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military-industrial complex
Imperialist Peace: Trump’s Strategic Rebranding of Empire
His rhetoric of ending “forever wars” masks a calculated strategy—one that replaces direct military intervention with economic control, resource extraction, and corporate influence.
Mar 07, 2025
The dramatic clash between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy dominated headlines, turning what was supposed to be a diplomatic engagement into a public spectacle. Viewers watched in real time as shouting, accusations, and later reports of the abrupt departure by the Ukrainian delegation fueled outrage and speculation. Critics accused Trump of abandoning Ukraine, undermining the U.S. commitment to global democracy, and treating foreign policy negotiations as if he were a mafia boss issuing ultimatums. Yet while Trump’s behavior was undeniably confrontational, the real issue runs deeper than his personal style of diplomacy.
Trump’s approach may lack the diplomatic polish of previous administrations, but the difference is stylistic rather than substantive.
Beneath the theatrics, Trump is not fundamentally breaking from U.S. foreign policy traditions; he is reshaping them. His rhetoric of ending “forever wars” masks a calculated strategy—one that replaces direct military intervention with economic control, resource extraction, and corporate influence. What Trump offers is not an alternative to U.S. imperialism but a rebranded version: a “profitable imperial peace” where stability itself becomes a commodity for American oligarchs. Meanwhile, centrist politicians—his supposed opposition—continue to promote a perpetual war that serves the interests of the military-industrial complex, ensuring that conflict remains a permanent feature of global geopolitics.
The Outrage Over Trump Misses the Bigger Picture
Following the disastrous meeting, widespread condemnation of Trump emerged from political analysts and mainstream media. Critics accused him of selling out Ukraine, bowing to Russian interests, and violating the norms of diplomatic engagement. These critiques, while valid in their own right, fail to address the fundamental reality: U.S. foreign policy has always been about maintaining imperial power, whether through military occupation, economic coercion, or geopolitical alliances that serve corporate interests.
Trump’s approach may lack the diplomatic polish of previous administrations, but the difference is stylistic rather than substantive. His overt transactionalism merely exposes what has always been true: The U.S. does not support Ukraine out of a commitment to democracy but because it serves American geopolitical and economic interests. Beneath the veneer of respectability, the Biden administration, along with centrist politicians in the U.S. and Europe, has funneled billions into a war effort that increasingly appears to be less about securing Ukrainian sovereignty and more about sustaining a profitable cycle of militarization and strengthening U.S. global power.
The left must support Ukraine’s fight for self-determination, but its critique of Trump cannot be reduced to liberal outrage over his rhetoric or authoritarian posturing. What is needed is a materialist analysis of the capitalist forces shaping U.S. foreign policy—one that moves beyond the spectacle of Trump’s behavior to examine the deeper economic interests at play. Trump is not simply an outlier; he is both a continuation of and a divergence from the military-industrial complex mindset embraced by the Democratic establishment and centrist foreign policy elites. While figures like former President Joe Biden and European leaders justify endless military aid as part of a moral defense of democracy, they are simultaneously ensuring that the war remains a lucrative investment for arms manufacturers and defense contractors.
Trump, by contrast, has framed his approach as one of “peace,” but this too is a project driven by oligarchic interests, not diplomacy or anti-imperialism. His vision of peace is not about Ukrainian sovereignty but about restructuring U.S. hegemony in a way that shifts power from defense corporations to the energy sector, real estate developers, and financial elites. The far-right’s “imperialist peace” seeks to replace direct military engagement with economic subjugation, where stability becomes a tool for privatization, resource extraction, and the expansion of corporate control over Ukraine’s post-war future. This is not an abandonment of empire but a strategic reconfiguration of its mechanisms. A critical left analysis must dissect why Trump and his allies are so committed to peace—not as a humanitarian cause, but as a means to consolidate power for a different faction of oligarchs, all while leaving Ukraine trapped between Russian colonization and Western economic domination.
