What Happens To Our U.S. Political Leaders?

Left to right and top to bottom above: Elon Musk and Donald Trump, Colin Powell , Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Jimmy Carter and General Norman Schwarzkopf

"Rose Covered Glasses" By Ken Larson

"The world is crying for great leaders. They are out there, but I believe they are hesitant to step forward. It is worth examining why and what has happened to some recent United States great leaders."

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"This author watched for over 40 years in aerospace and defense as the massive machine of government ground up men of integrity who had a true sense of leadership, purpose and service.

Unknown to the average American is the swinging door of military personnel who enter the defense industrial complex and then move on into government civil positions, lobbying activities or enterprises tapping their former service background for gain and greed.  Statesmanship and integrity have a difficult time surviving in that environment. The potential for waste, fraud and abuse is tremendous: Star Creep and the Revolving Door

Colin Powell had difficulties in a government role because real integrity fares poorly in the big machine and he made the mistake of trusting the NSA and the CIA, as well as Lockheed Martin, SAIC and CSC on Iraq war policy

Dwight David Eisenhower was one of the last, great, ex-military presidents who led well in government. He warned us at the ink below about the big machine gathering power as he left office: Eisenhower Farewell Address

Harry Truman could not have made the type of hard decisions and "Buck Stops Here" operations in this day in age. The machine would have crippled him.

Jimmy Carter had integrity but did not fare well because the huge gears of government were grinding away by then.

General Schwarzkopf demonstrated true leadership potential in the first Gulf War but very prudently moved away from the government he served as a military officer when he retired. He was a Vietnam vet who knew the machine too well..

I worked in Aerospace through 7 Administrations and all I saw was the machine getting bigger, grinding up leadership principles, young soldiers, creating new enemies and spewing foreign interventions and profits for large corporations.

Our hope for the future is that the massive machine of government will be re-sized small enough so a true leader with statesman qualities will be inclined to take the helm and steer it in a direction away from political stagnation while fostering a resumption of the premiere place the US has had in history. 

We found the STRATFOR Article by George Friedman exceptional in its analysis of the limited power of the President and the absolute necessity of anyone holding office to be capable of evolving coalitions effectively in governing domestically and on the world stage:  U.S. Presidency Designed to Disappoint

Here are some select extracts: 

*** "Congress, the Supreme Court and the Federal Reserve Board all circumscribe the president's power over domestic life. This and the authority of the states greatly limit the president's power, just as the country's founders intended. To achieve anything substantial, the president must create a coalition of political interests to shape decision-making in other branches of the government. Yet at the same time — and this is the main paradox of American political culture — the presidency is seen as a decisive institution and the person holding that office is seen as being of overriding importance."

*** "The American presidency is designed to disappoint. Each candidate must promise things that are beyond his power to deliver. No candidate could expect to be elected by emphasizing how little power the office actually has and how voters should therefore expect little from him. So candidates promise great, transformative programs. What the winner actually can deliver depends upon what other institutions, nations and reality will allow him." 

*** " The power often ascribed to the U.S. presidency is overblown. But even so, people -- including leaders -- all over the world still take that power very seriously. They want to believe that someone is in control of what is happening. The thought that no one can control something as vast and complex as a country or the world is a frightening thought. Conspiracy theories offer this comfort, too, since they assume that while evil may govern the world, at least the world is governed."

At the bottom line the only true measure of a leader is his or her character. We must decide that factor for ourselves as we enter the voting booth. It is the most independent action as a citizen that we take."

                                            Are Americans Truly Independent?

A First Estimate Of The Costs Of Militarized Rivalry with China

 

"According to Jennifer Kavanagh, Senior Fellow & Director of Military Analysis at Defense Priorities, the U.S. has spent at least $3.4 trillion countering China militarily since 2012. This figure, an average of $260 billion a year, is more than total U.S. spending on 20 years of war in Afghanistan ($2.3 trillion)."

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"This report provides the first estimate of the amount the U.S. has spent competing with China in the military domain over the period between 2012 and 2024. This period follows then-President Barack Obama’s November 2011 announcement of his intention to “pivot” U.S. attention from the Middle East toward Asia. In addition to Department of Defense spending, the analysis also includes relevant expenditures by the intelligence agencies, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Energy, and the State Department. The estimate is a best approximation of total spending focused on military competition with China – and excludes costs associated with economic or technological competition, for example. It also likely represents an undercount of the actual total China-focused military spending due to conservative methodological decisions made throughout the analysis.

Broken down by government agency, the Navy and Marine Corps are responsible for an estimated 33% of the total cost estimate for spending on militarized rivalry with China, followed by Defense Agencies (25%), the Air Force and Space Force (15%) and the Army (14%).

The paper also looks at some of the opportunity costs of this spending: Completely redoing the nation’s air traffic control system ($31.5 billion) and repairing all of the bridges currently rated in poor condition ($319 billion) would comprise about 10 percent of the expense of U.S. military competition with China between 2012-2024. Alternatively, the United States could fund about 85 years of tuition-free college education for all U.S. college goers."

VIEW THE FULL REPORT

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jennifer Kavanagh

Jennifer Kavenaugh is a Senior Fellow & Director of Military Analysis, Defense Priorities.jennifer.kavanagh@defp.orgWebsiteA political scientist by training, Kavanagh has spent her career studying U.S. national security and defense policy. Kavanagh’s research focuses on U.S. military strategy, force structure and defense budgeting, the defense industrial base, and U.S. military deployments and interventions.

