I listened to President Biden’s farewell address last night – an American tradition that runs all the way back to George Washington. Like Washington (avoid foreign entanglements) and Eisenhower (military/industrial complex) Biden warned us of a new threat – the power of billionaires and their influence on our government. Will we be a Republic, or an oligarchy?
Kennedy Button
President John Fitzgerald Kennedy is one of my “original” heroes. I was just four years-old when he was elected. But I proudly wore the Kennedy button that Mom pinned on my sweater. One of my earliest memories is sitting in the hallway outside Aunt Leah and Uncle Howard’s apartment in the Vernon Manor Hotel in Cincinnati. I was banned from the residence, unless I took my button off. I wouldn’t do it. Eventually we reached a compromise; Aunt Leah allowed me in, as long as I carried the lead elephant she presented to me. That was American politics at its best!
Mom was a Kennedy fan, with direct connections to the clan. Her roommate in college was Kathleen Kennedy, fourth in the line of Joe and Rose Kennedy’s children. Kathleen tragically died in a plane crash in 1948, but Mom was still loyal to the family. And even though Mom was a British citizen, she remained a strong supporter of JFK’s career.
So I was a Kennedy fan, literally from birth. I’m not so sure Dad was, he might have voted for Nixon back in 1960. We never had that conversation, though I know he later converted to some Democratic candidates, including Jimmy Carter (after all, I was working for him) and Barack Obama.
Missile Gap
But as a college student and budding political operative in the 1970’s, I discovered that there were issues where the Kennedy’s played fast and loose with the facts. One of those was a major issue in the 1960 campaign, the “missile gap”. According to Democrats, the Soviet Union was building more nuclear missiles than the United States, and had created a “gap”. It seemed to be an actual threat. If the USSR could blow up the US “more completely” then they might actually “win” a nuclear war. That concept was later described by Herman Kahn, an academic, published in a paper called “Thinking the Unthinkable”.
Kennedy promised to close the “gap” when elected, and the US began to build hundreds of new missiles after he took office. The fallacy: in 1960 there really wasn’t a “gap” at all. The US actually had more missiles at the time, making the balance of “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD) especially effective. Kennedy’s building program upset that balance even more.
But Kennedy’s programs poured a lot more money into the burgeoning defense industry. That’s the same “military-industrial complex” that President Eisenhower (also a General of the Army) warned about in his farewell address (*see below), just days before Kennedy’s inauguration (“…ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”). And the American marriage to the Defense industry far out-lasted Kennedy. The Vietnam War, and Reagan’s strategy to “win” the Cold War by out-spending the Soviet Union into the ground (it worked) continued the military-industrial complex growth.
Better than Yours
That’s all “ancient” history. The Soviet Union fell over thirty years ago, and was replaced by Putin’s oligarchy in Russia. They are struggling today to maintain a war against Ukraine. Russia is using up so many munitions that they are dragging tanks from the 1980’s back onto the battlefield, and borrowing troops from North Korea to help replace the hundreds of thousands of Russians lost in battle. From time to time Russia puts an innovative weapon on “display”, like their new hypersonic (11x the speed of sound) missile, but most of their weapons are “old school”.
Overall, the Russian military complex is the remnants of the Soviet Union. The flagship cruiser Moskva of the Russian Black Sea fleet sunk, and the only Russian aircraft carrier is unable to move without multiple tugs for steerage and towing. The “Fifth Generation” Russian fighter jet, the Sukhoi 57, is ridiculed for radar-reflecting screws in its body, and for fuselage sections that don’t completely fit together. There are currently 31 in service.
That’s opposed to the US F-35, a more sophisticated fifth generation fighter. The US has 630 already deployed, with another 400 to US allied nations. China also has a fifth generation fighter, the Shenyang J35-A, with over 300 deployed. The Chinese also have three conventional aircraft carriers with a fourth nuclear carrier under construction. The United States currently has eleven nuclear carriers.
The Complex
There is no weapons gap. But there is a loyalty to the military-industrial complex, demonstrated in the nomination hearings for Pete Hegseth as Trump’s new Defense Secretary. There’s lots of personal reasons why Hegseth isn’t appropriate for the post. And the fact he’s never successfully run even a small organization, much less one the size of the Defense Department, should be a warning. But, underneath all of the conversation about alcohol, womanizing and abuse, there is an even darker thread.
Hegseth claims that we are “falling behind” in the arms development race. He promises to re-direct funding to make sure we are never “second place”. Like Kennedy (who had his own personal issues with women) Hegseth is planning on closing another “weapons gap”. And, like my original hero, he’s fixing a problem that doesn’t exist.
The winner will continue to be what General Eisenhower warned us about: the military-industrial complex. They have a huge financial stake in expansion, and get that accomplished by supporting Republican politicians. Perhaps that’s why the Hegseth nomination, which seemed almost as sunk as the lost Moskva, is now not only afloat, but seems destined for success.
Eisenhower’s Farewell Address
*Excerpt from Eisenhower’s Farewell Address (1/17/1961)
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction. . . . American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. . . . This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. . . .Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. . . . In the councils of 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 and will persist.