Imperialist Peace: A New Model of Capitalist Control
The real divide in U.S. foreign policy is not between interventionism and isolationism but between two competing models of imperialism: perpetual war and profitable peace. Centrist politicians and military contractors benefit from an unending war economy, where conflicts like Ukraine serve as permanent revenue streams for arms manufacturers and defense lobbyists. The longer the war drags on, the more profitable it becomes, allowing the U.S. and Europe to solidify and grow their military industries.
Trump’s vision for Ukraine presents itself as a departure from military interventionism, yet it reshapes imperial influence into a model of economic control. This “imperialist peace” positions stability as a resource for capitalist elites, ensuring corporate access to energy, land, and financial markets. Instead of a commitment to democracy or self-determination, this approach prioritizes wealth extraction through industries aligned with Trump’s strongest backers—fossil fuel conglomerates and real estate developers.
As long as U.S. foreign policy remains structured around corporate interests, the world will continue to be trapped in a cycle where war is either endlessly prolonged or peace is crafted to serve the needs of capital.
While Democrats and Republicans both maintain deep ties to the weapons industry, Trump’s policies reflect a strong alignment with fossil fuel executives and luxury property developers. Energy firms invested an estimated $219 million to shape the current U.S. government, signaling their expectation of policies favoring resource extraction and deregulation. Real estate investors, long intertwined with Trump’s personal business empire, have also fueled his political rise through massive financial contributions.
The purpose of Zelenskyy’s visit to Washington underscored this economic agenda. While media attention focused on the fiery exchange between leaders, the trip’s primary objective involved securing a deal granting U.S. companies control over Ukraine’s mineral wealth. This agreement cements Trump’s vision where capitalist elites extract profits from conflict not only through weapons sales but also through post-war reconstruction, energy production, and privatized infrastructure.
Luxury real estate speculators view regions impacted by war as investment opportunities. Waterfront redevelopment in areas previously devastated by conflict has emerged as a lucrative ventures. Stability functions as an asset for those seeking to transform destroyed neighborhoods into high-end residential and commercial spaces, ensuring an influx of capital through privatization. Trump’s strategy for Ukraine mirrors this approach, positioning peace as a mechanism for capital accumulation rather than a humanitarian goal.
Expanding the Imperialist Peace Model: Gaza and the Digital Economy
Trump’s “imperial peace” extends beyond Ukraine. His proposals for Gaza suggest similar priorities—displacing residents while repurposing land for high-end redevelopment. Recent reports detail his team’s discussions on transforming Gaza into an exclusive investment hub, removing existing communities under the pretext of regional stabilization. This mirrors his broader approach to foreign policy, where war-torn regions become assets for financial elites seeking prime real estate acquisitions.
This version of peace appeals to billionaire investors shaping the digital economy. High-profile figures like Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg support Trump not only due to ideological alignment but also because their industries depend on access to land and minerals critical for data infrastructure. Lithium and rare earth elements, essential for artificial intelligence, electric vehicles, and cloud computing, remain central to their business models. Securing these materials through agreements structured under Trump’s version of stability allows these tech leaders to expand digital empires without disruption.
Developers pursuing large-scale urban expansion depend on geopolitical conditions that guarantee unrestricted access to construction zones, lucrative tax incentives, and flexible labor markets. This extractivist economic model strengthens corporate dominance by securing control over resources, expanding real estate ventures, and integrating digital infrastructure into newly developed regions. Trump’s approach reconfigures imperial influence into an economic framework where energy executives, land developers, and tech giants dictate the terms of global stability. War fuels one sector of capital, and peace opens new pathways for financial expansion, ensuring that every phase of instability generates wealth for those positioned to exploit it.
Perpetual War vs. Profitable Peace–A Capitalist Trap
Framing the future in terms of perpetual war or imperialist peace obscures how both serve capitalist consolidation. Centrist politicians sustain conflict through arms production and military spending, maintaining profits for defense contractors. Trump offers an alternative where corporate executives expand power through resource extraction, real estate ventures, and digital infrastructure. Both systems reinforce a global structure that keeps economic elites in control, ensuring that whether through war or peace, capital remains the primary beneficiary.
