Ike Warned Us

Oct. 1, 2015

As President Dwight Eisenhower (“Ike”) left office in January 1961, he gave a speech that was meant as a warning to the American people. It was little-noticed at the time as the nation shifted its attention to the dynamic new president, John F. Kennedy (JFK). But that speech, by a former five-star general who had engineered the defeat of Nazi Germany and who knew all too well the desire of the military for more of everything, was crystal clear.

After eight years in office, Ike could see where the country was headed. He had determinedly resisted demands to increase defense spending in the face of the new “Cold War” with the Soviet Union. But pressure was intense, mostly from Congressional Democrats. Meanwhile, JFK was a defense “hawk” who campaigned against Eisenhower’s Vice President, Richard Nixon, with the charge that the Soviets were ahead and that there was a dangerous “missile gap.”

Eisenhower harkened back to a time, prior to WWII, when the United States did not have nor need a standing armaments industry. Instead, we relied on our ability to turn industrial capacity to war production when necessary. The Detroit area was a prime example where auto plants quickly shifted to tank production when we entered the war.

Ike’s prophetic words are worth recalling today:

“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 statehouse, every office of the federal government…we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex.

The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists…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.”

What has happened since that speech? Adjusted for inflation, U.S. national security spending has more than doubled since Eisenhower left office. The military-industrial complex has become the most powerful lobbying force in Washington.

As military hardware has grown more sophisticated and expensive, the industrial mobilization model of World War II has been supplanted by a permanent defense industry, just as Ike predicted. The complexity of today’s weaponry makes it increasingly difficult for “an alert and knowledgeable citizenry” to assess what is truly needed versus what the military-industrial complex deems “essential.”

While our armed forces struggle to stem the tide of radical movements across the globe, the military-industrial complex has kept its focus on major weapons systems – bombers, fighters, submarines, aircraft carriers. That’s where the big money is. But the products they are promoting seem to be aimed at a threat that is more imagined than real.

In 2011, no less an authority than then- Secretary of Defense Robert Gates echoed Ike’s warning when he said, “Does the number of warships we have, and are building, really put America at risk, when the U.S. battle fleet is larger than the next 13 navies combined – 11 of which are our partners and allies? Is it a dire threat that by 2020, the United States will have only 20 times more advanced stealth fighters than China?”

Gates is gone now. A relatively unconstrained Pentagon and its Congressional allies are forging ahead with plans to spend incomprehensible amounts of money in the coming years – $1 trillion for new nuclear weapons, $100 billion for 12 new submarines, more than $140 billion for ten new aircraft carriers and $80 billion for 100 new bombers.

Many analysts are questioning the utility of these costly systems. Aircraft carriers are large targets and increasingly vulnerable to attack. Bombers may well be supplanted in the coming decades by large unmanned stealth drones.

Only the submarines seem to make sense as replacements for aging vessels, but do we really need all this modernization? Why not keep using the successful designs of the past.

The answer is simple. Building more of the same does not yield the kind of huge profits and hefty consulting contracts for recently retired politicians as new designs do. The military-industrial complex has learned to parlay its relationship with Capitol Hill to protect these costly programs. As the old joke goes, “The B2 bomber is our nation’s first entirely invulnerable weapon system. There’s a manufacturing contract for it in all 50 states.” The B2 may be too costly to fly (at $135,000 per flight hour) and difficult to maintain (10 out of the 20 plane fleet are in maintenance at any one time), but the manufacturers would have us believe that their replacements will be better and cheaper.

The need for all these advanced weapons and their costs could be ignored, were it not for the voices that keep calling for more money. Nearly all the Republican presidential candidates seem to be promising to increase the defense budget (and our commitments) “on day one.” Secretary Clinton’s views are not clear and Bernie Sanders, well, Bernie is Bernie.

We have an opportunity to voice an opinion on this. Here in northern Michigan, in 2016 we will elect a new member of the House of Representatives and a new senator. Where the candidates stand on the choices we make about spending our tax dollars could make all the difference.

We can continue feeding the beast when we applaud promises that they are for “a strong defense” (meaning increased defense spending). Or we can begin to ask the candidates to explain how they plan to reduce the cost of our defense. If the candidates want to spend more for defense, let them specify what they intend to cut to pay for it.

Jack Segal is co-chair, with his wife Karen, of the International Affairs Forum (IAF). He served in Vietnam and Germany in the Army, in the Middle East and Russia with the State Department and in senior positions at the White House and NATO. He will interview former NPR reporter and JCS advisor, Sarah Chayes at the City Opera House on October 15.