A Different Path to War

 

"WAR ON THE ROCKS" By Christphopher Preble

"Americans today enjoy a measure of safety that our ancestors would envy and that our contemporaries do envy. We generally do not need to wage war to keep it that way.

On the contrary, some recent wars have degraded the U.S. military and undermined our security. Policymakers should therefore be extremely reluctant to risk American lives abroad."

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"The U.S. military is the finest fighting force in the world; it comprises dedicated professionals who are willing and able to fight almost anywhere, practically on a moment’s notice. Any military large enough to defend our vital national security interests will always be capable of intervening in distant disputes. But that does not mean that it should. Policymakers have an obligation to carefully weigh the most momentous decision that they are ever asked to make. These criteria can help.

Any nation with vast power will be tempted to use it. In this respect, the United States is exceptional because its power is so immense. Small, weak countries avoid fighting in distant disputes; the risk that troops, ships, or planes sent elsewhere will be unavailable for defense of the homeland generally keeps these nations focused on more proximate dangers. The U.S. government, by contrast, doesn’t have to worry that deploying U.S. forces abroad might leave America vulnerable to attack by powerful adversaries.

There is another factor that explains the United States’ propensity to go abroad in search of monsters to destroy: Americans are a generous people, and we like helping others. We have often responded favorably when others appeal to us for assistance. Many Americans look back proudly on the moments in the middle and latter half of the 20th century when the U.S. military provided the crucial margin of victory over Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, and the Soviet Union.

But, in recent years, Americans have grown more reluctant to send U.S. troops hither and yon. There is a growing appreciation of the fact that Washington’s willingness to intervene abroad – from Somalia and the Balkans in the 1990s, to Iraq and Afghanistan in the 2000s, to Libya and Yemen in the present decades – has often undermined U.S. security. We have become embroiled in disputes that we don’t understand and rarely can control. Thus, public anxiety about becoming sucked into another Middle Eastern civil war effectively blocked overt U.S. intervention in Syria in 2013, notwithstanding President Obama’s ill-considered red line warning to Bashar al Assad.

But while the American people are unenthusiastic about armed intervention, especially when it might involve U.S. ground troops, most Washington-based policy elites retain their activist instincts. They believe that U.S. military intervention generally advances global security and that the absence of U.S. leadership invites chaos. The essays in this series, “Course Correction,” have documented the many reasons why these assumptions might not be true. The authors have urged policymakers to consider other ways for the United States to remain engaged globally – ways that do not obligate the American people to bear all the costs and that do not obligate U.S. troops to bear all the risks.

But the authors do not presume that the United States must never wage war. There are indeed times when it should. Policymakers should, however, keep five specific guidelines in mind before supporting military intervention, especially the use of ground troops. Doing so would discipline our choices, would clearly signal when the U.S. military is likely to be deployed abroad, and could empower others to act when the United States does not.

Vital U.S. National Security Interest at Stake

The United States should not send U.S. troops into harm’s way unless a vital U.S. national security interest is at stake. Unfortunately, the consensus in Washington defines U.S. national security interests too broadly. Protecting the physical security of the territory of the United States and ensuring the safety of its people are vital national security interests. Advancing U.S. prosperity is an important goal, but it is best achieved by peaceful means, most importantly through trade and other forms of voluntary exchange. Similarly, the U.S. military should generally not be used to spread U.S. values, such as liberal democracy and human rights. It should be focused on defending this country from physical threats. The military should be poised to deter attacks and to fight and win the nation’s wars if deterrence fails.

The criterion offered here is more stringent, for example, than the Weinberger-Powell Doctrine, which held that U.S. troops should not be sent overseas “unless the particular engagement or occasion is deemed vital to our national interest or that of our allies.” By effectively equating U.S. national interests with those of our allies, it allowed for a range of interventions that would not be considered automatically valid under the guidelines spelled out here.  Policymakers should not risk the lives of U.S. troops to protect others’ interests as though those interests were our own.

Clear National Consensus

The American people must understand why they are being asked to risk blood and treasure and, crucially, they must have a say in whether to do so. The U.S. military should not be engaged in combat operations overseas unless there is a clear national consensus behind the mission.

Although modern technology allows constituents to communicate their policy preferences easily, traditional methods are just as effective in ascertaining whether the American people support the use of force. We should rely on the tool written into the Constitution: the stipulation that Congress alone, not the president, possesses the power to take the country to war.

As Gene Healy notes in this series, Congress has regularly evaded its obligations. Although the U.S. military has been in a continuous state of war over the past 15 years, few in Congress have ever weighed in publicly on the wisdom or folly of any particular foreign conflict. Some now interpret Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty or United Nations Security Council resolutions as obligating the United States to wage war without explicit authorization from Congress. This is unacceptable. The president may repel attacks against the United States, but the authority to deploy U.S. forces abroad, and to engage in preemptive or preventative wars of choice, resides with Congress — and by extension the people — of the United States.

Understanding of the Costs—and How to Pay Them

We must also understand the costs of war and know how we will pay them before we choose to go down that path. We cannot accurately gauge popular support for a given military intervention overseas if the case for war is built on unrealistic expectations and best-case scenarios. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and there is certainly no such thing as a free war.

