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robert mcnamara
The Truth-Teller: From the Pentagon Papers to the Doomsday Machine
Daniel Ellsberg discusses the continuing existential threat posed by the military-industrial complex
May 18, 2019
This interview was originally published on the Great Transition Initiative website. See more of GTI's work here.
The growth of the military-industrial complex poses an existential threat to humanity. Daniel Ellsberg, peace activist and Vietnam War whistleblower discusses with Tellus Senior Fellow Allen White the continuing existential threat posed by the military-industrial complex--and what needs to be done about it.
You became a pivotal figure in the anti-Vietnam War movement when you released the Pentagon Papers, a large batch of classified documents that revealed a quarter century of official deception and aggression. What inspired you to take such a risky action?
After graduating from Harvard with an economics degree and completing service in the U.S. Marines, I worked as a military analyst at the RAND Corporation. In 1961, in that role, I went to Vietnam as part of a Department of Defense task force and saw that our prospects there were extremely dim. It was clear to me that military intervention was a losing proposition.
Three years later, I moved from RAND to the Department of Defense. On my first day, I was assigned to a team tasked with devising a response to the alleged attack on the U.S. naval warship USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin by the North Vietnamese. This completely fabricated incident became the excuse for bombing North Vietnam, which the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had wanted to do for some months.
That night, I saw President Lyndon Johnson and my boss, Secretary McNamara, knowingly lie to the public that North Vietnam had without provocation attacked the U.S. ship.
That night, I saw President Lyndon Johnson and my boss, Secretary McNamara, knowingly lie to the public that North Vietnam had without provocation attacked the U.S. ship. In fact, the U.S. had covertly attacked North Vietnam the night before and on previous nights. Johnson and McNamara's claim that the U.S. did not seek to widen the war was the exact opposite of reality. In short, the Gulf of Tonkin crisis was based on lies. I was not yet moved to leave government, though I had come to view U.S. military action as ineffective, illegitimate, and deadly, without rationale or endgame.
By 1969, as the war progressed under Richard Nixon, I saw such evil in government deceit that I asked myself, "What can I do to shorten a war that I know from an insider's vantage point is going to continue and expand?" When the Pentagon Papers were released in 1971, the extent of government lies shocked the public. The retaliatory crimes Nixon committed against me out of fear that I would expose his own continuing threats--including nuclear threats--ultimately helped to bring him down and shorten the Vietnam War. This outcome had seemed impossible after his landslide reelection in 1972.
Today, similar revelations do not occasion equal shock because in the current administration in Washington, lying is routine rather than exceptional. Whether we are headed for a turning point toward bringing liars to justice will become clear when the investigations of President Donald Trump's administration are concluded.
Since then, you have been a vocal critic of both U.S. military interventions and the continued embrace of nuclear weapons, an issue with which you had first-hand familiarity through your work at RAND and the Pentagon. How did your experience with nuclear policy contribute to your disillusionment with U.S. foreign policy writ large?
At RAND, Cold War presuppositions dominated all our work. We were certain that the U.S. was behind in the arms race and that the Soviet Union, in pursuit of world domination, would exploit its lead by achieving a capacity to disarm the United States entirely of its nuclear retaliatory force. We were convinced that we were facing a Hitler with nuclear weapons.
However, in 1961, I learned about a highly classified new estimate of Soviet weapons: four intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). At the time, the U.S. had forty ICBMs, as well as thousands of intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Italy, Britain, and Turkey (compared to the Soviet Union's total of zero). General Thomas Power, head of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), believed that the Russians had 1,000 ICBMs. He was wrong by a factor of 250. This early mistaken belief signaled to me that something was very wrong with our perception of the world and, more specifically, with how we perceived the threat posed by the nation viewed as our most formidable adversary.
At the time, I regarded the erroneous "missile gap" as a misunderstanding or cognitive error of some kind. But, in fact, it was very much a motivated error--motivated in particular by the desires of the Air Force and SAC to justify their budget requests for huge increases in the numbers of U.S. bombers and missiles. But why did we at RAND uncritically accept the wildly inflated Air Force Intelligence estimates, rather than the contrary estimates by Army and Navy Intelligence that the Soviets had produced only "a few" ICBMs? Again, a motivated error. Through self-deception, we viewed ourselves as independent thinkers focused exclusively on national security, assuming that our role as contractors on the Air Force payroll had no influence on our analysis.
In retrospect, it is clear that our focus and our recommendations would have been very different had we been working for the Navy. As Upton Sinclair said, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it." It was very important to us not to understand that our work was above all serving to justify the exaggerated budget demands by the Air Force.
That killings of this magnitude--100 times the toll of Jewish victims of the Holocaust--were willingly contemplated by our military transcended prevailing notions of crimes against humanity.
My distrust of the wisdom of Pentagon planners was also aroused by JCS estimates of the death toll resulting from deployment of our nuclear weapons. I had heard that the JCS avoided calculating this figure because they didn't want to know how many people they would be killing. To confront them, I drafted a question that appeared in a letter from the White House Deputy for National Security, Robert Komer, transmitted in the name of President Kennedy: "If your war plans were carried out as written and were successful, how many people would be killed in the Soviet Union and China?"
Within a week, I held in my hand a top secret, eyes-only-for-the-president document with an estimate of 325 million fatalities in the first six months. A week later, a second communication added an estimated 100 million deaths in Eastern Europe and another 100 million in our allied nations of Western Europe, depending upon the wind patterns in the aftermath of the strike. Additional deaths in Japan, India, Afghanistan, and other countries brought the total to 600 million.
That killings of this magnitude--100 times the toll of Jewish victims of the Holocaust--were willingly contemplated by our military transcended prevailing notions of crimes against humanity. We had no words--indeed, there are no words--for such devastation. These data confronted me with not only the question of whom I was working with and for, but also the fundamental question of how such human depravity was possible.
Your recent book, The Doomsday Machine, describes "a very expensive system of men, machines, electronics, communications, institutions, plans, training, discipline, practices and doctrine designed to obliterate the Soviet Union under various circumstances, with most of the rest of humanity as collateral damage." How did this system come about?
