Written by Carl Peterson   

No one ever said it better than Eisenhower:

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 statehouse, 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 the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.  President Dwight Eisenhower, in Farewell Address to the Nation, January 17, 1961.

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I wondered if it is best for one who is writing from outside the perspective of our diseased American political establishment to simply use the main word that comes to mind during and finally just after reading the report, Providing for the Common Defense, recently released by the National Defense Strategy Commission (NDSC).  I decided that it is.

Bullshit.

Bullshit is not an inarticulate sound.  It says something intelligent; it is not just venting emotion.  It says that the claim it is pointing to is not believable, but not just that; it means that the claim has fallen so far below the hurdle it would need to clear to be taken seriously as an offering of truth that it is contemptible and has insulted the one who in response says--Bullshit!

"But instead of seizing this moment, the Clinton/Gore administration has squandered it. We have seen a steady erosion of American power and an unsteady exercise of American influence. Our military is low on parts, pay and morale. If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report … "Not ready for duty, sir." This administration had its moment. They had their chance. They have not led. We will."--George W. Bush in his acceptance speech, August 3, 2000, at the Republican National Convention.

Bullshit.

Somehow, just 13 months later and only nine months into the George W. Bush administration, the US military--stewarded by Clinton for more than eight of the previous nine years--was able to project its power a third of the way around the world and remove the Taliban from dominance in Afghanistan in just 11 weeks of fighting.

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"The United States possesses unprecedented— and unequaled—strength and influence in the world."--The opening sentence of the George W Bush administration document, The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002, signed by George W. Bush on September 17, 2002.

It seems that somehow George W. Bush had undergone a remarkable turnaround in his view of US military readiness, and/or the United States military had undergone a miraculous transformation between August 2000 and September 2002.  From hurting for "parts, pay and morale," and seriously eroded in its readiness, the US military in two years had somehow risen from the ashes to become the world's military hegemon--powerful enough, according to the 2002 George W. Bush National Security document, to allow the US to compel global adherence to its international desires.  Powerful enough to invade Iraq in March 2003 without pausing to seriously consider the consequences...

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"The security and well-being of the United States are at greater risk than at any time in decades.  America's military superiority--the hard power backbone of its global influence and national security--has eroded to a dangerous degree." --First sentence of Providing for the Common Defense, report from the Commission on the National Defense Strategy for the United States, issued November 14, 2018.

Bullshit.

Lying about the true condition of the American military is not new of course.  Kennedy did it for political purposes in his 1960 campaign for the presidency--thus the famous "missile gap," that falsely had the Soviet Union perilously ahead of the US in the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM).  The truth was the US was far ahead of the Soviet Union in both the number of ICBMs and the ability to quickly launch them.  After he became president, Kennedy performed a turnabout when he realized that he may have given the Soviet Union a dangerous false impression of US nuclear vulnerability, and to justify why the US would not, after all, undertake an accelerated missile-building campaign.  Kennedy then ensured that the truth about American nuclear superiority was well-publicized.

Lying about the power of the American military is done not just for political gain, but also for $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ reasons.  When $700 B or more is at stake and so many people who dissemble and professionally present false pictures of reality to supplement their incomes are alive and well in the United States, mendacity is easy to come by.  Naturally, when you want more money for those wealthy and powerful interests who have become addicted to tax payer money converted into military dollars, you lie and describe how degraded the US military is and how far it is falling behind its dangerous adversaries.  You would never emphasize that the US already spends far more on its military than any other country in the world.  You would never tell the truth and say that the United States has beyond doubt--and despite all the waste and unaccounted for $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ in American military spending--the most technologically advanced, battle-experienced and powerful military in the world.  You would never suggest that the military budget is already more than sufficient, and could be cut back to free up some $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ to help rebuild the tottering American infrastructure and to bring the quality of American life up to the standards enjoyed by nearly every other rich country in the world.  And you would certainly not emphasize that the recent "tax reform" that gratuitously put billions more $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ into the pockets of billionaires while adding a trillion and a half $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ to the national debt raises concerns about where additional funding for an already bloated military is going to come from.  No, you would never say any of that, and as a matter of fact the truth-tellers on the NDSC did not.

