July 17, 2025

We Are Our Own Worst Enemy

020518-69-Military-War



By William Astore / 02.05.2018


Whether the rationale is the need to wage a war on terrorĀ involving 76 countriesĀ or renewed preparations for a struggle against peer competitorsĀ Russia and ChinaĀ (as Defense Secretary James Mattis suggested recently while introducing America’s newĀ National Defense Strategy), the U.S. military is engaged globally. A network ofĀ 800Ā military bases spread acrossĀ 172 countriesĀ helps enable its wars and interventions. By the count of the Pentagon, at the end of the last fiscal year aboutĀ 291,000 personnelĀ (including reserves and Department of Defense civilians) were deployed in 183 countries worldwide, which is the functional definition of a militaryĀ un-contained. Lady Liberty mayĀ temporarily closeĀ when the U.S. government grinds to a halt, but the country’s foreign military commitments, especially its wars, just keep humming along.

As a student of history, I was warned to avoid the notion of inevitability. Still, given such data points andĀ othersĀ like them, is there anything more predictable in this country’s future thanĀ incessant warfareĀ without a true victory in sight? Indeed, the last clear-cut American victory, the last true ā€œmission accomplishedā€ moment in a war of any significance, came in 1945 with the end of World War II.

Yet the lack of clear victories since then seems to faze no one in Washington. In this century, presidents have regularly boasted that the U.S. military is theĀ finest fighting forceĀ in human history, while no less regularly demanding that the most powerful military in today’s world be ā€œrebuiltā€ and funded at ever more staggering levels. Indeed, while on the campaign trail, Donald TrumpĀ promisedĀ he’d invest so much in the military that it would become ā€œso big and so strong and so great, and it will be so powerful that I don’t think we’re ever going to have to use it.ā€

As soon as he took office, however, he promptly appointed a set of generals to key positions in his government, stored the mothballs, and went back to war. Here, then, is a brief rundown of the first year of his presidency in war terms.

In 2017, Afghanistan saw a mini-surge of roughly 4,000 additional U.S. troops (withĀ more to come), aĀ major spikeĀ in air strikes, and an onslaught of munitions of all sorts, includingĀ MOABĀ (the mother of all bombs), the never-before-used largest non-nuclear bomb in the U.S. arsenal, as well as precision weapons fired byĀ B-52sagainst suspected TalibanĀ drug laboratories. By the Air Force’s own count,Ā 4,361 weaponsĀ were ā€œreleasedā€ in Afghanistan in 2017 compared to 1,337 in 2016. Despite this commitment of warriors and weapons, the Afghan war remains – according to American commanders putting the best possible light on the situation – ā€œstalemated,ā€ with that country’s capital Kabul currentlyĀ under siege.

How about Operation Inherent Resolve against the Islamic State? U.S.-led coalition forces have launchedĀ more than 10,000Ā airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since Donald Trump became president, unleashingĀ 39,577 weaponsĀ in 2017. (The figure for 2016 was 30,743.) The ā€œcaliphateā€ is now gone and ISIS deflated, butĀ not defeated, since you can’t extinguish an ideology solely with bombs. Meanwhile, along the Syrian-Turkish border a new conflict seems to beĀ heating upĀ between American-backed Kurdish forces and NATO ally Turkey.

Yet another strife-riven country, Yemen, witnessed aĀ sixfold increaseĀ in U.S. airstrikes against al-Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula (from 21 in 2016 to more than 131 in 2017). In Somalia, which has also seen aĀ riseĀ in such strikes against al-Shabaab militants, U.S. forces on the ground have reached numbersĀ not seenĀ since the Black Hawk Down incident of 1993. In each of these countries, there are yet more ruins, yet more civilian casualties, and yet more displaced people.

Finally, we come to North Korea. Though no real shots have yet been fired, rhetorical shots by two less-than-stable leaders, ā€œLittle Rocket Manā€ Kim Jong-un and ā€œdotardā€ Donald Trump, raise the possibility of aĀ regional bloodbath. Trump, seemingly favoring military solutions to North Korea’s nuclear program even as his administration touts a new generation of moreĀ usableĀ nuclear warheads, has been remarkably successful in moving the world’s doomsday clockĀ ever closerĀ to midnight.

