" was anathema--nay, heresy--to their way of thinking. For them, there really wasn't any point in having this great military machine if "we" weren't going to use it.
Throughout the nineties and in the lead-up to 9/11 and beyond then, it was this not-so-loose 'confederacy of hegemons' that would go on to profoundly alter the impetus and focus of American strategic policy, if not its broad direction and end game, which may have already been defined.
Either way, they would do all this in ways and by means in which it's difficult to see how Kennan and his ilk might've contemplated in their wisest imaginings, with or without a Soviet-style threat. That this recalibrated "impetus and focus" in strategic policy plays out today is a given, despite the disasters it has engendered, the enormous cost in blood, treasure, economic stability and geopolitical credibility, and most importantly, the genuinely existential risks posed by its unfettered continuance.
Indeed, these New American Centurions repudiated anything resembling what the Wise Men would've considered prudent. For the latter, unilateralism and preemption weren't part of their policy lexicon. In later years Kennan was sharply critical of such actions taken by both the Bill Clinton and George W Bush regimes. According to Miscamble, along with opposing policies for NATO expansion and [to] what he saw as the West's 'exploitation of Russian weakness', he expressed considerable reservations about U.S. interventions in places like Bosnia, Somalia, and Kosovo, irrespective of their alleged 'humanitarian purpose'. In his 98th year, a 'still intellectually vigorous' Kennan harshly criticized Bush's National Security Doctrine, especially decrying the Iraq invasion.
It's hard moreover to imagine he would've thought much of Obama's policies either, given what has taken place on his watch in Syria, Libya and in the Ukraine, to name just three globally destabilizing, avoidable conflicts of note to which the incumbent effectively lent his presidential, peace-prize winning imprimatur. By way of no small understatement, Miscamble noted of Kennan, [that] '...[his] long-expressed reservations regarding U.S. overextension and excessive reliance on military force proved remarkably consistent whatever the changed geopolitical circumstances...'
- In a Fearful, Bunkered Nation (How did we get here?) -
One suspects Kennan might've also observed supreme irony in the way this post-Soviet reimagining and subsequent rearranging of the world order--in particular America's consequent place and part in it--unfolded. For the duration of the Cold War, this was ostensibly the great fear he and his contemporaries had of the Soviet Union, which was that it was positioning itself to do same. After all, was this not the basic premise of containment--to keep a lid on the gremlins in the Kremlin and curb their presumed gusto for sabre-rattling destabilisation, military one-upmanship, Third World exploitation, geopolitical mischief-making, nuclear brinkmanship, proxy war mongering and eventual global hegemony?
And though this fear of Soviet ambition we can now say with some certainty was not founded on much resembling a viable prospect for them or even a genuine objective, nonetheless it determined the course of geopolitics, international relations, military affairs and history--along with the balance of world power, and we might add, the global financial system and world economic order--for almost half a century. We might also say the Soviets were themselves 'containing' the Americans as much, if not more so, than the other way round.
As for the Machine itself, it's significant that as early as 1956, in his seminal book The Power Elite, Charles Wright Mills made much of the unholy alliances, interactions and relationships between and across the economic, political, defense, industrial, legislative, intelligence, and academic hierarchies in U.S. and the economics that have been it's wellspring, what came to be called the "military-industrial complex". Mills--who died in 1962--noted that since 1945,
'....the US power elite has [become] increasingly immoral, irresponsible, ignorant, [and] stupid...mindless in its quest for wealth and power.'
Fast-forward sixty plus years. Of all the seemingly disparate elements of Mills' "power elite", it is with the military-industrial-security complex his observation really comes into its own. Along with reinforcing this view, the following might serve to underscore what should be one of our key concerns: The truly unsustainable and literally incalculable cost of keeping the machine in perpetual motion!
In his introduction to the indispensable 2011 handbook The Pentagon Labyrinth, retired Defense Department official Chuck Spinney noted that even allowing for the cumulative effects of decades of inflation, twenty years after the Cold War's end--and with that the disappearance of the singular threat upon which the whole national-security edifice had hitherto been constructed--the U.S. spends more on defense 'than at any time since [1945]'.
If winning sundry wars and military conflicts, reducing the risk and prevalence of terrorism and other actual or perceived threats, and keeping the country and the world safe and secure are suitable measures by which to evaluate its overall effectiveness, then on such basic metrics alone the defense establishment's performance leaves quite a lot to be desired. This is before any consideration of whether such profligacy is providing American citizens with bang for their taxpayer buck. The utter failure of the purportedly impregnable, gold-plated defense apparatus of the U.S.--still the most formidable military machine ever assembled in history--to preempt and prevent the 9/11 attacks is stark evidence of this.
We only need factor in just one of the many head-shaking realities that attend the Pentagon/DoD narrative: It cannot account for around six and a half trillion dollars of expenditure over the past two decades. There's something decidedly 'other-worldly' about any bureaucracy already blessed with unlimited budgets--black and white--that can lose track of such staggering amounts of money, defies, avoids or resists all attempts to undergo external audits like other agencies and departments are required to, and no-one is held accountable.
