The Lit Boiler

(May contain frogs.)

“Nobody can stop us.” - Donald Trump, January 3, 2025

“Seven thousand miles is a long way to go to shoot somebody, especially if you are not right sure they need shooting” – Will Rogers

The United States is the strongest, most militarily advanced nation in the world. Probably in the history of the world. Approximately 50% of our total federal spending goes to the military, a sum that, this year, will top one trillion dollars. Those are real dollars that cannot be spent on social programs, infrastructure, healthcare, education, or diplomacy.

What do we get for all that money?

To answer that question, I guess you’d have to figure out the purpose of a military. The way I figure, the purpose of assembling a standing army is to protect the nation. Which makes a lot of sense. I mean, it sucks when hordes of barbarians burn and pillage. Barbarians tend to track mud everywhere and the smell of torches is almost impossible to get out of the drapery.

What distinguishes good guys from barbarians is the whole “invasion” thing. Nations generally dislike being invaded, as repelling such invasions tend to take up a lot of time and energy. Why would one country invade another? For a host of reasons, although such reasons are rarely, if ever, good.

Invading powers can dress up their aggression any way they like, but it always comes down to the same things: money and power. Folks just like to control other folks. Best way to do that? Get yourself a big ol’ army, preferably one with wraparound Oakley sunglasses.

Unfortunately, occupying powers tend to comport themselves like, well, barbarians. When they eventually leave through their own accord or otherwise, the messes they leave behind are usually considerable, often requiring far more than a steam cleaner to rid the nation of their odor.

Mass graves can get kind of stinky.

Since our entry into World War I in 1917, America has become the backstop of choice among warring powers. Churchill once said, “The United States is like a giant boiler. Once a fire is lighted under it, there is no limit to the power it can generate.” True enough, I suppose, for our pre-World War II history. Since the conclusion of that second global conflict, however, the American powers that be have refused to extinguished the boiler, preferring to keep the temperatures as hot as possible.

This is what Eisenhower was talking about when he warned, in his farewell address to the nation following his presidency, “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.”

Such misplaced power has been running things ever since he uttered those words. And why not? Why devote a career to producing goods and services for a finicky public when you can, instead, secure fat government contracts? The money is simply too good. With money comes access, which shapes policy, which puts more money back into the pockets of industrialists and private contractors.

To justify all those expenditures to an American populace working longer hours for ever-less sums requires America’s other area of expertise: marketing. There must always be a clear and present danger, always an enemy, always a scourge to be vanquished. And we fall for it, again and again. “America is under threat! From communists and drugs and terrorists and Saddam Hussein! The forces of evil remain ever-arrayed against us!”

Even so, there’s a clear demarcation between assuming a defensive posture and taking the fight to our enemies, and it’s that demarcation which distinguishes might from right. We know this, but we’re so enamored with our own power that we tend to sweep such niceties as international law under the rug. Which is how we get to George W. Bush making the argument that “It’s better to fight them there than here,” which was the administration’s catchphrase while marketing his unprovoked Iraq invasion to a skeptical American public. “Them” in this case was a little nebulous seeing as the Iraqis didn’t do anything to us.

Sure, our mighty military removed Hussein from power without too much effort because our military is very, very good. For a trillion dollars a year, they better be. But as we’ve already established, militaries do not do such a good job of cleaning up after themselves. This creates more enemies for us to fight somewhere down the road. It’s a beautiful system if you happen to be the CEO of an arms manufacturer (or the CEO of Oakley sunglasses).

There’s a debate to be had about whether abducting Maduro from Venezuela will ultimately prove to be a good thing for the people of Venezuela. If our experience in Iraq is any indication, the answer is likely to be “no.” Before you jump down my throat for suggesting that a Maduro-led Venezuela might be better than whatever replaces it, consider that opinion polls in Iraq show about a third of Iraqis believe life was better under Saddam. Maduro was bad, but he wasn’t Saddam Hussein level bad.

But there’s no debate about whether the current administration have the authority to conduct this operation. They do not. Not according to international law. And not according to our domestic laws. Trump is correct to say that nobody can stop us, but nations have learned many lessons about America’s fragility in the face of sustained, asymmetrical opposition. So I don’t disagree with Trump’s military assessment, but Osama bin Laden was also right when he said, “Look at Vietnam, look at Lebanon. Whenever soldiers start coming home in body bags, Americans panic and retreat. Such a country needs only to be confronted with two or three sharp blows, then it will flee in panic, as it always has.”

Osama’s words are true because they’re predicated on a larger truth: no military can endure without the will of its people. We keep sending our sons and daughters into danger for no reason which advances the interest of anybody other than the men sitting on their dock chairs looking out across Chesapeake Bay. There’s not a military on Earth that can defeat us going toe-to-toe but you don’t win wars with militaries. You win them with policy, diplomacy, and popular support. You win them by not fighting them in the first place.