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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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$60 Billion in Waste and Fraud Easily Found Where Trump Refuses to Cut: The Pentagon
"We need a better balance between military spending and investments in diplomacy, development, humanitarian aid, global public health, and environmental protection," said one analyst.
Feb 28, 2025
A trio of government watchdogs on Friday advised U.S. President Donald Trump and his billionaire adviser, Elon Musk, to take a "road map for achieving efficiency" at the only federal agency that has failed seven consecutive audits of its spending, and the one that spends by far the most in taxpayer money: the Department of Defense.
The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has spent recent weeks seizing data and slashing spending and tens of thousands of employees at agencies across the government, including the Department of Education, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the Department of Labor.
But Musk's advisory body has had considerably less to say about waste and fraud at the Pentagon. The Tesla CEO met with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this month for preliminary talks about possible spending cuts; Hegseth suggested climate programs at the Pentagon could be on the chopping block, but did not mention any cuts to weapons systems—advocating instead to shift current spending to other DOD programs.
"Unlike cuts to education, medical research, environmental protection, and food assistance programs, the administration is proposing that any Pentagon 'savings' be redirected to missile defense systems, border militarization, and other controversial and destructive military projects," wrote Mike Merryman-Lotze of the American Friends Service Committee in a column on Friday. "This is an enormous missed opportunity. We don't need a rearranging of the deck chairs on the Pentagon's titanic budget. We need fundamental change."
A new report by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, the Stimson Center, and Taxpayers for Common Sense on Friday suggested "eliminating dysfunctional weapons systems and outmoded business practices"—steps that would cut at least $60 billion in waste and inefficiencies at the DOD.
"The result will be more security at a lower cost," said William Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute.
The report highlights significant cuts that could be made, including:
- The F-35 combat aircraft program, saving $12 billion or more per year;
- Aircraft carriers, saving $2.3 billion or more annually;
- Canceling plans to replace land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), saving $310 billion total; and
- Cutting long-range missile defense, saving $9.3 billion per year.
The think tanks also advised introducing measures to rein in overcharging by defense contractors, who are known to charge the government as much as 3,800% above the fair and reasonable price, as one did for a spare part in a recent case; and cut excess basing infrastructure around the world, saving as much as $5 billion each year.
"Contrary to popular belief in Washington, national security and fiscal discipline are not mutually exclusive," reads the report. "In fact, they are inextricably linked. Budgeting for U.S. national security needs today and into the future requires that policymakers tackle wasteful spending and inefficiencies across the board, and with the Pentagon budget closing in on $1 trillion per year, the United States cannot afford to ignore it."
"Thankfully, tackling Pentagon programs and practices that do not offer a good return on investment will not only save taxpayers billions of dollars—it will also help illuminate and sustain the U.S.' greatest national security priorities," the report continues.
Gabe Murphy of Taxpayers for Common Sense pointed out that F-35 combat aircrafts and the Sentinel ICBM are "overpriced, underperforming, and out of step with current missions."
Defunding such weapons programs "would allow us to invest more in real priorities," said Murphy.
Truly eliminating waste at the Pentagon, Hartung toldThe Intercept on Friday, "would mean abandoning America's 'cover the globe' military strategy in favor of a genuinely defensive approach, and one would have to make sure that cuts in legacy systems weren't just filled in with drones and other emerging tech."
"We need a better balance between military spending and investments in diplomacy, development, humanitarian aid, global public health, and environmental protection," Hartung added. "Some of our biggest existential threats are not military in nature—such as climate change and pandemics."
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Trump Walks Back Call to Cut Military Spending—Not Surprising, But a Huge Mistake
We don’t need a rearranging of the deck chairs on the Pentagon’s titanic budget. We need fundamental change.
Feb 28, 2025
For a brief moment, President Donald Trump gave peace advocates a reason to be hopeful. After decades of unchecked and counterproductive military spending, he appeared to support major cuts to the military budget.
