Melvin Goodman

Thucydides. This is the plaster cast bust currently in exposition of Zurab Tsereteli's gallery in Moscow. Photograph Source: shakko – CC BY-SA 3.0

The Washington Post’s leading national security columnist, David Ignatius, has been an ever-present apologist for the “power of the military and the secrecy of the intelligence community.” At a crucial time that requires fresh thinking about the loss of U.S. influence and credibility in the international arena, Ignatius and the mainstream media continue to identify the U.S. as the #1 military and economic power in the world.

Thirteen years ago, I made the case against the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter in National Insecurity: The Cost of American Militarism. My argument was based on overall cost (“the most expensive program in our military inventory”), the large number of aircraft proposed for the U.S. Navy (“absence of any other navy with a global presence or a power projection capability”), and the obsolescence of manned aircraft (“the next generation of pilotless armed drones as well as hypersonic cruise missiles have more uses than several thousand sophisticated fighter aircraft”).

Photograph Source: Maryland GovPics – CC BY 4.0 Last month, the Democratic National Committee belatedly released its autopsy of the 2024

Now that Donald Trump has established himself as the worst president in the history of the United States, George W. Bush can breathe a sigh of relief. After all, it was Bush the Younger who used the 9/11 attacks to engage in decades of illegal and unneeded warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan at great cost to American national security. And it was Bush the Younger who established the Department of Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) that did nothing to strengthen national security.

The Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, which followed 9/11, was totally inadequate to the task of reform, creating an intelligence tsar and centralizing intelligence analysis. As a result, the White House and the Pentagon received enhanced roles in the structure of intelligence, making future intelligence failures and the politicization of intelligence more likely. To make matters worse, the congressional oversight process has been broken, with little scrutiny of the intelligence community in the wake of the failures of 9/11 and the Iraq War.

The Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, which followed 9/11, was totally inadequate to the task of reform, creating an intelligence tsar and centralizing intelligence analysis. As a result, the White House and the Pentagon received enhanced roles in the structure of intelligence, making future intelligence failures and the politicization of intelligence more likely. To make matters worse, the congressional oversight process has been broken, with little scrutiny of the intelligence community in the wake of the failures of 9/11 and the Iraq War. More

_The United States is a national security state. Over the past half-century, it has unnecessarily conducted “forever wars” in Vietnam (1960s-1970s), Iraq (2000s-the present), Afghanistan (2000s-2020), and now possibly in Yemen. _

Several weeks ago, the mainstream media carried a statement from eight former secretaries of defence and five retired four-star generals that stated

The Washington Post finally conceded in an editorial recently that the United States must “spend smarter” when it comes to defence.