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department of defense
We Are the Evil Empire We’ve Been Looking for
The U.S. has the mega-weapons and the urge to dominate of Darth Vader and yet, miraculously enough, we continue to believe that we’re Luke Skywalker.
May 09, 2025
Forty years ago this month, I was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force.
I would be part of America’s all-volunteer force (AVF) for 20 years, hitting my marks and retiring as a lieutenant colonel in 2005. In my two decades of service, I met a lot of fine and dedicated officers, enlisted members, and civilians. I worked with the Army, Navy, and Marine Corps as well, and met officers and cadets from countries like Great Britain, Germany, Pakistan, Poland, and Saudi Arabia. I managed not to get shot at or kill anyone. Strangely enough, in other words, my military service was peaceful.
Don’t get me wrong: I was a card-carrying member of America’s military-industrial complex. I’m under no illusions about what a military exists for, nor should you be. As an historian, having read military history for 50 years of my life and having taught it as well at the Air Force Academy and the Naval Postgraduate School, I know something of what war is all about, even if I haven’t experienced the chaos, the mayhem, the violence, or the atrocity of war directly.
My own Orwellian turn of phrase for such mania is: Destruction is construction. In this country, an all-too-offensive military is sold as a defensive one.
Military service is about being prepared to kill. I was neither a trigger-puller nor a bomb-dropper. Nonetheless, I was part of a service that paradoxically preaches peace through superior firepower. The U.S. military and, of course, our government leaders, have had a misplaced—indeed, irrational—faith in the power of bullets and bombs to solve or resolve the most intractable of problems. Vietnam is going communist in 1965? Bomb it to hell and back. Afghanistan supports terrorism in 2001? Bomb it wildly. Iraq has weapons of mass destruction in 2003? Bomb it, too (even though it had no WMDs). The Houthis in Yemen have the temerity to protest and strike out in relation to Israel’s atrocities in Gaza in 2025? Bomb them to hell and back.
Sadly, “bomb it” is this country’s go-to option, the one that’s always on the table, the one our leaders often reach for first. America’s “best and brightest,” whether in the Vietnam era or now, have a powerful yen for destruction or, as the saying went in that long-gone era, “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it.” Judging them by their acts, our leaders indeed have long appeared to believe that all too many villages, towns, cities, and countries needed to be destroyed in order to save them.
My own Orwellian turn of phrase for such mania is: Destruction is construction. In this country, an all-too-offensive military is sold as a defensive one, hence, of course, the rebranding of the Department of War as the Department of Defense. An imperial military is sold as so many freedom-fighters and -bringers. We have the mega-weapons and the urge to dominate of Darth Vader and yet, miraculously enough, we continue to believe that we’re Luke Skywalker.
This is just one of the many paradoxes and contradictions contained within the U.S. military and indeed my own life. Perhaps they’re worth teasing out and exploring, as I reminisce about being commissioned at the ripe old age of 22 in 1985—a long time ago in a country far, far away.
The Evil Empire
When I went on active duty in 1985, the country that constituted the Evil Empire on this planet wasn’t in doubt. As President Ronald Reagan said then, it was the Soviet Union—authoritarian, militaristic, domineering, and decidedly untrustworthy. Forty years later, who, exactly, is the evil empire? Is it Vladimir Putin’s Russia with its invasion of Ukraine three years ago? The Biden administration surely thought so; the Trump administration isn’t so sure. Speaking of President Donald Trump (and how can I not?), isn’t it correct to say that the U.S. is increasingly authoritarian, domineering, militaristic, and decidedly untrustworthy? Which country has roughly 800 military bases globally? Which country’s leader openly boasts of trillion-dollar war budgets and dreams of the annexation of Canada and Greenland? It’s not Russia, of course, nor is it China.
Back when I first put on a uniform, there was thankfully no Department of Homeland Security, even as the Reagan administration began to trust (but verify!) the Soviets in negotiations to reduce our mutual nuclear stockpiles. Interestingly, 1985 witnessed an aging Republican president, Reagan, working with his Soviet peer, even as he dreamed of creating a “space shield” (SDI, the strategic defense initiative) to protect America from nuclear attack. In 2025, we have an aging Republican president, Donald Trump, negotiating with Putin even as he floats the idea of a “Golden Dome” to shield America from nukes. (Republicans in Congress already seek $27 billion for that “dome,” so that “golden” moniker is weirdly appropriate and, given the history of cost overruns on American weaponry, you know that would be just the starting point of its soaring projected cost.)