On Feb. 13, Trump said that the U.S. should engage with Russia and China to work towards denuclearization, noting that the U.S. is wasting money on new and upgraded nuclear bombs when we already have enough weapons “to destroy the world 50 times over.” He said that by reaching agreements with rival nations, the U.S. could reduce runaway military spending by as much as 50%.
The following week, Defense Secretary Hegseth called for cuts of up to 8% in the Pentagon budget for each of the next five years, including up to $50 billion in cuts over the next year alone. While far less than a 50% reduction, an 8% cut to a budget that exceeds a trillion dollars would still represent a significant shift away from decades of bipartisan unchecked military spending.
Unfortunately, it quickly became clear that any cuts to existing Pentagon programs will not lower U.S. military spending. Unlike cuts to education, medical research, environmental protection, and food assistance programs, the administration is proposing that any Pentagon “savings” be redirected to missile defense systems, border militarization, and other controversial and destructive military projects.
The Pentagon budget remains one of the few areas of the budget where substantial cuts can and should be made.
This is an enormous missed opportunity. We don’t need a rearranging of the deck chairs on the Pentagon’s titanic budget. We need fundamental change.
In fiscal year 2023, the U.S. spent 62% of the discretionary budget on military spending, totaling more than $1.1 trillion. This left only 38% of discretionary funding to pay for education, infrastructure, scientific research, diplomacy, agriculture, social programs, and more.
The Pentagon budget remains one of the few areas of the budget where substantial cuts can and should be made. For over two decades, military spending has grown year after year with little regard to actual need. Congress adds money to Presidential requests for military spending, even as it slashes other parts of the budget. In the reconciliation package passed by the House on February 25, this trend continued with congress not only passing an increased military budget, but also adding in an additional $150 billion in new military funding to be spent over two years.
Year after year, Congress gives the military even more money than it has requested. This happens regardless of what party is in power and regardless of other factors that should cause a reassessment of funding levels.
When the brutal U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan finally came to an end, it would have been a natural time to reduce military spending. Instead, Congress added money to the military budget. The Pentagon has failed seven audits in a row and can’t account for over $3 trillion in assets, but still Congress increased the budget. Between 2013 and 2018 the Pentagon returned $80 billion in unspent funds to the Treasury, but in each of these years Congress increased the budget.
Rather than moving funding around, Trump should stick to his word and pursue a 50% reduction in military spending realized through diplomacy and direct engagement with international rivals.
Congress also mandates that the Pentagon provide it with an “unfunded priorities list” so that it can fund even more weapons. This includes funding for weapons systems that don’t work and that the Pentagon has explicitly said it does not need. But lawmakers from both parties continue to advance the interests of military contractors and weapons manufacturers.
Towards the end of his term, President Obama announced plans to spend over a trillion dollars to upgrade the U.S. nuclear arsenal. Today, President Trump is poised to continue this investment in weapons systems that are already powerful enough to end all life on earth. Despite paying lip service to denuclearization, the changes demanded by Hegseth and supported by Trump explicitly exclude cuts to ongoing upgrades to U.S. nuclear weapons systems.
Instead, Trump and Hegseth want to cut military programs to address climate change, a serious concern given the fact that the U.S. military is the largest global institutional producer of greenhouse gasses. Diversity programming is also on the chopping block. These are small budget items that address real world problems. The actual drivers of runaway military spending remain untouched.
And all of this comes as the U.S. has decimated its investments in international diplomacy and development, including conflict prevention programming. Ironically, the total foreign affairs budget that was cut by the Trump administration is just over $50 billion, the same as the amount that is being reprioritized by the Pentagon.
Rather than moving funding around, Trump should stick to his word and pursue a 50% reduction in military spending realized through diplomacy and direct engagement with international rivals. Money saved by such a reduction could easily be reinvested in conflict prevention, development, and poverty reduction abroad as well as green jobs, scientific research, environmental protection, medical research, health care, education, and other needs that benefit all of us.
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