{"id":50337,"date":"2024-11-30T07:35:32","date_gmt":"2024-11-30T15:35:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=50337"},"modified":"2024-11-30T07:36:10","modified_gmt":"2024-11-30T15:36:10","slug":"the-trillion-dollar-blob","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2024\/11\/30\/the-trillion-dollar-blob\/","title":{"rendered":"The Trillion-Dollar Blob"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views<\/a> with the author\u2019s permission.<\/i><\/p>\n

In 2018, the Pentagon failed its first audit. In 2024, it failed its seventh audit in a row. The Pentagon has been \u201cpunished\u201d for failing seven audits \u2013 and losing track of roughly $2 trillion in gear, weapons, and similar \u201cassets\u201d \u2013 with more money. Whether under Presidents Trump or Biden, the Pentagon budget has continued to soar toward a trillion dollars. That is the reward for total fiscal incompetence.<\/p>\n

Congress says the Pentagon must achieve \u201ca clean audit\u201d by 2028. Imagine telling the IRS that you can\u2019t account for your financials for seven straight years \u2013 and probably at least three more \u2013 but you hope to have a \u201cclean\u201d tax return after a decade of effort. And the IRS responds by giving you ever higher tax refunds that you haven\u2019t earned. Nonsensical, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s a measure of the power of the MICIMATT, the national security blob, that failure brings so many rewards. That handy acronym of Ray McGovern explains a lot. The Military, all its weapons makers (Industry), Congress, the Intelligence \u201ccommunity,\u201d the Media, Academe, and various Think Tanks: when you add all that up, all its cultural authority as well as its vast resources, it\u2019s no wonder the blob is so difficult to tackle, let alone contain. Plus the blob is further supported by two powerful shapers of culture and opinion, the sports world (consider the NFL\u2019s \u201cSalute to Service\u201d campaign) and Hollywood (consider all the movies made featuring military weaponry and storylines that celebrate military prowess, not forgetting all the TV shows centered on special forces, CSI, and the like). Think of all those \u201cCall of Duty\u201d video games as well.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the crux of the matter: even if the Pentagon finally passes an audit, we need much more than an efficient<\/em> military. It\u2019s not enough to cut the Pentagon budget slightly, or to claim that waste, fraud, and abuse can be reduced. Sure, it\u2019s a step, but if the military is still imperial, still fighting wars it shouldn\u2019t be fighting, still funding legacy weapons systems that were obsolete fifty years ago, a more efficient force doing brutally dumb things is hardly an improvement.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why I\u2019m not encouraged by Elon Musk\u2019s DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency) with its supposed mandate to make even the blob more efficient. A quicker, leaner, blob that\u2019s \u201cindestructible\u201d (as in the movie poster) is even more of a peril.<\/p>\n

I don’t want a leaner, more efficient, imperial military. I want a smaller, much less ambitious, military suitable to a republic that’s dedicated to the defense of our constitutional ideals.<\/p>\n

I don’t want cheaper, more nimble, nuclear weapons. I want major reductions in nuclear arms. Any sane person should want this.<\/p>\n

Yet what we get is fear-mongering, threat inflation, and boasts about U.S. military lethality even by the Democrats. (Recall Kamala Harris and her praise of lethality.)<\/p>\n

America has a bellicose, bullying, immature leadership that thinks military might is the answer to everything, as reflected by U.S. Special Forces in 80+ countries and roughly 800 bases globally. That global presence is unsustainable. It is also folly.<\/p>\n

Of course, this massive global presence grew during World War II and the Cold War. After 1991, instead of downsizing, the U.S. military decided it could dominate everywhere, then defined the GWOT (global war on terror) and a new cold war to justify the trillion dollar budgets we’re now seeing \u2013 and which can\u2019t be audited, according to the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the rub: America must end the idea of full-spectrum dominance, end the GWOT, and dismiss notions of a new cold war. Forget about efficiency: make big cuts to the Pentagon budget and create a new vision of a military suited to keeping the peace rather than waging perpetual war.<\/p>\n

Making the Pentagon pass an audit (still very unlikely) may keep accountants happy, but a more efficient military may be even more dangerous if the policies of dominance everywhere and weapons sales irrespective of human rights, even genocide (!), continue unabated.<\/p>\n

As George McGovern said in 1972, “Come home, America.” Leave the rest of the world to settle its own affairs.<\/p>\n

Answer the call of duty: defeat the blob!<\/p>\n

William J. Astore, a retired lieutenant colonel (USAF), professor of history, and a senior fellow at the Eisenhower Media Network (EMN), an organization of critical veteran military and national security professionals. His personal substack is Bracing Views<\/a>. His video testimony for the Merchants of Death Tribunal is available\u00a0<\/span>at this link<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author\u2019s permission. In 2018, the Pentagon failed its first audit. In 2024, it failed its seventh audit in a row. The Pentagon has been \u201cpunished\u201d for failing seven audits \u2013 and losing track of roughly $2 trillion in gear, weapons, and similar \u201cassets\u201d \u2013 with more money. Whether under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[758],"class_list":["post-50337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":"It Can't Be Audited \u2013 Yet It Must Be Stopped"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/290"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50337"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50346,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50337\/revisions\/50346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50337"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=50337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}