Clearly, his ā€œgreatā€ and ā€œpowerfulā€ military has hardly been standing idly on the sidelines looking ā€œbigā€ and ā€œstrong.ā€ More than ever, in fact, it seems to be lashing out across the Greater Middle East and Africa. Seventeen years after the 9/11 attacks began the Global War on Terror, all of thisĀ representsĀ an eerily familiar attempt by the U.S. military to kill its way to victory, whether against the Taliban, ISIS, or other terrorist organizations.

This kinetic reality should surprise no one. Once you invest so much in your military – not just financially but also culturally (by continually celebrating it in a fashion which has come to seem like a quasi-faith) – it’s natural to want to put it to use. This has been true of all recent administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, as reflected in theĀ infamous questionĀ Madeleine Albright posed to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell in 1992: ā€œWhat’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?ā€

With the very word ā€œpeaceā€ rarely in Washington’s political vocabulary, America’s never-ending version of war seems as inevitable as anything is likely to be in history. Significant contingents of U.S. troops and contractors remain an enduring presence in Iraq and there are nowĀ 2,000Ā U.S. Special Operations forces and other personnel in SyriaĀ for the long haul. They are ostensibly engaged in training and stability operations. In Washington, however, the urge for regime change in bothĀ SyriaĀ andĀ IranĀ remains strong – in the case of Iran implacably so. If past is prologue, then considering previous regime-change operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya, the future looks grim indeed.

Despite the dismal record of the last decade and a half, our civilian leaders continue to insist that this country must have a military not only second to none but globally dominant. And few here wonder what such a quest for total dominance, the desire for absolute power, could do to this country. Two centuries ago, however, writing to Thomas Jefferson,Ā John AdamsĀ couldn’t have been clearer on the subject. Power, he said, ā€œmust never be trusted without a check.ā€

The question today for the American people: How is the dominant military power of which U.S. leaders so casually boast to be checked? How is the country’s almost total reliance on the military in foreign affairs to be reined in? How can the plans of the profiteers andĀ arms makersĀ to keep the good times rolling be brought under control?

As a start, consider one of Donald Trump’s favorite generals, Douglas MacArthur,Ā speakingĀ to the Sperry Rand Corporation in 1957:

ā€œOUR SWOLLEN BUDGETS CONSTANTLY HAVE BEEN MISREPRESENTED TO THE PUBLIC. OUR GOVERNMENT HAS KEPT US IN A PERPETUAL STATE OF FEAR – KEPT US IN A CONTINUOUS STAMPEDE OF PATRIOTIC FERVOR – WITH THE CRY OF GRAVE NATIONAL EMERGENCY. ALWAYS THERE HAS BEEN SOME TERRIBLE EVIL AT HOME OR SOME MONSTROUS FOREIGN POWER THAT WAS GOING TO GOBBLE US UP IF WE DID NOT BLINDLY RALLY BEHIND IT BY FURNISHING THE EXORBITANT FUNDS DEMANDED. YET, IN RETROSPECT, THESE DISASTERS SEEM NEVER TO HAVE HAPPENED, SEEM NEVER TO HAVE BEEN QUITE REAL.ā€

No peacenik MacArthur. Other famed generals likeĀ Smedley ButlerĀ andĀ Dwight D. EisenhowerĀ spoke out with far more vigor against the corruptions of war and the perils to a democracy of an ever more powerful military, though such sentiments are seldom heard in this country today. Instead, America’s leaders insist that other people judge us by our words, our stated good intentions, not our murderous deeds and their results.

Perpetual warfare whistles through Washington

Whether inĀ Iraq,Ā Afghanistan, or elsewhere in the war on terror, the U.S. is now engaged in generational conflicts that are costing us trillions of dollars, driving up the national debt while weakening the underpinnings of our democracy. They have led to foreign casualties by the hundreds of thousands and created refugeesĀ in the millions, while turning cities like Iraq’s Mosul intoĀ wastelands.

In today’s climate of budget-busting ā€œdefenseā€ appropriations, isn’t it finally time for Americans to apply a little commonsense to our disastrous pattern of war-making? To prime the pump for such a conversation, here are 10 suggestions for ways to focus on, limit, or possibly change Washington’s nowĀ eternal war-makingandĀ profligate war spending:

1. Abandon the notion of perfect security. You can’t have it. It doesn’t exist. And abandon as well the idea that a huge military establishment translates into national safety. James Madison didn’t think so and neither did Dwight D. Eisenhower.

2. Who could have anything against calling the Pentagon a ā€œdefenseā€ department, if defense were truly its focus? But let’s face it: the Pentagon is actually a war department.Ā  So let’s label it what it really is. After all, how can you deal with a problem if you can’t even name it accurately?