Deficit spending allows the federal government to pretend otherwise. Politicians make promises, with bills coming due long after they’ve left office. But we should expect more when it comes to the use of force. Advocates for a military intervention should be forced to frame their solution in relation to costs and benefits. The debit side of the ledger includes the long-term costs of care for the veterans of the conflict. Hawks must also explain what government expenditures should be cut – or taxes increased – to pay for their war. The American people should have the final say in choosing whether additional military spending to prosecute minor, distant conflicts is worth the cost, including the opportunity costs: the crucial domestic priorities that must be forgone or future taxes paid.

Clear and Obtainable Military Objectives

We cannot compare the costs or wisdom of going to war if we do not know what our troops will be asked to do. The U.S. military should never be sent into harm’s way without a set of clear and obtainable military objectives.

Such considerations do not apply when a country’s survival is at stake. But wars of choice — the types of wars that the United States has fought in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and elsewhere — are different. Advocates for such wars must demonstrate not only that the fight is necessary to secure vital U.S. interests, that it has public support, and that it has funding, but also that the military’s mission is defined and attainable.

Military victory is rarely sufficient, however, as our recent wars and interventions demonstrate. In the case of regime-change wars, ensuring that a successful transition to a stable, friendly government occurs can take a considerable amount of time and resources. Whatever replaces the defeated forces must represent a marked improvement in order for the war to advance U.S. vital interests. U.S. leaders, therefore, must not only define the military objective, but also detail what the resultant peace will look like, and how we will know the mission is complete.

It is easy for Washington to start wars, but we cannot leave U.S. troops on the hook for ending them. Policymakers must account for the tendency of war to drag on for years or more, and they must plan for an acceptable exit strategy before committing troops.

Use of Force as a Last Resort

The four criteria above are not enough to establish a war’s legitimacy, or the wisdom of waging it. After all, modern nation-states have the ability to wreak unimaginable horror on a massive scale. That obviously doesn’t imply that they should. Thus, the fifth and final rule concerning military intervention is force should be used only as a last resort, after we have exhausted other means for resolving a foreign policy challenge that threatens vital U.S. national security interests.

This point is informed by centuries-old concepts of justice. Civilized societies abhor war, even those waged for the right reasons while adhering to widely respected norms, such as proportionality and reasonable protections for noncombatants. War, given its uncertainty and destructiveness, should never be entered into lightly or for trivial reasons.

America has an exceptional capacity for waging war. U.S. policymakers therefore have a particular obligation to remember that war is a last resort. Precisely because no one else is likely to constrain them, they must constrain themselves.

Conclusion

U.S. foreign policy should contain a built-in presumption against the use of force. That does not mean that war is never the answer, but rather that it is rarely the best answer. Americans today enjoy a measure of safety that our ancestors would envy and that our contemporaries do envy. We generally do not need to wage war to keep it that way. On the contrary, some recent wars have degraded the U.S. military and undermined our security. Policymakers should therefore be extremely reluctant to risk American lives abroad.

The U.S. military is the finest fighting force in the world; it comprises dedicated professionals who are willing and able to fight almost anywhere, practically on a moment’s notice. Any military large enough to defend our vital national security interests will always be capable of intervening in distant disputes. But that does not mean that it should."

A Different Path to War

“Like” War – The Weaponization of Social Media

 

Art:  istock

"NATIONAL DEFENSE MAGAZINE" By P.W. Singer and Emerson T. Brooking

"A comparatively tiny physical conflict, fought in an area the size of Portland, Oregon, became a global engagement, prompting the exchange of more than 10 million heated messages on Twitter alone.

The lesson was clear: Not only did modern war require a well-planned military campaign. It required a viral marketing campaign as well... "

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"The following is an excerpt from the new book LikeWar: The Weaponization of Social Media and reprinted with the permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 

To many Palestinians who live in Gaza City, Ahmed al-Jabari was a hero: the commander of Hamas, the militant wing of resistance to the Israeli occupation. To Israelis, he was a villain: a terrorist who exploded bombs on packed school buses and rained mortar shells down on cities. But most of all, Jabari was a survivor. He’d lived through five assassination attempts and boasted that he no longer feared bullets or bombs.

His reckoning came on November 14, 2012, as Jabari and his bodyguard were driving down a residential street in Gaza City. High above them, an Israeli Heron drone loitered. Its high-powered camera zoomed in as Jabari’s car sped past a packed minibus and onto a stretch of open road. Then the drone fired a missile.

Jabari never saw the explosion that ended his life, but millions of other people did. Even as his body smoldered, the IDF’s official Twitter account spun into action. “The IDF has begun a wide spreadcampaign on terror sites & operatives in the Gaza ,” declared @IDFSpokesperson. Then came an info graphic that listed Jabari’s crimes in bullet points, with a big red box reading “ELIMINATED” slapped across his glowering face. After that came the YouTube clip. “In case you missed it—VIDEO—IDF Pinpoint Strike on Ahmed Jabari, Head of Hamas Military Wing.” You could watch Jabari’s car trundling down the street before it exploded in a ball of fire. You could watch him die as many times as you wanted (the video has since been viewed nearly 5 million times) and share it with all your friends.

Within a few hours, IDF aircraft had destroyed dozens of missile caches hidden across Gaza City. “We recommend that no Hamas operatives, whether low level or senior leaders, show their faces above ground in the days ahead,” @IDFSpokesperson taunted. The challenge didn’t go unanswered. “Our blessed hands will reach your leaders and soldiers wherever they are,” a Hamas spokesperson, @AlqassamBrigade, fired back. “(You Opened Hell Gates On Yourselves.)”

