The Curse of the Military-Intellectual Complex
Of the many compelling points made by Andrew Bacevich in 'The Limits of Power,' none, perhaps, is as relevant today as the pervasive and corrosive influence of the national security establishment--strategic analysts, retired officers, academics, advisers, and pundits who occupy senior positions in the think-tanks, policy centers, defense contractors, and graduate programs that comprise Washington's military-intellectual complex. These are the people, Bacevich, notes, who concoct the arguments for ever-increasing military spending, who devise the over-inflated estimates of enemy strength to justify
such spending, who advocate risky military interventions abroad--and who impugn the loyalty of any who might question their reasoning.
But however deep their professed commitment to the nation's security, and however assured their supposed grasp of strategic principle, these figures have neither advanced the nation's security nor been noted for their strategic brilliance, Bacevich observes. "The ideology of national security persists not
because it expresses empirically demonstrable truths but because it serves the interests of those who created the national security state and those who still benefit from its continued existence--the very people who are most responsible for the increasingly maladroit character of U.S. policy," he writes.
Although the reputation of those members of this community associated with the Bush administration and the war in Iraq have been downgraded--people like Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith--the community as a whole has not been reevaluated. For the most part, Democratic and Republican leaders alike continue to view the military and the Washington think-tanks as a reliable source of strategic wisdom at a time of mounting challenges abroad. How else to interpret the decision of President Obama to draw on these very circles for his top foreign policy and national security advisers?
That President Obama and his senior advisers have the nation's best interests at heart is beyond question. No doubt he truly believes, as his military and intelligence advisers have informed him, that the epicenter of the war on terror lies on the Afghan-Pakistan border, and that the United States has no
choice but to address this threat through the deployment there of additional combat troops. But surely, after all the failed strategic planning of the past eight years, it behooves the new administration to avoid exclusive reliance on the existing security establishment and seek alternative views from "outside
the Beltway" before committing additional U.S. forces to a potential quagmire.
Just as any lasting solution to America's economic crisis will require a new regulatory framework and new institutions to manage them, so any genuine renewal of America's foreign and military policy will require the dissolution of the existing Military-Intellectual Complex and a vast broadening of the
sources of strategic wisdom.
The forces that took out Kennedy have only tightened their grip, and you didn't mention the press as a vital and willful component of this complex.
Even Rachael Maddow and Olberman didn't touch the issue of the retired general who was working for the NBCs and supporting the use of weapons that he had a known financial stake in.
"No doubt he truly believes, as his military and intelligence advisers have informed him, that the epicenter of the war on terror lies on the Afghan-Pakistan border, and that the United States has no choice but to address this threat through the deployment there of additional combat troops."
The US and the ISI created the Taliban, but them in power, and only balked when they weren't sure the Taliban could provide sufficient security for the oil pipeline. So Bush had the attack plans for Afghanistan on his desk on September 10th, 2001.
Now we support the corrupt Afghan government, which in it's cruelty drives citizens into the arms of the Taliban.
Afghanistan is a known quagmire and the funds that more troops would cost would be better spent helping the Afghan people, and putting pressure on the corrupt Afghan government.
And the US military is in control of the poppy country in southern Afghanistan, undoubtedly taking a large cut of the action.
You know this.
February 2, 2009 4:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, the description reminds me forcibly of the Kennedy administration itself; Robert McNamara and the everpresent advice of the JCS. These people didn't kill Kennedy - Kennedy was one of them. He invented the missile gap, remember?
Anyway.
We didn't create the Taliban or place them in power. We supported loose groups of mujahideen rebels against the Soviet occupation, some of whom later became Taliban functionaries.
February 2, 2009 5:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
However, Mr. Presidente, we financed and strategized cooperatively with the Pakistani ISI, who DID create the Taliban. Do you think the U.S. government didn't support that 100 percent?
Of course it did.
February 2, 2009 5:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
The deep thinkers like to think the US military machine is based on rational thought about strategy, and that's what the powers want us to think, but that's not really the case. The MIC isn't based on any strategic considerations so much as it is a creature of profits and money flow into most congressional districts, and all states. They say all politics is local, and you'd better not mess with Uncle Sugar's money tree.
Keep the military bases and the Pentagon contracts, and expand them if possible, that's the ticket. Recently congressional reps have been salivating over the base expansions needed for the 92,000 increase of US ground forces, as well as fighting for increased production of war materiel in their districts. Fail to get it in the budget? Earmark it, is what they do. Put money in the budget for stuff even the Pentagon doesn't want and can't use. The last Pentagon pork budget was passed, at the same time that the oncoming recession was obvious, with hardly any debate and little dissension, and was then increased with earmarks.
The benefits to congress-critters of high Pentagon corporate welfare spending are many, and there's no down-side. Increased employment, higher profits, more campaign contributions, corporate support, strong endorsement by the local press -- there's no end of benefits.
And then when you have the finest military force on the planet -- okay, so they're a little short on accomplishments -- you might as well use it somewhere. That's what it's for!
So talking about the dissolution of the MIC, without considering how congress-critters might be convinced to give up their financial drug of choice, is a pipe-dream.
February 2, 2009 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
"What’s the point of you saving this superb military for, Colin, if we can't use it?" Madeleine Albright
February 2, 2009 9:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
The events of the last year have revealed that there are plenty of upper managers of financial institutions who will happily destroy $100 million of stockholder value, trash 10,000 employees careers, and jeopardize the long-term future of their company if they can only feather their own nest with another $1 million.
