The Trillion Dollar War Machine (w/ William D. Hartung) | The Chris Hedges Report

Summary

The Chris Hedges Report

Episode: The Trillion Dollar War Machine (w/ William D. Hartung)
Air Date: January 1, 2026
Host: Chris Hedges
Guest: William D. Hartung, Senior Fellow at the Quincy Institute

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges interviews military-industrial complex expert William D. Hartung about his new book, The Trillion Dollar War Machine (co-authored with Ben Freeman). Together, they explore America’s sprawling war industry, the roles of Pentagon contractors and Silicon Valley, the myth of American exceptionalism, and the intersection of ideology and greed that has sustained and supercharged U.S. militarism for generations. Hartung exposes how unchecked military spending devastates both domestic priorities and global security while enriching a narrow elite. The conversation covers political, economic, and cultural enablers, failed oversight, the influence on media and academia, and the grave consequences for democracy and the world if the military-industrial complex remains unchallenged.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Rise and Transformation of the U.S. War Machine

[00:10 - 11:32]

• Eisenhower’s Warnings vs. Today’s Reality:

  • The U.S. spends nearly a trillion dollars annually on its military; the Pentagon budget is now twice what it was at Eisenhower’s warning.
  • Eisenhower, while not a pacifist, was wary of a “garrison state” and tried to hold the line against military contractors and overbuilt systems all vying for bigger slices of the budget.
  • “The fact is that since the administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower who first coined the term military industrial complex in 1961, the United States hasn't been led by a single president, Republican or Democrat, who truly stood up to the war machine...” (Host, 00:59)

• Sacred Cows and Service Rivalries:

  • The nuclear triad (land, sea, air) was created more from rivalry among military branches than from strategy.
  • “[The nuclear triad] was, you know, the navy and the air force wanted their piece of the pie.” (William Hartung, 05:15)

• Ideology and Greed:

  • Hartung: the military-industrial system is fueled by both ideological narratives (American exceptionalism, fear of rivals) and self-enrichment.
  • “The ideological side is completely out of control and some of the decisions, I think, are actually diminishing US power.” (Hartung, 06:31)

• Cultural Reinforcement:

  • Media, Hollywood, academia, and sports all help sell myths of endless war and American virtue.

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2. Silicon Valley: Disruptors or Warmongers?

[07:01 - 12:06]

• Silicon Valley Overtakes the Old Guard:

  • Tech giants (Palantir, Musk, Thiel) are even more ideological and aggressive than traditional contractors like Lockheed or Raytheon.
  • “If Ayn Rand was on steroids, this is what you end up. Except these folks have weapons, which means if anyone's going to get us killed, it's probably them.” (Hartung, 08:23)

• Tech & Defense Merging:

  • Startups merge to take down traditional primes; they want to dominate not just the marketplace but policy itself.
  • “They've even written a little manifesto, Arsenal Democracy 2.0…” (Hartung, 09:53)

• Mission Creep and Hubris:

  • The tech industry promotes itself as “new patriots” with a unifying mission centered on AI and weapons.
  • “We need a unifying national mission. And that should be a new Manhattan Project to apply AI to weapons.” (Hartung, 10:46)

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3. The Death of Oversight and Congressional Dissent

[12:12 - 17:51]

• Loss of Independent Voices:

  • Oversight in Congress has collapsed; few politicians now challenge weapon systems or war spending for fear of losing their seats.
  • “There's less public support for those kinds of folks... Some people, you know, they just, well, you know, Trump is rich. I want to be rich.” (Hartung, 14:11)

• Jobs Blackmail:

  • War industry disperses manufacturing across the country to “job blackmail” politicians into supporting unnecessary systems.
  • “You want to close that plant, you lose jobs.” (Host paraphrasing, 15:22)
  • Most “defense jobs” are heavily concentrated in just three states, but every state is led to believe its economy depends on war spending.

• Pork Barrel Burnout:

  • Members of Congress champion weapon systems for local gain, not strategic need, bloating the Pentagon budget with redundant, failed or obsolete systems.
  • “Even if the Pentagon wants to make a decision, this pork barrel politics gets in the way.” (Hartung, 19:50)

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4. Overpriced, Underperforming Weapons & Misplaced Priorities

[18:04 - 23:44]

• Bloated Procurement, Flawed Systems:

  • Billions are poured into weapons (like the F-35, Littoral Combat Ship, Osprey) that routinely malfunction or become irrelevant.
  • “The littoral combat ship... It was designed to do three different things and did none of them well.” (Hartung, 19:15)
  • New military tech is often vastly more expensive than adversaries’ weapons. “They're making them in their garages.” (Hartung, 21:15)

• Academic Corruption and Talent Waste:

  • Research funding and engineering jobs are dominated by Pentagon contracts, starving domestic infrastructure, green energy, and civilian needs.
  • “If you work for the war industry, you get cost overruns. You're guaranteed.” (Host paraphrasing Melman, 22:05)
  • “There’s so many things we could use scientific expertise for... All of that is getting squeezed for people to go into the weapons industry.” (Hartung, 25:12)

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5. Gaza and Unchecked Militarism in Practice

[25:49 - 28:12]

• U.S. Complicity:

  • The U.S. continues to supply weapons and diplomatic cover for humanitarian disasters, including Israel’s war in Gaza.
  • “It's just shocking how the US government occasionally sort of says tsk ts, but keeps the weapons and the money flowing.” (Hartung, 26:41)

• Authoritarian Drift:

  • Moves are underway to purge dissenting voices and fill government and military ranks with loyalists indifferent to rule of law or basic decency.
  • “Their idea of a war fighter is somebody who's loyal to Donald Trump, not to the Constitution.” (Hartung, 28:10)

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6. The Information War: Media, Think Tanks & Public Discourse

[29:03 - 36:32]

• Corporate Ownership of the Narrative:

  • Contractors lobby with taxpayer funds and have captured media, Hollywood, and think tanks to uniformly promote militarism.
  • “They should wear the company logo while they’re speaking.” (Hartung, 30:00)
  • The Pentagon has script approval over films featuring U.S. weapons.

• Manipulating Expertise:

  • Retired generals and intelligence officers serving as media experts are often board members or paid consultants for arms companies, distorting public debate.
  • “The think tanks can do that. And they have this aura of legitimacy.” (Hartung, 31:56)

• Marginalizing Dissent:

  • “The only time I get in the media is like a pro military story. And in paragraph 32, they're like, oh, yeah, some people disagree, but it's not the framing.” (Hartung, 35:20)
  • Deeper analysis and accountability have disappeared from the mainstream.