The Israelis called it Operation Pillar of Defense. IDF air strikes perforated the buildings in which suspected Hamas fighters gathered, killing militants and innocent families alike. Hamas fighters responded with hundreds of unguided rockets, eager to kill any Israeli they could. Few reached their targets. Israel had a new, U.S.-provided trump card, the Iron Dome, a missile shield that could intercept the projectiles in midair. The result was an eight-day, one-sided campaign. The IDF hit every intended target; Hamas, almost none. Two IDF soldiers and four Israeli civilians were killed, and another 20 Israelis were wounded. On the Palestinian side, roughly 100 militants and 105 civilians were killed, and another thousand were wounded.

But this wasn’t the only fight that counted. There were now three fronts at work in the conflict, Israel’s chief information officer explained. Two were predictable: the “physical” fight, which Israel easily dominated, and the “cyber” fight, in which the IDF just as easily beat back the efforts of Palestinian hackers. But there was a third front, he said, “the world of social networks.” This front would prove more troublesome, and impossible to contain, soon seeping into every corner of the internet.

The IDF deployed a Twitter account, Facebook pages in multiple languages, Tumblr blog pages, and even a Pinterest page. There were slick infographics and a stream of videos and statistics.

Maximizing follower engagement, the official IDF blog offered small digital rewards for repeat users. Visiting the blog ten times got you a “Consistent” badge; searching the website got you recognized as a “Research Officer.” Memes were fired off in volleys and tested for engagement, the best ones deployed extensively. The IDF’s most widely shared image showed Hamas rockets bearing down on cartoon versions of Sydney, New York, London, and Paris. “What Would You Do?” the caption asked in bold red letters.

By contrast, the propaganda efforts of Hamas’s militants were less structured. Most of its social media response came from millions of unaffiliated observers around the world, who watched the plight of Palestinian civilians with horror and joined the fray. The Twitter hash tag GazaUnderFire became an unending stream of images of atrocities: bombed-out buildings, dead children, crying fathers.

The scourge of war left nothing untouched —including video games and fast-food chains. The IDF hijacked the hashtags for the World Cup, a new James Bond movie, and even the same Call of Duty franchise that Junaid Hussain would weave into his own recruiting (“Playing war games on Call of Duty last night? Over a million Israelis are still under REAL fire#BlackOps2”). Meanwhile, pro-Hamas hackers took over the Israeli Facebook page of Domino’s Pizza, using the opportunity to threaten a merciless reprisal of “more than 2000 rockets” against Israeli cities. When Domino’s regained control of the account, it had a message of its own: “You cannot defeat . . . the Israeli hunger for pizza!”

Even as the missiles flew, the IDF and Hamas continued to narrate the conflict, each posting nearly 300 messages: alerts, updates, and a steady string of taunts. “Warning to reporters in Gaza,” wrote @IDFSpokesperson. “Stay away from Hamas operatives and facilities. Hamas, a terrorist group, will use you as human shields.” @AlqassamBrigade couldn’t let this stand. “Stay away from Israeli IDF,” the Hamas spokesperson mimicked. “We are just targeting Israeli soldiers, fighter jets, tanks and bases.” It was a remarkably juvenile exchange. But these taunts couldn’t be dismissed as easily as the ones you might hear in a kindergarten classroom. After all, they were salvos lobbed by two combatants in a real, shooting war.

There was a temptation, after the sides had settled into an uneasy cease-fire, to dismiss this weird internet flame war as a bunch of digital noise. After all, the angriest tweets were still just tweets — literally, “short bursts of inconsequential information.” But that would have been a mistake. Years after Operation Pillar of Defense had slipped from the public mind, American University professor Thomas Zeitzoff conducted a painstaking study of hundreds of thousands of tweets, which he then mapped across each hour of the physical side of the eight-day conflict.

What he found was shocking. In the case of Israel, a sudden spike in online sympathy for Hamas more than halved the pace of Israeli air strikes and a similarly sized leap in Israel’s own propaganda efforts. If you charted the sentiment (pro-Israel or pro-Palestine) of these tweets on a timeline, not only could you infer what was happening on the ground, but you also could predict what Israel would do next. IDF commanders hadn’t just been poring over battlefield maps. They’d also been keeping an eye on their Twitter feeds — the battlefield of the social network war.

Taking place in 2012, Operation Pillar of Defense offered a glimpse of an emerging way of warfare. It was a conflict in which each side had organized to taunt and troll each other online, even as they engaged in a life-and-death struggle in the real world. Their battles drew in millions more international fighters. Some were passionate supporters of one side; others had just stumbled upon the war while looking for video game news or pizza. They shaped the fight all the same, strengthening the voice of one faction or another — and, by tiny degrees, altering the course of events on the ground."

LikeWar - The Weaponization of Social Media

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:

P. W. Singer is a strategist at the New America think tank. Emerson T. Brooking is an expert on conflict and social media and a former research fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

 

US Troops Left Vietnam Over 50 Years Ago - Key Questions Must Be Asked Today Regarding Military Interventions

 

"THE HILL" By Bill Rivers

"Are we as a people — all 330 million or so of us, with all our divergent opinions, economic needs and aspirations, and beliefs about America’s role in the world — willing to resource the military arm of a fight commensurate with our political objectives?

If we are not, then the political objectives must be scaled back. This requires something more than just appetite-control; it requires statesmanship — both in dealings in foreign capitals and in committee hearing rooms at home."

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"U.S Military personnel left Vietnam 53 years ago. 

