“Eisenhower understood the trade-offs between guns and butter. “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed,” he warned in 1953, early in his presidency. “The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.”
—Aaron B. O’Connell, Assistant Professor history at the United States Naval Academy and Marine Reserve Officer.
An end to war in the Atlantic
Yesterday President Obama presented his new plan for the Pentagon which involves an end to the Atlantic fleet and an empowering of our naval capabilities in the Indo-Pacific region. I voted for Obama in 2008 and I haven’t been entirely pleased with all of his policy decisions, but this is a good move on his part. Now I’m no expert, but I am roughly 16 credits away from being considered one, and from a historical perspective this marks the end of the reign of the Military-Industrial complex that President Eisenhower eloquently warned the nation of some half a century ago. Furthermore this is a move out of the Roosevelt playback, and no, not Franklin, this is pure Teddy. Anyone recall the Russo-Japan war? or the American Conquest of the Philipines? Hell if it hadn’t been for such, you know how difficult it would have been to get Heroin back in the day? Real hard. But with the fear of trade wars with China looming, the link between Obama’s recent move and the policies of Teddy Roosevelt can be surmised with a single phrase, ” Speak softly and carry a big stick” Hi China, we are your friends, don’t cut off our cash flow, glad to do business with ya and by the way, we are just gonna park this super carrier fleet right over here. Awesome. Now alotta “conservatives” are gonna say this is typical liberal bullshit. First and foremost being conservative doesnt mean thinking gays and arabs should be sent to mental institutions and detainment camps, though many who claim the stance of conservatism purport this kind of psycho-babble. Hell I can hear my step dad saying, “Damn Obama is practically handing us over to the terrorists, dont know shit about foreign policy,” and so on. When the truth is, where is Nazi Germany? Nowhere, so whose u-boats are going to be attacking our shipping lanes? And looking back, a big part of why the cold war era arms race reached the level of escalation it did, could very well be a direct result of us parking our fleets at their doorstep in the 1950’s, which empowered the Military Industrial Complex to dictate the course of our nation, as well as our budget for the better part of the past half century and in a big part leading us to the piss poor fiscal state we currently are in. Saving 500 billion dollars(As this move is projected to do so) is the most conservative move, any president has made, since the Eisenhower presidency. And for those fearing are national safety from such Atlantic threats as…. the Dutch? maybe the Greeks? lets break it down this way. 1 million dollars could pay 350 nc soldiers for about a year. Or it could finance a scientist to make really gnarly weapons that can compete with the only real and credible peer/threat the modern world has to offer, our good ol communist banker financiers China.