And though it's far from an insignificant 'achievement' (this 'mother' of all 'case studies' will provide forensic accounting gurus much to dine out on for some time), we'd have to say any organization that can lose track of this amount of money forfeits from the off any claim to being efficient, competent or effective, especially one that can point to few substantive, verifiable successes in its core mission in recent memory, indeed, we might say, ever since it was created.
Of course the 'complex' still keeps demanding--and getting--more, with Trump now pledging even further increases. Yet as Spinney notes, this gigantic defense budget is 'not producing a greater sense of security for most Americans.' For the highly respected former defense 'lifer' and many others of his ilk, the positive outcomes--quantitative and qualitative--from all this expenditure have been few and far between at best, and non-existent at worst. Who could argue it has actually created the reality of greater instability and insecurity as well as the sense of it, in America and elsewhere? Spinney observes that throughout this process,
'...[w]e have become a fearful nation, a bunkered nation, bogged down in never ending wars abroad accompanied by shrinking civil liberties at home. We now spend almost as much on defense as the rest of the world, yet the sinews of our economy are weakening at an alarming rate, threatening the existence of the...middle-class society we built after World War II.'
Spinney rightly asks the question: How did America maneuver itself into such a self-destructive straitjacket? Although not an easy question to answer definitively, some reflection may assist us putting some of it in perspective. We might say said "reflection" is a matter of the utmost national security.
- With an Alert and Knowledgeable Citizenry (Going AWOL) -
[dropcap]I[/dropcap]n January 1961, the outgoing president of the United States Dwight D (aka Ike) Eisenhower delivered his last address and most memorable public utterance. In his much-cited speech, Ike warned of the dangers of the "military-industrial complex".
Now the vocabulary and themes of his speech are well known, so no need to expound on it too much. Suffice to say, though Ike stopped short of acknowledging his own administration's contribution to its emergence, he did however admit he'd become very concerned about the growing power of the bourgeoning but already Byzantine matrix of relationships between the US Military, security and intelligence community, Wall Street, Congress, and the private sector security/defense industry apparatus.
Yet well before Eisenhower uttered his immortal words, the train had left the station: The "unwarranted influence" and "misplaced power" he alluded to had already infected Washington's collective psychopathology, and today this now 70 year old monster corrupts and corrodes every nook and cranny of the U.S. body politic. And though it was the "military-industrial complex" bit that took up space in most folk's minds, we can now say the "alert and knowledgeable" bit he referred to, went decidedly AWOL.
Which is to say, unfortunately for those all too few folks fitting that 'make' whom Ike suggested was the only "bulwark" against the continued growth, power and influence of this monster within, most of their fellow citizenry remained completely oblivious to it all. They either fell asleep at the wheel or chose to ignore the already disturbing implications of its encroaching reach. Or those in whom they placed their faith and trust to prevent this from happening, such as their elected representatives and the political parties to which they belong, have betrayed them. Even for savvy citizens who saw more clearly the lay of the land, Andrew Cockburn had this to say: [for those daring],
'...[T]o suggest that U.S. military organizations exist for the benefit of those who profit from them...[indicates] a dangerous predilection for "conspiracy theories."'
That the MIC throughout its evolution from 1945 onwards and up to its current incarnation then went on to become even more powerful than Ike could have ever dreamed possible, is a given of course. And as noted, it has become considerably more 'immoral, irresponsible, ignorant, stupid, and mindless in its quest for wealth and power' than Mills himself imagined.
All of which is to say that the exponential growth of the MIC--especially so since the end of the Cold War and even more so since the events of 9/11--now exceeds anything previous generations might have imagined no matter how hard they tried. It should not be difficult to envisage the outcome from this continued mutation and metastasisation, along with the implications for democracy and freedom, and at this point we have more proof than we've ever had. It hasn't just endangered and/or taken the liberties, freedoms and lives of American citizens, but as noted, those of many millions of others throughout the Western and Eastern Hemispheres. The ongoing events and developments taking place in the Ukraine and on Russia's borders along with the continuing political standoff with Russia--to say nothing of the Syrian situation--are compelling, but by no means the only, evidence of the dangers that lie ahead.
We might also posit that America's compulsive need to have an enemy has incurred humanity's greatest opportunity costs: In everything from security itself, to individual and collective freedom, economic prosperity, international relations, financial stability, political effectiveness, human rights, social harmony and equality, technical and scientific cooperation, legislative progress, and many other areas or concerns that have been and remain vital to resolving some of the biggest issues all countries--indeed, we as an evolutionary viable species--face. To say little of American--and more broadly--Western prestige.
- The Merits of Warlike Enterprise -
And to the extent additional corroboration of impending dangers might be required, it is difficult to see how the 2015 National Military Strategy of the United States of America authored by the complex is not designed for any other purpose than to aggressively provoke a global military conflict involving two other nuclear powers, China and Russia. Moreover, quite apart from their singular status as useless, dangerous, and expensive, the stark implications of their deployment would suggest there's no better place for folks to become "alert and knowledgeable" than with nuclear weapons, and the prospect of a renewed nuclear arms race.