America’s two decades of involvement wouldn’t officially end until 20 months later, when the last civilian advisors from the most powerful country on earth were airlifted from the roof of their embassy in Saigon, literally chased out of the country by communists.

Numbers alone fail to capture the war’s true cost to the United States. Still, we must look: 1 trillion in inflation-adjusted dollars; 150,000 wounded; more than 58,000 Americans killed.

Fast forward now to the present era, and the U.S.-Vietnam relationship is dramatically different. Vietnam was America’s 10th largest goods trading partner in 2020. According to the Department of Commerce, that same year, U.S. goods exports to Vietnam were nearly $10 billion, up 270 percent from the a decade prior. Today, Vietnam is a top ten market for U.S. food and agricultural products.

On the security front, in stark contrast to the 1960s and 1970s, Vietnam now seeks to bring America into southeast Asia — to counterbalance China. One salient example among many: In 2018, Vietnam issued an unprecedented invitation to U.S. aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson to make a port visit to Cam Ranh Bay — the first since the war ended in 1975.

And while the partnership between Hanoi and Washington has endured several recent missteps, that any partnership exists at all would have been unimaginable to the men fighting in the cities, jungles, and rice paddies 50 years ago.

Viewing the sacrifices of those men through the lens of today’s near-complete reversal of the strategic situation, perhaps it is only natural to ask now, five decades later, a hard question: “Was the war worth it?”

The answer depends on how we read history.

Two general camps can be described.

For the first camp, the answer is a clear “no.” While honoring the service of those who fought and died in Vietnam, the key lesson, they argue, is to remember how the dominos didn’t fall after U.S. military forces left in 1973. All of Southeast Asia didn’t turn communist. Decision-makers in the U.S. national security firmament should have given more than short shrift to inconvenient reports that contradicted calls for American involvement, like, for example, the 1964 National Board of Estimates report commissioned by the CIA, which concluded Domino Theory was flawed; “a continuation of the spread of Communism in the area would not be inexorable” should Vietnam fall.

For the first camp, the primary rationale for engagement was proved false. For them, the war was terrible mistake.

The second camp holds that while deeply painful and divisive, the war nevertheless bought strategic time for countries across Asia, newly emergent from colonialism, to develop the institutions and civil society they lacked and so avoid falling to communism.

For this camp, the dominoes stayed standing precisely because America sacrificed so many of her sons in Vietnam. America drew the fire, demanding resources and attention from regional communists and their Soviet backers. Those other nations were able to develop free economies which eventually became markets for American farmers and manufacturers. They also developed more or less open democratic societies with whom the United States could work on the international scene to ensure more favorable conditions for American interests. The primary rationale for fighting in Vietnam was to signal western resolve, both to friends and foes alike.

This camp answers that the war was indeed worth it — and believes that millions of free people across Asia would agree.

Which camp is right?

In philosophy, counter-factual hypotheticals hold no truth value — they are neither right nor wrong. If this holds for both politics and war, then, because the dominoes didn’t fall, we must ask different questions.

Here are three questions that national security deciders, from the E-Ring of the Pentagon to the West Wing of the White House, should consider as they assess the complicated international security landscape 50 years after American soldiers departed Vietnam:

First, are we as a people — all 330 million or so of us, with all our divergent opinions, economic needs and aspirations, and beliefs about America’s role in the world — willing to resource the military arm of a fight commensurate with our political objectives?

If we are not, then the political objectives must be scaled back. This requires something more than just appetite-control; it requires statesmanship — both in dealings in foreign capitals and in committee hearing rooms at home. Americans are still capable of this. They must remember it — and act accordingly.

Second, what consequences will foreign action have at home?

The war may have bought time for Asian countries to develop institutions and grow societal connective tissue, but it cost a rising generation of Americans their trust in their nation’s institutions and tore painfully at their social fabric. Amid the cultural chaos of the 1960s — including racial strife, assassinations, and bitterly contentious elections — the war deepened a divide, opening fault-lines within families, something I explore in my novel of the Vietnam War era “Last Summer Boys.”

On the economic front, it has been argued the billions spent on the war drove the inflation of the 1970s — which carried tectonic consequences all its own.

Walking by history’s lamp-light, today’s decision-makers must assess the impact of foreign intervention on the home-front. One area especially worth considering amid the current recruitment crisis is the impact on attitudes towards America’s military itself.

A the third and final question: How can we be worthy of the sacrifice?

Over nearly 20 years, what began with a few hundred “military advisors” under presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy swelled into a bitter contest that would see more than 2.5 million American service members deployed in-country over the course of America’s involvement in the conflict.

Honoring the courage and sacrifice of America’s Vietnam War veterans means being better leaders for the young men and women serving today. And this means being exceptionally careful about committing America’s warriors to a fight.

The world is a far, far better place when Americans hold the preponderance of hard power. It is better still if their leaders use it only in gravest need, after sober analysis of their people’s true national interest. Because, when lawfully ordered, America’s men and women in uniform will unleash devastating power against the country’s enemies. And they will do so at enormous personal sacrifice.   

This is the most important question of all, and the true test of whether America gets Vietnam right. It may be 50 years late.

Better late than never."

US troops left Vietnam 50 years ago: Here are 3 key questions defense leaders must ask today

Bill Rivers served as speechwriter to U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis from 2017-19. He is a fellow at the Yorktown Institute and the author of “Last Summer Boys,” an Amazon Kindle #1 bestseller in historical fiction.

Does The U.S. Keep Having Wars Just To Keep Its Military Industry In Demand?