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7. Domestic and International Consequences

[37:02 - 47:55]

• Eroding Democracy and Social Welfare:

  • “Domestically it'll further erode what's left of our democracy. It'll encourage kind of scapegoating and McCarthyite tactics…” (Hartung, 45:42)
  • Weapons jobs are a form of “job blackmail” preventing communities from pursuing more meaningful, high-quality employment.

• Global Destabilization:

  • U.S. militarism leads to suffering, instability, and death abroad:
    • “US policies have done immense damage, possibly millions of people have died or been injured.” (Hartung, 46:32)

• The Vicious Cycle:

  • End of one war (e.g., Afghanistan) immediately creates pressure to “open up” the next (e.g., Ukraine) to keep arms sales high.

• No Lessons Learned:

  • Despite disastrous outcomes in Iraq, Afghanistan, etc., policymakers double down on failed strategies, convinced new tech or new enemies will bring success.

• Potential Future:

  • Without a mass movement, further authoritarianism and endless conflict are likely.
  • “We’d have to take more risks than we’re used to because this crowd doesn’t really follow the law.” (Hartung, 47:07)
  • Hartung presses for coalition-building across issues to resist and demand change.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “If Ayn Rand was on steroids, this is what you end up. Except these folks have weapons, which means if anyone's going to get us killed, it's probably them.”
  — William Hartung, 08:23

• “You want to close that plant, you lose jobs.”
  — Host (paraphrasing the industry argument), 15:22

• “[The littoral combat ship] was designed to do three different things and did none of them well.”
  — William Hartung, 19:15

• “The only way to be safe from these things is to get rid of them, which is a long-term fight.”
  — William Hartung, 17:37

• “They should wear the company logo while they're speaking.”
  — William Hartung (on retired generals and media pundits), 30:00

• “Domestically it'll further erode what's left of our democracy... [militarism] is actually going to weaken the country.”
  — William Hartung, 45:42 & 45:58

• “US policies have done immense damage, possibly millions of people have died or been injured.”
  — William Hartung, 46:32

• “It’s a tough time. But I do believe that there’s resilience and ability to do that, but we don’t. It’s not guaranteed.”
  — William Hartung, 47:40

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Important Segment Timestamps

• [00:10] — Opening theme & context (collapse of civilizations, militarism)
• [04:18] — Hartung on Eisenhower, greed and ideology
• [08:00] — Silicon Valley’s technocratic hubris/war ambitions
• [12:12] — Demise of Congressional dissent and oversight
• [15:25] — “Job blackmail” and pork barrel politics
• [18:04] — Dysfunctional, costly weapon systems (F-35, ships, Osprey)
• [22:05] — Academia and scientific community co-opted by military
• [25:49] — Gaza and the mechanics of U.S. complicity
• [29:03] — Information war: media, lobbying, and manufactured consent
• [37:02] — Domestic and global costs of militarism, alternatives
• [45:42] — What happens if the war machine remains unchecked?

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Closing Reflection

William Hartung and Chris Hedges provide a stark, evidence-driven account of how the military-industrial complex, now fused with Silicon Valley’s techno-utopianism, has hijacked U.S. politics, media, education, and culture to perpetuate endless war and social decay. The root causes are found in a toxic blend of ideology and greed, and the prospects for change, while daunting, rest on acknowledging truths, building coalitions, and reclaiming genuine democratic oversight for the common good.

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For more from Chris Hedges and William Hartung, visit:
chrishedges.substack.com

Transcript

[Host]

The historian Arnold Tonby cites an unchecked rampant militarism as the key factor in the collapse of a civilization. This militarism disembowels a society. It fosters social breakdown, the rise of authoritarian governments and demagogues it. It deforms a society until it is unable to respond to existential crises, in our case the climate crisis and a growing social inequality. The ruling elite, Stoneby warns, abandon the common good and become sycophantic appendages of oligarchs and a military machine that functions as a state within a state. The United States now spends nearly a trillion dollars a year on on its military. William Hartung and Ben Freeman, in their new book the Trillion Dollar War Machine, examine the role of Pentagon contractors, who receive more than half of the Pentagon's budget, to the high tech fantasies of Silicon Valley's entrepreneurs such as Peter Thiel, who peddle unproven and often unworkable technologies to foster in their eyes new forms of warfare, including the mass colonization and militarization of space. The authors unmasked the bought and paid for enablers of the war machine, including politicians, lobbyists, the media, Hollywood and think tanks. They explain how this unchecked militarism not only enriches a tiny wealthy elite at our expense, but perpetuates costly and self defeating military fiascos around the globe, making us less safe and diminishing global power. This war machine, the authors write, is different from the military industrial complex President Eisenhower warned us about in his parting speech in 1961. The Pentagon budget is now twice what it was adjusted for inflation when Eisenhower gave this nationwide address. Corporations such as Lockheed Martin, which has 40 to 50 billion dollars in in annual Pentagon contracts, is able to buy up politicians and provide sinecures for former military and defense officials that ensure loyalty and huge contracts even for redundant and flawed weapons systems. Those running our war industry know little to nothing about the countries they seek to dominate, leading to debacle after debacle, including two decades of of military disasters in the Middle East. Yet they have a vice grip not only on the media, but Hollywood, the gaming industry, professional sports and academia. These institutions, in lockstep with the war industry, pedal the myths of American exceptionalism, America's supposed superior virtues and civilization, and the mantra of endless war. Dissident voices, especially in Congress, such as Senators William Proxmire, Frank Church, James abaresk and George McGovern, willing to question the folly of this out of control militarism, one that is accelerating our decline, have been largely purged from public office and public debate. Joining me to discuss his book is William Hartung, a senior fellow at the Quincy Institute. So Bill, at the beginning of your book, you're right. The fact is that since the administa administration of Dwight D. Eisenhower who first coined the term military industrial complex in 1961, the United States hasn't been led by a single president, Republican or Democrat, who truly stood up to the war machine, consistently prioritized diplomacy over war, or shifted the government's focus away from fighting foreign wars and towards the needs of the American people. In short, in the war for US foreign policy, the war profiteers have almost always won. This book asks why. Let's begin with the big question. Why?

[William Hartung]

Well, I think it's a mix of ideology and greed, but they intersect. You know, the Eisenhower was no peacenik.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

I mean he sponsored, you know, coups in Guatemala and Iran.

[William Hartung]

His idea of strategy was threaten to.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Blow the other side off the face of the earth.

[William Hartung]

But he was cheap. He didn't want ground wars and he didn't like the uniformed military and the contractors trying to get him to buy.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

A nuclear bomber that he didn't think we needed.

[William Hartung]

So you know, relatively speaking he was moderate. He said, you know, we don't want.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

To build a garrison state.