The Make-up of the National Defense Strategy Commission

When reporting on the recently released findings of the NDSC, the Washington Post mentioned that the NDSC is a "bipartisan commission...made up of former top Republican and Democratic officials selected by Congress."  This might lead you to believe, if you did not understand the true nature of our two major political parties, that there could be no bias in the findings of the commission, because if the parties agree then there could be no bias, right?  Yes, right, if both parties had not abandoned their respective putative constituencies of regular Americans long ago in favor of the political power and other objects of desire that grow out of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.  But last year 60% of Democrats in the House and 89% of Democrats in the Senate voted with Republicans in Congress to increase Trump's already swollen proposed military budget.

Commission Members

Eric Edelman, co-chair of the NDSC, worked for then Vice-President Dick Cheney under Scooter Libby from February 2001 to July 2003, as Cheney's Principal Deputy Assistant for National Security Affairs.

Gary Roughead, co-chair of the NDSC, retired Admiral and former Chief of Naval Operations.  Joined the Board of Directors of Northrop Grumman in 2012 soon after retiring from the Navy in 2011.  Northrop Grumman according to its website was the fifth largest arms trader in the world in 2015.  . Roughead is listed in the Pentagon Revolving Door database, www.pogo.org.

Jack Keane, NDSC member, retired four-star Army General. Keane is a Fox News national security analyst, and sits on the Board of Directors of General Dynamics.  Based on 2012 revenues, General Dynamics is the world fifth largest defense contractor.  Keane is a consultant/advisor for Academi, a private American military company formerly known as Blackwater.  Keane is executive chairman of AM General, since October 2016.  AM General produces Humvees for the military.

Jon Kyl, NDSC member, junior senator from Arizona, serving the remainder of John McCain's term.

Christine Fox, NDSC member, former Acting Deputy Secretary of Defense under Barack Obama;  former Director of Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation in the Office of the Secretary of Defense; retired career Department of Defense employee.

Kathleen Hicks, NDSC member, principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy and the deputy under secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and forces in the Obama administration;  senior vice president, Henry A. Kissinger Chair, and director of the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Andrew Krepinevich, NDSC member, distinguished senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a "think tank" funded in part by Defense Department agencies and defense industry corporations.

Thomas Mahnken, NDSC member, president and CEO of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a "think tank" funded in part by Defense Department agencies and defense industry corporations.

Michael McCord, NDSC member, former Undersecretary of Defense and Chief Financial Officer.

Michael Morell, NDSC member, former CIA deputy director; former acting CIA director.

Anne Patterson, NDSC member, retired career Foreign Service, former ambassador; Kissinger Senior Fellow at Yale University Jackson Institute for Global Affairs.

Roger Zakheim, NDSC member, board member National Defense Industrial Association, defense industry lobbyist at Covington and Burling.

Nothing More Important than the Military

In the first paragraph of its introduction, Providing for the Common Defense lays its cards on the table.  First:

The United States confronts a grave crisis of national security and national defense.

Then:

No duty of the federal government is more essential than defending the American people...

Then:

For generations international peace and prosperity and the wellbeing and security of the United States have depended on America's unequaled military strengths.

Let us examine these claims one by one.

The United States Confronts a Grave Crisis of National Security and National Defense

The NDSC report explains that the crisis of national security has been caused by "global challenges" and "America's disinvestment in defense."  So, what are the global challenges?  The NDSC finds that US national security challenges are many but that the most alarming ones come from "powerful authoritarian rivals," China and Russia.  According to the truth-tellers on the Commission, both countries are aggressively seeking to expand their influence and exploit weaknesses in the United States.  China and Russia's aggressive methods are "all backed by major military buildups (underline added for emphasis) that specifically target US military advantages and alliance commitments."