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, fears of a third world war that would lead to a nuclear exchange (as caught in books of the time like Tom Clancy’s popular novel Red Storm Rising) abated. And for a brief shining moment, the U.S. military reigned supreme globally, pulverizing the junior varsity mirror image of the Soviet military in Iraq with Desert Storm in 1991. We had kicked the Vietnam Syndrome once and for all, President George H.W. Bush exulted. It was high time for some genuine peace dividends, or so it seemed.
The real problem was that that seemingly instantaneous success against Saddam Hussein’s much-overrated Iraqi military reignited the real Vietnam Syndrome, which was Washington’s overconfidence in military force as the way to secure dominance, while allegedly strengthening democracy not just here in America but globally. Hubris led to the expansion of NATO to Russia’s borders; hubris led to unipolar dreams of total dominance everywhere; hubris meant that America could somehow have the most moral as well as lethal military in the world; hubris meant that one need never concern oneself about potential blowback from allying with Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan or the risk of provoking Russian aggression as NATO floated Ukraine and Georgia as future members of an alliance designed to keep Russia down.
It was the end of history (so it was said) and American-style democracy had prevailed.
Even so, militarily, this country did anything but demobilize. Under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, there was some budgetary trimming, but military Keynesianism remained a thing, as did the military-industrial-congressional complex. Clinton managed a rare balanced budget due to domestic spending cuts and welfare reform; his cuts to military spending, however, were modest indeed. Tragically, under him, America would not become “a normal country in normal times,” as former United Nations Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick once dreamed. It would remain an empire—and an increasingly hungry one at that.
In that vein, senior civilians like Secretary of State Madeleine Albright began to wonder why this country had such a superb military if we weren’t prepared to use it to boss others around. Never mind concerns about the constitutionality of employing U.S. troops in conflicts without a congressional declaration of war. (How unnecessary! How old-fashioned!) It was time to unapologetically rule the world.
The calamitous events of 9/11 changed nothing except the impetus to punish those who’d challenged our illusions. Those same events also changed everything as America’s leaders decided it was then the moment to double down on empire, to become even more authoritarian (the Patriot Act, torture, and the like), to go openly to “the dark side,” to lash out in the only way they knew how—more bombing (Afghanistan, Iraq), followed by invasions and “surges”—then, wash, rinse, repeat.
So, had we really beaten the Vietnam Syndrome in the triumphant year of 1991? Of course not. A decade later, after 9/11, we met the enemy, and once again it was our unrepresentative government spoiling for war, no matter how ill-conceived and ill-advised—because war pays, because war is “presidential,” because America’s leaders believe that the true “power of its example” is example after example of its power, especially bombs bursting in air.
The “All-Volunteer” Force Isn’t What It Seems
Speaking as a veteran and a military historian, I believe America’s all-volunteer force has lost its way. Today’s military members—unlike those of the “greatest generation” of World War II fame—are no longer citizen-soldiers. Today’s “volunteers” have surrendered to the rhetoric of being “warriors” and “warfighters.” They take their identity from fighting wars or preparing for the same, putting aside their oath to support and defend the Constitution. They forget (or were never taught) that they must be citizens first, soldiers second. They have, in truth, come to embrace a warrior mystique that is far more consistent with authoritarian regimes. They’ve come to think of themselves—proudly so—as a breed apart.
Far too often in this America, an affinitive patriotism has been replaced by a rabid nationalism. Consider that Christocentric “America First” ideals are now openly promoted by the civilian commander-in-chief, no matter that they remain antithetical to the Constitution and corrosive to democracy. The new “affirmative action” openly affirms faith in Christ and trust in Trump (leavened with lots of bombs and missiles against nonbelievers).
Citizen-soldiers of my father’s generation, by way of contrast, thought for themselves. They chafed against military authority, confronting it when it seemed foolish, wasteful, or unlawful. They largely demobilized themselves in the aftermath of World War II. But warriors don’t think. They follow orders. They drop bombs on target. They make the war machine run on time.
To end wars and weaken militarism in America, we must render it unprofitable.
Americans, when they’re not overwhelmed by their efforts to simply make ends meet, have largely washed their hands of whatever that warrior-military does in their name. They know little about wars fought supposedly to protect them and care even less. Why should they care? They’re not asked to weigh in. They’re not even asked to sacrifice (other than to pay taxes and keep their mouths shut).
Too many people in America, it seems to me, are now playing a perilous game of make believe. We make believe that America’s wars are authorized when they clearly are not. For example, who, other than Donald Trump (and Joe Biden before him), gave the U.S. military the right to bomb Yemen?