World War II created a highly profitable aerospace sector upon which the U.S. military relied for strategic bombing of cities, thereby setting the stage for the idea of bombers as a delivery mechanism for nuclear weapons. As orders precipitously declined by the end of the war, the industry was in dire financial straits, facing bankruptcy within a year or two. Accustomed to the guaranteed profits of the war years, they found themselves unable to compete with corporations experienced in building non-military products for the market, and demand for civilian aircraft on the part of commercial airlines was insufficient to replace the wartime military business.
With the benefit of hindsight, I now see the Cold War as, in part, a marketing campaign for the continual, massive subsidies to the aerospace industry.
The Air Force grew concerned that the industry would be unable to survive on a scale adequate to deliver military superiority in future conflicts. In the eyes of the government--and industry lobbyists--the only solution was a large peacetime (Cold War) Air Force with wartime-level sales to keep the industry afloat.
Thus emerged the military-industrial complex. Mobilization to confront a Hitler-like external enemy--a role filled by the Soviet Union--was viewed as indispensable to national security. Government military planning followed, essentially socialism for the whole armaments industry, including but not limited to aircraft production. With the benefit of hindsight, I now see the Cold War as, in part, a marketing campaign for the continual, massive subsidies to the aerospace industry. That's what it became after the war, and that's what we are seeing again today. The contemporary analog is the idea of China as an existential enemy, which, I believe, is the dream and expectation of the U.S. Defense Department.
The threat of nuclear conflict persists as a near-term existential threat yet remains muted in political discourse and largely absent in public consciousness. How do you explain this glaring inconsistency?
Contemporary U.S. media focuses on contradictions and conflicts between the two major parties. On the issue of nuclear weapons, little difference exists between them. They support the same programs and both receive donations from Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon, among others. They both favor more aircraft than the Pentagon requests, itself an amazing situation given the existing level of spending. Right now, the F35, the largest military project in history, may end up costing $1.5 trillion (an incredible sum even by historical standards of lavish Pentagon spending), yet still unable to achieve the promised performance. This kind of massive pork program is used by senators and representatives to secure political advantage--a "jobs" program that often is a euphemism for a "profits" program.
Nuclear weapons and climate change are two quintessential planetary threats requiring a coordinated global response. Do you see potential for alignment and cooperation between the anti-nuclear movement and the climate justice movement?
We, as a society, are conscious of the risk of the devastating impacts that could come from climate disruption. In contrast to the absence of public discourse around nuclear conflict since the end of the Cold War, climate has been a subject of intense public debate. Although the danger of the nuclear threat remains undiminished, the proposed $1.7 trillion nuclear modernization program in the U.S. is not a matter of serious debate.
It is difficult to compare climate and nuclear threats. The climate catastrophe toward which we are moving, while uncertain in terms of timing and outcomes, is indisputable. We have survived the nuclear danger for seventy years, although we have come close to conflict more frequently than the public realizes. I am not talking about just the Cuban Missile Crisis; in 1983, for example, we were also at the brink of a nuclear exchange, and there have been other instances. The risk of conflagration remains continuous and potentially catastrophic.
It is true that climate change may totally disrupt civilization as we know it, but how many lives would it cost? Whatever the number, some form of civilization would probably survive. By contrast, a nuclear winter, which has a non-zero possibility of occurring, would occasion near extinction.
That being said, both climate and nuclear threats are existential in nature, even as the degree and type of destruction differ. And both share another critical feature: the role of corporate interests and influence in sustaining the threat. As we speak, a pristine Arctic snowfield is under threat of oil drilling. Will Exxon and the other corporations be content to leave their known oil reserves in the ground, as needs to be done? I think that's as unlikely as Boeing eschewing military contracts.
Both climate and nuclear threats are existential in nature, even as the degree and type of destruction differ. And both share another critical feature: the role of corporate interests and influence in sustaining the threat.
To the question of alignment of the nuclear and climate movements, in my view, we cannot deal with the climate problem, globally or nationally, without massive government spending to speed up the production and lower the cost of renewables, and thereby accelerate the transition from a fossil fuel economy to a renewable energy one. This will also require subsidies to the underdeveloped countries to ease their transitions. In short, we need a new super-sized Marshall Plan combined with government regulation to constrain the most damaging impulses of the fossil-based market economy embraced by Reagan, Thatcher, and other market fundamentalists. We need a national mobilization akin to that achieved during World War II. We confronted Hitler then as a civilizational threat. Climate disruption demands an equivalent response.
And here's where the climate-nuclear nexus comes into play again. We cannot afford the wasteful and dangerous development of new nuclear weapons that "modernize" the Doomsday Machine at the same time that we need to apply vast sums to reduce the threat of climate disruption. In the face of imminent climate catastrophe, the $700-plus-billion military budget is both untenable and irresponsible. We must convert the military economy to a climate economy. We cannot have both. To do so, we must recognize that the risks posed by the military-industrial complex far exceed those posed by Russia.
The Great Transition envisions a fundamental shift in societal values and norms. To what extent does eliminating the nuclear threat ultimately depend on such a shift?
Few would disagree that to activate plans for deployment of nuclear weapons leading to a nuclear winter--and thereby killing nearly everyone on Earth--is immoral to a degree that words cannot convey. It is a crime that transcends any human conception or language. But what about the threat of deployment? For many, propagating the threat of an immoral act is itself immoral. But in the nuclear era, the nuclear states have not accepted that as a norm. Our entire nuclear posture, and that of our NATO allies, is based on deterrence of a nuclear war and, if it occurs, responding with our nuclear arsenal.
Revisiting this norm is very difficult. It is deeply embedded in the mindset of the U.S., Russia, and other nuclear-armed states and reinforced by the interests of powerful corporations. When Reagan and Gorbachev agreed that nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought, they did not say that it cannot be threatened or risked. Both nations continued such preparations and do so to this day. We have been taught that nuclear weapons are a necessary evil. Without a shift in norms and values, this situation will not change.
The Great Transition depicts a hopeful future rooted in solidarity, well-being, and ecological resilience. Given the dystopian scenarios you outline in The Doomsday Machine and your other work, where do you see the basis for hope?