[William Hartung]

He held the line a little bit but he also, you know, built the.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Beginnings of the US so called nuclear triad. Land based, sea based, air based nuclear weapons.

[William Hartung]

And ironically he was of course attacked.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

From the right by people like John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, you know, saying there was a missile gap which later turned out to be completely bogus.

[William Hartung]

So you know, all the way back to Eisenhower for example, the nuclear triad is viewed in Washington as some sort of sacred object. You can't possibly get rid of anything. But back in the 50s it wasn't a strategy issue. It was, you know, the navy and the air force wanted their piece of the pie. So the air force had the bomber and the land based missile the navy.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Figured out to put ballistic missiles on.

[William Hartung]

Ships and then they sold doctrines that.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Were better for their weapons.

[William Hartung]

You know, Navy said oh it doesn't have to be accurate.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

You threaten their cities.

[William Hartung]

Arthur said oh yeah, it should be accurate.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Take out their weapons and they actually.

[William Hartung]

Sent their officers around to pitch their particular brand. And since the air force was funding the Rand corporation, they had an edge in the kind of technical battle. And so finally it was settled.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Like all things seemed to be settled in the Pentagon. They paid off both sides and hence we had the try in but you.

[William Hartung]

Would never Know that they make it sound like this was handed down from.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

On high and if we got rid.

[William Hartung]

Of one missile, we'd be, you know.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Threatened with the end of life as we know it.

[William Hartung]

And it carries on to today. But also because they fund think tanks, because they put forward a certain ideology, it kind of goes along with this.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Idea of American exceptionalism, America first, you.

[William Hartung]

Know, as if we're sending our troops.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Overseas on some sort of charity mission.

[William Hartung]

And also that if the United States doesn't dominate the world, I mean, what do you want to run by China? You know, so the two are related. Although I would say in our current environment the ideological side is completely out of control and some of the decisions, I think are actually diminishing US power. But if they do damage on the.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Way down, it may not matter to the rest of us.

[Host]

Well, you write in the book that.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

The Silicon Valley is actually far more warmongering or far more ideological than even the people who pedal weapons systems from Raytheon or Lockheed Martin.

[William Hartung]

Yeah, the Big five, the Lockheed Martin's.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

The Raytheons at least try to put.

[William Hartung]

A veneer of that. They're for stability, they're for defense. And there's some bizarre examples like Lockheed.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Martin helped pay for the building for the US Institute of Peace and their.

[William Hartung]

Name is inscribed in the building. And the press release said, oh well, they're involved in peacekeeping or when there's a new war and their stocks are.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Going through the roof.

[William Hartung]

The CEO said, well, yeah, this turbulence.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

In the Middle east will help our bottom line.

[William Hartung]

Whereas Palmer Luckey goes on 60 Minutes, he's the gamer who runs one of.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

The big Silicon Valley tech firms, says.

[William Hartung]

Oh yeah, we're going to have a.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

War with China in two years and.

[William Hartung]

We'Re going to bury him because we have better technology. And he also said in year eight of the war we will have more.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Ammunition than they do.

[William Hartung]

There's not going to be an eight.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Year war between two nuclear powers.

[William Hartung]

But what does he know? He's a gamer who's playing around with weapons. But unfortunately he and Peter Thiel, a volunteer, Elon Musk, think that they are anointed to not only sell weapons, but to make our foreign policy to remake our government. Essentially that they're sort of these superior beings who have been put on this earth to, you know, sort of run the show. It's sort of like if Ayn Rand was on steroids, this is what you end up. Except these folks have weapons, which means if anyone's going to get us killed, it's probably them.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Well, you talk about the marriage between Silicon Valley and the traditional war industry giants like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon. I think in particular the F35. But they are, they are not only are vying for, of course, war industry money, but they are now collaborating on.

[Host]

The weapon systems themselves.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Perhaps you can explain how that works.

[William Hartung]

Well, there's two threads. One is the Silicon Valley firms are merging to bid together. On the other hand, although they're attacking the big firms, Silicon Valley makes a lot of components the go into an.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

F35 or some of these other systems.

[William Hartung]

But they've decided that's not enough. They want to topple Lockheed Martin, be.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

At the top of the chain in terms of Pentagon money.

[William Hartung]

And they're moving. I mean, they've got their man in the White House.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

J.D. vance, who worked in Silicon Valley, was.

[William Hartung]

Financed by them when he was appointed vp. You know, the champagne corks were popping in Silicon Valley, and that's when the.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Huge amounts of money from Musk and others came in behind Trump.

[William Hartung]

And they've even written a little manifesto, Arsenal Democracy 2.0, which is fairly accurate.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

In terms of the philosophy of the big companies.

[William Hartung]

They're slow, they're greedy, they care more.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

About making money and upping their stock values and making weapons that work.

[William Hartung]

So that's all well and good, but they're not wrong.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

They're not wrong, are they?

[William Hartung]

Oh, not at all. No. It's more, be careful what you wish for. You know, if these companies just said, you know, we can make more nimble systems cheaper and they're more appropriate to.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

The defense we have to mount, that.

[William Hartung]

Would be one thing. It's that technology plus ideology thing that could be deadly. The fact that they also, you know, like the head of Palantir, the president, wrote a book called the Technological Republic. And the theme was, you know, we're a bunch of slackers.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

We're not patriots.

[William Hartung]

All we do is sit around watching.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Reality TV and playing video games.

[William Hartung]

We don't care about defending the country. But they do.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

You know, they're the new patriots.

[William Hartung]

And he actually said, we need a unifying national mission. And that should be a new Manhattan.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Project to apply AI to weapons.

[William Hartung]

Now, I don't know about you, but I would like my country to have a slightly more ambitious, humane mission than.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Just making another kind of weapon.

[William Hartung]

And he also said, you know, we can have a permanent advantage over China.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

If we invest now.

[William Hartung]

But of course, it never works that way.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

I mean, they said they'd have a permanent advantage.

[William Hartung]

Nuclear weapons, they Said our precision guided munitions would win all these wars that we failed in. So it's that, you know, trust us, faith in technology, kind of technological hubris combined with these huge egos that distinguishes them from the other companies. But, you know, they're both cashing the checks. I mean, there's.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

There's Lockheed Martin weapons in using Gaza.

[William Hartung]

There's Palantir software speeding up the rate at which they can, you know, bomb. What is different is Palantir was right up front.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

They actually held a board meeting in.

[William Hartung]

Israel as the war was accelerating and said they were proud of it. Tried to shame the other big companies into being not only profiting from genocide, but being proud of it and encouraging.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Other peoples to do the same.

