Parts
of this blog appeared in Buzzflash at Truthout January 4, 2011
This
conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is
new in the American experience....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.
We
must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or
democratic processes.... (Dwight D. Eisenhower, January 17, 1961, “Farewell Address”).
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The promise of
aerospace-related jobs that Purdue President Mitch Daniels for years has
insisted the university was ripe to get finally landed on Wednesday….Saab will
invest $37 million and employ up to 300
people at a facility expected to make fuselages for the Boeing T-X, advertised
as the U.S. Air Force’s next generation jet trainer…. Holcomb (Governor of Indiana) called it
“a proud patriotic day for Indiana and its place in advanced manufacturing in the name of cutting-edge
national defense.(Dave Bangert, “Purdue Lands SAAB Plant,” Journal and Courier, May 9, 2019).
******************
Purdue
University’s Discovery Park has positioned itself as a paragon of
collaborative, interdisciplinary research in AI and its applications to
national security. Its Institute for Global Security and Defense Innovation is
already answering needs for advanced AI research by delving into areas such as
biomorphic robots, automatic target recognition for unmanned aerial vehicles,
and autonomous exploration and localization of targets for aerial drones.
It
has become apparent that the United States is no longer guaranteed top dog
status on the dance card that is the future of war. To maintain military superiority,
the focus must shift from traditional weapons of war to advanced systems that rely
on AI-based weaponry...we must call upon the government to weave together
academia, government and industry for the greater good.(Tomas Diaz de la Rubia, Vice President Discovery Park, Purdue University “Academia a Crucial Partner for Pentagon’s AI Push,” National Defense Magazine, February 11, 2019).
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To check China, Washington has been building a new digital defense network of advanced cyberwarfare capabilities and air-space robotics. Between 2010 and 2012, the Pentagon extended drone operations into the exosphere, creating an arena for future warfare unlike anything that has gone before. As early as 2020, if all goes according to plan, the Pentagon will loft a triple-tier shield of unmanned drones reaching from the stratosphere to the exosphere, armed with agile missiles, linked by an expanded satellite system, and operated through robotic controls.
(Alfred McCoy, “Tomgram: The Global War of 2030,” Tom Dispatch, September 26, 2017).
To check China, Washington has been building a new digital defense network of advanced cyberwarfare capabilities and air-space robotics. Between 2010 and 2012, the Pentagon extended drone operations into the exosphere, creating an arena for future warfare unlike anything that has gone before. As early as 2020, if all goes according to plan, the Pentagon will loft a triple-tier shield of unmanned drones reaching from the stratosphere to the exosphere, armed with agile missiles, linked by an expanded satellite system, and operated through robotic controls.
(Alfred McCoy, “Tomgram: The Global War of 2030,” Tom Dispatch, September 26, 2017).
*******************
We have become so stupefied
by politicians that we often fail to reflect on the power of their words.
Seeing books on library shelves with titles like "Speeches of Great
Americans" culls up in our minds Readers Digest, the History Channel,
Sunday morning sermons, and all the hyperbole that passes for political discourse
in the 21st century. Every once in a while though, a politician says something
that is rich with theoretical insight and inspiration and begs for action.
When President Eisenhower
gave his final address to the nation on January 17, 1961, nearly 60 years ago,
he warned of "the acquisition of unwarranted influence" of a
military/industrial complex. Some claim he originally included the word
"academic" but later eliminated it, for reasons of length. He was
alerting Americans to the breadth and scope of military power over the world
and American society.
The President's words
constituted a shocking challenge to the soon-to-be Kennedy era defense
intellectuals who criticized the outgoing president's reluctance to spend more
than the $40 billion he invested on the military. Even Eisenhower's direct
orders to subordinates to overthrow Iran's Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in
1953 and Guatemala's President Jacob Arbenz in 1954 and his declaration of the
Middle East as a free-world sanctuary was not interventionist enough for the
1960s theorists and practitioners of "modernization,"
"development," and "democracy."Although Eisenhower warned us about the military/industrial complex he could not foresee the dramatic impacts of America's drive toward empire on foreign policy and public life.
He only dimly saw the
changes that would occur in the techniques of empire. The expansion of the use
of CIA money and American intelligence and military forces engineered the
creation of brutal military coups. Military advisors revamped armies and
repressive police forces in countries threatened by revolutionary change. In
the 1980s in the face of an increasingly skeptical public, the United States
used "low intensity conflict," that is, covert operatives, to train
anti-government reactionaries to fight against regimes out of favor in places
such as Nicaragua, Angola, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan. And then to mollify
domestic critics, the U.S. initiated the privatization and outsourcing of the
military as an adjunct to the more than 800 U.S. military bases in more than 120
countries that exist today. Most recently, high tech weapons, including
unmanned but armed aerial vehicles, are used to kill people without endangering
U.S. soldiers. Technological advances and the globalization of U.S. violence
continue. And at the dawn of the second decade of the new century politicians
and pundits talk about world war with China!
Eisenhower was
unalterably opposed to the militarization of the U.S. economy. While he was
willing to allot $40 billion in 1950s currency, he resisted the demands from
Beltway liberals and defense contractors to double military spending. By the
1960s, half of the federal budget began to go to the military and one in ten
workers derived wages from defense contracts. And that continues, but with less
public criticism.
Finally, Eisenhower spoke
to the militarization of American culture. The university became a research arm
of the complex. Students were taught about the virtues of military
"readiness," the threat of "communism," the problem of how
"human nature" leads to perpetual war, and, more recently, the
endless danger of "terrorism." Virtually every large corporation,
producing such products as toothpaste, toys, breakfast cereal, medications,
automobiles, electronics, or energy, is steeped in military contracts. The
public airwaves, the Internet, movies, and sports are laced with war, violence,
killing, and competition. As Eisenhower put it: "Our toil, resources, and
livelihood are all involved: so is the very structure of our society."
What another great
American, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said in reference to the
military/industrial complex and the Vietnam War seven years after President
Eisenhower's dramatic statement still holds today:
"Somehow
this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak for those whose land is
being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being
subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of
smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen
of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken"
(Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., April 4, 1967, Riverside Church, New York).
And to continue this
“madness,” Purdue University, a great research university in the arts and
sciences, has embraced a future of advancing militarism that continues to
deplete resources for human betterment while increasing the likelihood of war.
Along with the wastefulness of militarism, the leaders of Purdue University
rationalize their new commitments by referring to outmoded notions of the
United States being the “top dog” and a cosmology that implies that war is
inevitable.
Harry Targ¸ Professor of
Political Science, Purdue University, who has chaired the Committee on Peace
Studies, writes on United States foreign policy and the political economy of
higher education. He is the author of Strategy of an Empire In Decline: Cold War
II and other books and
articles. He blogs at www.heartlandradical.blogspot.com