My intention in addressing the threat of nuclear annihilation is that it will at least open up the possibility of change. While such a shift in values and norms would be almost miraculous, miracles can happen, and have happened in my lifetime. In 1985, the falling of the Berlin wall a mere four years later would have seemed improbable, if not impossible, given decades of nuclear tensions and near conflicts. But then it happened. And Nelson Mandela coming to power in South Africa, without a violent revolution, was impossible. But it happened.
So, unpredictable changes like these can happen, and their possibility inspires my commitment to continue my peace activities against long odds. My activity is based on the belief that small probabilities can be enlarged and that, however remote success may be, it is worthwhile pursuing because so much is at stake.
My experience with the Pentagon Papers showed that an act of truth-telling, of exposing the realities about which the public had been misled, can indeed help end an unnecessary, deadly conflict. This example is a lesson applicable to both the nuclear and climate crises we face. When everything is at stake, it is worth risking one's life or sacrificing one's freedom in order to help bring about radical change.
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How the Pentagon Took Ownership of Con Man Donald Trump
When it comes to raising money based on false claims, this president has nothing on the Pentagon. And worse yet, like America's wars, the Pentagon's long con shows no sign of ending.
Apr 30, 2019
Donald Trump is a con man. Think of Trump University or a juicy Trump steak or can't-lose casinos (that never won). But as president, one crew he hasn't conned is the Pentagon. Quite the opposite, they've conned him because they've been at the game a lot longer and lie (in Trump-speak) in far biglier ways.
People condemn President Trump for his incessant lying and his con games -- and rightly so. But few Americans condemn the Pentagon and the rest of the national security state, even though we've been the victims of their long con for decades now. As it happens, from the beginning of the Cold War to late last night, they've remained remarkably skilled at exaggerating the threats the U.S. faces and, believe me, that represents the longest con of all. It's kept the military-industrial complex humming along, thanks to countless trillions of taxpayer dollars, while attempts to focus a spotlight on that scam have been largely discredited or ignored.
One thing should have, but hasn't, cut through all the lies: the grimly downbeat results of America's actual wars. War by its nature tells harsh truths -- in this case, that the U.S. military is anything but "the finest fighting force that the world has ever known." Why? Because of its almost unblemished record of losing, or at least never winning, the wars it engages in. Consider the disasters that make up its record from Vietnam in the 1960s and 1970s to, in the twenty-first century, the Iraq War that began with the invasion of 2003 and the nearly 18-year debacle in Afghanistan -- and that's just to start down a list. You could easily add Korea (a 70-year stalemate/truce that remains troublesome to this day), a disastrous eight-year-old intervention in Libya, a quarter century in (and out and in) Somalia, and the devastating U.S.-backed Saudi war in Yemen, among so many other failed interventions.
In short, the U.S. spends staggering sums annually, essentially stolen from a domestic economy and infrastructure that's fraying at the seams, on what still passes for "defense." The result: botched wars in distant lands that have little, if anything, to do with true defense, but which the Pentagon uses to justify yet more funding, often in the name of "rebuilding" a "depleted" military. Instead of a three-pointed pyramid scheme, you might think of this as a five-pointed Pentagon scheme, where losing only wins you ever more, abetted by lies that just grow and grow. When it comes to raising money based on false claims, this president has nothing on the Pentagon. And worse yet, like America's wars, the Pentagon's long con shows no sign of ending. Eat your heart out, Donald Trump!
Eternal MADness
"So many lies, so little time" is a phrase that comes to mind when I think of the 40 years I've spent up close and personal with the U.S. military, half on active duty as an Air Force officer. Where to begin? How about with those bomber and missile "gaps," those alleged shortfalls vis-a-vis the Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s? They amounted to Chicken Little-style sky-is-falling hoaxes, but they brought in countless billions of dollars in military funding. In fact, the "gaps" then were all in our favor, as this country held a decisive edge in both strategic bombers and nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles, or ICBMs.
Or consider the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that served to authorize horrific attacks on Vietnam in retaliation for a North Vietnamese attack on U.S. Navy destroyers that never happened. Or think about the consistent exaggeration of Soviet weapons capabilities in the 1970s (the hype surrounding its MiG-25 Foxbat fighter jet, for example) that was used to justify a new generation of ultra-expensive American weaponry. Or the justifications for the Reagan military buildup of the 1980s -- remember the Strategic Defense Initiative (aka "Star Wars") or the MX ICBM and Pershing II missiles, not to speak of the neutron bomb and alarming military exercises that nearly brought us to nuclear war with the "Evil Empire" in 1983. Or think of another military miracle: the "peace dividend" that never arrived after the Soviet Union imploded in 1991 and the last superpower (you know which one) was left alone on a planet of minor "rogue states." And don't forget that calamitous "shock and awe" invasion of Iraq in 2003 in the name of neutralizing weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist or the endless global war on terror that still ignores the fact that 15 of the 19 September 11th terrorist hijackers came from Saudi Arabia.
And this endless long con of the Pentagon's was all the more effective because so many of its lies were sold by self-serving politicians. Exhibit one was, of course, John F. Kennedy's embrace of that false missile gap in winning the 1960 presidential election. Still, the Pentagon was never shy in its claims. Take the demand of the Air Force then for 10,000 -- yes, you read that right! -- new ICBMs to counter a Soviet threat that then numbered no more than a few dozen such missiles (as Daniel Ellsberg reminds us in his recent book, The Doomsday Machine).
To keep the Air Force happy, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara settled on a mere 1,000 land-based Minuteman missiles to augment the 54 older Titan II ICBMs in that service's arsenal, a figure I committed to memory as a teenager in the 1970s. And don't forget that some of those missiles were MIRVed, meaning they had multiple nuclear warheads that could hit many targets. It all added up to the threat of what, in those years, came to be called "mutually assured destruction," better known by its all-too-apt acronym, MAD.
And the Pentagon's version of madness never ends. Think, for instance, of the planned three-decade $1.7 trillion "modernization" of the U.S. nuclear triad now underway, justified in the name of "overmatching" China and Russia, "near-peer" rivals in Pentagon-speak. No matter that America's current triad of land-based, submarine-based, and air-deployed nukes already leave the arsenals of those two countries in the shade.
