Fifty years ago this week, President Eisenhower delivered his Farewell Address. It was his most important address because in this age of wild government spending and massive debt, it contained a striking prophecy: Reckless military spending will bankrupt the country.
Eisenhower began by acknowledging America's special place in the world.
"We... realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment."
He might have been speaking to us today when he warned that "progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology global in scope,... ruthless in purpose and insidious in method. Unhappily, the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration."
He acknowledged that "our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action." But, he stressed, the need for a strong military created another danger — the "military-industrial complex." He described this as "a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions." And he said: "The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government.... We must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society."
And so he warned us.
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted."
Have we ignored Eisenhower's warning? We suffer from a serious drain on the economy, and our democracy is now at the point of exhausting its reserves. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, American military spending accounts for 47 percent of the total world defense expenditures.
And yet in December the Senate, by voice vote, passed the largest military budget since World War II: some $725 billion — $17 billion more than the White House requested.
A veteran of inflated and corrupt military procurement, Eisenhower would demand answers. He would certainly expect us to do so.
"Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry," he said, "can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."
Our responsibility is to "maintain balance in and among national programs, balance between the private and the public economy, balance between the cost and hoped-for advantages, balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable, balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual, balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future."
Perhaps it's time we re-examine Eisenhower's concern.
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