We make believe all our troops are volunteers. We make believe we care about those “volunteers.” Sometimes, some of us even make believe we care about those wars being waged in places and countries most Americans would be hard-pressed to find on a map. How confident are you that all too many Americans could even point to the right hemisphere to find Syria or Yemen or past war zones like Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq?
War isn’t even that good at teaching Americans geography anymore!
What Is To Be Done?
If you accept that there’s a kernel of truth to what I’ve written so far, and that there’s definitely something wrong that should be fixed, the question remains: What is to be done?
Some concrete actions immediately demand our attention.
- Any ongoing wars, including “overseas contingency operations” and the like, must be stopped immediately unless Congress formally issues a declaration of war as required by the Constitution. No more nonsense about MOOTW, or “military operations other than war.” There is war or there is peace. Period. Want to bomb Yemen? First, declare war on Yemen through Congress.
- Wars, assuming they are supported by congressional declarations, must be paid for with taxes raised above all from those Americans who benefit most handsomely from fighting them. There shall be no deficit spending for war.
- Americans are used to “sin” taxes for purchases like tobacco and alcohol. So, isn’t it time for a new “sin” tax related to profiteering from war, especially by the corporations that make the distinctly overpriced weaponry without which such wars couldn’t be waged?
To end wars and weaken militarism in America, we must render it unprofitable. As long as powerful forces continue to profit so handsomely from going to war—even as “volunteer” troops are told to aspire to be “warriors,” born and trained to kill—this violent madness in America will persist, if not expand.
Look, the 22-year-old version of me thought he knew who the evil empire was. He thought he was one of the good guys. He thought his country and his military stood for something worthy, even for “greatness” of a sort. Sure, he was naïve. Perhaps he was just another wet-behind-the-ears factotum of empire. But he took his oath to the Constitution seriously and looked to a brighter day when that military would serve only as a deterrent in a world largely at peace.
The soon-to-be-62-year-old me is no longer so naïve and, these days, none too sure who’s evil and who isn’t. He knows his country is on the wrong path, that the bloody path of bullets and bombs (and profiting from the same) is always perilous for any freedom-loving people to travel on.
Somehow, America needs to be put back on the freedom trail that inspires and empowers citizens rather than wannabe warriors brandishing weapons galore. Somehow, we need to aspire again to be a nation of laws. (Can we agree that due process is better than no process?) Somehow, we need to dream of being a nation where right makes might, one that knows that destruction is not construction, one that exchanges bullets and bombs for ballots and beauty.
How else are we to become America the Beautiful?
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Pete Hegseth—Offense at the Defense Department
Pete, If you were to spend your time on our national defense—instead of “lethality” in attacking foreign nations with which we are not at war—you could probably rest easier about using your phone.
May 07, 2025
Isn’t the most remarkable—and least remarked-upon—aspect of the Pete Hegseth Defense Department reality show the fact that no one has appeared worried that the nation’s security might actually be threatened by this? That no one has seemed particularly concerned about any danger resulting from the vast U.S. military arsenal ostensibly being placed in the hands of someone who had obviously not read the job manual? But then why would they? Did anyone seriously think China’s Ministry of State Security was dashing off memos advising the country’s leaders to invade the United States because control of its armed forces had somehow fallen into inept hands? Or that something like that was going on in Russia… or Denmark… or Canada… or any other of our enemies, old or new?
Apparently not. Why? Well, at recent count, the U.S. was in possession of a fleet of 299 deployable combat vessels, 3,748 nuclear warheads, 5,500 military aircraft, 13,000 drones, and 2,079,142 military personnel. All of this comes with highly detailed operational plans for situations involving an actual attack on the nation. But no one seemed to think that what Hegseth was spending his time on had much, if anything, to do with that eventuality. From the point of view of the nation’s legitimate security, that’s a good thing. But it raises the question of what was Hegseth on about, anyhow?
The story that brought the question of the Trump foreign policy team’s competence to the fore has little to do with the matter of American national defense. What it’s really about is the unauthorized, global use of American military force. The few Americans whose well-being were plausibly threatened by Hegseth’s now infamous sharing of the details of upcoming bombing missions—with his wife, brother, lawyer, as well as the editor of The Atlantic—were the pilots of those missions.
While, as in so many areas, he may well be the crudest exponent and practitioner of American foreign policy that we’ve seen in some time, the bombs Trump orders do not fall far from those dropped by previous administrations.