The defense industry in America has utilized the threat of war and self-fulfilling prophesies to promote engagements by our country in several countries in the last 65 years.

From Vietnam to the Balkans, from Iraq to Afghanistan, from Ukraine to Gaza and now Venezuela, many of the largest defense companies have paid more in lobbying costs each year than they pay in taxes.

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There have been two major factors in the threat approach:

1. The motives of the U.S. and International Military Industrial Complexes, USAID and other western USAID counterparts

This has fostered continued warfare, netting billions in sales of weapons to the war fighters and massive construction and redevelopment dollars for international companies who often operated fraudulently and fostered waste, looting and lack of funds control.

It is common knowledge that many of these corporations pass exorbitant overhead and executive pay cost on to the tax payer in sales, thus financing their operating personnel riches while remaining marginally profitable to their stockholders. I watched this from the inside of many of these companies for 36 years. Here is my dissertation on that subject. You can read it free on line at:

Odyssey of Armaments | Ken Larson - Academia.edu

Here is an example of how the lobbying and behind the scenes string pulling worked:

CorpWatch : US: Lockheed Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

2. The complete lack of cultural understanding between U.S. and Western decision makers and the middle east cultures they were trying to "Assist" by nation building

The only real understanding that existed during the period was in the person of General Schwarzkopf who spent much of his youth in the Middle East with his father who was an ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He was fascinated by the Arab culture, commended their respect and like Eisenhower led a coalition during the Gulf War. He then astutely recommend no occupation of Iraq, went home and stayed out of government.

Norman, like Ike, knew the power of the MIC and he wanted no part of it.

The U.S Tax payer has funded billions in USAID and construction projects in Iraq and wasted the money due to a lack of cultural understanding, fraud and abuse. Here is a recent factual summary by the Special Inspector General For Afghanistan Reconstruction:

‘We Will Do This Again,’ Afghanistan IG Warned In 2021 Of Future Drawn-Out Wars

There is history repeating itself here - the above two factors are deeply at play with the lack of astute learning in our government as we look back over our shoulder. We must come to the understanding, like a recent highly respected war veteran and West Point Instructor has; that military victory is dead. “Victory’s been defeated; it’s time we recognized that and moved on to what we actually can accomplish."

‘Modern War Institute at West Point - Military Victory Is Dead

Frank Spinney is an expert on the MIC. He spent the same time I did on the inside of the Pentagon while I worked Industry. You may find his interviews informative.

Bill Moyer's Journal

How the Defense Industry Price Gouges the Pentagon

“THE NATIONAL INTEREST” By Julia Gledhill

“The distillation of the defense industry as the number of prime military contractors shrank from over fifty to just five, bodes poorly for both the military and taxpayer because it produces waste, not to mention a strong profit incentive for war”

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“As a matter of practice, military contractors have overcharged the Pentagon for years—at the expense of both taxpayers and the military.

However, several members of Congress are working to end the practice. Last year, Senators Warren (D-MA), Braun (R-IN), and Grassley (R-IA) teamed up with Reps. Garamendi (D-CA) and Deluzio (D-PA) to introduce legislation that will address the legal loopholes that enable military price gouging.

Acquisition experts understand these loopholes well, but unfortunately, most lawmakers are still unaware of how common it is for contractors to overcharge the military. Without a better understanding of the true scale of military price gouging, Congress is unlikely to pass legislation to prevent it.

That’s why Congress should include in the final FY 2025 defense policy bill Rep. Doggett’s (D-TX) provision to investigate potential overcharging by sole-source suppliers of military products and services. Due to unchallenged market power, sole-source contractors are well positioned to profiteer. Doggett’s provision would establish a panel to review sole-source military contracts and “determine whether the Department of Defense paid fair and reasonable prices.” By focusing on sole-source contracts, the panel would shine much-needed light on the issue of military price gouging writ large, the scale of which is near impossible to discern because so much of it is legal.

Over the course of decades, military contractors have consolidated and harnessed market power to slowly obscure military price gouging. Industry consolidation began when the Cold War ended, and the Clinton administration slashed defense spending. However, as Richard Loeb—former Executive Secretary and Counsel of the Cost Accounting Standards Board in the Office of Management and Budget—has pointed out, the administration simultaneously catalyzed an era of “acquisition reform” to protect contractor profits even as defense spending plummeted and the number of prime military contractors shrank from over fifty to just five. Merger mania has continued, further concentrating market power among the few. Military contractors wield that power on Capitol Hill, lobbying Congress to gradually chip away at acquisition laws designed to protect the government from unfair pricing schemes on military contracts. In so doing, lawmakers have left the Pentagon in the dark about contract negotiations with the defense industry.

Acquisition reform and industry consolidation have helped contractors overbill the military in pursuit of excess profits. As a result, military contractors have overcharged the Pentagon to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars on a single program, generating nearly 40 percent in excess profits. Indeed, a CBS investigation last year revealed that the Pentagon saved $550 million on the Patriot PAC-3 missile after conducting a 2015 cost review of Lockheed Martin and Boeing’s previous work on the program. Both contractors are repeat offenders, and they have long been among the top five prime contractors dominating the defense industry. The Pentagon’s internal watchdog exposed Boeing for inflating prices on spare parts in 2013 and 2011. In one case, the company charged over 177,000 percent above the fair and reasonable price for a helicopter spare part—$71.01 for a tiny metal pin worth 4 cents at the time. The trend continues. Just last month, two Lockheed subsidiaries agreed to a $70 million settlement with the Navy for doing the same thing—inflating prices on spare parts.

