Wampum

The return of the Iron Triangle

Yesterday, an interblog “discussion” developed between Kevin Drum (formerly Calpundit, now with Washington Monthly), Matthew Yglesias (of Tapped) and Duncan Black (of Eschaton) over the Peter Beinart’s suggestion that Democrats purge the Party of our Left flank, namely Michael Moore and MoveOn.org’s vast minions. Most of the discussion centered on whether opponents of the invasion of Afghanistan should have their critiques of the US war on Iraq taken seriously.

I didn’t have the free time until early this morning to follow the links back to Beinart’s article in The New Republic. What surprised me most was that none of the debaters seemed bothered by this analysis:

Moore is the most prominent soft in the United States today. Most Democrats agree with him about the Iraq war, about Ashcroft, and about Bush. What they do not recognize, or do not acknowledge, is that Moore does not oppose Bush's policies because he thinks they fail to effectively address the terrorist threat; he does not believe there is a terrorist threat. For Moore, terrorism is an opiate whipped up by corporate bosses. In Dude, Where's My Country?, he says it plainly: "There is no terrorist threat." And he wonders, "Why has our government gone to such absurd lengths to convince us our lives are in danger?"

Moore views totalitarian Islam the way Wallace viewed communism: As a phantom, a ruse employed by the only enemies that matter, those on the right. Saudi extremists may have brought down the Twin Towers, but the real menace is the Carlyle Group.

Beinart and many party centrists appear to believe that such ideas cross the border into tinfoil-hat territory. But before I continue, I’d like to step back into time, to January, 1961, to a segment of a speech by two-term Republican President, and former Supreme Commander, Allied Forces in Europe, Dwight D. Eisenhower, just days before he left office:

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

Eisenhower first recognized the sleeping giant: Moore only reported on it awake and pillaging the village.

It is disconcerting how little discussion has occurred over Bush’s real marriage to the present-day offspring of Eisenhower’s military-industrial complex; the Christian Right is only a mistress, available for cheap thrills and easily discarded if inconvenient. Even purported liberals like Beinart fall into the ideological trap so successfully manipulated by militarists during the Cold War: there is an totalitarian menace lurking outside the borders of America, and we must spend whatever is necessary to defeat it.

One politician in the last half-century made an art of this form of manipulation, and it was not Joe McCarthy.

But I get ahead of myself.

* * * * *

Back in the early days of Wampum, I began a series I termed Flashback Friday, where I maintained that the administration of George W. Bush was merely a repeat of his father’s, George H.W. Bush. Soon after entering office, both men saw their favorable rating sour over a downturn in the US economy, and subsequently, a series of events centered on Middle Eastern actors (Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, etc.) which triggered a stratospheric rise in the popularity of both men. However, as the reality of a growing recession set in, the public’s enchantment with the Bush men faded, and I theorized that Dubya would follow in his father’s footsteps as a one-termer.

Obviously, I was wrong.

I reflected on my miscalculation after November 11th (actually, I began to have doubts in the months leading up to the election.) Perhaps it was the death and canonization of former President Reagan last summer, which sparked memories I had repressed for the last 18 years. But I started to believe that the man George Jr. lionized was not President Bush the First, but his predecessor and true worshiper at the altar of the New Conservatism, Ronald Reagan.

It may be that we’re forever doomed to interpret current history through the lens developed in our past; I was a college student specializing in US modern diplomatic history during the late Reagan era, and so my world view will be forever tainted by the events of that time. But in this instance, I believe my intellectual biases and reality are in sync.

During his first term, Reagan saw an economy which rapidly de-accelerated, mostly in response to Fed Chairman Paul Volcker’s battle to curb soaring inflation via rising interest rates and Reagan’s massive income tax cuts. Over 17,000 businesses closed in during the worse recession since the 1930s, many of those private manufacturers.

Ignoring the severity of the recession and a growing budget deficit, Reagan supported massive military expenditures. Despite the fact that the US had not been involved in an open conflict since its pullout from Vietnam in 1975, Reagan found justification for this lavish spending in the Cold War: The Red Menace, Soviet Union, China and their allies around the globe (include the pitiful island Grenada) had not been curtailed by the “half-measures” advanced by every post-WWII president, so draconian, and expensive, measures were in order. The Great Communicator won over the House, where the Democratic margin numbered over a hundred, and the money began to flow.