But they are not alone, or even the first, in this lack of ethics.
The military-industrial complex beat them to it by a few decades with corrupt governance processes that resulted in vast profiteering. And, as noted above, Congress is a participant in the same tawdry behavior.
A Congressman thinks nothing of sticking the taxpayers with another $1 billion of taxes for a useles weapons system if doing so results in another $100 thousand into his campaign war chest.
I just wish we could get people to steal more efficiently.
February 2, 2009 7:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
How about we offer incumbents a check each election cycle for 80-90% of what their past election cost them as long as they take a pass on raising campaign funds.
But what about potential challengers who won't get government largess, I hear it said?
The answer? The vast majority of incumbents are reelected anyway, and then, there's always the occasional billionaire ready to take one of them on.
February 2, 2009 9:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Klare:
Who are some of the strategic thinkers that you would like to see President Obama listening to?
February 2, 2009 9:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
A pleasure to see you here, Michael. We met several years ago and chatted over dinner when you spoke at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire.
You say:
For the most part, Democratic and Republican leaders alike continue to view the military and the Washington think-tanks as a reliable source of strategic wisdom at a time of mounting challenges abroad. How else to interpret the decision of President Obama to draw on these very circles for his top foreign policy and national security advisers?
I don't know if our politicians really think these folks are all that reliable. It's just that the politicians have no viable options. They are constantly in the market for foreign policy positions, but the market is cornered. Most politicians don't know that much about foreign policy, so they gobble up the "policy and messaging products" produced by the well-funded foreign policy magisterium.
The elites you and Bacevich are talking about have the country by the balls, not to put too fine a point on it. Besides controlling the military and the government, they control the think tanks, the foundations, the media, the markets and the university graduate programs from places like Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton and Johns Hopkins that feed the leadership class with successive generations of fresh talent. Even if Obama wanted wanted to choose a different, non-militaristic course, his options are limited. If he gets too innovative, the leadership class would rebel and destroy his presidency. To run for president in this day and age means running for command of the empire.
US foreign policy is an alliance between two main forces: an imperial military class bent on using military muscle, or the threat of it, to expand US power, markets and economic dominance abroad; and a liberal missionary class that rides along with the imperialists, even if they sometimes affect disdain for the latter, so that they can take advantage of all that brute power to spread their civilizing ideologies. It's been that way for at least 100 years, from Hawaii and the Philippines to Iraq. The missionaries favored Christianity a century ago; they favor liberal democracy today. The effect isn't much different.
It's always been thus with modern empires. The Spanish brought lots of priests along with their conquistadors; America brings NGOs along with their GI's, Marines and contractors. America also brings its taste for hyperactive growth and commerce wherever it goes.
America retains the seeds of its fanatical revolutionary origin and primal urge for growth and expansion in its dominant ideologies and the classes who preserve and extend them. Keeping these revolutionary ideals and practices alive is the chief function of our elite institutions. They conceive the purpose of US policy in the world as a mission to carry the ongoing American revolution forward, and bring the American Way of Life to all of the darkened back alleys and dingy corners of the benighted world. Here is a 2002 quote from Michael McFaul, who last I heard is slated to be named by Obama to the NSC's top position for Russian affairs:
The United States cannot be content with preserving the current order in the international system. Rather, the United States must become once again a revisionist power – a country that seeks to change the international system as a means of enhancing its own national security. Moreover, this mission must be offensive in nature. The United States cannot afford to wait and react to the next attack. Rather, we must seek to isolate and destroy our enemies by eliminating their regimes and safe havens. The ultimate purpose of American power is the creation of an international community of democratic states that encompasses every region of the planet.
Me? I'd like the US to be a big Sweden, and would like to see us work to help build strong international security institutions on which we could devolve our overworked and overwrought security responsibilities and ambitions. But the CFR, the Kennedy School, the Wilson School, the Hoover Institute - and of course and above all, the Pentagon - wouldn't hear of it.
February 3, 2009 1:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
See, this is where Dan and I apparently differ.
I have said (above) that, in regard to the MIC, strategy doesn't matter that much, that (while some pols may spout strategy provided by their script-writers) all politics is local and that congress-critters are primarily interested in maintaining the money flow into their districts, which brings them the electoral benefits that I recounted, and keeps the MIC massive.
Dan goes with the big-picture American Exceptionalism and strategy gambit.
You pays your money and you takes your choice. But consider this recent news release from a member of the New Hampshire congressional delegation:
WASHINGTON D.C. – Today, the entire Maine and New Hampshire congressional delegations united in a joint effort to create new, good-paying jobs at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNS) in Kittery, Maine. In a letter to the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of Naval Operations, the bipartisan group of lawmakers urged the Department of Navy to increase the permanent workforce at the Maine-based shipyard to help mitigate weakness in the regional labor market and increase overall employee productivity and quality of life.
--posted by Carol Shea-Porter, 1st District
I failed to note any press releases on bringing democracy to Russia.
February 3, 2009 10:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
As long as there is a good supply of 18-35 year olds willing to join the services and act as the hi and low tech goons for the "intellectual-military" complex, how on earth can you stop it.
I'll never forget, as an example, what my father said when I told him (at 11 yrs. old) I wanted to join the Marines and drive a tank; Dad turned to me and said "Son, if that is what you want to do, I'm not gonna stand in your way!"
February 3, 2009 10:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't see how one can criticize the "military-intellectual complex" while relying on Reinhold Niebuhr for guidance.
February 4, 2009 9:23 AM | Reply | Permalink