The Realignment – Episode 583

Guests: William D. Hartung & Ben Freeman
Title: The Pentagon's Trillion Dollar War Machine and the Debate Over America's Role in the World
Date: November 13, 2025
Host: Marshall Kosloff

Episode Overview

This episode of The Realignment dives deep into America's defense spending, foreign interventions, and the underlying forces shaping U.S. national security policy. Host Marshall Kosloff speaks with William D. Hartung and Ben Freeman of the Quincy Institute, co-authors of the new book Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America Into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home. The discussion wrestles with the roots of U.S. military adventurism, the interplay of ideology and the political economy of defense, and the persistent gap between campaign promises and policy outcomes.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Central Debate: Waste, Corruption, or Bad Ideas?

• Opening Skepticism: Marshall introduces his central contention: America’s foreign policy blunders—Vietnam, Iraq, Gaza, and so on—are less about corruption or excessive spending and more about the power of bad ideas and flawed worldviews among leaders.
  • Quote [03:19]: “What mattered then...was not the corruption or bad spending...but calls that were at the time bad calls that would lead someone into that Iraq disaster.” — Marshall
• Guest Response:
  • Bill and Ben agree on the complexity—yes, there’s profiteering and dysfunction, but wars are often rooted in ideology and hubris, not direct financial gain.
    • Quote [07:45]: “A lot of times it is ideological...if you look at some of the big proponents of the Iraq war, I think they were more driven by this notion, yeah, America can run the table in the Middle East. We'll create one democracy after the other through the barrel of a gun...” — Bill Hartung
    • Ben emphasizes that military budgets and foreign policy grand strategy are inextricably linked: “...the spending in US foreign policy strategy, they're completely linked and you're not going to have one without the other.” — Ben Freeman [09:09]

2. How Defense Budget Size Shapes Strategy (and Vice Versa)

• Ben: Once you build a trillion-dollar military infrastructure, there's a need to justify it—by finding enemies or global problems to address.
  • Quote [09:32]: "We got to have stuff to justify that now because we're, we're cooked in, you know, we've got, as our book is called, you know, the trillion dollar more machine. We have a trillion dollar military budget now we need enemies to justify that."
• Bill highlights structural inertia: “You end up with large aircraft carriers that can be taken out by a high tech missile, tanks that are not particularly useful in most of the conflicts we're going to fight.” [10:57]
• The “jobs in my district” dynamic locks in existing programs no matter their relevance.

3. Public Cynicism and the Limits of ‘Folk Theory’ Explanations

• Marshall observes widespread public cynicism—many people think U.S. wars are driven purely by financial greed or defense contractors.
  • Quote [12:12]: "If you think about democracy, it's not good that people's cynicism about foreign defense policy are informed by the fact that, wow, since George W. Bush, every single American president has said, less war, more focus at home. I think everyone...would be accurate in believing that that has not been the outcome we've received."
• Ben and Bill differentiate between real structural incentives and oversimplified scapegoating of individuals, underlining that systemic perverse incentives—not simply greedy individuals—drive D.C.
  • Quote [16:06]: “There is this perverse incentive system in D.C. that takes people who came to D.C. ostensibly...to do good, and it compels them into positions where they can make a lot more money.” — Ben Freeman

4. Ideology vs. Economics: Which Drives War?

• Marshall’s counter-factual: Would a nationalized, non-profit defense sector have prevented U.S. interventions?
  • Ben acknowledges that while shifting incentive structures might help over time, ideas—especially exceptionalism and militarism—are hard to dislodge.
    • Quote [24:33]: “In some ways ideas are harder to dislodge...American exceptionalism. We're the strongest country in the world. We have the strongest military. People are attached to that.”
    • Quote [23:56]: “Peace isn't profitable...there's just not as many jobs in these administrations or in these think tanks or even in these lobbying firms, frankly, for people like us.”
  • Bill: “If you have a system that profits from war...they just hire people who already agree with them...there’s just not as many jobs...for people like us.” [23:50]

5. Strategic Confusion & Budgeting Backwards

• Marshall advocates for starting with grand strategy, not budget numbers—a principle both guests support but note is not how D.C. operates.
  • Quote [33:04]: “Start with the strategies, not the budget, like that is the right way to conduct a foreign policy.” — Ben Freeman
  • Current process is “path dependent...we start with a budget that we have...then we reverse engineer the strategy out of that.”
• Ben: The Pentagon’s “unfunded priorities” wish list is a prime example—Congress often greenlights these extras without strategic necessity.