The Pentagon can’t negotiate reasonable prices with military contractors because it doesn’t have sufficient bargaining power. Contractors are often exempt from providing the Pentagon with “certified cost or pricing data.” Without this information, the Pentagon has little idea what companies’ costs are and, thus, what their profit margins might look like. Contracts may be valued below the mandatory disclosure threshold. Contractors may also produce a product that’s considered commercial—and theoretically, price competitive. However, the statutory definition of “commercial” is overly broad, encompassing products that aren’t sold to the public and sometimes never have been. Lawmakers expanded the commercial definition and raised the mandatory disclosure threshold for certified data at the behest of industry and under the guise of cutting red tape.

Without legal requirements for certified data, the Pentagon may ask contractors for historic or uncertified cost and pricing data. Yet, the Pentagon has few tools to ensure that this data meets requisite standards; among them, that they include “the minimum information necessary to permit a determination that the proposed price is fair and reasonable.” According to the Pentagon, current statutory and regulatory requirements discourage officials from requesting uncertified data. Instead, contracting officers often rely on historical cost and pricing data. Still, according to the Pentagon Inspector General, the department cannot evaluate price reasonableness “based solely on historical price comparison.” This is particularly concerning given the watchdog’s extensive analysis of contract pricing in recent years, which shows that price analysis methods like historical cost comparison enable “sole source contractors to earn excess profits without detection by contracting officers.” Effectively, military contractors can provide the Pentagon with any cost figures without consequence—even if they give zero indication of how reasonable current prices are. In other words, contractors can price gouge the military legally, likely under the government’s radar.

Still, the defense industry appears to resist almost any attempt by the Pentagon to evaluate contract price reasonableness. “Sweeping” is a process through which contractors overwhelm the Pentagon with cost and pricing data that was “reasonably available at the time of price agreement” but submitted after the fact. According to Senator Warren, contractors often sweep the Pentagon after price agreements and before contract awards to absolve themselves of the liabilities associated with breaking acquisition law and potentially “to hide data that might give the [Pentagon] a better price.” In other cases, contractors outright refuse to provide the Pentagon cost and pricing data, claim they can’t share it, or delay the provision of such data to the extent that the Pentagon may blindly agree to a contract price due to time sensitivity. So, the Pentagon doesn’t just struggle to obtain certified cost and pricing data. It’s a challenge to get any cost and pricing data—even from sole-source contractors, which are relatively uninhibited by the forces driving price competition.

The Pentagon has admitted that data denials “may be more prevalent [than reported], particularly with respect to sole source commercial items.” This is especially nefarious in a market that looks like a monopsony but operates like a monopoly, where sole-source contractors reign as kings. They have a documented history of refusing to provide even uncertified cost and pricing information. Since 1998, the Pentagon’s Inspector General has published several reports detailing data denials by sole-source contractors. TransDigm, Inc. is the most recent example and perhaps the most notorious. According to the Pentagon, the company “accounted for all Defense Logistics Agency cost and pricing data denials” in FY 2022. The company failed to respond to 401 requests for cost and pricing data from the agency, and that was after the Pentagon Inspector General exposed TransDigm for twice price gouging the Pentagon. The contractor generated a total of nearly $40 million in excess profits.

Ultimately, withholding cost and pricing data bolsters a contractor’s ability to increase profits by charging the Pentagon unfair and unreasonable prices. However, the defense industry already significantly outperforms other industries financially, and this is not just because the United States spends over a trillion dollars annually on national security. In many cases, the Pentagon reimburses contractors for research and development costs. It will even cover some capital costs, including those associated with the depreciation of assets like machinery and equipment. As a result, military contractors enjoy returns on assets and invested capital that are difficult to achieve in other industries where companies make those investments themselves. Still, military contractors leverage special treatment from the government to increase executive compensation and cash paid to shareholders, even at the expense of capital investment and internal research and development.

If the defense industry continues to consolidate, it will only get harder for the Pentagon to negotiate fair prices with military contractors. The department will have to rely on more and more sole-source contractors, which not only increases the risk of overcharging but also presents national security risks, like supply chain vulnerability and reduced availability of certain resources. The entire nuclear triad is already dependent on one company, Northrop Grumman. As far as U.S. contractors go, General Dynamics manufactures a significant portion of tracked combat vehicles. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman produce the military’s fixed-wing aircraft. The distillation of the defense industry to a handful of companies bodes poorly for both the military and taxpayer because it produces waste, not to mention a strong profit incentive for war.

As the defense industry’s primary customer and a steward of taxpayer dollars, the Pentagon needs to be a stronger buyer. However, never-ending acquisition reform continues to prevent that. Current laws are insufficient even to document price gouging by military contractors, much less prevent or remedy it. If retained in the final defense policy bill, Rep. Doggett’s provision would help the Pentagon better understand the scope of overcharging by sole source contractors—and ultimately, give lawmakers the information they need to hold industry accountable for overcharging the government at the expense of the taxpayer.

Congress does not yet have the tools to investigate and root out the full scale of defense contractor fleecing of the DOD.”

“National Interest” How Defense Industry Price Gouges Pentagon

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Julia Gledhill is a Research Associate for the National Security Reform Program at The Stimson Center. She focuses her research and writing on Pentagon spending, military contracting, and acquisition. In previous roles at the Project On Government Oversight and the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Julia worked on various national security issues related to Pentagon accountability, war powers, civilian protection, drone policy, the torture program, and U.S. lethal strikes.

