Remembering Ike!
China Is Marching in a Frenzy, Albeit Quietly, to Compete with and Beat the USA on Every Level of Human Endeavor: What is to Be Done?
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States
In his farewell speech of January 17, 1961, five-star General Eisenhower (Ike) warned the nation against the mounting influence and unbridled reign of a newly established “military-industrial complex.” He went on to say: “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex.” He noted that the U.S. had moved from a peace-loving nation with small defense needs to one with a massive, permanent arms industry and a large military establishment that will inevitably seek to survive or behave aggressively to secure dominant market share.
Ike was one of the most beloved military leaders in the free world. He led the D-Day Allied Forces to crush the Nazi military machine and break their morale once and for all. He continued all the way to Elbe River in Germany, about 60 miles from Berlin. He was twice elected (on the Republican ticket) as President of the USA in 1952 and in 1956, overwhelmingly beating a very moderate and capable Democrat, Adlai Stevenson. The point I am seeking to emphasize is that he, as a Republican by choice, was not anti- business by any stretch of the imagination. He obviously was not a leftist or flaming liberal trying to denigrate our superb military industries, but a far-sighted and well-tested patriot who sought power only for the sake of achieving permanent peace, and to curb the avarice embedded in human nature that might, even unintentionally, lead eventually to the destruction of our civilization.
The question that our peace-loving generation has to ask is: Why should we keep about eight hundred military bases (according to AI) around the world at a time our submarines and intercontinental missiles carrying multiple-heads atomic weapons can reach any corner in this planet and annihilate the enemy with the most destructive machine this planet has ever-known? Yes, we have to guard against our potential adversaries: Russia and China. But does that require planting more than a million American military men and women all over the world? I am far from being a military expert, but I have seen thousands of highly-educated people in the campuses around the country and, in addition to those in England, France, and Germany, participated in the annual meetings of the American Political Science Association, worked with multinational forces in Kosovo and Baghdad, and kept asking and wondering: how long could America sustain such a huge military machine spread throughout the world at a time when our superb submarines carrying intercontinental missiles with multiple heads are roaming the seas and the oceans of this planet?
As a humble mortal and American patriot, I suggest that my fellow Americans at every level—whether they are Republicans, Democrats, Independents, liberals or libertarians—engage in a serious debate whose ultimate aim is not to crush our great military-industrial companies which (with their most modern and superb technologies and best scientists in the world) can convert to other innovative spheres of modern industries in a gradual and relatively short period. America should start in earnest and gradually decrease the number of our military bases and installations from around 800 to about no more than eighty, including no more than ten or twenty around the globe. Our military expenditure, which is nearing one trillion dollars, would decrease drastically. This exorbitant amount should be dedicated to rebuilding our sadly decaying infrastructure to compete with and surpass China, which is quietly and relentlessly building the most modern and even fascinating infrastructure without possessing expensive military installations around the world.
And that could be subject to change and increase should our military adversaries like Russia and China, or any newcomer, try to challenge the United States in the long run.
Harry Jonna