What to do about the coup? Pt. 4 Cut Military Spending.
My first subscriber left me a request.
My aunt recently passed away. Earlier in the year she suggested I share my opinions about what we can do in response to the cascading abuses of the Trump presidency and the chaos around us.
Here are links to Part I, Part II, and Part III. This is Part IV.
It’s not the culture, stupid.
About five weeks ago just after Palm Sunday Israel bombed the Al Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza. Israel gave the hospital an order to evacuate but attacked a few minutes later before the evacuation order could be carried out. Miraculously only three people died. I noticed the incident because I was raised Episcopalian and despite “Baptist” being in the name, the “Al Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital” is run by the Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem.1
This wasn’t the first time Israel attacked Al Ahli. In 2023 Israelis killed almost 500 with no warning at all, one of many Israeli attacks on medical facilities since the war began. Israel claimed they were targeting secret Hamas “command centers,” but of course no evidence of Hamas “command centers” have been found at Al Ahli or any medical facility in Gaza, and the notion that an Episcopal hospital has anything to do with Hamas is absurd even by the standards of Israel’s usual propaganda.2
Terrorizing medical facilities is just one of countless cruelties inflicted by Israel against the Gazan population. What Israel is doing in Gaza—the intended destruction of two million people by starvation and murder—is arguably the greatest crime being committed in our lifetimes, and will be taught in schools as such by generations to come. And unlike other genocides this one is being carried out with U.S. weapons, money, diplomatic cover, and logistical support.
But you know this already if you want to know, because unlike other genocides, including the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians during Israel’s wars of independence, this one is taking place in the age of cellphone cameras and the internet.
That the Israeli government commits horrors is unsurprising; governments throughout history have committed horrors. That the Israeli people support vengeance inflicted on innocents is unsurprising; if after 9-11 the United States government had nuked the entire Middle East, most Americans would have cheered.3 Even that the U.S. government supports Israeli crimes—despite a solid majority of American citizens being against it—is sadly unsurprising;4 governments often don’t care about the interests or desires of their constituents, particularly in foreign policy.5
What should surprise us, however, is how wrong we were about why people go along with evil. In my lifetime the explanations tend to run along the lines that they are driven by deep-seated hatred, or they don’t know the facts, or they are manipulated by their culture.6
All of which turns out to be wrong.
Few Americans supporters of Israel seem particular driven by hate, nor are they unaware of Israel’s cruelty, and as for culture, if there’s been one enduring principle of post-WWII American culture, one “value” accepted across the political spectrum, it’s been, Never again. No more genocide.7 We may not agree on much else but we agree that genocide is wrong. The U.S. literally has a Holocaust Museum on our National Mall next to the Washington Monument. Never Again.
Yet the U.S. is not just allowing a genocide, but funding it, arming it, and defending it. American leaders are willing to damage the reputations of the Ivy League colleges many of them attended just to blunt criticism of Israel. That’s not because anyone’s ignorance, hate, or cultural values are deep, but because ignorance, hate, or cultural values are almost always incredibly shallow.
What we meant was “Not very often again.”
Many liberals today accuse Donald Trump of being like Hitler. Most of Donald Trump’s MAGA supporters claim liberals who say such things are suffering from “Trump Derangement Syndrome.” I actually agree that Trump isn’t much like Hitler.8 But the point of the comparison is not the leaders but the followers. If Trump were like Hitler, if tomorrow he suddenly announced that he’d read Mein Kampf and that Hitler’s ideas were the same as his own, not a single MAGA supporter stop supporting him. They’d just move the goal posts. If it came to it, they’d even decide that the Nazis weren’t so bad. Not because they have some abiding love (or interest) in Hitler or Nazis,9 but because they like Trump and their friends like Trump. They’ll grasp at whatever straw lets them excuse Trump.