[William Hartung]

So they are a different breed. And if they just were vendors, that's one thing, but they really want to kind of run the show.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

And democracy and the average person are kind of just an annoyance to them.

Let's talk about the. The death of. I mean, it used to be that people like Proxmar would. He wouldn't challenge the war industry itself or the military industrial complex, but they.

[Host]

Would challenge certain weapons systems.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

The what? The famous. Well, I can't remember. The price was at the. Hundreds of dollars for the toilet seat, remember?

[Host]

But. But. And that vanished. Why? Why, why did any kind of oversight, and I don't think the Pentagon's been audited for years. Why did that oversight vanish and explain that process?

[William Hartung]

Yeah, I mean, Proxmire was always unique, but all the way back in Vietnam, they were building a new transport plan.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

To get more troops there more quickly, the C5.

[William Hartung]

And there was a whistleblower inside and said, you know, this costing twice what they estimated.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

The wings are cracking.

[William Hartung]

This thing is a dog. And they tried to suppress that information. The whistleblower, Ernest Fitzgerald, testified to Congress.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

He was fired.

[William Hartung]

Proximair put him on his staff and he pursued this. And they clawed back a little bit.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Of money from the company.

[William Hartung]

Following that, he tried to block the bailout of Lockheed. He introduced bills to make foreign bribery illegal, which had not been. I mean, they were taking their middlemen.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Off and their taxes, for Christ's sake.

[William Hartung]

But you're right, he was more about weeding corruption out of the system. Not do we need that kind of system, not what is our strategy and so forth. But of the time, you know, it was useful and somewhat unique. The folks you mentioned at the beginning, like James Abaresque and people like Frank Church, George McGovern, that whole part of the country is red now. And how did that come about?

[Interviewer/Co-host]

How did that populism kind of fade?

[William Hartung]

I think part of it was just the relentless power and influence of the complex, which has grown over time. And I think that there's less public.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Support for those kinds of folks, because.

[William Hartung]

Some people, you know, they just, well, you know, Trump is rich. I want to be rich. That was my dad's whole thing. He said, you know, Bill, if you're.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

So smart, how come you're not rich?

[William Hartung]

Like, that was the goal. But also, I think there are people who understand we're heading in the wrong direction, who feel like we can't change it, and so they're just going to hunker down with their families and their communities. But because this is embedded in our society, you can't really do that. It's going to affect you one way or the other.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

It's going to take food off your table.

[William Hartung]

It's going to have your kid going into unnecessary war. It's going to have ICE kidnapping people off the streets. So at this moment, sitting on the.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Fence is not really a viable option.

[William Hartung]

So you would need to kind of revive that kind of public movement and critique, I think, for members to stand.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Up like they have in the past.

[Host]

Well, the war industry was quite astute.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

In dispersing manufacturing plants. They make F35s in Vermont. Bernie Sanders has said, well, I don't support F35s, but if we have to make them, I want them in Vermont. I think that's a paraphrase. And they've peddled this idea of jobs, of that, okay, you want to close.

[Host]

That plant, you lose jobs.

[William Hartung]

Exactly. And a few members have stood up. There was a.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Remember Tom Andrews from Maine who went on the floor of the House and.

[William Hartung]

Said, yeah, we got too many bases.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Close the base in my state.

[William Hartung]

Or when they were trying to use money to help Maine companies export their weapons, he said, we should be converting our industry to civilian use, not doing this. So he ran for Senate against Olympia Snow and was.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

He was no longer in Congress.

[William Hartung]

So there is that issue of, are.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

You willing to risk your job?

[William Hartung]

And I would say, yes, you should be. You know, if the world's on the brink, is your little job as important as, you know, making sure humanity survives? But that's not the ethos on the Hill, and they do put it in most districts and they overstate it. Lockheed Martin has a map on its.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Website, and if you push on your state, it'll tell you how many jobs.

[William Hartung]

So Nebraska has four, and 80% of.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Them are in three states, California, Texas, Georgia.

[William Hartung]

So they're claiming like, oh, the whole.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Economy depends on this.

[William Hartung]

It's really more important.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Members of Congress depend on it. And the people in armed services and.

[William Hartung]

Defense appropriations often go there not because.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

They care about foreign policy, but because they can funnel money to their states.

[William Hartung]

In fact, there was a hearing about.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

This new awful nuclear posture commission that Congress ran that was going to take us back to the Cold War.

[William Hartung]

And in the Senate Armed Services hearing, the vast majority of the members didn't ask about the strategy, would it help.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Us, would it hurt us.

[William Hartung]

They said, hey, I have this nifty.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Missile in my state which can take out hypersonic missiles.

[William Hartung]

Shouldn't we build more of them or.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Let'S spruce up the Nevada test site.

[William Hartung]

Finally Senator Warren said, what's this going to cost? And the co chair of this commission, who had been a lobbyist from Northrop.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Grumman, the biggest nuclear weapons contractor, said.

[William Hartung]

Oh, cost doesn't matter.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

This is much too important to worry about that.

[William Hartung]

In the meantime, they're building weapons that don't work, that spend most of their.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Time in the hangar.

[William Hartung]

And even if you believe you need nuclear weapons to deter other countries, you would need a few hundred, not thousands.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

And thousands and thousands, one pile upon the other.

[William Hartung]

And of course the only way to be safe from these things is to.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Get rid of them, which is a long term fight.

[William Hartung]

But at least the majority of the.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Countries in the world have agreed. They've signed on to a treaty to ban.

[William Hartung]

And so this notion that used to be said, oh you know, we're building.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Nuclear weapons to help our allies, well.

[William Hartung]

Folks are saying, well we don't want.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Your nuclear weapons, you know, you should get rid of them.

[William Hartung]

So at least there's a kind of a, an ethos or a critique out.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

There from important countries that didn't exist, you know, say 10 years ago.

Let's talk about weapons systems that don't work. I mean in the book you talk about how problematic the F35 is. I can't remember the figure. I think you said about half the time these planes are down under repair. But, but let's talk about these. Incredibly expensive. And then you write about the icbm. But talk about these. We're talking about billions and billions of.

[Host]

Dollars poured into weapons systems that don't function well.

[William Hartung]

Yeah, I mean, you know, we have.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

11 aircraft carrier task forces. One carrier costs $13 billion.

[William Hartung]

A lot of people believe current high.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Speed missile could probably take it out, but the, you know, the shipbuilding lobby won't allow that.

[William Hartung]

And that 13 billion is more than we spe. The Centers for Disease Control is about.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Twice the Environmental Protection Agency budget.

[William Hartung]

So, you know, we're paying a price for that. There was a thing called the littoral.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Combat ship, supposed to go up close to the shores of our adversaries and drop off, you know, counterinsurgency teams and all this.

