Some Fantasies Never Die, particularly if they are profitable.
Harry Targ
(Alan MacLeod / MintPress News Donald Trump has announced his intention to build a
gigantic anti-ballistic missile system to counter Chinese and Russian nuclear
weapons, and he is recruiting Elon Musk to help him. The Pentagon has long
dreamed of constructing an American “Iron dome.” https://scheerpost.com/2025/02/11/the-pentagon-is-recruiting-elon-musk-to-help-them-win-a-nuclear-war/)
In the
1980s, President Ronald Reagan was instituting a military budget that in total
was greater than all US military expenditures from the founding of the nation
until the 1980s. Military doctrine, in accordance with the huge increase in
military spending, shifted from maintaining a capability to deter aggression
from other nations, particularly the former Soviet Union, to the development of
a first strike capability, that is to be able to strike an enemy first. This
shift in policy was coupled with the president claiming that the former Soviet
Union constituted an “evil empire,” one that had to be pushed back, weakened,
and destroyed.
As
part of the reinstitution of a New Cold War with the Soviet Union, after a
decade of détente, Reagan announced in a dramatic speech the development of the
new Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which became known as the “Star Wars”
program. The president claimed that the United States could develop a
space-based defensive shield that could protect North America from any attack
from a foreign power.
SDI
became a boondoggle for the military/industrial complex. Especially
universities saw the project as a source of significant increases in revenue.
However, large sectors of the scientific community declared that Star Wars was
wasteful and technologically impossible to achieve. (Many Purdue University professors
signed a petition promising not to accept any Star Wars funding).
Along
with its lack of feasibility, most strategic analysts questioned the
President’s claim that SDI was merely a defensive weapon. They argued, in the
context of Reagan’s hostile rhetoric about the Soviet Union and the claim that
the US could achieve physical protection from attack, that the Soviets would
perceive SDI as an offensive weapon. They might conclude that the United States
was developing a defensive shield so that it might choose to launch a
first-strike against the Soviet Union.
The
military doctrine of “deterrence,” dominating military thinking on both sides
of the Cold War for years was that neither power could afford to launch a
first-strike attack on the other because the second-strike response would be so
devastating that functioning societies in both countries would be destroyed.
Former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara aptly labeled this doctrine
Mutually Assured Destruction (or MAD). In short, with SDI, an enemy of the US
could believe that they might be attacked at any time. Consequently “Star Wars”
was profoundly destabilizing, increasing the possibility of nuclear war.
Twenty-six
years later, President Trump declared that the United States henceforth would
recognize that space should be the site for military preparedness to defend
national security. To achieve this goal the US Space Force would lead the way
(Gregory Niguidula, “Trump’s Space Force is a Strategic Mistake,” Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists, January 21, 2019). In the National
Defense authorization Act of 2020, Congress approved the idea of establishing a
new sixth branch of the military, the United States Space Force.
Meanwhile,
the United States in 2025 continues to have over 800 military bases of various
sizes around the world and military programs with almost 40 countries,
sometimes including private military contractors. The United States also
pursues what VJ Prashad calls “hybrid wars,” economic sanctions, covert
operations, and ideological campaigns against so-called “authoritarian” states.
Perhaps
most threatening from the standpoint of increasing the probability of war is a
dramatic increase in verbal hostilities toward China. The rhetoric has been
coupled with warnings from influential think tanks that the United States, “the
world’s leading democracy,” was falling behind Chinese in influence, power,
economic capabilities, and mostly technological advances. In addition, the
Obama Administration declared that the United States was pivoting its security
concerns to Asia. Trump and Biden have moved US ships to the South China Sea,
sought an alliance with Asian nations against China, and recently President
Biden signed a naval agreement with Australia.
Observers
of the international scene regard these developments in US/China relations,
over the last three administrations as profoundly destabilizing, perhaps a “New
Cold War.” Of course, the most horrific possibility is escalation from
conventional to nuclear war. Therefore, it is in this context that the
creation of a sixth branch of the military, the United States Space Force, and
its growing penetration of major domestic institutions, including universities,
is troubling.
This
new branch of the military, seeking legitimacy and the expansion of its own
power and resources, is embedding itself in what could be called the
military/industrial/academic complex. And, from the standpoint of universities,
which are experiencing declining financial resources, new space-oriented
research constitutes a vital source of revenue paralleling that provided by the
dubious Star Wars program of the 1980s.
So from “Star Wars” to the “Iron Dome” profits soar and the danger of nuclear war increases.
From "Dr Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" a movie 1984 film
Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth both for ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation. Now, the truth is not always a pleasant thing, but it is necessary now make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless, distinguishable post-war environments: one where you got twenty million people killed, and the other where you got a hundred and fifty million people killed.
President Muffley:
You're talking about mass murder, General, not war.
Turgidson:
Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say... no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh... dependent on the breaks.