The shock over Trump’s behavior during his meeting with Zelenskyy reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of U.S. foreign policy. While his tactics may be more blatant, his actions expose what has always been true—war and peace are both industries, and U.S. engagement in global conflicts is driven not by moral concerns but by economic interests. Whether through perpetual war or a profitable imperial peace, the capitalist class benefits, while the people on the ground—whether in Ukraine, Palestine, or elsewhere—suffer the consequences.
Trump’s brash, domineering style serves as a distraction from the deeper capitalist dynamics at play. He performs the role of the “strong” business leader, evoking the image of a mafia boss who negotiates through intimidation and self-interest, much as Biden projected the aura of a “respectable” diplomat who upholds international order. Each persona functions as a veneer, concealing the same fundamental commitment to capitalist imperialism. While one brandishes threats and transactional deals, the other couches economic coercion in diplomatic formalities. Both preserve a system where economic elites dictate global affairs, ensuring that policy decisions—whether framed as aggressive or pragmatic—ultimately protect the interests of corporate power.
As long as U.S. foreign policy remains structured around corporate interests, the world will continue to be trapped in a cycle where war is either endlessly prolonged or peace is crafted to serve the needs of capital. The real challenge is not choosing between these two models of imperialism but dismantling the system that allows war and peace alike to be dictated by profit.
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How Endless War Delivered Trump—Not Once, But Twice
The far-reaching impacts of incessant war on American life in this century have received short shrift.
Mar 02, 2025
Donald Trump’s power has thrived on the economics, politics, and culture of war. The runaway militarism of the last quarter-century was a crucial factor in making President Trump possible, even if it goes virtually unmentioned in mainstream media and political discourse. That silence is particularly notable among Democratic leaders, who have routinely joined in bipartisan messaging to boost the warfare state that fueled the rise of Trumpism.
Trump first ran for president nearly a decade and a half after the “Global War on Terror” began in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The crusade’s allure had worn off. The national mood was markedly different than in the era when President George W. Bush insisted that “our responsibility” was to “rid the world of evil.”
Working-class Americans had more modest goals for their government. Distress festered as income inequality widened and economic hardships worsened, while federal spending on war, the Pentagon budget, and the “national security” state continued to zoom upward. Even though the domestic effects of protracted warfare were proving to be enormous, multilayered, and deeply alienating, elites in Washington scarcely seemed to notice.
Donald Trump, however, did notice.
Pundits were shocked in 2015 when Trump mocked the war record of Republican Senator John McCain. The usual partisan paradigms were further upended during the 2016 presidential campaign when Trump denounced his opponent, Hillary Clinton, as “trigger happy.” He had a point. McCain, Clinton, and their cohort weren’t tired of U.S. warfare — in fact, they kept glorifying it — but many in non-affluent communities had grown sick of its stateside consequences.
Pretending that militarism is not a boon to authoritarian politics only strengthens it.
Repeated deployments of Americans to war zones had taken their toll. The physical and emotional wounds of returning troops were widespread. And while politicians were fond of waxing eloquent about “the fallen,” the continual massive spending for war and preparations for more of it depleted badly needed resources at home.
Status-Quo Militarism
President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton represented the status quo that Trump ran against and defeated. Like them, he was completely insulated from the harsh boomerang effects of the warfare state. Unlike them, he sensed how to effectively exploit the discontent and anger it was causing.
Obama was not clueless. He acknowledged some downsides to endless war in a much-praised speech during his second term in office. “Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue,” he affirmed at the National Defense University. “But this war, like all wars, must end. That’s what history advises. That’s what our democracy demands.”
New Yorker journalist Jane Mayer hailed that instance of presidential oratory in a piece touting Obama’s “anguish over the difficult trade-offs that perpetual war poses to a free society.” But such concerns were fleeting at the White House, while sparking little interest from mainstream journalists. Perpetual war had become wallpaper in the media echo chamber.