[William Hartung]

But it couldn't function. It had, you know, technical problems. It was sort of the F35 of the sea. It was designed to do three different.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Things and did none of them well.

[William Hartung]

Finally, the Navy admitted this thing is not useful. You know, it couldn't defend itself. So you would actually have to build.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

More ships to defend the ship.

[William Hartung]

So they tried to retire it. And the places not even that built it, but where they were repaired said, oh no you don't. So members from Florida, Virginia blocked the.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Pentagon from getting rid of a number of these ships.

[William Hartung]

And they do this all the time. They've got a position that says you.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Can'T go below 400 ICPM's or you can't retire this bomber, that fighter.

[William Hartung]

And that's one of the reasons we're.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

At a trillion dollars.

[William Hartung]

Because even if the Pentagon wants to.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Make a decision, this pork barrel politics gets in the way.

[William Hartung]

But there's any number the Osprey, which is supposed to be fly like a.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Plane, but also raised like a helicopter.

[William Hartung]

You know, dozens and dozens of service.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

People have died in this thing, in.

[William Hartung]

Training, not even in battle. And way back in the day, Dick.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Cheney of all people tried to kill it. And the Pennsylvania delegation put a stop to that.

[William Hartung]

And now, you know, those service people have paid the price and no country would even buy it.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

The only country that bought it was Japan after they had a few crashes, they had it stand down.

[William Hartung]

And then the other thing is these things are so expensive. You know, like when they're fighting the Houthis, it's two million dollar missiles against.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

These, like modestly, you know, invested in.

[William Hartung]

Drones or pretty much everywhere the US is fighting, the weapons they're using are.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

10, 15, 20, or even 100 times as expensive as the weapons they're taking out.

[William Hartung]

So in a prolonged conflict, it doesn't really make sense. I mean, even in Ukraine, Russia's cranking.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Out stuff that's not great, but they.

[William Hartung]

Can do it quickly once we run out of the stocks, we're giving them some of this stuff takes, you know.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

A year or it's complex.

[William Hartung]

They're not even using the US drones in Ukraine because they said, you know, they're too delicate.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

They're too expensive.

[William Hartung]

So they're taking commercial Chinese drones, slapping.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

On a bomb and a camera.

[William Hartung]

And the thing is, they use them.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

As suicide drones so they don't have to be fancy.

[William Hartung]

They're making them in their garages. So this whole idea that high tech.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Is the wave of the future has been disproven in the actual wars that are being fought.

One of the points you make in the book is the corruption of academia, the scientific community. I remember Seymour Melman in his book writing about how when he did a lot of the pioneering work on the distortion of the economy by this militarist. By the war industry. And he writes about how when New York City wants streetcars or I guess, subway cars, nobody in the United States makes them because it's not profitable. If you work for the war industry, you get cost overruns. You're guaranteed. But talk about how the war industry has just vacuumed up scientists and essentially.

[Host]

Turned.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Domestic infrastructure upside down by prioritizing weapons.

[William Hartung]

Yes, I studied with Seymour as an undergrad.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

He kind of nudged me into doing this.

[William Hartung]

And because he was an engineer, he.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Went deep into the production process.

[William Hartung]

And those engineers who didn't care about cost were almost useless in the.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

In the civilian sector because they.

[William Hartung]

They didn't know how to build a.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Product that was affordable.

[William Hartung]

But yeah, it's. Tell me again that the main thrust.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

I'm sort of seeing where the.

How the technology and, oh yes, science is.

[Host]

Is essentially funneled towards the war machine at our. At the expense of domestic infrastructure. In the domestic economy.

[William Hartung]

Oh, yeah. In a lot of disciplines, between the Pentagon and the contractors, that could be.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

More than half of the money that's out there.

[William Hartung]

And some of the things seem kind of benign. It's just a function that then is.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Integrated into a weapons system.

[William Hartung]

So you'll get a lot of students coming out who would prefer not to.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Go into the arms industry.

[William Hartung]

But that's where the jobs are.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

That's where the quote unquote interesting work is.

[William Hartung]

So they work for the nuclear labs.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

They work for Lockheed Martin.

[William Hartung]

Some of them are diverted away from.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Things they're more interested in, like working on climate and green energy.

[William Hartung]

Lockheed Martin is heavily recruiting.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

They have this thing called Lockheed Martin days at certain campuses where they'll land a helicopter in the quad, they'll take you on a joyride, they'll offer you an internship.

[William Hartung]

And there were protests. But especially with AI, they're going deep because a lot of the big companies don't have the people, the software expertise.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

To develop this stuff.

[William Hartung]

So they really want to co opt academics. And thankfully a lot of the students in the ceasefire movement, we're looking at.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Connections with companies connected to the genocide.

[William Hartung]

Are looking at the bigger picture of.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

The militarization of their entire universities.

[William Hartung]

And they're connecting all the way back with people who did this research in the Vietnam period. So it's going to be on the table again. But in some campuses, it's like Berkeley.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Runs a nuclear weapons lab.

[William Hartung]

Yes. The average student there, they wouldn't know that Johns Hopkins gives a billion dollars.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

A year to work on ballistic missiles and other things.

[William Hartung]

But it's 40. MIT. MIT, right, MIT.

[Host]

Drone swarms for Israel.

[William Hartung]

You know, Texas A and M has its own hypersonic missile testing range. University of Texas hosts the Army Futures Command. So it's very carefully entered, some of the military folks come and sit at the university to get trained on how.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

To use this stuff.

[William Hartung]

And of course, if you're a professor that cashes in on this, you can make huge amounts of money consulting with the industry. So, you know, there's so many things we could use scientific expertise for, to fight pandemics, to have ways to address climate change, to have, you know, sustainable infrastructure. And all of that is getting squeezed.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

For people to go into the weapons industry.

[William Hartung]

And it's, it's a, it's almost, it's as bad as the waste of money because we're wasting talent that could be.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Applied to the actual problems we should be dealing with.

Before I get into the information war, let's talk about Gaza, because you bring it up in the book.

[William Hartung]

Yeah, well, I think Gaza, I mean, the biggest point is it's, it's a.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Horrific humanitarian disaster and it's man made. You know, Israel, because of the Hamas.

[William Hartung]

Attacks, has, you know, they've probably killed.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

100 Palestinians for every person who died in the Hamas raid. So in international law, there's this notion of proportionality. If you're responding, they've gone well beyond that.

[William Hartung]

And of course they've been killing, they've.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Been bombing hospitals, killing journalists, killing people who are trying to get refugees, trying to get access to aid.