Donald Trump's talk about the U.S. upgrading its already formidable nuclear arsenal should not have come as a surprise. Like most things Trump-related, saying one thing and meaning another, shooting from the hip, and keeping the pundits guessing are just some of the tried and true tactics employed by the president-elect; indeed, such foreign policy making on the fly is unprecedented, with little sign this is likely to change radically after 20 January. Given this uncertainty, it's difficult to get a handle on what the real agenda is or might be in relation to this issue; it is even more difficult to ascertain just how the Russians might respond, and how this might play out should Trump seek a genuine rapprochement with the U.S.'s former Cold War nemesis.
It should be noted that outgoing president Barack Obama also had already flagged such an upgrade, with spends of up to a trillion dollars being touted. Though it now sounds much like the presidential candidates' equivalent of a Miss Universe contestant professing world peace to be her most fervent desire and that if crowned pageant winner she'd do everything to make it all happen, it surely was Obama's earnest declaration that if elected POTUS, he'd do everything he could to 'rid the world of nukes', which supported his 'claim' to the Nobel Peace Prize (NPP).
Indeed, here's a president who at the beginning of his first term was all for deep-sixing nukes holus-bolus and by the end of his second, was shilling a wholesale, trillion dollar plus 'reno'. And there is to be sure incalculable irony in a president, who after accepting his NPP, becomes the very first 'Oval Officer' to serve two full terms with his nation at war on not one but several fronts, more than a few of which are of his own making. Along with other unflattering critiques one might make of Obama's Oval 'watch', this surely will become an indelible blot on his already considerably shop-soiled legacy.
When it comes down to it then, the hegemonic mindset that has propelled the Great American War Machine since Truman has frequently subverted, maliciously thwarted, blithely undermined and/or routinely destroyed said "liberties and democratic freedoms" along with the economic and social well-being of all concerned. With or without Trump, the next four years appear likely to bring us closer to answering that question than we have ever got to it before: that being, is it already too late to address this?
For his part Paul Craig Roberts recently pondered this question. His view is that the existential danger we all face is Washington's assumption, based he says, on the West's hegemony and historical rule, that it is "normal" for it to continue pursuing 'full spectrum dominance', despite knowing the enormous risks. However, he adds ominously, Russia and China 'do not agree', and that,
'...either country is sufficient to stand up to [the U.S.]... together they overmatch [America's] military capability. Due to the arrogance that resides in Washington, the would-be overlords of the world are not aware that Russia and China are not Iraq and Libya. If the moronic idiots in Washington bring us into war with these powers, the U.S. will disappear from history.....with the rest of the world.'
It is perhaps appropriate that the last word herein should go to Thorstein Veblen, the under-appreciated Norwegian-American economist and social theorist, and noted critic of the excesses of capitalism and the free market. He was the man who at the time correctly presaged the consequences of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles (another world war twenty years later), and interestingly, also coined the phrase 'conspicuous consumption'.
Although in what follows Veblen was referring to the prevailing mindset in Europe and Britain that brought us the Great War of 1914-1918, he might well have been talking about the Beltway Bedlamites in 2017.
'Temperamentally erratic [people] such as are schooled by special class traditions or predisposed by special class interest, will readily see the merits of warlike enterprise and keep alive the tradition of national animosity. Patriot-ism, piracy, and prerogative converge to a common issue. [When someone] gifted with an extravagant congenital basis of this [type] is at the same time exposed to circumstances favorable to the development of truculent megalomania and is placed in a position of irresponsible authority and authentic prerogative as will lend countenance to his idiosyncrasies, his bent may.. gather vogue, become fashionable, and with persistence and shrewd management come so ubiquitously into habitual acceptance as to throw the population....into an enthusiastically bellicose frame of mind.'
Notwithstanding Veblen's 'syntactically tortured' observations, he was 'mos' def' onto something. Might we suggest in concluding, that it is in few other areas occupying prime real estate within the overarching U.S. body politic beyond the rarefied milieu of the U.S. national security state/military industrial complex, where the 'tradition of national animosity', 'excesses of capitalism', 'conspicuous consumption', 'truculent megalomania', 'patriotism, piracy and prerogative', [the] purported 'merits of warlike enterprise', and 'irresponsible authority', intersect and fuse so seamlessly.
And so ominously! Well might we lament the absence of a more optimistic, peaceful, cooperative and productive future for ourselves, our families, communities, countries, and the rest of humanity. For the Bedlamites, this is decidedly not in the brochure. Even if Trump was inclined to address and remedy this--a not entirely realistic expectation by any measure--the power elites aren't going to entertain such ambitions.
—Greg Maybury,
20 January, 2017
We might also posit that America’s compulsive need to have an enemy has incurred humanity’s greatest opportunity costs: In everything from security itself, to individual and collective freedom, economic prosperity, international relations, financial stability, political effectiveness, human rights, social harmony and equality, technical and scientific cooperation, legislative progress, and many other areas or concerns that have been and remain vital to resolving some of the biggest issues all countries–indeed, we as an evolutionary viable species–face. To say little of American–and more broadly–Western prestige.