Under the eight years of the Reagan Administration (1981-1989), defense spending rose 35%, as the US attempted to force the Soviets into bankruptcy in an escalated arms race. While many contemporary observers recall new weapons systems, such as SDI (“Star Wars”,) and the reconstituted B-1, most defense spending was in procurement of nuclear missiles and traditional armaments.

Feeding the military-industrial complex had its benefits; while thousands of shoe, clothing, furniture and electronics manufacturers moved their operations offshore, leaving in their wake millions of unemployed factory workers, the production floors of Boeing and Sikorsky were humming. Reagan was able to fuel his purported economic “miracle” with defense contractor welfare. Of course, this benefited the sector’s executives, many of whom exercised the public/private revolving door with increasing regularity. Contractor profits bought more politicians, who then funneled ever larger contracts to their benefactors. A veritable circle of life.

Then the Berlin Wall came tumbling down.

The scam was already almost up, to be honest. Stratospheric deficits spooked many of the pre-Reagan spendthrift Republicans such as Gramm and Rudman. Calls for spending cuts ensued, including in the Defense budget. But the evaporation of an actual military threat, a la the Soviets, pulled the rug out from an orator whose mental health was rapidly being consumed by Alzheimer’s. His successor, the Elder Bush, did not have either the genuine supply-side credentials nor the communicative skill to continue to hoodwink a nation, at least without a willing and able villain. For a short time, Saddam Hussein filled the bill, but Bush Sr., surprisingly enough, was too honest a commander in chief.

His son, however, did not inherit such ethics.

* * * *

When I first decided to write on this topic a few weeks back, I sent out the Googling monkeys with the term, "Bush defense budget” which retrieved an interesting result.

The “4% Solution.” Sounds almost like a Michael Crichton novel.

On July 21, 2000, Admiral Jay stepped down from his post as the Navy's top officer with the parting words that national security requires a defense expenditure of 4 percent of GDP. On August 16th, Gen. James Jones, Commandant of the Marine Corps in an interview with Defense an increase in defense spending "to about 4 to 4.5 percent of the US gross domestic product." On August 18th, Gen. Gordon Sullivan, formerly Army Chief of Staff joined the chorus: "We must prepare for the future of the security of our nation. We should set the marker at 4 percent."

But on August 13, 2000, Frank Gafney, Jr., founder and president of the Center for Security Policy, put all the puzzle pieces together in a San Diego Union Tribune article entitled, "The 'Four Percent Solution' for military readiness.”

The “4% Solution” calls for funding the Defense budget equal to 4% of GNP. If one looks at that historically, it doesn’t at all seem like an outrageous number; during the Reagan era, that percentage averaged around 6%. Under Clinton, it had decreased to 2.9%.

The reality, however, is the actual numbers. The 1987 defense budget, when adjusted for 2005 dollars, clocked out at $456.5 billion. The 2005 budget request, which represents 3.9% of GNP, totaled $419 billion. This represented a 35% increase over the 2001 defense appropriation of $309.5 billion, equal to the eight year increase during the Reagan Administration. If PNAC, CSP and other neo-con think tanks have their way, in 2010, the US defense budget will top out at over $600 billion.

There is little discussion as to why even a Republican Congress, particularly one facing near catastrophic deficits, would agree to such extravagant spending, unless faced with a major conflict in one or more theaters.

Would a “police action” in Afghanistan do? Probably not.

A full scale “hot” war in Iraq? How about Iran? North Korea? All of the above?

What liberal hawks like Beinhart fail to understand that the militarists are interested mostly in driving up defense spending, and thus to fill up their private industry coffers, the hotter the war, the more money for them. Up to a point, of course. Don’t want to see another bad press event, a la Vietnam, which might turn off the spigot.

The Bush Administration is seeking to fulfill the Reagan Legacy: During the Clinton years, the military, faced with significant spending cuts, was forced to become leaner and meaner. So was the military-industrial complex. Companies merged or moved into non-defense areas. Those which were left became behemoths, with the top three accounting for 25 cents out of every defense budget dollar. In the past year alone, R&D and Procurement budgets have increased over 25%. Companies have evolved, and are now hungry. Furthermore, they’ve spent large sums of money getting their man elected, and its time for payback, deficits, casualties be damned.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld mused this week that American troops should be out of Iraq in, say, four or five years.

* * * * *

Eisenhower, and Moore, raised the red flags. How Progressives should respond is perhaps another lengthy post.

Posted by MB Williams at December 7, 2004 09:31 PM | TrackBack