The NDSC report claims, "the US military could lose the next state-versus-state war it fights."  (Note the phrasing, "next state-versus-state war,"--without any qualifier such as "if the United States fights in another state-versus-state war."  The Commission seems to have so assumed the aggressive military perspective that for the purposes of its infomercial it assumes that the US will fight in another state-versus-state war.)  The NDSC report states, "If the United States had to fight Russia in a Baltic contingency or China in a war over Taiwan, Americans could face a decisive military defeat."  First, given that NATO has committed to defending the Baltic states it is improbable that the US would encounter Russia alone in a state-versus-state war in the Baltics.  Second, given the NATO and American commitments to the Baltic region, Russia is unlikely to believe that it would gain by invading any of the Baltic states, so it will probably not invade.  Third, why would the US fight China to prevent an invasion of Taiwan if it believes there was a good chance it would lose?  There are other and better ways than hyper military spending to address the possibility that China will invade Taiwan.

Furthermore, various estimates for China's true military spending place it at about one third of American military spending.  Russian military spending for 2018 at about $70 B is approximately one tenth of the American military budget.  Together then, Chinese and Russian military spending is about 13/30ths or less than half of what the US spends on its military.  So much for the NDSC's claim that the US has disinvested in defense.

The Commission report doesn't mention any dollar amounts for Chinese and Russian military spending, presumably because doing so would undermine the NDSC report's central claim that the United States needs to immediately begin spending much more on its military.  This exemplifies a notable feature of the NDSC's report: it does not discuss any evidence that might challenge its argument; so it forgoes the opportunity to strengthen its claims by showing that the NDSC is aware of and can successfully address countervailing views.  But by ignoring counter-arguments the NDSC raises suspicions about the quality and veracity of its analysis.  In this case, any reasonable person who does the rudimentary research and finds the huge disparity in military spending between the US and its "powerful authoritarian rivals," then considers the NDSC's claims that the US has disinvested in defense and could lose one-on-one wars with Russia or China, would wonder what exactly has gone so catastrophically wrong with the US military that Russia with a military budget 1/10 that of the US could defeat the US in state-versus-state war.  And how could China with 1/3 the military spending of the US prevail in a state-versus-state war with the US?  Maybe the US Department of Defense (DOD) needs to study the methods of the Russian and Chinese militaries to see how they have become serious rivals to the US military despite spending much, much less, not just this year or last year, but year after year for decades.  And maybe the DOD could emulate their methods and save the American taxpayer 100s of billions of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ a year.  No?

The NDSC report makes a brief allusion to the 2015 report by the Defense Business Board that detailed $125 billion dollars of administrative waste in Pentagon business operations, but was buried by an embarrassed Pentagon.  The Commission assures us that yes, the Pentagon needs to bring its business practices into the 21st Century, but no, savings from the elimination of administrative waste will have no bearing on the military's need for hundreds of billions more $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

Admittedly, Russia and China have not, as the US has, spread their militaries across the Earth in the endeavor of global military dominance.  Russia and China currently have much more limited military objectives which enable them to correspondingly focus and limit their military spending.  Russia's $70 B military budget for example allows it to threaten and sometimes invade its geographic neighbors, but, apart from its nuclear arsenal, the Russian military poses no direct threat to US national security.  Notable is the NDSC attitude toward Russian and Chinese possession of nuclear weapons, which always directly threaten American lives and US national security.  The NDSC's response to the ever-present nuclear threat is not to advocate for diplomacy to eliminate nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth, as elimination of these weapons would be the surest way to prevent their use, but to urge spending billions more to upgrade the US nuclear arsenal, which endeavor, if history is a guide, may spur a new round in the nuclear arms race, provide no additional security to anyone, but on the other hand could raise the risk that nuclear weapons will be used again.

The NDSC report is more like an infomercial for the military-industrial complex than a serious document intended to help Americans make informed decisions about how much America really needs to spend on the military.  Future historians might well read the NDSC's report and see in it not credible evidence of American military decline in 2018, but of a decline in the strength of American democracy, and the corollary decadence of the military-industrial complex, so arrogant and sloppy in its expropriation of what is constitutionally stipulated to be the people's political power over the war-making purse that it could produce a document such as this and not care or notice how absurd it is.

The Commission report is really saying that if the US doesn't increase its military spending even more than it already has, it might not be able to militarily dominate international relations--it might not be able to prevail militarily in every corner of the globe.  But we should have already learned in Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and other places that military dominance is not a sole solution to many of the most difficult geopolitical problems, and the attempts to apply military solutions where they are not warranted or wise have harmed America, Americans, and American national security far more than has the lack of American military might.

