From “The World This Week” in the current issue of The Economist:
“The Obama administration has announced plans to sell Saudi Arabia arms worth as much as $90 billion over the coming decade, in what would be America biggest-ever weapons sale.”
Did you notice something strange about that news release? The seller is identified as “the Obama administration.” We have come to the point where the Government can make a sale (or not make a sale) for $90 billion dollars’ worth of hardware. That’s a lot of hardware and a lot of paychecks and a lot of commissions for someone. Come to think of it, the aerospace companies don’t even need salesmen any more. The sale is closed when the President says “okay.”
Here’s what Dwight Eisenhower said as he was leaving the presidency in 1960.
“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.”
Arms manufactured in the United States may be found in every corner of the earth. Some of these arms, if past experience is any guide, will one day be used to kill Americans. We are in fact the world’s largest supplier of weapons of mass destruction. And as other countries cut their arms budgets, our role will get even larger. The military can’t stop it. When it tried to kill a second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, Congress overruled it; too many jobs were at stake.
Increasingly, the U.S. is the go-to enforcer, because erstwhile allies are quitting the game. Great Britain proposes defense cuts of 10 to 20 percent. Germany plans to drop its draft and cut its armed forces by a third. Today’s “coalition of the willing” is shrinking fast. Meanwhile, as if Afghanistan and Iraq aren’t enough, hawks in Washington press for greater U.S. military involvement in Yemen and Somalia. It is hard to see how this lunacy will play out. President Obama, who probably wishes he could disengage, can’t, any more than he can close Guantanamo. The military is trapped in wars it cannot win. Congress, which deserves the public scorn it gets, keeps funding weapons systems the military doesn’t need.
Eisenhower saw in the military-industrial complex “the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power.” And Dwight Eisenhower was no pacifist. He led the Allies to victory in Europe and was regarded as a bona-fide military hero. One can only wonder what he would have thought on reading a press release for a $90 billion-dollar arms sale – issued, not by Boeing or Northrup or Lockheed, but by the President of the United States.
