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Hey, why not buy (or just take) Greenland? After all, we already have a military base there, once known as Thule Air Base and, in 2023, renamed Pituffik Space Base in honor of the settlement of local people who were -- yes! -- displaced in 1951 when it was first built. And since there are still only about 22,000 Greenlanders on that giant landscape distinctly linked to North America, why shouldn't Donald Trump, in his second term in office, pick it up for a song from the Danes, whether they or the Greenlanders want to sell it or not? I'm sure it's crossed your mind, too, that, as our next president put it recently, the "ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity" for our country's national security.
If we don't take possession of those two million square kilometers of rock and ice, don't be surprised if that "near-Arctic power" China sends its military in. Why, back in 2016, Denmark turned down an offer from a Chinese mining company to buy an abandoned naval base there! And if they were to take Greenland, the obvious next step would be the Panama Canal, right? After all, isn't the Chinese military already operating that waterway? Otherwise, why would our next president have wished a Merry Christmas on Truth Social "to the wonderful soldiers of China, who are lovingly, but illegally, operating the Panama canal." (No matter that the Panamanian president has sworn "there are no Chinese soldiers in the canal, for the love of God.")
Worse yet, if Greenland and that canal fall to the enemy, can Canada, also known (at least to our next president and, according to him, so many Canadians) as "the 51st state," be far behind, especially with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau resigning after almost a decade in office? And after all of that territory has been tucked away (at least in the dreams of one Donald J. Trump), who knows what might come next? Of course, if we don't get too carried away ahead of time, all we have to do is wait less than two weeks until he's once again president and perhaps we'll find out.
In the meantime, let retired Air Force Lieutenant Colonel and TomDispatch regular William Astore, who runs the must-read Bracing Views Substack, fill you in on how Trump and his buddy, future trillionaire Elon Musk, are likely to make what's already the world's most distinctly over-endowed military "great" again just in time to take any place on Earth. Tom
End Warness, Not Wokeness
Ten Thoughts on Curbing the Worst Excesses of U.S. Militarism
As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take America back (again!) to greatness, there's been much talk of Elon Musk's new DOGE, or Department of Government Efficiency, and whether it will dare tackle Pentagon spending in useful ways. Could it curb rampant fraud, waste, and abuse within military contracting? Will the Pentagon finally pass a financial audit after seven consecutive failed attempts? Might the war in Ukraine finally sputter to an end, along with U.S. taxpayer support for that country of roughly $175 billion over the last three years?
"Efficiency" may be the word of the hour, but a more "efficient" imperial military, with a looser leash to attack Iran, bottle up China, and threaten Russia would likely bring yet more unrest to a world that's already experiencing war-making chaos. When military "lethality" becomes the byword of even the Democrats, as was true with Kamala Harris's campaign -- her vice-presidential running mate's main criticism of the Trump record on Iran was that his leadership was too "fickle" when it came to that country's possible acquisition of a nuclear weapon -- one wonders if any move toward restraint, let alone sanity and peace, is possible within the Washington beltway.
If Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy want to lead a useful DOGE when it comes to the U.S. military, they should focus on effectiveness, not efficiency. Remind me, after all, of the last major war America effectively won. Yes, of course, it was World War II, 80 years ago, with a lot of help from allies like Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union.
On the other hand, remind me of just how "effective" the U.S. military was in replacing the Taliban with" yes, the Taliban in Afghanistan after 20 years of effort and roughly $2 trillion in expenditures; or how "effective" it was in finding Saddam Hussein's (nonexistent) weapons of mass destruction while bringing democracy to Iraq; or how "effective" it's been in decreasing the risk of a world-altering nuclear war (while building a whole new generation of nuclear weaponry), as the Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists creeps ever closer to a thermonuclear midnight.
Color this retired Air Force officer red, as in angry and scared. Still, a new administration should represent somewhat of a fresh start, another opportunity for this country to alter its militaristic course. Perhaps you'll indulge me for a moment as I dream of 10 ways the Trump administration could (but, of course, won't) bring a form of "greatness" back to America. (An aside: Explain to me Donald Trump's eternal focus on making America "great again" when any president should instead be focused on making America good, as in morally just and decent, again.)
1. It's said that Trump's nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, will "end wokeness" in the military. No more DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) generals, whatever that may mean. Apparently, the next administration wants to return to a military world of white men wearing stars (and losing wars) -- the twenty-first-century equivalent of the heroes who "triumphed" in places like Korea and Vietnam in the previous century. Perhaps the new Trump administration should reanimate former Air Force Strategic Air Commander General Curtis LeMay to "win" a nuclear war against China or Russia. Whatever else you can say about LeMay, he wasn't "woke." Nor were generals like Douglas MacArthur in Korea and William Westmoreland in Vietnam. Nor, of course, were they victorious or even that effective, as was no less true of more recent "savior" generals like David Petraeus in Iraq and Stanley McChrystal in Afghanistan.
America, we don't need a secretary of defense to "end wokeness" in the military. What we need is one to end warness, the pursuit of perpetual conflict across the globe. Instead of channeling his inner Darth Vader and choking the careers of the "woke," Hegseth -- assuming he makes it to the Pentagon -- should act to rein in all its "warriors" and civilian neocons who keep boasting of putting on their big-boy pants as they clamor for yet more war.
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