The object of this ongoing bombing campaign—which the administration says has struck a thousand targets—is the Yemen rebel group called the Houthis, an organization allied with Iran and militarily opposed by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The recent U.S. attacks came in response to a resumption of Houthi efforts to block Israeli shipping in the Arabian Gulf that followed upon Israel’s breaking of its cease-fire agreement with Hamas, along with its blocking of humanitarian aid to Gaza. In response to the renewed U.S. assault, the Houthis have attacked the U.S.S. Harry S. Truman, the aircraft carrier which then-President Joe Biden deployed to the Gulf last December as a base for the anti-Houthi airstrikes that he had ordered.
Now, although it may seem quaint to mention such technicalities as the law in relation to the routine U.S. bombing of another nation, the truth of the matter is that—whether one considers bombing the Houthis to free up Arabian Gulf shipping a good idea, or whether one doesn’t—we are simply not at war either with the government of Yemen or with the Houthis trying to supplant it. Nor has Congress authorized the use of force there, in lieu of a declaration of war.
If you have trouble recalling Congress declaring war, that’s because you probably weren’t alive in 1942, the last time it did so (against Bulgaria, Hungary, and Rumania.) The wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan? No declaration of war deemed necessary. And while the current Republican-controlled Congress may be distinguishing itself for new depths of subservience, generally the Democrat and Republican leadership alike tend to act as if questions of war and peace were above their pay grade, with only a minority of Democrats and a handful of Republicans ever making noise about the latest military action taken in our name. Congress’ ultimate responsibility notwithstanding, Presidents Biden and Donald Trump have made their decisions to launch attacks on Yemen unilaterally.
What we’re dealing with here is what we might call the Defense Department’s Offense Division—the part that maintains the 700–800 foreign military bases around the globe (the exact number is classified, but maybe if you could get your number on Hegseth’s phone list…), along with the ships that ply its waters and the planes and drones that fly its airs. As previously noted, Trump is not the first president to bomb Yemen. And while, as in so many areas, he may well be the crudest exponent and practitioner of American foreign policy that we’ve seen in some time, the bombs Trump orders do not fall far from those dropped by previous administrations. Prior to the current episode, the U.S. has bombed Yemen during every single year since 2009—nearly 300 times, primarily via drone.
Nor is Yemen the first country bombed during the second Trump administration; Iraq, Syria, and Somalia have preceded it. None of this was considered much by way of news—a failing of the news media, yes—but less so than of the congressional leaders who have failed to make it news. Here too, while Trump may denigrate his predecessors, he apparently takes no issue with their bombing choices, joining the George W. Bush, Obama, Trump I, and Biden administrations in the serial bombing of Somalia that has occurred more than 350 times over the course of those presidencies. The U.S. has also bombed Syria and Iraq every year since 2014.
All of this has been justified under tortured, expansive legal interpretations of the 2001 and 2002 Authorizations for Use of Military Force permitting military action against entities that “planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons” as well as “to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq.” Under Bush, the authorization was interpreted to extend to the occupation of Iraq. Under Barack Obama, it would encompass action against groups that did not even exist in 2001, but were “descendants” or “successors”—such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). The first Trump administration would expand that logic to warfare against eight different groups—including the assassination of an Iranian military commander. It was now understood to allow for military actions anywhere on the globe.
Before the Trumpists coopted the use of the term “Deep State”—to encompass what they believe to be a malign government network that supports programs like the “Ponzi Scheme,” as Elon Musk sees it, of Social Security, or Medicare—the term was used by quite a different group of people to quite a different end. The Deep State back then referred to the unelected elements of the government committed to waging endless war, often covert, often illegal—e.g. the Central Intelligence Agency—the sort of thing President Lyndon Johnson was talking about when he said that under President John F. Kennedy the U.S. had been running “a damned Murder, Inc. in the Caribbean.”
We don’t call that the Deep State anymore because, as the above discussion indicates, our government no longer feels a need to hide these things. It’s above ground now—part of the DOD’s Offense Division. The CIA now conducts assassinations openly—via drone.
This is the part of the U.S. government that should really worry us. It’s what Pete Hegseth was hired to run, something that was clear right from his Senate confirmation hearings that culminated in a narrower win than even his boss’s on Election Day—his approval requiring a vice presidential tie-breaking vote for only the second time in history (the first being the approval of Betsy DeVos as Trump I Secretary of Education) From the get go, Hegseth was forthright in declaring himself against increased “wokeness”—and for increased “lethality.”