Reason doesn't matter when the idea of a new cold war with those two former enemies couldn't be more useful in justifying the through-the-ceiling $750 billion defense budget requested by President Trump for 2020. The Democrats have pushed back with a still-soaring budget of $733 billion that accepts without question the "baseline" minimum demanded by Pentagon officials, a level of spending Trump once called "crazy." Talk about resistance being futile!
In other words, when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars, the Washington establishment of both parties has essentially been assimilated into the Pentagon collective. The national security state, that (unacknowledged) fourth branch of government, has in many ways become the most powerful of all, siphoning off more than 60%of federal discretionary spending, while failing to pass a single audit of how it uses such colossal sums.
All of this is in service to what's known as a National Defense Strategy (NDS) whose main purpose is to justify yet more prodigious Pentagon spending. As Vietnam War veteran and professor at National Defense University Gregory Foster wrote of the latest version of that document:
"In the final analysis, the NDS is an unadulterated call for a new Cold War, with all its attendant appurtenances: more gluttonous defense spending to support escalatory arms races in all those 'contested domains' of warfare; reliance on bean-counting input measures (weapons, forces, spending) for determining comparative 'competitiveness'; reinforcement and reaffirmation of the sacrosanct American way of war; and the reassuring comfort of superimposing an artificially simplistic Manichean worldview on the world's inherent complexity and thereby continuing to ignore and marginalize actors, places, and circumstances that don't coincide with our established preconceptions."
Such a critique is largely lost on Donald Trump, a man who models himself on perceived tough guys like Andrew Jackson and Winston Churchill. During the 2016 presidential campaign, he did, at least, rail against the folly and cost of America's wars in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan. He said he wanted better relations with Russia. He talked about reinvesting in the United States rather than engaging in new wars. He even attacked costly weapons systems like the sky's-the-limit $1.4 trillion Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter.
Suffice it to say that, after two-plus years of posing as commander-in-chief, strong man Trump is now essentially owned by the Pentagon. America's wars continue unabated. U.S. troops remain in Syria and Afghanistan (despite the president's stated desire to remove them). Relations with Russia are tense as his administration tears up the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty negotiated by Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev.
What to make of the president's visible capitulation to the Pentagon? Sure, he's playing to his conservative base, which is generally up for more spending on weaponry and war, but like so many presidents before him, he's been conned as well. The con-man-in-chief has finally met his match: a national security state that, when you consider its record, has had far greater success at lying its way to power than Donald J. Trump.
The Biggest Lie of All
Now, let's take a hard look at ourselves when it comes to weaponry and those wars of "ours." Because the most significant lies aren't the ones the president tells us, but those we tell ourselves. The biggest of all: that we can continue to send young men and women off to war without those wars ever coming home.
Think again. America's shock-and-awe conflicts have indeed come home, big time -- with shocking and awful results. On some level, many Americans recognize this. PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) is now a well-known acronym. A smaller percentage of Americans know something about TBI, the traumatic brain injuries that already afflict an estimated 314,000 troops, often caused by IEDs (improvised explosive devices), another acronym it would have been better never to have to learn. Wounded Warrior projects remind us that veterans continue to suffer long after they've come home, with roughly 20 of them a day taking their own lives in a tragic epidemic of suicides. Meanwhile, surplus military equipment -- from automatic weapons to tank-like MRAPs -- made for the mean streets of Iraq are now deployed on Main Street, USA, by increasingly militarized police forces. Even the campus cops at Ohio State University have an MRAP!
Here, Americans would do well to ponder the words of Megan Stack, a war correspondent for the Los Angeles Times who drew on her own "education in war" when she wrote: "You can overcome the things that are done to you, but you cannot escape the things that you have done." She was undoubtedly thinking about subjects like the horrors of Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, torture at the CIA's "black sites," cities rubblized in the Greater Middle East, and refugees produced by the tens of millions. Somehow, sooner or later, it all comes home, whether we as Americans admit it, or even realize it, or not.
"Here is the truth," Stack notes:
"It matters, what you do at war. It matters more than you ever want to know. Because countries, like people, have collective consciences and memories and souls, and the violence we deliver in the name of our nation is pooled like sickly tar at the bottom of who we are. The soldiers who don't die for us come home again. They bring with them the killers they became on our national behalf, and sit with their polluted memories and broken emotions in our homes and schools and temples. We may wish it were not so, but action amounts to identity. We become what we do... All of that poison seeps back into our soil."
And so indeed it has. How else to explain the way Americans have come to tolerate, even celebrate, convenient lies: that, for instance, Tomahawk missile strikes in Syria could make a feckless figure like Donald Trump presidential or even that such missiles are beautiful, as former NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams once claimed. Imagine if leading media and political figures boasted instead of taking on the Pentagon, reining in its ambitions, and saving taxpayers trillions of dollars, as well as countless lives here and overseas.
Ending the Pentagon's Long Con
War is the ultimate audit and, as any American should know, the Pentagon is incapable of passing an audit. Sadly, even when Congress acts to end U.S. support for a near-genocidal war that has nothing to do with any imaginable definition of national defense, in this case in Yemen, President Trump vetoes it. Remember when Candidate Trump was against dumb and wasteful wars? Not anymore. Not, at least, if it involves the Saudis.
The best course for this country, unimaginable as it might seem today, is to fight wars only as a last resort and when genuinely threatened (a sentiment that 86% of Americans agree with). In other words, the U.S. should end every conflict it's currently engaged in, while bringing most of its troops home and downsizing its imperial deployments globally.
What's stopping us? Mainly our own fears, our own pride, our own readiness to believe lies. So let me list six things Americans could do that would curb our military mania:
1. Our nuclear forces remain the best in the world, which is hardly something to brag about. They need to be downsized, not modernized, with the goal of eliminating them -- before they eliminate us.
2. The notion that this country is suddenly engaged in a new cold war with China and Russia needs to be tossed in the trash can of history -- and fast.
3. From its first days, the war on terror has been the definition of a forever war. Isn't it finally time to end that series of conflicts? International terrorism is a threat best met by the determined efforts of international police and intelligence agencies.
4. It's finally time to stop believing that the U.S. military is all about deterrence and democracy, when all too often it's all about exploitation and dominance.