President Bush’s messianic calls to rid the world of “evil-doers” had fallen out of fashion, but militarism remained firmly embedded in the political economy. Corporate contracts with the Pentagon and kindred agencies only escalated. But when Hillary Clinton ran for president in 2016, being a rigid hawk became a negative with the electorate as pro-Trump forces jumped into the opening she provided.
Six weeks before the election, Forbes published an article under the headline “Hillary Clinton Never Met a War She Didn’t Want Other Americans to Fight.” Written by Doug Bandow, former special assistant to President Ronald Reagan, the piece exemplified how partisan rhetoric about war and peace had abruptly changed. Clinton “almost certainly would lead America into more foolish wars,” Bandow contended, adding: “No one knows what Trump would do in a given situation, which means there is a chance he would do the right thing. In contrast, Clinton’s beliefs, behavior, and promises all suggest that she most likely would do the wrong thing, embracing a militaristic status quo which most Americans recognize has failed disastrously.”
Clinton was following a timeworn formula for Democrats trying to inoculate themselves against charges of being soft on foreign enemies, whether communists or terrorists. Yet Trump, deft at labeling his foes both wimps and warmongers, ran rings around the Democratic nominee. In that close election, Clinton’s resolutely pro-war stance may have cost her the presidency.
“Even controlling in a statistical model for many other alternative explanations, we find that there is a significant and meaningful relationship between a community’s rate of military sacrifice and its support for Trump,” a study by scholars Douglas Kriner and Francis Shen concluded. “Our statistical model suggests that if three states key to Trump’s victory — Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin — had suffered even a modestly lower casualty rate, all three could have flipped from red to blue and sent Hillary Clinton to the White House.” Professors Kriner and Shen suggested that Democrats might want to “reexamine their foreign policy posture if they hope to erase Trump’s electoral gains among constituencies exhausted and alienated by 15 years of war.”
But such advice went unheeded. Leading Democrats and Republicans remained on autopilot for the warfare state as the Pentagon budget kept rising.
On the War Train with Donald Trump
In 2018, the top Democrats in Washington, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, boasted that they were fully aligned with President Trump in jacking up Pentagon spending. After Trump called for an 11% increase over two years in the already-bloated “defense” budget, Pelosi sent an email to House Democrats declaring, “In our negotiations, congressional Democrats have been fighting for increases in funding for defense.” The office of Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer proudly stated: “We fully support President Trump’s Defense Department’s request.”
By then, fraying social safety nets and chronic fears of economic insecurity had become ever more common across the country. The national pattern evoked Martin Luther King’s comment that profligate military spending was like “some demonic destructive suction tube.”
In 2020, recurring rhetoric from Joe Biden in his winning presidential campaign went like this: “If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever alter the character of our nation.” But Biden said nothing about how almost 20 years of nonstop war funding and war making had already altered the character of the nation.
At first glance, President Biden seemed to step away from continuing the “war on terror.” The last U.S. troops left Afghanistan by the end of August 2021. Speaking to the United Nations General Assembly weeks later, he proclaimed: “I stand here today, for the first time in 20 years, with the United States not at war.” But even as he spoke, a new report from the Costs of War Project at Brown University indicated that the “war on terror” persisted on several continents. “The war continues in over 80 countries,” said Catherine Lutz, the project’s co-director. The war’s cost to taxpayers, the project estimated, was already at least $8 trillion.
Biden’s designated successor, Vice President Kamala Harris, displayed a traditional militaristic reflex while campaigning against Trump. In her acceptance speech at the Democratic convention she pledged to maintain “the strongest, most lethal fighting force in the world.” Such rhetoric was problematic for attracting voters from the Democratic base reluctant to cast ballots for a war party. More damaging to her election prospects was her refusal to distance herself from Biden’s insistence on continuing to supply huge quantities of weaponry to Israel for the horrific war in Gaza.
Supplementing the automatic $3.8 billion in annual U.S. military aid to Israel, special new appropriations for weaponry totaling tens of billions of dollars enabled mass killing in Gaza. Poll results at the time showed that Harris would have gained support in swing states if she had called for an arms embargo on Israel as long as the Gaza war continued. She refused to do so.