In addition to calling for much more money to be spent on the military, the NDSC notes that, "the number of Americans with both the fitness and propensity to serve [in in the military] is in secular decline," putting national security at risk.  The NDSC makes no specific recommendations for what to do about this problem, but somewhat mysteriously advises, "creative steps" should be taken "to address the shortage of qualified and willing individuals other than relying solely on ever-higher compensation for a shrinking pool of qualified volunteers."  This mention of the problem of having to pay high wages to volunteers may indicate that the NDSC is thinking of a renewed draft during "peacetime," that is, if in its contemplation there will ever be such a thing anymore as peacetime.

The report goes on to claim that, "even if America were to fund the [military] lavishly, and even if all the other recommendations in this report were to be implemented, that would not be sufficient to address the threats and challenges facing the country today."  The NDSC then proceeds to urge that threats presented by Russia and China are so serious that only a "whole-of-government or even a whole-of-nation" approach will be sufficient to meet the challenge.  This recommendation of "a whole-of-nation" approach euphemistically cloaks its deep import:  the NDSC is calling for a thorough militarization of America--the Nazis for example took a whole-of-nation approach to militarization--where not just the government but every activity within German borders was subject to being commandeered in support of the military.  In fact, the NDSC cites the authoritarian governments of Russia and China as models to follow for marshalling America's entire strength to achieve its military objectives.

What the Commission is really selling, but is unwilling to do it candidly in its infomercial, is not increased military spending for sufficient national security, but for hegemonic military dominance, the kind Dick Cheney and the neoconservatives believed the US possessed as it prepared to invade Iraq in 2003--but this sadly reflects a mistaken over-reliance on the efficacy of military action as a solution to national security problems.

No Duty of the Federal Government is More Essential Than Defending the American People

So claims the NDSC report, Providing for the Common Defense.  But this infomercial, produced in a "think" tank environment at the request of the military-industrial complex working through Congress, reveals a bias in its understanding of the essential responsibility of the American government to the American people.  That essential responsibility is responsiveness to the American people.

That essential responsibility is not merely to defend Americans from threats emanating from outside its borders, but, given that the American government claims to be a democratic government of the people, by the people, and for the people, the American government should be a servant of the people that does for the people what they want it to do.  Surely Americans want their tax money to be used to help protect them not just from threats from elsewhere, but from ill-health, violence, poverty, drug-addiction, homelessness, and so on, endemic within American borders.  It is not much consolation to be defended against hostile foreign adversaries if, within your own country, one of the two major political parties has for years worked tirelessly and implacably to deprive Americans of healthcare, at the cost of an estimated 45,000 American lives per year.  It is not much consolation to have the world's most powerful military when long-term trends for increased life-expectancy in the US are beginning to do a U-turn.

The NDSC reveals a quasi-libertarian bias in its understanding of the American government's obligation to its people, a bias that is not shared by most Americans, and sets the NDSC, like a hostile foreign adversary, against the interests of regular Americans.  The national Libertarian party platform advocates for a military sufficient to deter foreign aggression against the US, but asserts that America "should avoid entangling alliances...and abandon its attempts to act as policeman of the world."  This last part about alliances and policing the world is at odds with the NDSC's single-minded advocacy of American military global dominance, but the libertarian call for the "abolishment of...all federal programs and services not required under the U.S. Constitution," is in line with the NDSC's recommendation for where to get the money to pay for increased military spending:  By taking from programs that many Americans depend on for their financial security, health, and lives.

For some reason feeling compelled to offer advice outside its claimed area of military-industrial expertise, the NDSC urges repeatedly that the "resources" needed for increased military spending must come from cuts in "mandatory spending" (aka: the social safety net, aka: entitlement programs, i.e., social security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.) and tax increases (the call for tax increases in a much softer voice.)  This recommended attack on the social safety net dovetails nicely with Charles Koch's opinion that taxation to support government programs for the people entails an immoral assault on personal liberty, and it is perfectly in line with demonstrated professional Republican values, but is in opposition to the claimed values of the Democratic Party (DP).  Democrats in Congress are soon going to have to decide whether they will continue to enthusiastically support the insatiably growing appetite for military spending that the NDSC report attempts to justify, or whether the DP's claimed commitment to the well-being of regular Americans requires it to forcefully and publicly question the wisdom of hyper military spending and "whole-nation" militarization to sustain and increase global American military dominance.