Likewise, defenders of Israel who are currently claiming that what Israel is doing absolutely, definitely, obviously isn’t as bad as genocide, which is really really bad, and anyone who accuses Israel of genocide is obviously ignorant or prejudiced, would, if Israel announced today that they were indeed committing genocide, instantly claim that genocide isn’t so bad after all. Or okay, maybe it’s bad and Israel shouldn’t be doing it, but the real sin is Israel being singled out. Obviously those who single out Israel are ignorant or prejudiced.
This is not because supporters of Israel like genocide, but simply because they like Israel and their friends like Israel, so they’ll grasp at whatever straw lets them excuse Israel. The intellectuals might find their straw in the New York Times and the non-intellectuals might find theirs on Fox News but ultimately we’re all looking for reasons to believe those people, institutions, and countries we care about aren’t monsters. Unfortunately some of those we like turn out to be monsters.
To stop unnecessary wars by speaking out, marching, or any other type of activism is to build a sandcastle with quicksand or light a candle in the wind. Opinions are light things, while relationships are deep, so people will tend to revert to, or take up, whatever opinions help them maintain their social connections. There are clever people in every community who can cobble together plausible excuses for its heroes. There is money aplenty for witty men and women who can devise justifications for people to do what they want to do, be it in foreign policy, economic policy, or law.
If we want to stop unnecessary wars, we must not rely on changing hearts and minds. The only way to end unnecessary wars is to keep the military budget low enough so the government doesn’t have the resources for unnecessary wars. Israel is doing what they’re doing because they have impunity, and they have impunity because they have unlimited weapons supplied by the U.S., and we are able to supply those weapons because of our massive military budget. If we had a budget commensurate with a nation protected by two oceans and two friendly countries north and south, there would be no money to support anyone’s genocide, so there would be no need to convince those who grew up on fantasies of labor governments and kibbutzes that Israel has become a monster.10
Which brings us to the final essential task of every successful government throughout history. In addition to taxing the rich, and breaking up monopolies, all successful governments must limit military spending. In our case that means cutting military spending. Probably by half.
The American Century
The United States emerged from WWII in a unique position. Before the war the U.S. was already the world’s largest economy and one of the most scientifically and technologically advanced. Then WWII came and Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union blew one another to smithereens. Cities were flattened, factories destroyed, populations decimated, and then when the war was finally over many of the European powers saw their former colonies break away and declare independence. America meanwhile—except for one brief attack in Hawaii—suffered no direct damage to its cities or infrastructure, and over the course of the war had created a huge army, and the world’s best navy and air force.
Oh, and by the end of the war we added the atomic bomb.
So we came out of WWII bestride the narrow world like a colossus. No country in history—not Rome, the Mongols, or the British Empire in its heyday—has ever been so rich and powerful relative to its peers, because we were not only very powerful, everyone else was flat on their backs beaten to a pulp.
Imagine China today—the largest economy by some measures, one of the most advanced—if the U.S.A., Japan, France, India, and Brazil suddenly blew each other into dystopian hellscapes. Then throw in some absolute military advantage like the atomic bomb, and that imaginary China would approximate what America was in 1945.
From this position of global dominance the FDR and Truman administrations built the post-war order, the Pax Americana. The U.S. dollar became the medium of exchange, the newly-formed NATO guaranteed the safety of Europe, the newly-formed United Nations became the center of international diplomacy, and—most importantly— the U.S. Navy guaranteed the freedom of the seas. Even for our new Cold War rivals.
Empires don’t pay for themselves
All markets—including the post-war global “free market” of what was soon called the Pax Americana—are government creations. Without a powerful government providing currency, courts, police protections and so on markets can’t function. The American government created and maintained the postwar globalist “free market” though the U.S. navy, military bases, satellites, GPS systems, missiles, and of course the U.S. dollar. And it still does. A container ship stacked to the sky with merchandise can sail around the world with a crew of twenty and no defensive weapons because the U.S. polices the seas. The global free market is created, policed, and maintained by the U.S. taxpayer.
