The warpath ahead

Illustration by Carl Muecke.

One of the interesting parts of Michael Crow's empire is the Center on the Future of War, dedicated to exploring "the social, political, economic, and cultural implications of the changing character of war and conflict." With a faculty led by Peter Bergen, a CNN analyst and leading scholar on terrorism, and Daniel Rothenberg, former Managing Director of International Projects at the International Human Rights Law Institute at DePaul University, we're a long way from little Tempe Normal. The UA — or UArizona as they would have it — has nothing to compare.

Crow has a genius for going where the action is, particularly where money can be found in a state that shamefully underfunds higher education. And even with the end of the "Forever War" with President Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan (that and Iraq were not our longest conflict; that prize goes to the Indian wars of the 19th century), America's seeming hunger for war isn't going away.

The Pentagon, think tanks, and cottage industry of military journalism have us aiming at China, with runners up Russia and Iran. As for the first two, war with nuclear-armed adversaries: What could go wrong? Brown University’s Watson Institute estimates direct costs from the “war on terror” to be 929,000 deaths and a federal price tag of $8 trillion.

Imagine the nation-building at home we could have done for that? And the odious Joe Manchin refuses to vote for Biden's $3.5 trillion Build Back Better proposal, one which unlike war would more than repay the public investment in infrastructure and human capital.

It's hard to believe that for decades Americans were suspicious of a large standing army. This republican virtue was helped by being protected by two oceans. On the eve of the Spanish-American War, the United States Army stood at 28,000 officers and enlisted men. At the end of the Civil War we possessed the largest armed forces in the world, 1 million Union soldiers alone. But Congress quickly shrank it.

In World War I, the nation sent an expeditionary force of 2 million. But this was also temporary. Part of new President Warren Harding's "return to normalcy (normality)" program was taking us off a war footing with the War to End All Wars successfully concluded. In 1939, as war began in Europe and Japan fought China, the U.S. Army numbered fewer than 190,000.

The end of World War II saw another rapid demobilization — too rapid in the eyes of President Harry Truman's critics. The rise of the Cold War and hot war in Korea come 1950 put an end to this. The United States has had millions in its armed forces ever since (nearly 1 million in the Army alone today, including the National Guard and Army Reserve).

One can make a convincing case that this, along with nuclear weapons and America's engagement in the institutions of the Free World (unlike after World War I) contributed to the longest period of peace among major powers in the modern era. But something soured along the way. In his 1960 farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower (a General of the Army), warned of the rising "military industrial complex":

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 huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

How wise. And, given what we've put ourselves through, how quaint. Can we ever find our way back to the balance Ike sought?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments

[Cal Lash]

Nearing 82 i remember Predident General Dwight Eisenhower quite well.
Probably the last Real Republican!
I've often thought President General George Washington would today be a
Real Republican.
While their history has its errors
They both got a lot right.

I think there is sufficient information to up the above 8 Trillion figure to 17 Trillion.

Regarding the longest war being the "Indian Wars" who said it was over?
The tactics have changed from when "Custer Died for Your Sins."

There is no such thing as going back.
Even the old bearded "Taliban" that can't get it up and send children with guns and bombs to die will learn that modernized young Afghans and particularly women who have tasted freedom will bring change.

Good column. Thanks.

[Mariam Cheshire]

Plain damn scary. The way an old lady who knows nothing about military tactics (other than having a father, three brothers. two husbands and a partner in Military service) looks at it: the next War will be handled with drone type army and disruption of all services by interline attack. We're no longer protected by two oceans. War will be in our front yard.
However, it appears that Mother Nature is thinking about keeping us busy with Natural Disasters and we might not have the time/resources/manpower/enthusiasm to fight any kind of War.
When I'm up there on a cloud looking down at a barren Earth, void of Life, I'll be saying "I'm so sorry we didn't see this in time to change our ways."

[eclecticdog]

The decline will be long and messy. The giant sucking sound is the military draining the coffers.

