military industrial complex

Smedley Butler Was Early. Eisenhower Confirmed It. Ukraine and Iran Are Proving It.

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In 1935, Smedley Butler warned that “War is a racket.” Twenty-six years later, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned Americans about the growing power of the military-industrial complex. Nearly a century later, their warnings deserve another look. As America replenishes stockpiles from Ukraine and Iran while asking Ford and other manufacturers to help produce more weapons, one uncomfortable question remains: when every missile launched becomes another billion-dollar contract, who is really winning? Soldiers still pay in blood. Taxpayers still pay the bill. But someone always profits.

Everything Looks Like a Nail When You Own a Trillion-Dollar Hammer

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Eisenhower didn’t warn America about a foreign army. He warned us about ourselves. A five-star general looked into the future and cautioned that a permanent military, a permanent defense industry, and a permanent government bureaucracy could become so intertwined that only an “alert and knowledgeable citizenry” could keep them in check. Sixty-five years later, we spend roughly a trillion dollars a year on national defense, the Pentagon still can’t earn a clean financial audit, and many Americans know more about celebrity gossip than federal spending. The question isn’t whether Eisenhower was right. The question is whether we’re still the alert and knowledgeable citizens he believed liberty required.

Putin’s Dream: A rift between the U.S. and our European allies

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The Biden administration has managed to accomplish what Vladimir Putin could only have dreamed about: A rift between the U.S. and our European allies. The so-called “adults in the room” have apparently infuriated European Union leaders over what they perceive to be America’s profiteering from the war in Ukraine. EU officials, most of whom spoke …

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