Post-election polling underscored how Harris’s support for that Israeli war appreciably harmed her chances to defeat Trump. In 2024, as in 2016, Trump notably benefitted from the unwavering militarism of his Democratic opponent.
Overseas, the realities of nonstop war have been unfathomably devastating. Estimates from the Costs of War Project put the number of direct deaths in major war zones from U.S.-led actions under the “war on terror” brand at more than 900,000. With indirect deaths included, the number jumps to “4.5 million and counting.” The researchers explain that “some people were killed in the fighting, but far more, especially children, have been killed by the reverberating effects of war, such as the spread of disease.”
That colossal destruction of faraway human beings and the decimation of distant societies have gotten scant attention in mainstream U.S. media and politics. The far-reaching impacts of incessant war on American life in this century have also gotten short shrift. Midway through the Biden presidency, trying to sum up some of those domestic impacts, I wrote in my book War Made Invisible:
“Overall, the country is gripped by war’s dispersed and often private consequences — the aggravated tendencies toward violence, the physical wartime injuries, the post-traumatic stress, the profusion of men who learned to use guns and were trained to shoot to kill when scarcely out of adolescence, the role modeling from recruitment ads to popular movies to bellicose bombast from high-ranking leaders, and much more. The country is also in the grip of tragic absences: the health care not deemed fundable by those who approve federal budgets larded with military spending, the child care and elder care and family leave not provided by those same budgets, the public schools deprived of adequate funding, the college students and former students saddled with onerous debt, the uncountable other everyday deficits that have continued to lower the bar of the acceptable and the tolerated.”
While the warfare state seems all too natural to most politicians and journalists, its consequences over time have been transformational for the United States in ways that have distinctly skewed the political climate. Along the way, militarism has been integral to the rise of the billionaire tech barons who are now teaming up with an increasingly fascistic Donald Trump.
The Military-Industrial-Tech Complex
While President Trump has granted Elon Musk unprecedented power, many other tech moguls have rushed to ingratiate themselves. The pandering became shameless within hours of his election victory last November.
“Congratulations to President Trump on a decisive victory,” Meta’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote. “We have great opportunities ahead of us as a country. Looking forward to working with you and your administration.” Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, Whole Foods, and the Washington Post, tweeted: “wishing @realDonaldTrump all success in leading and uniting the America we all love.”
Amazon Web Services alone has numerous government contracts, including one with the National Security Agency worth $10 billion and deals with the Pentagon pegged at $9.7 billion. Such commerce is nothing new. For many years, thousands of contracts have tied the tech giants to the military-industrial complex.
Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos, and smaller rivals are at the helm of corporations eager for government megadeals, tax breaks, and much more. For them, the governmental terrain of the new Trump era is the latest territory to navigate for maximizing their profits. With annual military outlays at 54% of all federal discretionary spending, the incentives are astronomical for all kinds of companies to make nice with the war machine and the man now running it.
While Democrats in Congress have long denounced Trump as an enemy of democracy, they haven’t put any sort of brake on American militarism. Certainly, there are many reasons for Trump’s second triumph, including his exploitation of racism, misogyny, nativism, and other assorted bigotries. Yet his election victories owe much to the Democratic Party’s failure to serve the working class, a failure intermeshed with its insistence on serving the industries of war. Meanwhile, spending more on the military than the next nine countries combined, U.S. government leaders tacitly lay claim to a kind of divine overpowering virtue.
As history attests, militarism can continue for many decades while basic democratic structures, however flawed, remain in place. But as time goes on, militarism is apt to be a major risk factor for developing some modern version of fascism. The more war and preparations for war persist, with all their economic and social impacts, the more core traits of militarism — including reliance on unquestioning obedience to authority and sufficient violence to achieve one’s goals — will permeate the society at large.
During the last 10 years, Donald Trump has become ever more autocratic, striving not just to be the nation’s commander-in-chief but also the commandant of a social movement increasingly fascistic in its approach to laws and civic life. He has succeeded in taking on the role of top general for the MAGA forces. The frenzies that energize Trump’s base and propel his strategists have come to resemble the mentalities of warfare. The enemy is whoever dares to get in his way.
