The military-industrial-complex has grown into a monster so powerful that even its earliest critics likely never foresaw its evolution. In the age of Big Tech’s rising power, can anything stop it?
By Chris Hedges
The Chris Hedges Report
This interview is also available on podcast platforms and Rumble.
The military-industrial-complex (MIC) is unique in its ability to pull untold flows of tax revenue into “defensive” infrastructure that benefits no one other than the private sector manufacturing and investing in it.
The machine, which perpetuates itself through an incestuous milieu that lobbies for war and defense spending, wages psychological warfare on citizens and engages in corrupt backroom deals, has risen to once unthinkable heights of influence and power since Dwight D. Eisenhower first warned Americans of its growing presence in 1961.
Political scientist William D. Hartung joins this episode of The Chris Hedges Report to discuss his and Ben Freeman’s new book, The Trillion Dollar War Machine, which contextualizes the growth of the MIC behind the backdrop of Silicon Valley’s increasing radicalism and integration into American military infrastructure, as well as the Trump administration’s chaotic and unabashed foreign policy.
These tech elites push for automated warfare, domestic surveillance, and the full diffusion of any line still separating the corporate and public sectors.
In essence, they symbolize how significantly Western capital has grown since Eisenhower’s warning — bolstering a corporate state bent on maximizing profit through warfare and manufacturing reliance on its often faulty products both in the public and private sector.
Empowered by the Trump administration, the trillion dollar war machine only looks to grow — and Hartung says that it will harm the entire nation in its endless quest for domination.
Host: Chris Hedges
Producer: Max Jones
Intro: Max Jones
Crew: Diego Ramos, Sofia Menemenlis and Victor Castellanos.
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor and NPR. He is the host of show “The Chris Hedges Report.”
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The views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Failed American wars? Lost wars? Disastrous, fiasco wars?
In surveying the liberal legacy media, I have found that the consensus appears to be that while Trump has failed to adequately plan the war against Iran, his goal of regime change is entirely admirable. There is little mention that this is an illegal, immoral war of aggression; rather, the focus is on the strong likelihood that it will be yet another failed, fruitless, wasteful war.
The “failed war” argument allows an individual to stand righteously opposed to war, while remaining a good, patriotic American—which is no mean feat. In this instance, it provides the added bonus of enabling Democrats to counter Trump without sounding too, too much like crass partisans. For these proud citizens, the takeaway appears to be, “Next time the US decides to destroy a country, to murder its leaders and wantonly kill its people, we had damn well do it right!”
Yet in reality there are no failed American wars. For, with every war, the drivers of US foreign policy manage to achieve their primary aim of transferring wealth from the commoners up the ladder. Win or lose, the war profiteers—defense contractors and their shareholders, along with the “democratically” elected prostitutes who do their bidding—always make out. This entrenched upward flow of wealth essentially guarantees that the US will continue to find its way into war, poorly planned or otherwise.
As Hartung says, “It’s sort of like we need an entire culture shift….The only thing that would change it is if we didn’t have a strategy that says we have to dominate the world.” And as long as we have war profiteers running our country, we’re going to be stuck with that dismal strategy.
One might sum up by saying, “It’s the money, stupid.”
Science for the People is a national organization of academics and students working to redirect STEM students options away from military contractor jobs. Please check them out and support their work.
I am sorry, but the ‘earlier’ critics saw the power and the horror of this machine back when it was killing 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 Vietnamese. Some of those ‘earlier’ critics were not fooled, did not become war correspondents promoting the machine, and never accepted that big military budgets somehow meant Freedom back when Bill Clinton was fighting against the Peace Dividend.
Some of us have been opposed to the evil machine for our lifetimes. So, while I’m glad that Mr. Hedges saw the light and stopped being a war correspondent, please do not assume that the rest of us were ever fooled by this horribly evil machine of death and destruction. I’m sorry that this nation full of Reagan Democrats got fooled, but please do not assume that all of us got fooled.
It can be stopped, and it can be stopped the way it was stopped the last time. That should be the important message, replacing the gloom and doom about ‘can it ever be stopped.’ It can be stopped by the only way that has ever really changed the world. Large masses of highly pissed-off people going out into the streets and demanding that the machine must stop. Perhaps a quote from the 1960’s might remind what that real resistance looked like?
“There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart that you can’t take part! You can’t even passively take part! And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus — and you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it — that unless you’re free the machine will be prevented from working at all!!” — Mario Savio, Berkeley Free Speech Movement, Dec, 1964.
Thank you for sharing this perspective. It’s true that many people recognised the nature of the machine early on, and that history is an important part of the conversation. Your reminder that collective action has shifted the course of events before is valuable. The article’s question about whether change is possible feels stronger when paired with that historical clarity and the understanding that resistance has taken many forms over time. The time has come for humanity to stand together again in quiet, determined resistance.
Chris Hedges was a war correspondent who told the truth. He was never on the side of US aggression. He left that job because the NYT told him to stop speaking out on the invasion of Iraq or lose his job so he left. Please don’t make baseless assumptions without knowing the background of the person you’re talking about.
What you’ve shared is a stark and necessary analysis — and naming these patterns so clearly is already a form of empowerment. The encouraging part is that awareness like this is spreading. More people than ever are questioning the inevitability of militarized economics, demanding transparency, and imagining systems that prioritize human wellbeing over perpetual conflict. Tired of war-mongering, we crave change.
Even within institutions that once felt impenetrable, there are researchers, public servants, technologists, and organizers working to redirect innovation toward healing, sustainability, and genuine security. History shows that concentrated power can grow quickly, but it can also shift quickly when enough people see it clearly and refuse to be numbed by it.
The fact that voices like Hartung’s, Hedges’, and yours are part of the public conversation means the story isn’t finished. It means there is still room — real room — for accountability, for new models of governance, and for a culture that values life more than profit.
Clarity should not compound despair. Clarity is the beginning of change.
And every time someone reads, shares, or reflects on work like this, the ground under humanity shifts a little in the right direction.
I hope you’re right Annette.
Peace be with you.