A Fiscal Crisis: The West is on the Wrong Side of Cost Curve

“REAL CLEAR DEFENSE” By Matthew Van Wagenen & Arnel P. David

“An axis of aggressors has embarked on a new strategy to defeat the West: relentless attacks with inexpensive weapons, produced at scale, to provoke a global response.

Western militaries, which cling to outdated and excessively expensive weapon systems and platforms (that take too long to develop and replenish, and regularly exceed their budgets), are being systematically bled dry”

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“In simple financial terms, the West is on the wrong side of the cost curve. Imagine the defense industry as a normal business. In economics, a cost curve illustrates the relationship between production costs and quantity. Successful businesses achieve economies of scale, reducing costs through efficiency. But the West’s defense enterprise is operating on the wrong side of this curve. Production costs are high, and output is low, pushing Western nations into diseconomies of scale.

The recent aerial attack on Israel and the war in Ukraine expose this vulnerability. Iran’s 300 plus airborne weapons that targeted Israel amounted to less than $200 million dollars whereas the Western response exceeds billions of dollars. In Ukraine, multi-million dollar weapons platforms are destroyed by uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) that range from hundreds to thousands of dollars, and Russia’s prized Black Sea Fleet has been devastated by inexpensive maritime drones. Defense analysts estimate the cost ratio is easily 100:1.

A Call to Action

A new revolution in military spending is underway. It is a radical change in the way nations procure and integrate military capabilities.  The innovation and changes in Ukraine has been described by General Mark Milley as “the most significant fundamental change in the character of war ever recorded in history.” Consequently, this is not a military issue alone; it is a societal one. In democracies like the United States, we the people are responsible for our common defense. We cannot afford to ignore this unsustainable cost mismatch. Every defense dollar matters when there are competing demands for resources to address aging populations, health care, migration challenges, and myriad other social services.

Traditional procurement models in the West, to include the U.S. and NATO, are no longer fit for purpose. They are failing. Decades-long development cycles are obsolete in a world of rapidly evolving threats and disruptive technological change. Let’s say an adversarial nation has a four year cycle to produce a capability and, in the West, it takes ten years. In this scenario, in twenty years’ time the adversary-to-West ratio for innovation and capability development is 5:2. This all but guarantees that our adversaries will field a greater range of innovative capabilities, potentially leading to overmatch.

Rapid technological advancements are outpacing the military’s long-term development programs, rendering them obsolete as cheaper, more effective alternatives emerge. Program managers, those with the responsibility, authority, and personnel to deliver programs (e.g., ships, planes, software), lack both the incentive and the means to adapt to this fast-changing landscape. The ingrained culture of preserving existing programs stifles innovation and adaptability. It is unlikely a program manager will kill their program for the greater good.

Likewise, the political representatives of states where these programs sit will lobby heavily to keep these programs (i.e., jobs) alive irrespective of any negative strategic impact.

To overcome this, the military and the broader defense enterprise must urgently rethink their approach. Early and aggressive testing, integration, and prototyping of innovative warfare concepts are essential to gain an edge in modern conflicts. SpaceX’s rapid trial and error prototyping to develop rockets and OpenAI’s early release and testing of ChatGPT are examples of this approach to develop capability faster.  Waiting for “perfect” solutions, or clinging to lengthy development cycles, leads to unpreparedness on the ever-evolving battlefield. Keeping this approach is akin to relying on horse cavalry in the era of mechanized warfare.

A Glimmer of Hope

There is movement in the right direction. Nations like Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Norway, and Finland are leading the way. Their “drone wall“ initiative leverages affordable, networked sensors to safeguard their sovereignty. They will do this by keeping costs down to achieve economies of scale.

The U.S. Department of Defense is also taking steps in the right direction with its Replicator initiative. Thousands of drones have been delivered, demonstrating a shift toward rapid, warfighter-centric innovation. This could be the necessary spark to ignite essential change.

Other promising initiatives in NATO are the Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) and the NATO Innovation Fund (NIF). Both complementary initiatives provide access to deep tech start-up communities, but the challenge for these programs will be transition. How do they transition capability into warfighters’ hands to be relevant going forward? As expressed above, it cannot take decades.

The Path Forward

To survive, the West must revolutionize its military procurement and production processes. We need a laser focus on swift prototyping and deployment of cutting-edge technologies. These systems must be affordable, easily updated, interoperable, and adaptable to new threats. The era of billion-dollar projects that risk obsolescence must end. A more diverse approach is not just needed, it is compulsory if we want to win wars and preserve peace.

The conflict in Ukraine serves as a stark warning. Clinging to expensive, slow-moving defense systems will leave the West vulnerable. We must out-innovate, not outspend, our adversaries. Our Alliance, made up of free and democratic nations, must unleash the creative capital present within our societies to find cost wise off-sets that can be immediately integrated into our collective defense system.

The future of warfare demands a fusion of accessible technology, rapid innovation, and scalable production. The West must adapt or face the consequences of falling behind an axis of aggressors who are united in their pursuit of strategic advantage and wish to see the West decline.”

 Real Clear Defense – Fiscal Crisis

Matthew Van Wagenen is a major general in the U.S. Army currently serving as the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations (DCOS OPS) in the NATO Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE).

Arnel P. David is a colonel in the U.S. Army currently serving as the director of the Strategic Initiatives Group (SIG) in the NATO Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE).

The views and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect any entity or organization of the U.S. Government or NATO.