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Julia Gledhill and William Hartung, Failure as the Pentagon’s Ultimate Success Story

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It’s true that no nuclear weapon has been used (except in tests) since the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 to end World War II. And yes, we now know that, were there to be a nuclear confrontation on this planet (think: the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 without the diplomacy of President John F. Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev), it could quite literally send us all to hell and back. It might leave much of humanity dead and the planet in a version of rubble. (Think: nuclear winter!) So, consider it a cheery thing that, all too recently, two world leaders, President Vladimir Putin of Russia and Kim Jong-un of North Korea, threatened to use just such weaponry in our world right now.

And if that makes you nervous, then let me reassure you this way: the United States, while making no nuclear threats, is putting staggering numbers of your tax dollars into expanding and further enhancing its nuclear arsenal. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), we’re talking about spending a nifty $756 billion between 2023 and 2032. And, hey, to cheer you up a little further, here’s how the CBO breaks that figure down: “$247 billion for modernization of strategic and tactical nuclear delivery systems and the weapons they carry; $108 billion for modernization of facilities and equipment for the nuclear weapons laboratory complex and for modernization of command, control, communications, and early-warning systems; and $96 billion for potential cost growth in excess of projected budgeted amounts.”

Yep, $96 billion of your tax dollars are carefully included to cover “cost growth in excess of budgeted amounts.” And here’s the even better news: that $756 billion figure is a mere $122 billion more than the last estimate for the period 2021-2030, which, in turn, means, assuming such weapons aren’t ever used, it’s going to take a while to hit the trillion-dollar mark. Still, have faith in our military and count on it! In fact, if you have any doubts on the subject, check out today’s report from Pentagon experts and TomDispatch regulars Julia Gledhill and William Hartung on just how expensive everything involving future American weaponry and our military could get. I know you’ll feel a deep sense of relief to be reassured that your tax dollars will be stretched so far into a world from which there may be no return. Tom

Spending Unlimited

The Pentagon’s Budget Follies Come at a High Price

The White House released its budget proposal for Fiscal Year 2025 on March 11th, and the news was depressingly familiar: $895 billion for the Pentagon and work on nuclear weapons at the Department of Energy. After adjusting for inflation, that's only slightly less than last year’s proposal, but far higher than the levels reached during either the Korean or Vietnam wars or at the height of the Cold War. And that figure doesn’t even include related spending on veterans, the Department of Homeland Security, or the additional tens of billions of dollars in "emergency" military spending likely to come later this year. One thing is all too obvious: a trillion-dollar budget for the Pentagon alone is right around the corner, at the expense of urgently needed action to address climate change, epidemics of disease, economic inequality, and other issues that threaten our lives and safety at least as much as, if not more than, traditional military challenges.

Americans would be hard-pressed to find members of Congress carefully scrutinizing such vast sums of national security spending, asking tough questions, or reining in Pentagon excess -- despite the fact that this country is no longer fighting any major ground wars. Just a handful of senators and members of the House do that work while many more search for ways to increase the department’s already bloated budget and steer further contracts into their own states and districts.

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Engelhardt, “War” as Humanity’s Middle Name

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[Note for TomDispatch Readers: As ever, this site needs a helping hand — and sadly, that hand, if possible, should have some money in it. So if you feel the urge, do visit the TomDispatch donation page and do your darnedest, knowing that I just couldn’t be more appreciative. And by the way, given my own focus (as today) on climate change, if you live in New York City, let me recommend that you pay a visit to the Asia Society to see its eye-opening, mind-boggling new climate show, “Coal + Ice.” Tom]

A Slow-Motion World War III?

Imperial Decline (Up Close and Personal) in the Age of Climate Change

I've been describing this world of ours, such as it is, for almost 23 years at TomDispatch. I've written my way through three-and-a-half presidencies -- god save us, it could be four in November! I've viewed from a grave (and I mean that word!) distance America's endlessly disastrous wars of this century. I've watched the latest military budget hit almost $900 billion, undoubtedly on its way toward a cool trillion in the years to come, while years ago the whole "national security" budget (though "insecurity" would be a better word) soared to well over the trillion-dollar mark.

I've lived my whole life in an imperial power. Once, in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it was even "the lone superpower," the last great power on planet Earth, or so its leaders believed. I then watched how, in a world without great-power dangers, it continued to invest ever more of our tax dollars in our military. A "peace dividend"? Who needed that? And yet, in the decades that followed, by far the most expensive military on planet Earth couldn't manage to win a single war, no less its Global War on Terror. In fact, in this century, while fighting vain or losing conflicts across significant parts of the planet, it slowly but all too obviously began to go down the tubes, or perhaps I mean (if you don't mind a few mixed metaphors) come apart at the seams?

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Andrea Mazzarino, A “Dictatorship” on Day One?

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Let’s start with the obvious. Yes, in the MAGA world of Donald Trump’s Republican Party, white supremacism and Christian nationalism have been on the rise for years. But to be clear, Donald Trump isn’t a Christian nationalist; he isn’t even an evangelical Christian. He’s an evangelical Trumpian. And he isn’t a white supremacist either, not because he isn’t “white” or distinctly prejudiced, but because he doesn’t believe in the supremacy of anything but Donald Trump and whatever in the world will make him the Biggest Man Around. Whatever he says, The Donald isn’t an advocate for an ultimate white or evangelical Christian right to power, even if he’s lent a grotesque helping hand to both. The only power he’s focused on, the one that’s at the very heart and soul of the MAGA world and of Trumpism, is his own.

The Donald, in other words, is the ultimate Trumpist. If it turned out that Zen Buddhists or “the Blacks” were the key to that goal becoming our reality, he would be doing his damnedest to woo them. In fact, when it comes to Blacks, he’s been doing that, however awkwardly, of late. But the remarkable thing about him is that, in some sense, he’s awkward with everyone, every group, every person but himself. And yet, his appeal, explain it as you will, has been, and continues to be, stunning for someone for whom no one else in the world seems to truly exist (unless they’re in his camp and dedicated to helping him 24 hours a day).

In some sense, before he ever entered American politics, in his own mind at least, Donald Trump was already the ultimate autocrat, a Power of One and Only One. Today, TomDispatch regular Andrea Mazzarino considers just what that Power of One might lead to in a future almost too close and too possible to bear. Tom

If America Were a Trumpian Autocracy

The Lies We’d Be Told About War (and So Much Else)

We should already be talking about what it would be like, if Donald Trump wins the 2024 election, to live under a developing autocracy. Beyond the publicized plans of those around him to gut the federal civil service system and consolidate power in the hands of You Know Who, under Trump 2.0, so much else would change for the worse.

All too many of us who now argue about the Ukraine and Gaza wars and their ensuing humanitarian crises, about police violence and extremism in the military here at home, about all sorts of things, would no longer share a common language. Basics that once might have meant the same thing to you and me, like claiming someone won an election, might become unsafe to mention. In a Trump 2.0 world, more of our journalists would undoubtedly face repercussions and need to find roundabout ways to allude to all too many topics. A moving opinion column by the New York Times's David French, who faced threats for his writing about Donald Trump, highlighted how some who voiced their views on him already need round-the-clock police protection to ensure their safety and that of their family.

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