For the first 20-30 years that worked pretty well. The U.S. taxpayer was rolling in money. We were so rich, our industrial sector so robust, and our navy and air force so dominant that we could keep every ocean clear, find markets overseas for anything we could make, and import anything we didn’t have or didn’t want to make (because the margins were too low for the rising incomes of happy American workers). America could foot the bill easy peasy, and most of the rest of the world benefited too, certainly relative to the previous period when the European powers had their worldwide empires.
For the next 20-30 years—roughly the period from the Vietnam War to the fall of the U.S.S.R.—it’s far more of a mixed bag. We can argue whether the good outweighed the bad. Certainly some benefited at home and abroad, certainly many suffered.
What’s not a debate (IMO) is that for the last 20-30 years—say starting with the Iraq War—it’s been a nightmare. Pax Americana is just another evil empire. Instead of cutting the military to balance the budget after the U.S.S.R. fell, the U.S. went on a crazy, money-burning tantrum against “terrorism,” and handed the keys to everything at home to the finance sector. Pax Americana today is bad for a solid majority of Americans and the vast majority of everyone else.11 At this point we need a wise, level-headed political class to manage our decline. Instead we have Trump and his clown posse Republicans, and the feeble Democrats.
The dirty truth is that empires don’t pay for themselves. It’s well known they’re not ideal for the folks they rob, kill, and enslave abroad, but they aren’t usually great for the folks at home either. Spain was the dominant power in Europe before Columbus reached the New World. After an orgy of looted silver and territorial conquest, Spain was a poverty-ridden backwater. Great Britain’s Sun-Never-Set’s empire phase coincided with those Dickensian tatter-clothed masses coughing in the doorways of London slums. In most respects an Elizabethan was better off than a Victorian. The Roman conquest of Italy and the Mediterranean drove waves of Latin farmers into the city as landless, jobless plebes that had to be plied with bread and circuses. Czarist Russia immiserated its people (as did its imperial Soviet empire usurper). So the declining lifespans, health, and increasing homelessness of the U.S. today are the predictable result of our empire. We just can’t afford the empire anymore.
Federal budgets don’t work like household or city budgets. Instead of earning money and then spending it, a federal government prints the money. They spend it first, and and then tax it back. If the government fails to tax out as much as it puts in, the money supply increases relative to the supply of goods and services and prices go up. That’s inflation. If the money supply decreases relative to goods and services that’s deflation. If money inflated or deflated everywhere evenly it wouldn’t matter. Making $40K and spending $38K per year wouldn’t theoretically isn’t any different from making $20K and spending $19K, but inflation and deflation never happen evenly. The inputs and outputs happen in different sectors in different ways. We’ll take this up in our thrilling conclusion to this series when we discuss tariffs.
But suffice it to say, we need to reduce the federal budget,12 and because this is a time of declining lifespans, health, and increasing homelessness, the only fat on the bone is the military. We should cut our military budget in half. And I don’t mean using unconstitutional nonsense like DOGE.13 We have a competent military dedicated to defending the United States. Let the generals and admirals propose scenarios for where to make the cuts.
But it’s not the economy, stupid
We started this series with pointing out that competent governments throughout history have held their rich in check. In the U.S. that can be done legally by taxing them, and that’s how FDR did it. Taxing the rich would help balance the budget—which is good—but the main goal is to reign in the rich to keep them from dominating and destroying the government as they’re doing now. If we taxed the rich properly we wouldn’t have to worry about Trump or Musk or any of the others.
