History is often framed in paradox. Perhaps none in the 20th century was more vivid than the contrasting mantles and party fabric of two illustrious Republican presidents, General Eisenhower and Governor Reagan.
In the aftermath of World War II and the national debt that was the price of victory, General Eisenhower was the ideal choice to repopularize Republicans and their hallmark principle of fiscal responsibility. As supreme commander of the Allies’ victory, he was the very image of responsibility. Among his deep concerns for postwar America, he’s best remembered for his stern warning against “the military-industrial complex” whose influence he saw growing in the cold war arms race with the Soviet Union. Though the USSR is long dead, the American war machine never stopped growing. In view of
America’s well-earned eminence as the world’s most caring country, Ike also saw universal health coverage for our people as a logical extension of that caring.
(If Vietnam and the Iraq War had dimmed my memory of our postwar works as the most caring nation, they were revived quickly a few years ago on a Danube River cruise by one of our Vienna tour guides. I asked her how Europeans felt about our invasion of Iraq, she called it big mistake. She said, “Those tribes have been killing each other for 14 centuries, let them finish on their own.” But she quickly added that Americans would always be dear to her. She explained that when WWII ended, Vienna was partitioned four ways among Allied forces. It was her joy to be in the American quadrant. She said, “The city was starving, and we were starting elementary school on empty stomachs. On the second day, a Jeep pulled up to the school door, and two GIs began tossing us loaves of bread and pouring cups of hot soup from a huge cylinder. They were there every day until school year ended. We still cherish the memory.”)
American politics is suffering heavily from the GOP’s loss of principle. From Lincoln’s day into Richard Nixon’s election, the hallmark of Republican leadership was fiscal responsibility. President Theodore Roosevelt added to it a deep commitment to protect our natural wonders while also protecting We the People from ruthless corporate power. Of course, if beloved Teddy were politicking today, he’d be a Democrat! History may continue to deepen the realization that the Republican mantle of responsibility was shredded by the Nixon debacle, a rash of presidential criminality that was the very antithesis of public responsibility. Imbedded in Nixon’s paranoia were the seeds of national paranoia.
Governor Reagan brought with him to the White House a GOP revamped in both body and agenda. The body was a corps of neoconservatives, and the agenda was void of the concerns of Teddy and Ike. Behind his claim that he could cut taxes, beef up defense, and balance the budget was the promise of “trickle down” growth, from the wealthy freely spending their tax cuts, and from massive increases in defense spending. When his savvy budget director, David Stockman, told him that his first two aims would make the third impossible, Stockman was fired. The longer American democracy endures, the more tribute history should pay Stockman for his devotion to principle and fiscal responsibility.
The neocons loved the cold war. They ignored studies that showed a dollar spent in domestic programs delivered twice the employment of the defense dollar. They shunned international observers who had been saying for years that the Soviet Union was crumbling of its own bureaucratic stagnation. They had a promise to keep: beef up defense. The military-industrial complex had just been waiting to get this shot. And, what a full plate it became, with Defense Secretary Weinberger leading the charge. He would settle for nothing less than scores of new weapons systems, escalating an arms race that soon would leave the United States as the sole superpower. Paranoia soon shadows such singularity. The arms race was a cash cow that fit the neocon agenda perfectly. The neocons came to Washington with corporate welfare in their budget-making sights. And no agency provided more of it than the Pentagon, in the cost over-runs that were piling up in the push for more arms. The national debt more than doubled under the Reagan presidency, making ashes of Republican devotion to principle. As the superpower, we are left in the paradox of an arms race that never ends. The constant pursuit of the next “ultimate” weapon continues to escalate, at the cutting edge of global competition in systems technology. It’s a pursuit that can only deepen our paranoia.
Equally collateral and colossal in the arms race is the monumental waste. The cost overruns that are chronic in the rush for new weapons are only part of it. The passion for secrecy plays easily and often into favoritism that deprives the taxpayers of open and competitive bidding for goods and services. With numerous duplications and overlaps among our forces, it’s hardly surprising that our military spending runs higher than the combined defense budgets of the next dozen largest contenders. We hardly question even such costly frills as the Air National Guard. Why each governor needs his/her own little Air Force cannot be answered by any politician in rational terms. It begs the question of just how many of our extravagantly arrayed weapons systems are mere toys. And, how many have little value beyond sabre rattling. Consider the vast cost of building, staffing and maintaining an aircraft carrier group that might be erased by one small nuclear device.
The military is the paradox within the paradox of the arms race. The services are intensively schooled in warfare. War is what they are poised for. They can’t help but feel somewhat unfulfilled in their careers if they are not tested by combat. As history amply tells, military careers are heightened by wars. Generals and admirals grow stars on their shoulders much faster in war than in peace. Our veterans are most glorified if they’ve tasted combat. We taste it too, as we honor them.
That taste has just the flavor we’re looking for: security. National security, homeland security. It’s our ever-growing box of chocolates, this war machine. But in keeping us the lone superpower, it puts a bullseye on our back. It keeps us paranoid. Every gang of tribal fanatics and mobsters has us in their sights. They are bent ’round the clock on stealing or destroying our candy. They can’t resist tweaking our paranoia.
We’ve earned our perpetual paradox and the endless paranoia that goes with it: the greater our military advantage over the rest of the world, the less certain our security.
Terrorism bows to no war machine.
Yet our addiction to arms gives us less, not more, security at home and abroad. The wars we’ve been waging in this century have put the world no closer to peace, and ourselves at the brink of fiscal ruin, with both our middle class and our economic competitiveness sinking against the global field.
Addiction to arms was the downfall of the Roman empire. Will we face the fact that we’re traveling the same path, before it’s too late? Or, will we go on leading the world in the manufacture and sale of weapons in both the open and black markets, often to buyers bent upon destroying us? Is there no cure for such paranoia? A Romney-Ryan win can only lead us deeper into our addiction.
Frank Mensel – August 2012