One simple way to increase lethality is to broaden the potential killing range. And in this area, Hegseth came with a pretty strong record, having successfully lobbied for pardons of soldiers convicted of war crimes during the first Trump administration, and suggesting in a book he wrote last year, The War on Warriors, that rather than adhering to the Geneva Conventions, the U.S. would be “better off in winning our wars according to our own rules.”
Nor has he missed a beat since taking office; he’s announced plans to terminate the Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Office and the Civilian Protection Center of Excellence, and the Army will no longer require training in the law of war; henceforth it will be optional. Results have quickly followed, with the bombing of a migrant detention center in Yemen, for instance. One of Hegseth’s infamous Signal chats even described the targeting of a civilian location.
One last thought for the secretary: Pete, If you were to spend your time on our national defense—instead of “lethality” in attacking foreign nations with which we are not at war—you could probably rest easier about using your phone. Of course, we both know that’d get you fired in a New York minute. You’re there to play offense.
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Can Big Balls Live Up to His Name and Take on the Pentagon Behemoth?
It’s going take some really big balls to change this Department of War (That’s DOW as in the stock prices that are at stake) into a true Department of Defense.
Feb 26, 2025
USAID is by no means a perfect organization. It has a long and storied history—some of it good, some of it bad. On the one hand, it provides food for starving people, helps prevent and treat HIV, and provides disaster relief and support. On the other hand, it harms the development of agriculture in client states, acts as a front for the CIA, and meddles in the internal affairs of other countries to the detriment of popular grassroots movements.
There’s waste and inefficiency in any large-scale human undertaking. USAID is no exception. If only we humans were as efficient as ants.
President Donald Trump and Elon Musk chose to take a chainsaw and cut down the entire USAID tree rather than prune the dead and diseased wood.
But in relation to the size of the federal discretionary budget, USAID is small potatoes. In the chart above, the entire USAID budget is the skinniest slice of the pie.
The biggest slice—the one that takes up half of the entire pie—is the Pentagon budget. The Pentagon—just the civilians—represents more than one-third of the entire federal civilian workforce.
The Pentagon is America’s biggest spender, biggest waster, and the most corrupt department in the entire federal government. It took 1,700 auditors to conclude that they just can’t find $4.1 trillion in assets.
The Pentagon has never passed an audit, but every year, Congress gives them more money. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that manufacturers of shoddy weapons systems invest tens of millions into congressional members’ reelection campaigns. Then these weapons contractors hire lobbyists, usually former Pentagon employees themselves, to wine, dine, and otherwise schmooze the senators and representatives who sit on defense appropriations committees. In turn, these members vote to keep the gravy train running to the tune of billions. Weapons contractors reap the rewards, which come out to be about a 450,000% return on their investment. Not to mention the 50-plus members of Congress who either directly, or through spouses, hold stock in these companies that continue to price gouge the Pentagon. If the Pentagon were a public company listed on NYSEC, its top executives would all be in jail.
There is some good news to be had. President Trump and Elon Musk say they are gunning for the Pentagon next. No doubt they will not chop down the whole tree, instead choosing to prune, unlike their strategy for minor-spending USAID. Let’s hope they plan to cut the Pentagon budget down to what’s necessary to defend the land we live on, and pull back from our previous strategy of controlling the entire world by military force. Instead of just fiddling around the edges and focusing on thousand-dollar soap dispensers, let’s hope Trump meant it when he talked about cutting hundreds of billions of dollars of weapons systems that have nothing to do with defending the U.S. To get into it at the Pentagon, Elon is touting one of his “top DOGE team members,” a young genius gent who goes by the name of “Big Balls.”
Well, Big Balls, should you choose to take on the Pentagon behemoth, know that you have your work cut out for you. Much of its waste is hidden in plain sight: Thousands of nuclear weapons are already overkill, with thousands more planned. Weapons systems that don’t work and cost American taxpayers billions. Corrupt weapons manufacturers price gouging the government for weapons that spend more time in the shop than available for service. Warplanes that are so needlessly complex that only the contractor who constructed the piece of crap is capable of repairing them. Former Pentagon generals, who take their insider knowledge straight to the source in their retirement, often lining up cushy board seats at these very same weapons manufacturers, fleecing the American people.
Those are some mighty foes and entrenched interests for you to take on, Big Balls. Hundreds of billions of dollars of waste, fraud, abuse, and insane, irrational, and immoral policies are at stake. There’s going to be a lot of war profiteers who will attack you. It will be a David and Goliath-esque undertaking. And it’s going take some really big balls to end it and to change this Department of War (That’s DOW as in the stock prices that are at stake) into a true Department of Defense, whose job is defending the land we live on, rather than controlling the entire world through endless wars.
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