A warfare state is well suited for such developments. Pretending that militarism is not a boon to authoritarian politics only strengthens it. The time has certainly come to stop pretending.
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Can Big Balls Live Up to His Name and Take on the Pentagon Behemoth?
It’s going take some really big balls to change this Department of War (That’s DOW as in the stock prices that are at stake) into a true Department of Defense.
Feb 26, 2025
USAID is by no means a perfect organization. It has a long and storied history—some of it good, some of it bad. On the one hand, it provides food for starving people, helps prevent and treat HIV, and provides disaster relief and support. On the other hand, it harms the development of agriculture in client states, acts as a front for the CIA, and meddles in the internal affairs of other countries to the detriment of popular grassroots movements.
There’s waste and inefficiency in any large-scale human undertaking. USAID is no exception. If only we humans were as efficient as ants.
President Donald Trump and Elon Musk chose to take a chainsaw and cut down the entire USAID tree rather than prune the dead and diseased wood.
But in relation to the size of the federal discretionary budget, USAID is small potatoes. In the chart above, the entire USAID budget is the skinniest slice of the pie.
The biggest slice—the one that takes up half of the entire pie—is the Pentagon budget. The Pentagon—just the civilians—represents more than one-third of the entire federal civilian workforce.
The Pentagon is America’s biggest spender, biggest waster, and the most corrupt department in the entire federal government. It took 1,700 auditors to conclude that they just can’t find $4.1 trillion in assets.
The Pentagon has never passed an audit, but every year, Congress gives them more money. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that manufacturers of shoddy weapons systems invest tens of millions into congressional members’ reelection campaigns. Then these weapons contractors hire lobbyists, usually former Pentagon employees themselves, to wine, dine, and otherwise schmooze the senators and representatives who sit on defense appropriations committees. In turn, these members vote to keep the gravy train running to the tune of billions. Weapons contractors reap the rewards, which come out to be about a 450,000% return on their investment. Not to mention the 50-plus members of Congress who either directly, or through spouses, hold stock in these companies that continue to price gouge the Pentagon. If the Pentagon were a public company listed on NYSEC, its top executives would all be in jail.
There is some good news to be had. President Trump and Elon Musk say they are gunning for the Pentagon next. No doubt they will not chop down the whole tree, instead choosing to prune, unlike their strategy for minor-spending USAID. Let’s hope they plan to cut the Pentagon budget down to what’s necessary to defend the land we live on, and pull back from our previous strategy of controlling the entire world by military force. Instead of just fiddling around the edges and focusing on thousand-dollar soap dispensers, let’s hope Trump meant it when he talked about cutting hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons systems that have nothing to do with defending the U.S. To get into it at the Pentagon, Elon is touting one of his “top DOGE team members,” a young genius gent who goes by the name of “Big Balls.”
Well, Big Balls, should you choose to take on the Pentagon behemoth, know that you have your work cut out for you. Much of its waste is hidden in plain sight: Thousands of nuclear weapons are already overkill, with thousands more planned. Weapons systems that don’t work and cost American taxpayers billions. Corrupt weapons manufacturers price gouging the government for weapons that spend more time in the shop than available for service. Warplanes that are so needlessly complex that only the contractor who constructed the piece of crap is capable of repairing them. Former Pentagon generals, who take their insider knowledge straight to the source in their retirement, often lining up cushy board seats at these very same weapons manufacturers, fleecing the American people.
Those are some mighty foes and entrenched interests for you to take on, Big Balls. Hundreds of billions of dollars of waste, fraud, abuse, and insane, irrational, and immoral policies are at stake. There’s going to be a lot of war profiteers who will attack you. It will be a David and Goliath-esque undertaking. And it’s going take some really big balls to end it and to change this Department of War (That’s DOW as in the stock prices that are at stake) into a true Department of Defense, whose job is defending the land we live on, rather than controlling the entire world through endless wars.
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