Lessons we can learn from Ike
Post-Second World War President Dwight David Eisenhower made a remarkable farewell address to the American people at the end of his presidency.
He pointed out that, for the first time in peacetime, the U.S. maintained a large standing armed force and was making significant investments in military capital such as planes, ships and mobile land forces. Eisenhower was troubled by this and felt it could have an adverse impact upon American political institutions.
Eisenhower said: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether warranted or unwarranted, 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 process….Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defence with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”
Fifty-seven years later, the cumulative U.S. expenditures on defence have totalled almost $30 trillion.
This year defence expenses will be over $800 billion greater than total expenditures by China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, India, France, the United Kingdom and Japan combined. In the U.S.’ federal budget, defence accounts for about 15 per cent of all spending and roughly half of discretionary spending.
The military-industrial complex is the largest sector of the U.S. economy and has a massive lobbying force working in Washington. Active and retired senior military officers serve in critical administrative positions, determining policy, not just on defence, but in a range of other areas. A retired general is the chief of staff for the president.
One of the chief failings of general staffs of armed forces across the globe is a preoccupation with preparing to fight the previous war. France built the Maginot line in the 1930s, assuming that the trench warfare of the First World War would be duplicated by Nazi Germany — only to discover that the hordes of Panzer tanks simply drove around the line.
The next global war, if there is one, will be short, nuclear and world destroying. An invasion fleet such as that at Normandy in 1944 will never be deployed since one atom bomb could destroy it. So why does the U.S. need fighter planes to support land troops especially when each plane can cost $50 million plus?
Is U.S. defence spending both rational and concentrated on important areas such as vulnerable targets in the infrastructure of the country? The power grid and communication networks or the various computer systems of both the public and private sector appear to be vulnerable.
Cyber-warfare and cyber-protection do not have the same appeal to the public’s imagination as a super aircraft carrier. Yet, while the carrier’s destructive force is huge, the impact of a well-designed cyber-attack could cripple the entire defence machinery.
What is even more disturbing, however, is what has happened to policy formulation, particularly in foreign affairs.
Ronan Farrow in his recent book, “War and Peace: The End of Diplomacy and the Decline of American Influence,” provides a convincing case illustrating how the military has influenced critical decisions dating back to the Vietnam War, through peacekeeping action in the Balkans, East Africa, Iraq and most recently in Afghanistan.
Rather than attempting to negotiate a resolution to regional conflicts, the military have pushed for forceful solutions sold as the only means of securing a victory. Given the nature of many of these conflicts, victory is not attainable and combat results in continuing casualties and no resolution. The U.S. has been fighting in Afghanistan for more than seventeen years with no obvious progress.
Congress should, but probably will not, address this obvious failure of policy and be willing to look hard and long as the impact the military-industrial complex is having on the fabric of the political process and the strength of the democracy.