Likewise cutting the military budget will help balance the budget, which is good, but the bigger goal is that successful governments must limit their military spending to avoid becoming entangled in quagmires like the Middle East. If we only had a military large enough to protect our country and our shipping, there would be no war in Ukraine or Gaza. There would have been no Iraq War. There would have been no 9-11 because we wouldn’t have been arming Israel or stationing troops in Saudi Arabia—the two reasons Al Qaeda bombed us. Israel might well be at peace with its neighbors.14
This is the vicious circle of empires and militaries. Each justifies and bloats the other. Even if Israel wasn’t being Israel there are always plenty of other places where politicians can kill, maim, and destroy with all the shiny toys. Why try to square the circle of agricultural policy, or figure out quantitative easing when there’s some suffering country facing an evil enemy? When President Eisenhower in his farewell address warned the U.S. public about the military-industrial complex this, not budgets, is what he was driving at. When President Washington in his farewell address warned the U.S. public about entangling alliances, he too was alluding to these lessons. Empires making wars making empires destroys the rule of law, erodes the legislative branch, and turns leaders into salivating, sabre-rattling morons.
Needless to say, Trump has bent over backward to boast he’ll increase the military budget, and the Democrats practically shake in their boots at the notion of challenging the Pentagon, so no relief is coming in the near future.
America was not so long ago at the happy pinnacle of the world. Friends, it’s a long way down.
Next: The thrilling Conclusion of What to Do About the Coup! After which we will return to personal stories, tales of prehistoric climate change, and the saga of fossil fuels. Plus summer is almost here with some new series.
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Episcopal churches are part of the “Anglican Communion”—all being offspring of the Church of England, that protestant denomination that Henry VIII created in order to divorce one of his wives. Also created to seize papal property. “Created” is perhaps too strong a word for Henry’s actions, because it was his advisors, especially Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cramner, who birthed the church. They were crypto-Protestants who used the divorce to introduce Protestant doctrine and practices, such as ending regular confession, priestly celibacy, and Latin masses. They legalized translations of the bible in vernacular language.
When that excuse wasn’t getting traction the Biden administration offered up the notion that it was not Israel at all but an errant Hamas rocket that hit the hospital. Of course there was no evidence then or now. It’s just another story put out by Israel and the U.S. to muddy the waters. Likewise there is no evidence of mass rapes committed by Hamas on Oct 7th, 2024, nor of children being put in ovens, nor of anyone playing soccer with anyone’s breasts. The reality of Hamas is certainly bad enough.
It is not an endorsement of the Bush administration to say that as bad as they were— extraordinary rendition, torture, and so on—they could have been far worse. We are on a downward slide and Bush II was very much when the descent got faster and steeper.
Here is Gallup back in March.
As to why the U.S. governments supports Israel to such a degree when it’s not in our interests, I don’t know. I’ll hazard some guesses at some point in the future.
I’m looking at you, Frankfurt School and your permutations and iterations.
Even the far right has accepted that genocide is out of bounds, which is why denying the Holocaust is so important. They want to defend the Nazi regime, without defending its signature policies, so no Holocaust. The far right has also recently begun to claim that WWII wasn’t Hitler’s fault, so even the militaristic imperialism that was Hitler’s proudest accomplishment must be scrubbed.
(He’s not fanatical, militaristic, or ideological. I certainly can’t picture him as a war hero, going to prison for political convictions, or writing a book on his own.)
Note that even among members of the far right who do love Hitler and the Nazis, many don’t know much about them. They’re just symbols.
Many claim it always was but that’s a much longer debate.
American power has come to benefit rich people all over the world. China, Singapore, Israel, and several other countries have benefited.
Inflation just means rising prices and that can be influenced by all sorts of things including the supply of a nation’s currency held abroad. For that stay tuned for our thrilling conclusion.
The one neighbor Israel has kept a workable peace with (brokered by Jimmy Carter at Camp David) has been Egypt, the one country Israel hasn’t completely dominated militarily. The accords are currently strained due to Israel actions in Gaza, but held for decades. Note that Israel is unable to maintain a peace with any of the countries it militarily dominates but somehow was able to make a peace with the country that almost beat it in a war. See here for more on the problems of impunity and war crimes.