President Trump meets military leaders during an unannounced visit to Al Asad Air Base in Iraq on December 26, 2018. (Jonathan Ernst / Reuters)
EDITORS NOTE: This article originally appeared at TomDispatch.com. To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.
Subscribe now for as little as $2 a month!
The expression self-licking ice cream cone was first used in 1992 to describe a hidebound bureaucracy at NASA. Yet, as an image, its even more apt for Americas military-industrial complex, an institution far vaster than NASA and thoroughly dedicated to working for its own perpetuation and little else.Ad Policy
Thinking about that led me to another phrase based on Americas seemingly endless string of victory-less wars: the self-defeating military. The United States, after all, hasnt won a major conflict since World War II, when it was aided by a grand alliance that included Soviet dictator Josef Stalins godless communists. And yet heres the wonder of it all: Despite such a woeful 75-year military record, including both the Korean and Vietnam wars of the last century and the never-ending war on terror of this one, the Pentagons coffers are overflowing with taxpayer dollars. What gives?
Americans profess to love their troops, but what are they getting in return for all that affection (and money)? Very little, it seems. And that shouldnt surprise anyone whos been paying the slightest attention, since the present military establishment has been designed less to protect this country than to protect itself, its privileges, and its power. That rarely discussed reality has, in turn, contributed to practices and mindsets that make it a force truly effective at only one thing: defeating any conceivable enemy in Washington as it continues to win massive budgets and the cultural authority to match. That it loses most everywhere else is, it seems, just part of the bargain.
The list of recent debacles should be as obvious as it is alarming: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen (and points around and in between). And even if its a reality rarely focused on in the mainstream media, none of this has been a secret to the senior officers who run that military. Look at the Pentagon Papers from the Vietnam War era or the Afghanistan Papers recently revealed by The Washington Post. In both cases, prominent US military leaders admitted to fundamental flaws in their war-making practices, including the lack of a coherent strategy, a thorough misunderstanding of the nature and skills of their enemies, and the total absence of any real progress in achieving victory, no matter the cost.
Of course, such honest appraisals of this countrys actual war-making prowess were made in secret, while military spokespeople and American commanders laid down a public smokescreen to hide the worst aspects of those wars from the American people. As they talked grimly (and secretly) among themselves about losing, they spoke enthusiastically (and openly) to Congress and the public about winning. In case you hadnt noticed, in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, that military was, year after endless year, making progress and turning corners. Such happy talk (a mixture of lies and self-deception) may have served to keep the money flowing and weapons sales booming, but it also kept the body bags coming in (and civilians dying in distant lands)and for nothing, or at least nothing by any reasonable definition of national security.
Curiously, despite the obvious disparity between the militarys lies and reality, the American people, or at least their representatives in Congress, have largely bought those lies in bulk and at astronomical prices. Yet this countrys refusal to face the facts of defeat has only ensured ever more disastrous military interventions. The result: a self-defeating military, engorged with money, lurching toward yet more defeats even as it looks over its shoulder at an increasingly falsified past.
Long ago, New York Yankee catcher and later manager Yogi Berra summed up what was to come this way: The future aint what it used to be. And it wasnt. We used to dream, for example, of flying cars, personal jetpacks, liberating robots, and oodles of leisure time. We even dreamed of mind-bending trips to Jupiter, as in Stanley Kubricks epic film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Like so much else we imagined, those dreams havent exactly panned out.Current Issue
Subscribe today and Save up to $129.
Yet heres an exception to Berras wisdom: Strangely enough, for the US military, the future is predictably just what it used to be. After all, the latest futuristic vision of Americas military leaders ishold onto your Kevlar helmetsa new cold war with its former communist rivals Russia and China. And lets add in one other aspect of that militarys future vision: Wars, as they see it, are going to be fought and settled with modernized (and ever more expensive) versions of the same old weapons systems that carried us through much of the mid-twentieth century: ever more pricey aircraft carriers, tanks, and top of the line jet fighters and bombers withhey!maybe a few thoroughly destabilizing tactical nukes thrown in, along with plenty of updated missiles carried by planes of an ever more stealthy and far more expensive variety. Think: the F-35 fighter, the most expensive weapons system in history (so far) and the B-21 bomber.
For such a future, of course, todays military hardly needs to change at all, or so our generals and admirals argue. For example, yet more ships will, of course, be needed. The Navy high command is already clamoring for 355 of them, while complaining that the record-setting $738 billion Pentagon budget for 2020 is too tight to support such a fleet.
Not to be outdone when it comes to complaints about tight budgets, the Air Force is arguing vociferously that it needs yet more billions to build a fleet of planes that can wage two major wars at once. Meanwhile, the Army is typically lobbying for a new armored personnel carrier (to replace the M2 Bradley) thats so esoteric insiders joke it will have to be made of unobtainium.
In short, no matter how much money the Trump administration and Congress throw at the Pentagon, its a guarantee that the military high command will only complain that more is needed, including for nuclear weapons to the tune of possibly $1.7 trillion over 30 years. But doubling down on more of the same, after a record 75 years of non-victories (not to speak of outright losses), is more than stubbornness, more than grift. Its obdurate stupidity.
If you like this article, please give today to help fund The Nations work.