5. It's finally time to stop funding the Pentagon and the rest of the national security state at levels that outpace most of the other major military powers on this planet put together and instead invest such funds where they might actually count for Americans. With an appropriate change in strategy, notes defense analyst Nicolas Davies, the U.S. could reduce its annual Pentagon budget by 50%.
6. Finally, it's time to stop boasting endlessly of our military strength as the measure of our national strength. What are we, Sparta?
The Pentagon will never be forced to make significant reforms until Americans stop believing in (and consenting to) its comforting lies.
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War and Peace and the 2020 Presidential Candidates
While we can't guarantee that candidates will stick to their campaign promises, we still must ask this vital question: What prospects for peace might each of them bring to the White House?
Mar 27, 2019
Forty-five years after Congress passed the War Powers Act in the wake of the Vietnam War, it has finally used it for the first time, to try to end the U.S.-Saudi war on the people of Yemen and to recover its constitutional authority over questions of war and peace. This hasn't stopped the war yet, and President Trump has threatened to veto the bill. But its passage in Congress, and the debate it has spawned, could be an important first step on a tortuous path to a less militarized U.S. foreign policy in Yemen and beyond.
While the United States has been involved in wars throughout much of its history, since the 9/11 attacks the U.S. military has been engaged in a series of wars that have dragged on for almost two decades. Many refer to them as "endless wars." One of the basic lessons we have all learned from this is that it is easier to start wars than to stop them. So, even as we have come to see this state of war as a kind of "new normal," the American public is wiser, calling for less military intervention and more congressional oversight.
The rest of the world is wiser about our wars, too. Take the case of Venezuela, where the Trump administration insists that the military option is "on the table." While some of Venezuela's neighbors are collaborating with U.S. efforts to overthrow the Venezuelan government, none are offering their own armed forces.
"Ever since the Bush/Cheney administration launched the present-day 'Long Wars,' new presidents from both parties have dangled superficial appeals to peace during their election campaigns. But neither Obama nor Trump has seriously tried to end our 'endless' wars or rein in our runaway military spending."
The same applies in other regional crises. Iraq is refusing to serve as a staging area for a U.S.-Israeli-Saudi war on Iran. Traditional Western allies of the U.S. oppose Trump's unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear agreement and want peaceful engagement, not war, with Iran. South Korea is committed to a peace process with North Korea, despite the erratic nature of Trump's negotiations with North Korea's Chairman Kim Jung Un.
So what hope is there that one of the parade of Democrats seeking the presidency in 2020 could be a real "peace candidate"? Could one of them bring an end to these wars and prevent new ones? Walk back the brewing Cold War and arms race with Russia and China? Downsize the U.S. military and its all-consuming budget? Promote diplomacy and a commitment to international law?
Ever since the Bush/Cheney administration launched the present-day "Long Wars," new presidents from both parties have dangled superficial appeals to peace during their election campaigns. But neither Obama nor Trump has seriously tried to end our "endless" wars or rein in our runaway military spending.
Obama's opposition to the Iraq war and vague promises for a new direction were enough to win him the presidency and the Nobel Peace Prize, but not to bring us peace. In the end, he spent more on the military than Bush and dropped more bombs on more countries, including a ten-fold increase in CIA drone strikes. Obama's main innovation was a doctrine of covert and proxy wars that reduced U.S. casualties and muted domestic opposition to war, but brought new violence and chaos to Libya, Syria and Yemen. Obama's escalation in Afghanistan, the fabled "graveyard of empires," turned that war into the longest U.S. war since the U.S. conquest of Native America (1783-1924).
Trump's election was also boosted by false promises of peace, with recent war veterans delivering critical votes in the swing states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. But Trump quickly surrounded himself with generals and neocons, escalated the wars in Iraq, Syria, Somalia and Afghanistan, and has fully backed the Saudi-led war in Yemen. His hawkish advisers have so far ensured that any U.S. steps toward peace in Syria, Afghanistan or Korea remain symbolic, while U.S. efforts to destabilize Iran and Venezuela threaten the world with new wars. Trump's complaint, "We don't win any more," echoes through his presidency, ominously suggesting that he's still looking for a war he can "win."
While we can't guarantee that candidates will stick to their campaign promises, it is important to look at this new crop of presidential candidates and examine their views--and, when possible, voting records--on issues of war and peace. What prospects for peace might each of them bring to the White House?
Senator Sanders has the best voting record of any candidate on war and peace issues, especially on military spending. Opposing the oversized Pentagon budget, he has only voted for 3 out of 19 military spending bills since 2013. By this measure, no other candidate comes close, including Tulsi Gabbard. In other votes on war and peace, Sanders voted as requested by Peace Action 84% of the time from 2011 to 2016, despite some hawkish votes on Iran from 2011-2013.
One major contradiction in Sanders' opposition to out-of-control military spending has been his support for the world's most expensive and wasteful weapon system: the trillion-dollar F-35 fighter jet. Not only did Sanders support the F-35, he pushed--despite local opposition--to get these fighter jets stationed at the Burlington airport for the Vermont National Guard.
In terms of stopping the war in Yemen, Sanders has been a hero. Over the past year, he and Senators Murphy and Lee have led a sustained effort to shepherd his historic War Powers bill on Yemen through the Senate. Congressman Ro Khanna, whom Sanders has chosen as one of his 4 campaign co-chairs, has led the parallel effort in the House.
"Senator Sanders has the best voting record of any candidate on war and peace issues, especially on military spending."
Sanders' 2016 campaign highlighted his popular domestic proposals for universal healthcare and social and economic justice, but was criticized as light on foreign policy. Beyond chiding Clinton for being "too much into regime change," he seemed reluctant to debate her on foreign policy, despite her hawkish record. By contrast, during his current presidential run, he regularly includes the Military-Industrial Complex among the entrenched interests his political revolution is confronting, and his voting record backs up his rhetoric.
Sanders supports U.S. withdrawals from Afghanistan and Syria and opposes U.S. threats of war against Venezuela. But his rhetoric on foreign policy sometimes demonizes foreign leaders in ways that unwittingly lend support to the "regime change" policies he opposes - as when he joined a chorus of U.S. politicians labeling Colonel Gaddafi of Libya a "thug and a murderer," shortly before U.S.-backed thugs actually murdered Gaddafi.
