Sorensen’s book is not primarily about inviting us to “feel” the horrors of war. It is, instead, about “understanding” something – the algorithm that runs “the system” or “war industry” pretty much on auto-pay. People are, naturally, caught up in this system: those that profit from lubricating it, and those that pay the bills in sweat and blood. And then there are those, most of us, who participate through sheer (or willed?) ignorance: Sorensen is not prepared to let us off the hook, and takes us on this arduous journey of understanding.
He calls the people who run the system the military-industrial-congressional triangle or MIS: apparently, when President Eisenhower coined the phrase, he decided to omit the “congressional” part of it. The people in charge are clearly not concerned with issues of life and death. After all, they are not the grunts in the field or the civilians bombed or starved in faraway places. And, for the most part, neither are we. The veteran suicide rate is just another statistic affecting mostly others. Nor are we good at geography, and, besides, terminally captured by our homegrown, media-staged contests. Sorenson, however, insists on taking us around the world. First to Europe with NATO, then with SOUTHCOM, which takes care of Central and Latin America, then with AFRICOM (listing mysterious places in Africa) and, of course, CENTCOM, the greater Middle-East, where we are still battling the “axis of evil.” And believe it or not, all these myriad dots on the world map need us and our know-how.
Should we not believe it, when all the important people speak with one voice? Our new Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, a WestPoint graduate, ex-Army General, ex-CEO of Raytheon, is a perfect example of the interface between the requirements of military field operations, arms manufacturing and government agencies. Is this not a prime example of efficiency? Sorenson demonstrates the process in exhaustive detail. Army specialists are one category of experts, but then the Navy, and Airforce, and Space Satellite stations, and Special Forces Operations require their own expertise.
And it is not just about areas of actual conflict, but all the areas of likely conflict: preparedness is key. Moreover, vigilance requires a constant upgrading of materiel, infrastructure development, sundry goods and services delivery, and the training of local, “surrogate forces.”
Luckily, the information technology has reached a remarkable stage of development to facilitate these challenging tasks. The giants of this super-modern industry like Microsoft, Amazon, or Google cooperate on the various aspects of providing “the integration, design and testing, deployment, and life cycle support for electronic computer systems.” Thus, incidentally, information gathered for the NSA – presumably for the needs of our foreign policy – can be legally transferred to the FBI and voila: the internal as well as the external fields of observation have been secured.
But isn’t information key for telling friend from foe? Thus, we have established secure alliances in the Middle-East. Investing in Israel, a paragon of democracy, has provided excellent returns. Its technological prowess matches and supplements our own, while Saudi Arabia, yet another paragon of democracy, has proven to be a reliable financial investor in our tech industries. In return, we have been generous in supplying our military hardware to our allies, not just in the Middle East, but around the world. Some of them, again like Saudi Arabia, that can maybe afford it, while others, like Finland or Poland or Romania, maybe not. But in these cases, as in many others, our Foreign Aid can be earmarked for these armament purchases. As Sorensen puts it, “the Pentagon does not stay in its own funding lane.”
These last three cases (as well as the Baltic states) are particularly key, because they border on the Russian Federation. After all, the threat of Islamic terrorism no longer monopolizes the headlines as it once did. Sorensen documents that even back in 2018 the looming threat of Russia (and since then China as well) has been advanced to the forefront of the concerns of the MIC. Clearly, these more capable enemies require more advanced countermeasures – not just a drone chasing a marked target somewhere in Yemen or Afghanistan. As Sorensen cites, such advanced measures include “cyber, submarines, satellites, ballistic missiles, nuclear weaponry, aircraft carriers” – and then there is the new element of “hypersonics.” No wonder the extra U.S. military budget allocation of 2019 was equal to that year’s entire military budget of the Russian Federation. In any case, the argument for super sophisticated weapons also satisfies the big-ticket requirements of the American armament industry.
It is also Sorensen’s thesis that understanding the war industry is also key to the understanding of most of the major institutions of our society. It seems that every major University is a grateful recipient of corporate funds to support military research. Sorensen writes: “By accepting War Department funding, the National Academy of Sciences puts itself at odds with the International Council for Sciences, of which it is a member.” Never mind if this raises questions of ethics. Similarly, the massive financing and promotion of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) education results in catching students early on and guiding them into profitable career paths for themselves AND the military.
If, however, students are more inclined toward the humanities, there is a profusion of well-financed “institutes,” which will prepare them for careers in appropriate think tanks or the media. Sorensen states: “think tanks … invent, hype, and promote new threats and new rationalizations for why the United States must continue fighting war.” And the media “amplify this disinformation … they air what attracts the highest rating in order to get more advertising … particularly from war corporations.” Sorensen’s writing is not only clear-sighted and well-documented, but fun to read: how could one not enjoy the reference to a typical terrorist “threat” as a “reliable talking point that scares the zippers off of congressional purses.”
Banking and Investment firms are major stakeholders in the war industry as well. In his exhaustive analysis, Sorensen introduces us to the double-speak of financial and legal accommodation. He lists some 26 categories which allow military access to what one would interpret as non-military funding. Audits lead to dead-ends. In short, “directives, legal opinions, and classified memoranda establish and guide D.C.’s prosecution of non-stop war.” “And when the law happens to get in the way, the MIC ignores it.”
This intimate MIC and D.C. cooperation, however, results in the actual weakening of government control. The privately run “services” metastasizing around the world make accountability altogether impossible – even for the Pentagon. Congress, as we know since corporations have become people, and thus may supply endless streams of “dark money,” are in no position to question anything. Presidents, in this situation, have shown their adaptability by acting as armament salesmen. And what of the presumably diplomatic arm of the State Department? The apparent “incoherence” of our diplomacy, is, according to Sorensen “quite rational … a portfolio of conflicts, disparate and seemingly futile, is precisely the aim … permanent warfare – producing untold mountains of profit for war corporations – is the goal.”
At least, given the proliferation of the war industry, can we not claim the job opportunities such enterprise offers? Sorensen undermines any such hopeful prospects. Automation, outsourcing and the advance of high-tech jobs leave most “deplorables” out of the game, just as “grunts” do not have the career opportunities of the WestPoint graduates. He also reminds us that the military footprint on our choking earth is the heaviest, bar none. Think of the indispensable but missed civilian job opportunities cleaning up the messes wreaked by MIC.
The last chapter of his book, titled Transitioning, breaks up into various sections heading various solutions to the problems he has so convincingly documented. First, there is Education and Organizing: he has certainly done his part to educate us; it is up to us to organize. Elections and Legislation are obvious tools for us to recapture. Then there is Demobilization and Disobedience and Demilitarizing Industry: soldiers have rebelled before and they can do it again; and they would know how to dismantle the system. About the Draft: if there must be a war – “a war in defense of the country not its sprawling empire” – then patriotism makes sense, as well as does the draft. And there is also International Solidarity: we are all in it together. And what about Prosecutions? The Nuremberg Trials have shown the way. Finally, Redirecting Funding would transform a world of imposed austerity into a world of sufficiency.
Sorensen’s voice is a welcome one in the increasing number of voices calling for change. His demonstration of how irrational it is to stake our collective lives on war instead of peace is also particularly timely. Was Tulsi Gabbard not immediately dismissed as a “Russian asset” for even raising the issue? Sorensen’s integrating the war and peace issue into the relentless drive of the Capitalist profit motive adds a crucial component to our growing understanding of how our society works. Its accelerated globalization takes us to the brink of self-destruction. Once again, Sorensen’s excellent book deserves careful reading: the “understanding” he provides is the first step to action.
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