For Generations International Peace and Prosperity and the Wellbeing and Security of the United States Have Depended on America's Unequaled Military Strengths

So claims the NDSC report, but like many of its assertions the report does not cite supporting evidence, or mention evidence that might call into doubt this alleged truth, or even begin to entertain a discussion that would fully air out the question of what exactly the American people get in return for that huge portion of their tax dollars that goes to the military.  In fact, the style of argumentation used by the NDSC shows the aggressive, non-intellectual influence of its ownership by the military-industrial complex point-of-view.  The NDSC seems to understand that it could not prevail in a reasoned argument that included a full discussion of the pertinent evidence, so it employs the blunt emotional force of fear-mongering, warning over and over again in its report of the undescribed disasters that will befall the United States if it does not increase its military spending, already by far the highest in the world.

How can the NDSC claim without serious evidentiary justification that for generations international peace has been dependent on America's "unequaled military strengths"?  Was the shameful, horrific, unprovoked, unjustified invasion of Iraq in 2003 the action of a peace-maker?  Did the war in Vietnam ensure the peace?  The US is almost constantly at war somewhere in the world--how can this be seen as peace from the perspective of those who are on the receiving end of American violence?  How can it be deemed peace by regular Americans who provide the manpower that is the life's blood of the US military and who bear the most painful brunt (given their much smaller portion of disposable income) of the federal taxation that provides the material substance of the US military?  Setting aside the question of serious harm the US military has done to other countries and the international community, what good does superfluous American military supremacy do for regular Americans who make up almost the entirety of the American population?  Does it provide universal healthcare for Americans?  No.  Rather, military spending is one of the factors that allow politically powerful interests (for example, the military-industrial complex, acting through its representative, the NDSC) to imply that America cannot afford healthcare for every American, even though every other rich nation on Earth provides healthcare to all of its people and at lower cost.  Americans work more hours than the people in most other rich countries; they have much less paid vacation; they don't live as long as people in most other rich countries; American infant mortality is the highest among rich countries.

This is not to say that American military dominance has had no positive effect in the world.  It is probable that American military protection has allowed Europe to prosper since WWII without the anxiety of interstate European military competition, and the Asian Pacific has possibly been more peaceful with the American military hegemon playing policeman in its backyard, but again, the cost for this hegemonic military supremacy is born mostly by ordinary Americans, not citizens in other countries who benefit from the presence of the US military policeman, not the American political class, and not the incipiently overt American plutocracy too wealthy to feel the pain of taxation in anything but an abstract, "philosophical" sense, and which never sacrifices itself in military service, but gladly sends others.  It is not sustainable that those who sacrifice the most to sustain the dangerous yet precarious global dominance of the American military machine are among those who have seen and will see little if any direct benefit to themselves from such dominance, but will only feel the costs.

American hegemonic military dominance has probably helped to ensure enough "stability" in international relations that economic globalization has been able to advance and ameliorate poverty levels in poor countries around the world.  Since 2000 the number of people on Earth living in extreme poverty has dropped from about 1.7 billion to about 1 billion.  But with the advance of globalization supported by the US military, income inequality within rich countries like the US has increased.  According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), between 1975 and 2012 around 47% of total growth in pre-tax incomes within the US went to Americans in the top 1%.  The US according to the OECD has the greatest income inequality among rich countries, and the third highest income inequality in the world. What can the military do to help reverse staggering income inequality within in American borders?

The NDSC's claims for the internationally salutary beneficence of the American military are, at best, shallow and deliberately misleading.  This is not a time for absurd propaganda like Providing for the Common Defense. Regular Americans are under attack, but the danger comes mostly from within the US, including from the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about in words worth repeating:

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.