[William Hartung]

Nobody's off, you know, out of the picture. And it's just shocking how the US government occasionally sort of says tsk ts.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

But keeps the weapons and the money.

[William Hartung]

Flowing, whether it's Biden, whether it's Trump. And now Israel, of course, is flexing.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Its muscles around the region.

[William Hartung]

Trump didn't bomb Iran until after Israel did. Israel bombed them when the US had a negotiation schedule with Iran. Trump essentially went in netanyahu is almost.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Calling the tune on some of these things and sucking the US In.

[William Hartung]

Not that the US Would necessarily be.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

You know, a peacenik in these situations.

[William Hartung]

But sometimes the military folks at least think, well, okay, if we start this.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

War, how long is it going to take? How many resources?

[William Hartung]

They don't always win that fight. But with Trump, part of Project 2025 was Get Rid of those folks. I only want loyalists. I don't want anybody to tell me I can't send troops to Los Angeles.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

I can't threaten nuclear war with China.

[William Hartung]

All that stuff is gone.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

I mean, Pete Hegseth is basically a loyalist, you know, former talk show host.

[William Hartung]

Who talks tough but can't manage his way out of a paper bag and also is explicitly racist.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

I mean, this whole war on dei, if you flip it around, what they're saying is they should do nothing to fight racism, misogyny, anti gay and anti.

[William Hartung]

Trans violence, as if it's just a language problem. And yet the numbers of women who've.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Been experience harassment and sexual violence in.

[William Hartung]

The military is huge. So it's a real problem which they're just dismissing in the names of, you.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Know, the war fighter.

[William Hartung]

Their idea of a war fighter is.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Somebody who's loyal to Donald Trump, not to the Constitution.

[William Hartung]

And when some senators said, you know, you shouldn't obey an illegal order, they're.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Trying to prosecute them, you know, call them treasonous and so forth.

[William Hartung]

So in addition to the, you know, the companies lobbying and having captured large parts of the government, there's this other.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Element, sort of just, you know, no nothingism and hatred.

[William Hartung]

And I think as long as they're doing that to people here, be they.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Undocumented, documented citizens, why do you think.

[William Hartung]

They'Re suddenly going to be peaceful when.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

They cross the border overseas? They're not.

[William Hartung]

And so we're up against it on many, many fronts. But I think we have to gather.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Our forces and fight back.

[William Hartung]

I think a lot of folks are.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Still on their back heels just because of the sure number of horrible things flying at us.

[William Hartung]

But once we get our footing, you.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Know, we have a lot of work to do.

Let's talk about the information war. So two things from you write about in the book. One, of course, these companies, as I mentioned, Lockheed Martin gets between 40 and 50 billion dollars a year, but that which is taxpayer money, but that money then goes back into lobbying and campaign contributions to make sure that they continue to get 40 and 50 billion dollars a year.

[Host]

That's how they own the political system. But they also Own the media, you write.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

They also own.

[Host]

Hollywood talk about how.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

The information war works. Anybody, of course, who turns on a cable news show and sees commentators are probably going to see retired generals, retired intelligence officers who are sitting on the.

[Host]

Boards of places like Raytheon.

[William Hartung]

Exactly. I mean, they should wear the company logo while they're speaking. But you know, the revolving door. Most of the lobbyists have been in.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

The Pentagon, National Security Council, the Congress.

[William Hartung]

And they have a thousand lobbyists with.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Almost two for every member of Congress.

[William Hartung]

The peace movement might have five, you know, paid lobbyists.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Of course they don't have money.

[Host]

They don't have money, right, that's. They may have five, but it's money that talks.

[William Hartung]

And it's not the game we need to play. We need overwhelming citizen pressure. We're not going to ever have more.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Money than those folks.

[William Hartung]

But, you know, so the campaign contributions, the lobbying were kind of things Eisenhower was thinking about. But the fact that a lot of.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

The think tanks in Washington are heavily funded by contractors.

[William Hartung]

So sometimes it's not like, you know.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

They call them up and say, hey, you got to write X.

[William Hartung]

But you know, you don't want to alienate them. Sometimes it is that they review the reports. One of the think tanks, the UAE was giving them money because they wanted them to interpret one of the missile control treaties so that they could sell the UAE long range drones. And they, you know, they thanked the head of it, a prominent Democrat. They've had things spiked that don't agree with their point of view. And a lot of the pro nuclear stuff is funded, those things are funded.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

By nuclear weapons producers.

[William Hartung]

The New York Times long ago did.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

A study on, you know, who speaks on television.

[William Hartung]

Most of them were getting money from the contractors and also getting coached by the Pentagon. So, you know, we've been calling for transparency about who are these folks, both when they go on tv, when they testify to Congress, when they posture as an independent analyst. I mean, the beauty of it for Lockheed Martin is they don't have to act like the Silicon Valley folks and.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

You know, yell from the rooftops.

[William Hartung]

The think tanks can do that. And they have this aura of legitimacy. And then, you know, Pentagon has a liaison office in Hollywood that vets scripts. So anything that involves a weapon, the Pentagon gets script control. So these weapons that don't work in reality are killing it.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

In the movies, like they, you know, they work perfectly.

[William Hartung]

And they also sometimes change the endings.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Make them, you know, a bit more hawkish.

[William Hartung]

And there's a lot of, it's not just from the Pentagon. But, you know, they love the individual hero. Like, you know, we're going to stop a nuclear war because somebody sneaks into.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Russia and turns off the button.

[William Hartung]

No, we'd have to talk to them.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

We'd have to have negotiations.

[William Hartung]

But you know, somehow, like negotiations are.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Not the stuff of blockbusters, you know.

[William Hartung]

And then in the media there's two things. One is, you know, there's sort of a fear of speaking out against the system. We did a thing on the 20th.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Anniversary of the Iraq war.

[William Hartung]

Peter Beinart, who had gotten it wrong, explained why and said, you know, he.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Sort of did a mea culpa, which he might be the only one back then who did. The Knight Ridder reporters who got it.

[William Hartung]

Right said the problem was they didn't.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Have the same reach as the Times in the Post.

[William Hartung]

And they asked their editor, like, why.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Are they doing this and the big papers are not?

[William Hartung]

And their editor said, well, you know, those papers represent the people who send people to war. We represent the places whose kids get.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Sent to the war.

[William Hartung]

And they did simple things like more than one source.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Don't just talk to the spokesperson, talk.

[William Hartung]

To the folks in the middle who.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

May not be, you know, chomping to cash in.

[William Hartung]

And the final discussion was, you know, is the mainstream media, can it be redeemed? You know, can we get it to.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Cover these things in a serious way?

