Will Donald Trump Tame the Military-Industrial Complex?
I am a defense analyst, and cover the economics of Pentagon spending.
To the surprise of many Trump watchers, America’s former narcissist-in-chief offered a searing indictment of the military-industrial complex at a recent rally in Wisconsin:
"I will expel warmongers. We have these people, they want to go to war all the time. You know why? Missiles are $2 million apiece. That’s why. They love to drop missiles all over the place. I had no wars.... I will expel the warmonger from our national security state and carry out a much needed clean up of the military industrial complex to stop the war profiteering and to always put America first. We put America first. We’re going to end these endless wars. Endless wars, they never stop."
His remarks made Trump look like a principled crusader for peace, poised to take on the special interests that have distorted our foreign policy and made war more likely. While there is very little chance he will act on his tough rhetoric, the fact that he described the arms makers and their allies in such harsh terms suggests that there is a populist, anti-interventionist faction within his political base.
How do we know that Trump’s takedown of the warmongers and war profiteers in Wisconsin is more a matter of political spin than a guide to future policy?
The 2016 campaign and his policies during his four years in office tell the tale. Trump campaigned on the (correct) idea that the Iraq war was a disaster, and he criticized self-interested arms company lobbying and price gouging on the campaign trail.
But as soon as Trump took office, the big weapons companies became his best friends. Early on, when Trump wanted to announce a massive arms sales package in his first foreign trip – to Saud Arabia – he had Jared Kushner call the head of Lockheed Martin to ask if the company could offer Saudi Arabia some major systems at a discount, so they could be included in the mega-package Trump hoped to announce during his Saudi trip. The result was an offer of a $15 billion missile defense system.
Trump’s staunch support for military corporations was also front and center in his decision not to cut off arms sales to Saudi Arabia in the wake of its brutal murder of the Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Trump’s rationale? That our beautiful defense companies would lose business, and American workers would lose jobs, even as a U.S. adversary like China would fill the gap. Following the lead of the arms companies themselves, Trump wildly exaggerated the numbers of jobs involved in sales to Saudi Arabia.
Trump also milked his arms deals with Saudi Arabia for maximum PR value, topping it off when he wielded a map with pictures of U.S. weapons that had been sold or offered to the Saudi regime during a White House meeting with Mohammed bin Salman, complete with figures on how many jobs the sales had created in key states.
Fast forward to 2024, and the Trump/Vance team has forged close connections with the New Age militarists in Silicon Valley. Peter Thiel of Palantir is a regular Republican donor. Palmer Luckey of Anduril has thrown a fundraiser for Trump. And as the world now knows, J.D. Vance spent a stint working for Peter Thiel before running for the Senate (with generous financial support from Thiel). This is troubling not only because it augurs poorly for the idea of a Trump administration holding these firms accountable for how they utilize taxpayer dollars, but because the leaders of the emerging Silicon Valley branch of the military-industrial complex are uniquely reckless in their rhetoric about how the U.S. should develop the capacity to “beat China” in a conflict. They have also claimed that the weapons they are building are the key to restoring U.S. global dominance. To the extent that these hawkish military techno-fantasists can influence a Trump administration, they will make war with China and other designated adversaries more likely.
So when Donald Trump says he is going to stand up to the warmongers and war profiteers, take it with several grains of salt. It will take more than political spin and critical rhetoric to rein in the arms industry and develop a smarter, more effective, and more restrained defense policy for the United States. Needless to say, this isn’t the first time Donald Trump has made a promise that he either couldn’t keep, or had no intention of keeping. The weapons industry would have nothing to worry about under a second Trump administration. If anything their hefty revenues and exorbitant executive compensation would soar even higher, often for building dysfunctional weapons systems that are ill-suited to today’s military challenges.