Want to Stop Climate Change? Start With the US Military – The Nation

Members of the US Navy conduct joint drills with the South Korean navy on the USS Ronald Reagan. October 19, 2017. (Reuters / Tim Kelly)

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Ever since 2007, when I first started writing for TomDispatch, Ive been arguing against Americas forever wars, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, or elsewhere. Unfortunately, its no surprise that, despite my more than 60 articles, American blood is still being spilled in war after war across the Greater Middle East and Africa, even as foreign peoples pay a far higher price in lives lost and cities ruined. And I keep asking myself: Why, in this century, is the distinctive feature of Americas wars that they never end? Why do our leaders persist in such repetitive folly and the seemingly eternal disasters that go with it?Ad Policy

Sadly, there isnt just one obvious reason for this generational debacle. If there were, we could focus on it, tackle it, and perhaps even fix it. But no such luck.

So why do Americas disastrous wars persist? I can think of many reasons, some obvious and easy to understand, like the endless pursuit of profit through weapons sales for those very wars, and some more subtle but no less significant, like a deep-seated conviction in Washington that a willingness to wage war is a sign of national toughness and seriousness. Before I go on, though, heres another distinctive aspect of our forever-war moment: Have you noticed that peace is no longer even a topic in America today? The very word, once at least part of the rhetoric of Washington politicians, has essentially dropped out of use entirely. Consider the current crop of Democratic candidates for president. One, Representative Tulsi Gabbard, wants to end regime-change wars, but is otherwise a self-professed hawk on the subject of the War on Terror. Another, Senator Bernie Sanders, vows to end endless wars, but is careful to express strong support for Israel and the ultra-expensive F-35 fighter jet. The other dozen or so tend to make vague sounds about cutting defense spending or gradually withdrawing US troops from various wars, but none of them even consider openly speaking of peace. And the Republicans? While President Trump may talk of ending wars, since his inauguration hes sent more troops to Afghanistan and into the Middle East, while greatly expanding drone and other air strikes, something about which he openly boasts.

War, in other words, is our new normal, Americas default position on global affairs, and peace, some ancient, long-faded dream. And when your default position is war, whether against the Taliban, ISIS, terror more generally, or possibly even Iran or Russia or China, is it any surprise that war is what you get? When you garrison the world with an unprecedented 800 or so military bases, when you configure your armed forces for whats called power projection, when you divide the globethe total planetinto areas of dominance(with acronyms like CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and SOUTHCOM) commanded by four-star generals and admirals, when you spend more on your military than the next seven countries combined, when you insist on modernizing a nuclear arsenal (to the tune of perhaps $1.7 trillion) already quite capable of ending all life on this and several other planets, what can you expect but a reality of endless war?

Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise) path to follow. In this context, the United States must continue to be the most powerful nation in the world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms and its wars must be fought, generation after generation, even when victory is never in sight. And if that isnt an exceptional belief system, what is?

If were ever to put an end to our countrys endless 21st-century wars, that mindset will have to be changed. But to do that, we would first have to recognize and confront wars many uses in American life and culture.

A partial list of wars many uses might go something like this: war is profitable, most notably for Americas vast military-industrial complex; war is sold as being necessary for Americas safety, especially to prevent terrorist attacks; and for many Americans, war is seen as a measure of national fitness and worthiness, a reminder that freedom isnt free. In our politics today, its far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right.Current Issue

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As the title of a book by former war reporter Chris Hedges so aptly put it, war is a force that gives us meaning. And lets face it, a significant part of Americas meaning in this century has involved pride in having the toughest military on the planet, even as trillions of tax dollars went into a misguided attempt to maintain bragging rights to being the worlds sole superpower.

And keep in mind as well that, among other things, never-ending war weakens democracy while strengthening authoritarian tendencies in politics and society. In an age of gaping inequality, using up the countrys resources in such profligate and destructive ways offers a striking exercise in consumption that profits the few at the expense of the many.

In other words, for a select few, war pays dividends in ways that peace doesnt. In a nutshell, or perhaps an artillery shell, war is antidemocratic, anti-progressive, anti-intellectual, and anti-human. Yet, as we know, history makes heroes out of its participants and celebrates mass murderers like Napoleon as great captains.

What the United States needs today is a new strategy of containmentnot against communist expansion, as in the Cold War, but against war itself. Whats stopping us from containing war? You might say that, in some sense, weve grown addicted to it, which is true enough, but here are five additional reasons for wars enduring presence in American life:

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The delusional idea that Americans are, by nature, winners and that our wars are therefore winnable. No American leader wants to be labeled a loser. Meanwhile, such dubious conflictssee: the Afghan War, now in its 18th year, with several more years, or even generations, to gocontinue to be treated by the military as if they were indeed winnable, even though they visibly arent. No president, Republican or Democrat, not even Donald J. Trump, despite his promises that American soldiers will be coming home from such fiascos, has successfully resisted the Pentagons siren call for patience (and for yet more trillions of dollars) in the cause of ultimate victory, however poorly defined, farfetched, or far-off.