[William Hartung]

And one of the obstacles now is they're just cutting back foreign staff. Some of them don't even have Pentagon reporter, so they rely on these industry funded journals to see what's going on. When they do do something good, it doesn't have a ripple effect like the.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Afghanistan papers the Washington Post did, or.

[William Hartung]

Stuff about generals going to work for the VC firms or UAE or Saudi Arabia. You know, in the 80s, the spare parts scandal, there was televised hearings. Johnny Carson was joking about it, the Washington Post, when they showed Caspar Weinberger, the Defense Secretary, he would always have a toilet seat around his neck, there was outrage on both sides of the aisle. There's worse overcharging now and it just.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Doesn'T make a dent.

[William Hartung]

It's partly because the media itself is divided up into so many different components. But it's also, I think, just a lack of.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

It's a mixture of indifference and feeling intimidated.

[William Hartung]

But part of it's the economics of the media that they don't cover anything.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

In great depth anymore.

[William Hartung]

And part of it is you've got this money from the companies and of course you've got combative presidents who go after folks.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

I mean, now that.

[William Hartung]

I mean, you have to be to the right of Genghis Khan to get.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

In the White House press room anymore.

[William Hartung]

And I asked somebody from Reuters, why does that matter? Can't you still get the information? She said, well, you know, if we're three minutes behind getting the story out, you know, we get chastised. Well, if that's your goal, to be the first one out, then you can't go deep. You just got to crank it out. And maybe you'll quote one critic. I mean, the only time I get in the media is like a pro military story. And in paragraph 32, they're like, oh, yeah, some people disagree, but it's not the framing. It's not going to stick. It's the kind of thing where, like, oh, yeah, there's some guy who seems.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

To not be with the program.

[William Hartung]

So I do think we're going to have to build independent media and other.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Ways of educating people.

[William Hartung]

And in the age of divisiveness, disinformation, conspiracy theories, it's just that much harder. But I think some of it may just be old school.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Like, you might have to talk to people in person.

[William Hartung]

I think podcasts, you have the advantage of an hour to dig into stuff. But, yeah, it's sort of like we need an entire culture shift, because if we picked off one dysfunctional plane, they'd still build another one, you know, so it wouldn't really change. The. The only thing that would change it is if we didn't have a strategy that says we have to dominate the world. If it was an actual defensive strategy, then you could reduce the Pentagon budget, but you'd have to fight against the demonization, the exaggeration of the threat, the, you know, faux patriotism, you know, because a lot of the hawks have never.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Served, never seen more, but they're perfectly.

[William Hartung]

Willing to send other folks over. So there's a lot to deal with, but there's a lot of hypocrisy, and a lot of people realize the system.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Isn'T working for them.

[William Hartung]

So that might be fertile ground for trying to get people to look at this thing, you know, honestly and critically. But you never know. I mean, I thought Covid would do that because, you know, more people are dying from COVID than in many of our wars. But it didn't quite flip the larger debate.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

You know.

Talk about consequences, both domestically and internationally, from this unchecked militarism.

[William Hartung]

Well, domestically, I took a cue from the poor People's campaign, which is trying to Replicate the campaign that Dr. King.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Tried to put together before he was assassinated.

[William Hartung]

And they're looking at fighting racism, materialism, the war machine, environmental degradation. And now they're also taking on religious nationalism. But they did a report about what if we cut the Pentagon budget in half and invested in child education, anti poverty programs, nutrition. And they also pointed out that it's not enough to take money from the Pentagon. You have to reverse these ridiculous tax cuts, which actually divert more money in.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Some cases than the Pentagon itself.

[William Hartung]

So you need a more holistic approach. They actually managed to get a hearing in the budget committee where poor people.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Talked to the members about their lives.

[William Hartung]

And the members were like, maddeningly clueless. I mean, one guy said, well, we have an anti poverty program.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

It's the military.

[William Hartung]

You know, people go in, they get skills, and they all act like they.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Had come from a log cabin.

[William Hartung]

You're like, well, I've dealt with poverty.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

And I pulled myself up by my bootstraps.

[William Hartung]

Then this, this, you know, allegedly religious guy says, well, it doesn't say in.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

The Bible that Caesar should take care of the poor. You know, the government, the church should do that.

[William Hartung]

Even if they were so inclined.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

They don't have the resources.

[William Hartung]

The point of government is to fulfill.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Needs that, you know, individual institutions cannot. So Reverend Barber, the head of the campaign, the co chair, just, it's like.

[William Hartung]

It made his head explode.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

I mean, amazing, you know, critique, but.

[William Hartung]

It'S just, you know, so many members are so far from seeing what we really need as a country, and they're the bottleneck. I mean, if we had an amenable Congress, you could spend enough money that.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Those folks that are afraid of losing their jobs in the weapons industry would have choices.

[William Hartung]

As it is now, you know, if, you know, electric boat, submarine plant in Connecticut loses a billion dollar contract, there's no other money coming in. So, you know, a machinist who's making.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

A good deal might apply to be.

[William Hartung]

Like a greeter at a casino. So, you know, it's like it's sort of job blackmail. As long as they tie up the money, then the fact that you could.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Get better, better jobs investing in something else is moot. If you don't break the logjam in Washington and internationally.

We just had, I mean, we can go all the way back to Vietnam. I mean, I spent seven years in the Middle East. We all knew that the invasion of Iraq was going to be the. I don't think there was any. For those of us who covered the Middle east, there was no division in terms of the fiasco that it would become and the premise on which the war was based. We've done irreparable harm and not to mention untold suffering and destruction. For what? I mean, just we should have taken those billions of dollars out into a field and burned it. It would have, you know, caused much less damage to ourselves and to many, many people in the Middle East. But let's talk about this, this militarism, because of course you leave Afghanistan, the stock prices go down and they all rush to sell to Ukraine.

[William Hartung]

Yes, well, it's a pattern that goes way back at the end of the Cold War.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Colin Powell, I'm paraphrasing, but he said.

[William Hartung]

I'm running out of enemies here.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

All I got is Cuba and North Korea.

[William Hartung]

And Michael Claire wrote a book called.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws that showed.

[William Hartung]

How they tried to solve that. They elevated what they said was the.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Danger from Iran, Iraq, North Korea, what.

[William Hartung]

Became George W. Bush's axis of evil. Even though none of those countries could launch a missile at the United States, they had a paltry amount of money.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

That they spent compared to the U.S.

[William Hartung]

I mean, you know, the administration wanted.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

To take out Saddam Hussein. They didn't want him to control oil resources.

[William Hartung]

They thought, well, the neocons thought they.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Could run the table.