3. Isn’t it about time to start following the Constitution when it comes to our ā€œwarsā€? Isn’t it time for Congress to finally step up to its constitutional duties? Whatever the Pentagon is called, this country should no longer be able to pursue its manyĀ conflictsĀ without a formal congressional declaration of war. If we had followed that rule, the U.S. wouldn’t have fought any of its wars since the end of World War II.

4.Ā Generational wars – ones, that is, that never end – should not be considered a measure of American resolve, but of American stupidity. If you wage war long, you wage it wrong, especially if you want to protect democratic institutions in this country.

5. Generals generally like to wage war. Don’t blame them. It’s their profession. But for heaven’s sake, don’t put them in charge of the Department of ā€œDefenseā€ (James Mattis) or the National Security Council (H.R. McMaster) either – and above all, don’t let one of them (John Kelly) become the gatekeeper for a volatile, vain president. In our country, civilians should be in charge of the war makers, end of story.

6. You can’t win wars you never should have begun in the first place. America’s leadersĀ failed to learnĀ that lesson from Vietnam. Since then they have continued to wage wars for less-than-vital interests with predictably dismal results. Following the Vietnam example, America will only truly win its Afghan War when it chooses to rein in its pride and vanity – and leave.

7. The serious people in Washington snickered when, as a presidential candidate inĀ 2004 and 2008, Congressman Dennis Kucinich called for aĀ Department of Peace. Remind me, though, 17 years into our latest set of wars, what was so funny about that suggestion? Isn’t it better to wage peace than war? If you don’t believe me, ask a wounded veteran or a Gold Star family.

8. Want to invest in American jobs? Good idea! But stop making the military-industrial complex the preferred path to job creation. That’s a loser of a way to go. It’s proven that investments in ā€œbutterā€ create double or triple the number of jobs as those in ā€œguns.ā€ In other words, invest in education, health care, and civilian infrastructure, not more weaponry.

9. Get rid of the very idea behind the infamousĀ Pottery Barn rule – the warning Secretary of State Colin Powell offered George W. Bush before the invasion of Iraq that if the U.S. military ā€œbreaksā€ a country, somehow we’ve ā€œboughtā€ it and so have to take ownership of the resulting mess. Whether stated or not, it’s continued to be the basis for this century’s unending wars. Honestly, if somebody broke something valuable you owned, would you trust that person to put it back together? Folly doesn’t decrease by persisting in it.

10. I was an officer in the Air Force. When I entered that service, the ideal of the citizen-soldier still held sway. But during my career I witnessed a slow, insidiousĀ change. A citizen-soldier military morphed into a professional ethos of ā€œwarriorsā€ and ā€œwarfighters,ā€ a military that saw itself as better than the rest of us. It’s time to think about how to return to that citizen-soldier tradition, which made it harder to fight those generational wars.

Consider retired General John Kelly, who, while defending the president in a controversy over the president’s words to the mother of a dead Green Beret,Ā refusedĀ to take questions from reporters unless they had a personal connection to fallen troops or to a Gold Star family. Consider as well the way that U.S. politicians like Vice President Mike Pence are always so keen toĀ exaltĀ those in uniform, to speak of them as above the citizenry. (ā€œYou are the best of us.ā€)

Isn’t it time to stop praising our troops to the rooftops and thanking them endlessly for what they’ve done for us – for fighting those wars without end – and to startĀ listeningĀ to them instead? Isn’t it time to try to understand them not as ā€œheroesā€ in another universe, but as people like us in all their frailty and complexity? We’re never encouraged to see them as our neighbors, or as teenagers who struggled through high school, or as harried moms and dads.

Our troops are, of course, human and vulnerable and imperfect. We don’t help them when we put them on pedestals, give them flags to hold in the breeze, and salute them as icons of a feel-good brand of patriotism. Talk of warrior-heroes is worse than cheap: it enables our state of permanent war, elevates the Pentagon, ennobles the national security state, and silences dissent. That’s why it’s both dangerous and universally supported in rare bipartisan fashion by politicians in Washington.

So here’s my final point. Think of it as a bonus 11th suggestion:Ā don’t makeĀ our troops into heroes, even when they’re in harm’s way. It would be so much better to make ourselves into heroes by getting them out of harm’s way.

Be exceptional, America. Make peace, not war.


Originally published by NationOfChange, free to the public.