Open Secrets shows Sanders taking in over $366,000 from the "defense industry" during his 2016 presidential campaign, but only $17,134 for his 2018 Senate reelection campaign.
So our question on Sanders is, "Which Bernie would we see in the White House?" Would it be the one who has the clarity and courage to vote "No" on 84% of military spending bills in the Senate, or the one who supports military boondoggles like the F-35 and can't resist repeating inflammatory smears of foreign leaders? It is vital that Sanders should appoint genuinely progressive foreign policy advisors to his campaign, and then to his administration, to complement his own greater experience and interest in domestic policy.
Tulsi Gabbard
While most candidates shy away from foreign policy, Congressmember Gabbard has made foreign policy--particularly ending war--the centerpiece of her campaign.
She was truly impressive in her March 10 CNN Town Hall, talking more honestly about U.S. wars than any other presidential candidate in recent history. Gabbard promises to end senseless wars like the one she witnessed as a National Guard officer in Iraq. She unequivocally states her opposition to U.S. "regime change" interventions, as well as the New Cold War and arms race with Russia, and supports rejoining the Iran nuclear deal. She was also an original cosponsor of Rep. Khanna's Yemen War Powers bill.
"Gabbard still believes in a militarized approach to counterterrorism, despite studies showing that this feeds a self-perpetuating cycle of violence on both sides."
But Gabbard's actual voting record on war and peace issues, especially on military spending, is not nearly as dovish as Sanders'. She voted for 19 of 29 military spending bills in the past 6 years, and she has only a 51% Peace Action voting record. Many of the votes that Peace Action counted against her were votes to fully fund controversial new weapons systems, including nuclear-tipped cruise missiles (in 2014, 2015 and 2016); an 11th U.S. aircraft-carrier (in 2013 and 2015); and various parts of Obama's anti-ballistic missile program, which fueled the New Cold War and arms race she now decries.
Gabbard voted at least twice (in 2015 and 2016) not to repeal the much-abused 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force, and she voted three times not to limit the use of Pentagon slush funds. In 2016, she voted against an amendment to cut the military budget by just 1%. Gabbard received $8,192 in "defense" industry contributions for her 2018 reelection campaign.
Gabbard still believes in a militarized approach to counterterrorism, despite studies showing that this feeds a self-perpetuating cycle of violence on both sides.
She is still in the military herself and embraces what she calls a "military mindset." She ended her CNN Town Hall by saying that being Commander-in-Chief is the most important part of being president. As with Sanders, we have to ask, "Which Tulsi would we see in the White House?" Would it be the Major with the military mindset, who cannot bring herself to deprive her military colleagues of new weapons systems or even a 1% cut from the trillions of dollars in military spending she has voted for? Or would it be the veteran who has seen the horrors of war and is determined to bring the troops home and never again send them off to kill and be killed in endless regime change wars?
Elizabeth Warren made her reputation with her bold challenges of our nation's economic inequality and corporate greed, and has slowly started to stake out her foreign policy positions. Her campaign website says that she supports "cutting our bloated defense budget and ending the stranglehold of defense contractors on our military policy." But, like Gabbard, she has voted to approve over two-thirds of the "bloated" military spending bills that have come before her in the Senate.
Her website also says, "It's time to bring the troops home," and that she supports "reinvesting in diplomacy." She has come out in favor of the U.S. rejoining the Iran nuclear agreement and has also proposed legislation that would prevent the United States from using nuclear weapons as a first-strike option, saying she wants to "reduce the chances of a nuclear miscalculation."
"Warren made her reputation with her bold challenges of our nation's economic inequality and corporate greed, and has slowly started to stake out her foreign policy positions."
Her Peace Action voting record exactly matches Sanders' for the shorter time she has sat in the Senate, and she was one of the first five Senators to cosponsor his Yemen War Powers bill in March 2018. Warren took in $34,729 in "Defense" industry contributions for her 2018 Senate reelection campaign.
With regards to Israel, the Senator angered many of her liberal constituents when, in 2014, she supported Israel's invasion of Gaza that left over 2,000 dead, and blamed the civilian casualties on Hamas. She has since taken a more critical position. She opposed a bill to criminalize boycotting Israel and condemned Israel's use of deadly force against peaceful Gaza protesters in 2018.
Warren is following where Sanders has led on issues from universal healthcare to challenging inequality and corporate, plutocratic interests, and she is also following him on Yemen and other war and peace issues. But as with Gabbard, Warren's votes to approve 68% of military spending bills reveal a lack of conviction on tackling the very obstacle she acknowledges: "the stranglehold of defense contractors on our military policy."
Senator Harris announced her candidacy for president in a lengthy speech in her native Oakland, CA, where she addressed a wide range of issues, but failed to mention U.S. wars or military spending at all. Her only reference to foreign policy was a vague statement about "democratic values," "authoritarianism" and "nuclear proliferation," with no hint that the U.S. has contributed to any of those problems. Either she's not interested in foreign or military policy, or she's afraid to talk about her positions, especially in her hometown in the heart of Barbara Lee's progressive congressional district.
"Either [Harris} is not interested in foreign or military policy, or she's afraid to talk about her positions."
One issue Harris has been vocal about in other settings is her unconditional support for Israel. She told an AIPAC conference in 2017, "I will do everything in my power to ensure broad and bipartisan support for Israel's security and right to self-defense." She demonstrated how far she would take that support for Israel when President Obama finally allowed the U.S. to join a UN Security Council resolution condemning illegal Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine as a "flagrant violation" of international law. Harris, Booker and Klobuchar were among 30 Democratic (and 47 Republican) Senators who cosponsored a bill to withhold U.S. dues to the UN over the resolution.
Faced with grassroots pressure to #SkipAIPAC in 2019, Harris did join most of the other presidential candidates who chose not to speak at AIPAC's 2019 gathering. She also supports rejoining the Iran nuclear agreement.
In her short time in the Senate, Harris has voted for six out of eight military spending bills, but she did cosponsor and vote for Sanders' Yemen War Powers bill. Harris was not up for reelection in 2018, but took in $26,424 in "Defense" industry contributions in the 2018 election cycle.