Why, then, does it persist? The answer would have to be because this country doesnt hold its failing military leaders accountable. Instead, it applauds them and promotes them, rewarding them when they retire with six-figure pensions, often augmented by cushy jobs with major defense contractors. Given such a system, why should Americas generals and admirals speak truth to power? They are power and theyll keep harsh and unflattering truths to themselves, thank you very much, unless theyre leaked by heroes like Daniel Ellsberg during the Vietnam War and Chelsea Manning during the Iraq War, or pried from them via a lawsuit like the one by The Washington Post that recently led to those Afghanistan Papers.
My Polish mother-in-law taught me a phrase that translates as, Dont say nothin to nobody. When it comes to Americas wars and their true progress and prospects, consider that the official dictum of Pentagon spokespeople. Yet even as Americas wars sink into Vietnam-style quagmires, the money keeps flowing, especially to high-cost weapons programs.
Consider my old service, the Air Force. As one defense news site put it, Congressional appropriators gave the Air Force [and Lockheed Martin] a holiday gift in the 2019 spending agreement$1.87 billion for 20 additional F-35s and associated spare parts. The new total just for 2020 is 98 aircraft62 F-35As, 16 F-35Bs, and 20 F-35Csat the whopping cost of $9.3 billion, crowning the F-35 as the biggest Pentagon procurement program ever. And thats not all. The Air Force (and Northrop Grumman) got another gift as well: $3 billion more to be put into its new, redundant, B-21 stealth bomber. Even much-beleaguered Boeing, responsible for the disastrous 737 MAX program, got a gift: nearly a billion dollars for the revamped F-15EX fighter, a much-modified version of a plane that first flew in the early 1970s. Yet, despite those gifts, Air Force officials continue to claim with straight faces that the service is getting the short straw in todays budgetary battles in the Pentagon.
What does this all mean? One obvious answer would be: The only truly winning battles for the Pentagon are the ones for our taxpayer dollars.
I cant claim that I ever traveled in the circles of generals and admirals, though I met a few during my military career. Still, no one can question that our commanders are dedicated. The only question is: dedication to what exactlyto the Constitution and the American people or to their own service branch, with an eye toward a comfortable and profitable retirement? Certainly, loyalty to service (and the conformity that goes with it), rather than out-of-the-box thinking in those endlessly losing wars, helped most of them win promotion to flag rank.
Perhaps this is one reason why, back in July 2017, the militarys current commander-in-chief, Donald Trump, reportedly railed at his top national security people in a windowless Pentagon room known as the Tank. He called themincluding then-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford Jr.a bunch of dopes and babies. As the president put it, Americas senior military leaders dont win anymore and, as he made clear, nothing is worse than being a loser. He added, I want to win. We dont win any wars anymore We spend $7 trillion, everybody else got the oil and were not winning anymore. (And, please note, that hasnt changed a whit in the year and a half since that moment.)
Sure, Trump threw a typical tantrum, but his comments about losing at a strikingly high cost were (and remain) absolutely on the mark, not that he had any idea how to turn Americas losing wars and their losing commanders into winners. In many ways, his strategy has proven remarkably like those of the two previous presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Send more troops to the Middle East. Drone and bomb ever more, not just in Afghanistan and Iraq but even in places like Somalia and Libya. Prolong our commitment to loser wars like the Afghan one, even while talking ceaselessly about ending them and bringing the troops home. And continue to rebuild that same military, empowering those same dopes and babies, with yet more taxpayer dollars.
The results have been all-too predictable. Americas generals and admirals have so much money that they dont ever have to make truly tough choices. They hardly have to think. The Air Force, for example, just keeps planning for and purchasing more ultra-expensive stealth fighters and bombers to fight a future Cold War that we allegedly won 30 years ago. Meanwhile, actual future national security threats like climate-related catastrophes or pandemics go largely unaddressed. Who cares about them when this country will clearly have the most stealth fighters and bombers in the world?
For the Pentagon, the future is the past and the past, the future. Why should military leaders have to think when the president and Congress keep rewarding them for lies and failures of every sort?
Get unlimited digital access to the best independent news and analysis.
Trump believes America doesnt win anymore because were not ruthless enough. Take the oil, dammit! The real reason: because Americas wars are unwinnable from the git-go (something the last 18 years should have proved in no uncertain way) andirony of all ironiescompletely unnecessary from the standpoint of true national defense. There is no way for the US military to win hearts and minds across the Greater Middle East and Africa with salvos of Hellfire missiles. In fact, theres only one way to win such wars: end them. And theres only one way to keep winning: by avoiding future ones.
With a system that couldnt work better (in Washington), Americas military refuses to admit this. Instead, our generals just keep saluting smartly while lying in public (the details of which well find out about only when the next set of papers is released someday). In the meantime, when it comes to demanding and getting tax dollars, they couldnt be more skilled. In that sense, and that alone, they are the ultimate winners.
Dopes and babies, Mister President? No, just men who are genuinely skilled in the art of the deal. Small wonder Americas leader is upset. For when it comes to the military-industrial complex and its power and prerogatives, even Trump has met his match. Hes been out-conned. And if the rest of us remain silent on the subject, then so have we.
More:
Trump Has Been Out-Conned by the Pentagon - The Nation