[William Hartung]

The whole Middle east would become pro.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Israel, pro US if we just taught him a lesson. And of course that, that didn't work.

[William Hartung]

But those lessons have not been learned.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

By our, you know, so called foreign.

[William Hartung]

Policy experts because they keep doing it. I mean, you know, Afghanistan was a.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Disaster, Iraq was a disaster. Even though we had superior amounts of money, well trained troops, precision guided munitions.

[William Hartung]

You know, we were losing because they were blowing up trucks with IEDs, because they knew the culture, the area. A lot of people didn't like being.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Occupied by a foreign military force, surprisingly enough.

[William Hartung]

But yet even so, they're still saying.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Technology will save us. Peace through strength.

[William Hartung]

What peace?

[Interviewer/Co-host]

What strength?

[William Hartung]

It hasn't really appeared. And even the 91 Gulf War, which.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Was supposed to be the successful example, just triggered, as Andrew Basovich has said.

[William Hartung]

This greater Middle east war.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

So it went from that to sanctions, which caused in some cases as much suffering as the bombing, to Bush's invasion of Iraq, to Afghanistan.

[William Hartung]

So, you know, there's never kind of a pause. I mean, Jimmy Carter, you know, he.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Campaigned on human rights and cutting arms sales.

[William Hartung]

And by the end, you know, they.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

It was the beginning of intervening in Afghanistan.

[William Hartung]

They decided they couldn't touch the Shah of Iran. And it was a lot of it was big enough. Brzezinski and saw Vance at each other's throats. Vance resigned. But you know, really by the time Carter left, they sort of set the table for Reagan. I mean they weren't using that kind of rhetoric, but they were moving more.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

And more in a hawkish direction.

[William Hartung]

And that never works for Democrats because.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

You can never out hoc the Republicans.

[William Hartung]

You might as well, you know, push.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

For a real alternative.

[William Hartung]

Yeah.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Although on there was more opposition to Ukraine among the Republican party than there was among the Democrats.

[William Hartung]

Yeah, I think part of it was isolationist. But and one, you know, Biden, I wasn't against giving them some weapons to defend themselves, but the industry and Biden turned it into this like reclamation project.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

For the military industrial complex.

[William Hartung]

You know, Biden called it the arsenal of democracy. Which would be surprising if you lived almost anywhere else in the world where.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

The US is arming dictatorships.

[William Hartung]

The company said oh you know, look.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

We don't have enough artillery shells, we need more money.

[William Hartung]

Well they chose not to build them because that's not where the profits are. Its golden dome and continental ballistic missiles. They were even stealing money that was.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Supposed to be used for training of.

[William Hartung]

The troops for Congress to add this.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Or that weapons system.

[William Hartung]

So the extent that the so called defense industrial base isn't aligned with the world we live in, it's because of greed and pork barrel politics. It's not because they don't have enough money. I mean golden dome. One estimate is it could cost $3.6.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Trillion over the next few decades.

Explain what this is. This is supposedly to stop missiles.

[William Hartung]

This is supposed to be a leak.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Proof missile defense system that'll stop intercontinental ballistic missiles, hypersonic missiles, low flying cruise missiles.

[William Hartung]

It's, it's sort of a more ambitious version of what Ronald Reagan promised in.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

His Star wars speech in the 80s.

[William Hartung]

And that didn't work. The Pentagon admitted it. Almost every scientist who's not in the payroll of industry acknowledges it for one thing. You know, an ICBM comes in at 15,000 miles an hour, could be surrounded by decoys, could be hundreds of them.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

It's physically impossible to destroy all of them, but it's not, it's possible to spend a lot of money.

[William Hartung]

So they're kind of reviving that and it has a little bit of a sacred status in the Republican party. Even though Reagan, for all his flaws.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Especially what he did domestically.

[William Hartung]

Knew more.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Limits than this current crowd.

[William Hartung]

Like you know, when they bombed the.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Marine barracks in Lebanon, he didn't start a war over it.

[William Hartung]

And because of public pressure, not so.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Much his own thinking. He cut back on the nuclear buildup and he preferred the so called freedom fighters who certainly did a lot of damage to boots on the ground war.

[William Hartung]

So I would never defend Reagan, but there was either he or some of his advisors realized that going all in on war was not good for anybody.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

In the United States.

[William Hartung]

Whereas this crowd either doesn't believe that or doesn't care.

[Host]

So Bill, let's talk about the consequences.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

If we're unable to curb this war industry and its appetite. What could happen? What could we see both domestically and internationally?

[William Hartung]

Well, domestically it'll further erode what's left of our democracy. It'll encourage kind of scapegoating and McCarthyite.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Tactics which we've seen already.

[William Hartung]

More people go hungry, more people go.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Without health care, fewer people be well educated.

[William Hartung]

It's actually going to weaken the country. I mean Eisenhower said, you know, strength is based on well educated, healthy united population. This policy is going against all of that. And then you'll have a rich elite.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Technological and financial, who will try to be above all that, but eventually it'll catch up with them too.

[William Hartung]

And then globally, I mean, if you.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Look at the history since World War.

[William Hartung]

II, between bombing, sanctions, coups, all the.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

After effects in the environment and elsewhere.

[William Hartung]

US policies have done immense damage, possibly.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Millions of people have died or been injured.

[William Hartung]

There may be a move back towards that to try to distract from the.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Domestic damage and disarray.

[William Hartung]

And of course if it's automated weapons, they're going to feel like, well, you know, we're not going to suffer casualties, which means they might be more willing.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

To inflict them on others.

[William Hartung]

So we need to fight back pretty much on all fronts.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

And there's a lot of people doing good work.

[William Hartung]

But you know, tens of millions of.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

People sitting on the fence would have to join us to make a difference.

[William Hartung]

We'd have to take more risks than.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

We'Re used to because you know, this crowd doesn't really follow the law.

[William Hartung]

We'd have to learn from other countries.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

That have done dealt with equally terrible regimes.

[William Hartung]

So it's in the balance and all we can do is fight back in.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Every way we can think of.

[William Hartung]

And I think groups that kind of used to work, kind of separate issues will have to come together, if for.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

No other reason than to defend ourselves from the government's attempt to prevent us.

[William Hartung]

From having free speech, freedom of assembly.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Or possibly freedom period.

[William Hartung]

So it's a tough time. But I do believe that there's resilience and ability to. To do that, but we don't. It's not guaranteed.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

And so we just have to plunge.

[William Hartung]

In and fight the good fight. Great.

[Interviewer/Co-host]

Thanks, Bill. And I want to thank Diego, Victor, Thomas, Max and Sophia, who produced the show. You can find me at chrishedges.substack.com.

[William Hartung]

Sa.