Kirsten Gillibrand
After Senator Sanders, Senator Gillibrand has the second best record on opposing runaway military spending, voting against 47% of military spending bills since 2013. Her Peace Action voting record is 80%, reduced mainly by the same hawkish votes on Iran as Sanders from 2011 to 2013. There is nothing on Gillibrand's campaign website about wars or military spending, despite serving on the Armed Services Committee. She took in $104,685 in "defense" industry contributions for her 2018 reelection campaign, more than any other senator running for president.
"Gillibrand cosponsored the Anti-Israel Boycott Act in 2017 but later withdrew her cosponsorship when pushed by grassroots opponents and the ACLU, and she voted against S.1, which included similar provisions, in January 2019."Gillibrand was an early cosponsor of Sanders' Yemen War Powers bill. She has also supported a full withdrawal from Afghanistan since at least 2011, when she worked on a withdrawal bill with then Senator Barbara Boxer and wrote a letter to Secretaries Gates and Clinton, asking for a firm commitment that U.S. troops would be out "no later than 2014."
Gillibrand cosponsored the Anti-Israel Boycott Act in 2017 but later withdrew her cosponsorship when pushed by grassroots opponents and the ACLU, and she voted against S.1, which included similar provisions, in January 2019. She has spoken favorably of Trump's diplomacy with North Korea. Originally a Blue Dog Democrat from rural upstate New York in the House, she has become more liberal as a Senator for New York state and now, as a presidential candidate.
Cory Booker
Senator Booker has voted for 16 out of 19 military spending bills in the Senate. He also describes himself as a "staunch advocate for a strengthened relationship with Israel," and he cosponsored the Senate bill condemning the UN Security Council resolution against Israeli settlements in 2016. He was an original cosponsor of a bill to impose new sanctions on Iran in December 2013, before eventually voting for the nuclear agreement in 2015.
"Despite serving on the Foreign Affairs Committee, [Booker] has not taken a public position for ending America's wars or cutting its record military spending." Like Warren, Booker was one of the first five cosponsors of Sanders' Yemen War Powers bill, and he has an 86% Peace Action voting record. But despite serving on the Foreign Affairs Committee, he has not taken a public position for ending America's wars or cutting its record military spending. His record of voting for 84% of military spending bills suggests he would not make major cuts. Booker was not up for reelection in 2018, but received $50,078 in "defense" industry contributions for the 2018 election cycle.
Amy Klobuchar
Senator Klobuchar is the most unapologetic hawk of the senators in the race. She has voted for all but one, or 95%, of the military spending bills since 2013. She has only voted as requested by Peace Action 69% of the time, the lowest among senators running for president. Klobuchar supported the U.S-NATO-led regime change war in Libya in 2011, and her public statements suggest that her main condition for the U.S. use of military force anywhere is that U.S. allies also take part, as in Libya.
"Klobuchar is the most unapologetic hawk of the senators in the race."In January 2019, Klobuchar was the only presidential candidate who voted for S.1, a bill to reauthorize U.S. military aid to Israel that also included an anti-BDS provision to allow U.S. state and local governments to divest from companies that boycott Israel. She is the only Democratic presidential candidate in the Senate who did not cosponsor Sanders' Yemen War Powers bill in 2018, but she did cosponsor and vote for it in 2019. Klobuchar received $17,704 in "defense" industry contributions for her 2018 reelection campaign.
Beto O'Rourke
Former Congressmember O'Rourke voted for 20 out of 29 military spending bills (69%) since 2013, and had an 84% Peace Action voting record. Most of the votes Peace Action counted against him were votes opposing specific cuts in the military budget. Like Tulsi Gabbard, he voted for an 11th aircraft-carrier in 2015, and against an overall 1% cut in the military budget in 2016. He voted against reducing the number of U.S. troops in Europe in 2013 and he twice voted against placing limits on a Navy slush fund. O'Rourke was a member of the House Armed Services Committee, and he took in $111,210 from the "defense" industry for his Senate campaign, more than any other Democratic presidential candidate.
"O'Rourke has not highlighted foreign or military policy in his Senate or presidential campaigns, suggesting that this is something he would like to downplay."
Despite an obvious affinity with military-industrial interests, of which there are many throughout Texas, O'Rourke has not highlighted foreign or military policy in his Senate or presidential campaigns, suggesting that this is something he would like to downplay. In Congress, he was a member of the corporate New Democrat Coalition that progressives see as a tool of plutocratic and corporate interests.
John Delaney
Former Congressmember Delaney provides an alternative to Senator Klobuchar at the hawkish end of the spectrum, after voting for 25 out of 28 military spending bills since 2013, and earning a 53% Peace Action voting record. He took in $23,500 from "Defense" interests for his last Congressional campaign, and, like O'Rourke and Inslee, he was a member of the corporate New Democrat Coalition.
Jay Inslee
Jay Inslee, the Governor of Washington State, served in Congress from 1993-1995 and from 1999-2012. Inslee was a strong opponent of the U.S. war in Iraq, and introduced a bill to impeach Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez for approving torture by U.S. forces. Like O'Rourke and Delaney, Inslee was a member of the New Democrat Coalition of corporate Democrats, but also a strong voice for action on climate change. In his 2010 reelection campaign, he took in $27,250 in "defense" industry contributions. Inslee''s campaign is very focused on climate change, and his campaign website so far does not mention foreign or military policy at all.
Marianne Williamson and Andrew Yang
These two candidates from outside the world of politics both bring refreshing ideas to the presidential contest. Spiritual teacher Williamson believes, "Our country's way of dealing with security issues is obsolete. We cannot simply rely on brute force to rid ourselves of international enemies." She recognizes that, on the contrary, the U.S. militarized foreign policy creates enemies, and our huge military budget "simply increase(s) the coffers of the military-industrial complex." She writes, "The only way to make peace with your neighbors is to make peace with your neighbors."
Williamson proposes a 10 or 20 year plan to transform our wartime economy into a "peace-time economy." ""From massive investment in the development of clean energy, to the retrofitting of our buildings and bridges, to the building of new schools and the creation of a green manufacturing base," she writes, "it is time to release this powerful sector of American genius to the work of promoting life instead of death."