[ccccc]

To my understanding, JFK to some degree chose to follow in Eisenhower’s footsteps and lean towards an end to the nuclear arms race. Subsequently, he would be replaced by a president who would only further our interests in Vietnam all while getting rich off of stocks from Bell Textron.

Won’t somebody think of the poor contractors and their investors? Is it not a shame, they no longer have a reason to manufacture and ship billions of dollars of equipment to the other side of the world only for it to be left behind and fall into the hands of our supposed enemies.

The MIC knows to never let a good tragedy go to waste. It’s not a matter of if, but when.

[Cal Lash]

MCI
who profits from war.
Why should you care?

https://warindustrymuster.com/
and
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/05/24/a-peoples-guide-to-the-war-industry/

[Cal Lash]

A quote from the comments of
https://consortiumnews.com/2021/09/14/a-forever-foreign-policy-debate/
by author and poet
Guillermo Calvo Mahé
September 14, 2021 at 16:06
"George Washington and Dwight David Eisenhower both warned us, but the Deep State’s omnivorous appetite is swallowing everything, and its teeth are the corporate media, the Democratic Party and traditionalist Republicans."

[Levi]

If our empire must go the way of Rome, it would follow that Trump be our first Caesar. Casting his hair in bronze would be the sculpting wonder of our age.

[Cal Lash]

You meant this Caesar?
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (/ˈnɪəroʊ/ NEER-oh; 15 December 37 – 9 June 68 AD), originally named Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, was the fifth emperor of Rome, and the last in the Julio-Claudian dynasty line of emperors. He was adopted by the Roman emperor Claudius at the age of thirteen, and succeeded him to the throne at the age of seventeen. Nero was popular with the lower-class Roman citizens during his time and his reign is commonly associated with unrestricted tyranny, extravagance, religious persecution and debauchery.[2][i][ii]

[Levi]

If you think about it, President Eisenhower was the last President to serve before television turned American’s brains into tapioca pudding. Ever since his Presidency, the military industrial complex has had a battle of the wits with an unarmed populace. It’s been a massacre.

[iaed]

The subject of today's front page link, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/15/us/politics/biden-australia-britain-china.html , must be a huge win for the MIC.

[Cal Lash]

Without a doubt!

[AzRebel]

Thread is quiet, so hope it's OK to put this here.

The Texas motto used to be "DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS.

They just updated it, "TEXAS, WHAT A MESS"

[Kevin A. Kelly]

I was born on the island of Guam, and after a Phoenix located elementary school interlude, came to age on another American island, Saipan. Americans who live in the Western Pacific are very attuned to the geopolitical affairs of Asia. Including it’s history. Especially martial affairs, as in 1941 , when Japan occupied Guam, which is as American as Kiska and Attu, and much more populated to boot.
Recently, North Korea threatened Guam with missiles, and with China‘s aggression in the South China Sea, her diplomatic overtures to neglected island nations across the Central Pacific, for the 150 thousand-odd Americans in the Marianas, when Asian contenders to Pacific power rattle their swords, we not only hear the sound, but we see the glint of the steel.
I have sympathy for the tenor of the prior posts on the “MIC”. A healthy suspicion of “nation building “ is also warranted, given recent events, and their preceding costs. As a liberal Republican in Phoenix, I revere Eisenhower and have long appreciated his warning, but as it pertains to the West Pacific, we have legal, territorial and moral obligation to our most distant Americans to meet the Chinese challenge. I do not advocate for war, as it will be my ancestral islands that will inevitably be made moonscapes as they were after WW 2 savaged them. But the US must remain vigilant and assertive, diplomatically and militarily. China must be afforded the respect, prestige, and economic wiggle room that a great power commands, but AUKUS and the US must not allow the Chinese to come to the conclusion that war is a viable option to reach her ambitions.

[claycavness]

Sinema: An amoral figure in a sin and hate-ridden landscape.