American societys almost complete isolation from wars deadly effects. Were not being droned (yet). Our cities are not yet lying in ruins (though theyre certainly suffering from a lack of funding, as is our most essential infrastructure, thanks in part to the cost of those overseas wars). Its nonetheless remarkable how little attention, either in the media or elsewhere, this countrys never-ending war-making gets here.

Unnecessary and sweeping secrecy: How can you resist what you essentially dont know about? Learning its lesson from the Vietnam War, the Pentagon now classifies (in plain speak: covers up) the worst aspects of its disastrous wars. This isnt because the enemy could exploit such detailsthe enemy already knows!but because the American people might be roused to something like anger and action by it. Principled whistle-blowers like Chelsea Manning have been imprisoned or otherwise dismissed or, in the case of Edward Snowden, pursued and indicted for sharing honest details about the calamitous Iraq War and Americas invasive and intrusive surveillance state. In the process, a clear message of intimidation has been sent to other would-be truth-tellers.

An unrepresentative government. Long ago, of course, Congress ceded to the presidency most of its constitutional powers when it comes to making war. Still, despite recent attempts to end Americas arms-dealing role in the genocidal Saudi war in Yemen (overridden by Donald Trumps veto power), Americas duly elected representatives generally dont represent the people when it comes to this countrys disastrous wars. They are, to put it bluntly, largely captives of (and sometimes on leaving politics quite literally go to work for) the military-industrial complex. As long as money is speech (thank you, Supreme Court!), the weapons makers are always likely to be able to shout louder in Congress than you and I ever will.

Americas persistent empathy gap. Despite our size, we are a remarkably insular nation and suffer from a serious empathy gap when it comes to understanding foreign cultures and peoples or what were actually doing to them. Even our globetrotting troops, when not fighting and killing foreigners in battle, often stay on vast bases, referred to in the military as Little Americas, complete with familiar stores, fast food, you name it. Wherever we go, there we are, eating our big burgers, driving our big trucks, wielding our big guns, and dropping our very big bombs. But what those bombs do, whom they hurt or kill, whom they displace from their homes and lives, these are things that Americans turn out to care remarkably little about.

All this puts me sadly in mind of a song popular in my youth, a time when Cat Stevens sang of a peace train that was soundin louder in America. Today, that peace trains been derailed and replaced by an armed and armored one eternally prepared for perpetual warand that train is indeed soundin louder to the great peril of us all.

Heres the rub, though: even the Pentagon knows that our most serious enemy is climate change, not China or Russia or terror, though in the age of Donald Trump and his administration of arsonists its officials cant express themselves on the subject as openly as they otherwise might. Assuming we dont annihilate ourselves with nuclear weapons first, that means our real enemy is the endless war were waging against Planet Earth.

The US military is also a major consumer of fossil fuels and therefore a significant driver of climate change. Meanwhile, the Pentagon, like any enormously powerful system, only wants to grow more so, but whats welfare for the military brass isnt wellness for the planet.

There is, unfortunately, only one Planet Earth, or Spaceship Earth, if you prefer, since were all traveling through our galaxy on it. Thought about a certain way, were its crew members, yet instead of cooperating effectively as its stewards, we seem determined to fight one another. If a house divided against itself cannot stand, as Abraham Lincoln pointed out so long ago, surely a spaceship with a disputatious and self-destructive crew is not likely to survive, no less thrive.

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In other words, in waging endless war, Americans are also, in effect, mutinying against the planet. In the process, we are spoiling the last, best hope of earth: a concerted and pacific effort to meet the shared challenges of a rapidly warming and changing planet.

Spaceship Earth should not be allowed to remain Warship Earth as well, not when the existence of significant parts of humanity is already becoming ever more precarious. Think of us as suffering from a coolant leak, causing cabin temperatures to rise even as food and other resources dwindle. Under the circumstances, whats the best strategy for survival: killing each other while ignoring the leak or banding together to fix an increasingly compromised ship?

Unfortunately, for Americas leaders, the real fixes remain global military and resource domination, even as those resources continue to shrink on an ever-more fragile globe. And as weve seen recently, the resource part of that fix breeds its own madness, as in President Trumps recently stated desire to keep US troops in Syria to steal that countrys oil resources, though its wells are largely wrecked (thanks in significant part to American bombing) and even when repaired would produce only a minuscule percentage of the worlds petroleum.

If Americas wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything, its that every war scars our planetand hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium. Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life.

Despite all of wars uses and abuses, its allures and temptations, its time that we Americans showed some self-mastery (as well as decency) by putting a stop to the mayhem. Few enough of us experience our wars firsthand and thats precisely why some idealize their purpose and idolize their practitioners. But war is a bloody, murderous mess and those practitioners, when not killed or wounded, are marred for life because war functionally makes everyone involved into a murderer.

We need to stop idealizing war and idolizing its so-called warriors. At stake is nothing less than the future of humanity and the viability of life, as we know it, on Spaceship Earth.

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Want to Stop Climate Change? Start With the US Military - The Nation