Entrepreneur Andrew Yang promises to "bring our military spending under control," to "make it harder for the U.S. to get involved in foreign engagements with no clear goal," and to "reinvest in diplomacy." He believes that much of the military budget "is focused on defending against threats from decades ago as opposed to the threats of 2020." But he defines all these problems in terms of foreign "threats" and U.S. military responses to them, failing to recognize that U.S. militarism is itself a serious threat to many of our neighbors.
Julian Castro, Pete Buttigieg and John Hickenlooper
Neither Julian Castro, Pete Buttigieg nor John Hickenlooper mention foreign or military policy on their campaign websites at all.
Joe Biden
Although Biden has yet to throw his hat into the ring, he is already making videos and speeches trying to tout his foreign policy expertise. Biden has been engaged in foreign policy since he won a Senate seat in 1972, eventually chairing the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for four years, and becoming Obama's vice president. Echoing traditional mainstream Democratic rhetoric, he accuses Trump of abandoning U.S. global leadership and wants to see the U.S. regain its place as the "indispensable leader of the free world."
Biden presents himself as a pragmatist, saying that he opposed the Vietnam War not because he considered it immoral but because he thought it wouldn't work. Biden at first endorsed full-scale nation-building in Afghanistan but when he saw it wasn't working, he changed his mind, arguing that the U.S. military should destroy Al Qaeda and then leave. As vice president, he was a lonely voice in the Cabinet opposing Obama's escalation of the war in 2009.
Regarding Iraq, however, he was a hawk. He repeated false intelligence claims that Saddam Hussein possessed chemical and biological weapons and was seeking nuclear weapons, and therefore was a threat that had to be "eliminated." He later called his vote for the 2003 invasion a "mistake."
Biden is a self-described Zionist. He has stated that the Democrats' support for Israel "comes from our gut, moves through our heart, and ends up in our head. It's almost genetic."
There is one issue, however, where he would disagree with the present Israeli government, and that is on Iran. He wrote that "War with Iran is not just a bad option. It would be a disaster," and he supported Obama's entry into the Iran nuclear agreement. He would therefore likely support re-entering it if he were president.
"Like many other corporate Democrats, Biden champions a misleadingly benign view of the dangerous and destructive role the U.S. has played in the world over the past 20 years, under the Democratic administration in which he served as vice-president as well as under Republican ones." While Biden emphasizes diplomacy, he favors the NATO alliance so that "when we have to fight, we are not fighting alone." He ignores that NATO outlived its original Cold War purpose and has perpetuated and expanded its ambitions on a global scale since the 1990s - and that this has predictably ignited a new Cold War with Russia and China.
Despite paying lip service to international law and diplomacy, Biden sponsored the McCain-Biden Kosovo Resolution, which authorized the U.S. to lead the NATO assault on Yugoslavia and invasion of Kosovo in 1999. This was the first major war in which the U.S. and NATO used force in violation of the UN Charter in the post-Cold War era, establishing the dangerous precedent that led to all our post-9/11 wars.
Like many other corporate Democrats, Biden champions a misleadingly benign view of the dangerous and destructive role the U.S. has played in the world over the past 20 years, under the Democratic administration in which he served as vice-president as well as under Republican ones.
Biden might support slight cuts in the Pentagon budget, but he is not likely to challenge the military-industrial complex he has served for so long in any significant way. He does, however, know the trauma of war firsthand, connecting his son's exposure to military burn pits while serving in Iraq and Kosovo to his fatal brain cancer, which might make him think twice about launching new wars.
On the other hand, Biden's long experience and skill as an advocate for the military-industrial complex and a militarized U.S. foreign policy suggest that those influences might well outweigh even his own personal tragedy if he is elected president and faced with critical choices between war and peace.
Conclusion
The United States has been at war for over 17 years, and we are spending most of our national tax revenues to pay for these wars and the forces and weapons to wage them. It would be foolish to think that presidential candidates who have little or nothing to say about this state of affairs will, out of the blue, come up with a brilliant plan to reverse course once we install them in the White House. It is especially disturbing that Gillibrand and O'Rourke, the two candidates most beholden to the military-industrial complex for campaign funding in 2018, are eerily quiet on these urgent questions.
"We need to hear a much more vigorous debate about war and peace in this campaign, with more specific plans from all the candidates."
But even the candidates who are vowing to tackle this crisis of militarism are doing so in ways that leave serious questions unanswered. Not one of them has said how much they would cut the record military budget that makes these wars possible - and thus almost inevitable.
In 1989, at the end of the Cold War, former Pentagon officials Robert McNamara and Larry Korb told the Senate Budget Committee that the U.S. military budget could safely be cut by 50% over the next 10 years. That obviously never happened, and our military spending under Bush II, Obama and Trump has outstripped the peak spending of the Cold War arms race.
In 2010, Barney Frank and three colleagues from both parties convened a Sustainable Defense Task Force that recommended a 25% cut in military spending. The Green Party has endorsed a 50% cut in today's military budget. That sounds radical, but, because inflation-adjusted spending is now higher than in 1989, that would still leave us with a larger military budget than MacNamara and Korb called for in 1989.
Presidential campaigns are key moments for raising these issues. We are greatly encouraged by Tulsi Gabbard's courageous decision to place solving the crisis of war and militarism at the heart of her presidential campaign. We thank Bernie Sanders for voting against the obscenely bloated military budget year after year, and for identifying the military-industrial complex as one of the most powerful interest groups that his political revolution must confront. We applaud Elizabeth Warren for condemning "the stranglehold of defense contractors on our military policy." And we welcome Marianne Williamson, Andrew Yang and other original voices to this debate.
"We are calling for this debate most of all because we mourn the millions of people being killed by our country's wars and we want the killing to stop."
But we need to hear a much more vigorous debate about war and peace in this campaign, with more specific plans from all the candidates. This vicious cycle of U.S. wars, militarism and runaway military spending drains our resources, corrupts our national priorities and undermines international cooperation, including on the existential dangers of climate change and nuclear weapons proliferation, which no country can solve on its own.
We are calling for this debate most of all because we mourn the millions of people being killed by our country's wars and we want the killing to stop. If you have other priorities, we understand and respect that. But unless and until we address militarism and all the money it sucks out of our national coffers, it may well prove impossible to solve the other very serious problems facing the United States and the world in the 21st century.
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