6. Societal Consensus and the Domestic Tradeoff Myth

• Marshall observes: While there’s bipartisan consensus for a strong military, consensus is absent for major domestic reinvestment (student debt, decarbonization), making the “guns vs. butter” frame sometimes misleading.
  • Quote [41:03]: “What I think people who write these books or presidents who come into office who give that rhetoric, they just undercount how you need for domestic investment real consensus on those things that we should be doing.”
• Hartung: Cutting military spending alone does not ensure productive reinvestment without strong democratic mobilization for new priorities.

7. Hollywood, Culture, and the Military-Entertainment Complex

• Ben: American beliefs about the military are shaped from childhood by a Pentagon-entertainment pipeline—over 2,000 films and shows receive Pentagon influence.
  • Quote [44:22]: “The military's involvement with the entertainment industry is just absurdly huge...there are more than 2,000 movies and TV shows that have had direct Pentagon involvement in them.”
• Marshall and guests agree that while there are critical or anti-war movies, they are dwarfed by Pentagon-supported blockbusters. These rarely inspire systemic critiques; at best, they encourage skepticism or gloom.
  • Quote [51:27]: “You could love inaction. Everybody likes the pacing, the drama. It doesn't mean you have to accept the underlying message that's, you know, you're an adult, you separate that. But a lot of people unfortunately don't...” — Bill Hartung

8. Institutional Inertia, Dialogue, and the Limits of Slogans

• Bill: The entrenchment of bases and weapons programs shapes policy through jobs and local economies, not just elite interests.
• Guests urge listeners to seek dialogue across defense, tech, and peace communities, and to resist defaulting to either anti-military or “blob” generalizations.
• Need for real public debate and not just applause lines about not repeating the last bad war.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Real Driver of Wars:
  • "I actually just think that like if we understand these stories...the actual deciding point was ideas and people who were in power and people who had spent their careers focusing on these different ideas." — Marshall [21:19]
• "Peace isn't profitable. There's no Lockheed Martin equivalent on the peace side of the function." — Ben Freeman [23:56]
• "Ideas are harder to dislodge...American exceptionalism. We're the strongest country in the world." — Bill Hartung [24:33]
• On Hollywood’s Influence:
  • "Top Gun 2, it might as well be a commercial for Lockheed Martin. I mean, there's a Lockheed Martin logo, you know, literally in the movie." — Ben Freeman [45:41]
• On Public Agency:
  • "I think people feel like systems people can do a lot if they participate, come together…without dialogue, and especially I would say, you know, instead of saying, oh, yeah, there's these military folks, there should be dialogue with uniform military, with people in tech, with people who want a different foreign policy because we know different things." — Bill Hartung [63:47]

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00–04:40 — Marshall’s opening framing: why do U.S. security disasters really happen?
• 04:43–11:56 — Bill & Ben respond: ideology, profit, and the blurry lines between; local economies and base politics
• 12:00–17:22 — Public cynicism, ‘folk wisdom’ about D.C., and the actual incentives in the defense trough
• 18:49–25:33 — Marshall, Ben, and Bill debate whether nationalizing defense would have changed U.S. interventionism; power of ideas
• 25:51–33:02 — The Cold War, great power peace, and what should the Pentagon actually do?
• 33:02–38:13 — Strategy vs. budgeting; structural roadblocks to a rational foreign policy process
• 41:03–43:47 — Can domestic reinvestment ever match the ease of military spending?
• 44:13–51:09 — Pentagon-Hollywood symbiosis and the effects on American culture
• 52:22–57:45 — Movie messaging, narrative, and the struggle to create compelling ‘pro-peace’ cultural content
• 62:14–65:37 — Closing calls to action: what should citizens demand and expect?

Calls to Action — What Should Listeners Do?

• Marshall’s ask ([61:00]):
  • Don’t settle for campaign promises about not repeating the last bad war; instead, demand candidates articulate what they would do when new, unforeseen crises emerge.
• Ben’s ask ([62:14]):
  • Reflect on where you want your tax dollars to go: do you really value the scale of foreign military commitments, or would you gain more from reinvestment at home?
• Bill’s ask ([63:33]):
  • Ask harder questions, demand debate, and exercise your agency—don’t default to cynicism or slogans; seek out dialogue across ideological divides.

Final Notes

• Both guests emphasize that any meaningful change requires systemic thinking, participation, and a willingness to challenge comfortable narratives—whether about the role of money, the influence of ideas, or the seductive simplicity of “peace through strength.”
• The episode closes with a mutual recognition that their book’s value lies in fostering these nuanced, hard conversations, moving beyond the easy comfort of “hawk vs. dove” polarization.

Recommended Reading:

• Trillion Dollar War Machine by William D. Hartung & Ben Freeman
• The Cold War’s Killing Fields: Rethinking the Long Peace by Paul Thomas Chamberlin

Podcast Recap by The Realignment – Episode 583 | November 13, 2025