The Hagel Nomination and a 21st Century Defense Department

Much of the thinking in the United States and particularly in Washington DC is what I call legacy thinking We have powered into the 21st century thinking thoughts from the 20th century Certainly if one is over 40 much of what one thinks was shaped in the last century If you first developed a thought about quotwhat is true or rightquot in 1980 or1990 it may no longer be so quotrightquot in 2013 Holding onto legacy thoughts from decades past means that one is standing in a house built in the past looking out through the window at the present with little if any view of the futureWhen the Department of Defense was created in the late 1940s the fundamental mission was to have a stronger nation state military than any other country particularly the Soviet Union This was right after the country has won WWII largely due to a massive and rapid scaleup of our industrial base We had just moved from defeating fascism to facing the Soviet Union It was in this context that the Department of Defense was created and given its missionThe scale up was so rapid large and successful that even the greatest American general of the last 100 years and only one to become a President in that time President Eisenhower had concerns Eisenhower39s perhaps most famous quote was what he said in his farewell address to the nation on January 17 1961 three days before the inauguration of President KennedyquotIn the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence whether sought or unsought by the militaryindustrial complex The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persistWe must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes We should take nothing for granted Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper togetherquotAs a General the death of the soldiers under his command weighed heavily on Eisenhower As a President he quickly ended a war he inherited and resisted entering into a war in Vietnam The same war that Hagel enlisted to fightWell America won the Cold War yet the fundamental mission of the Defense Department remained the same to be able to club any other nation state into military submission The obvious problem with that is that there is no nation state wanting to engage with the United States in a military war Yet the legacy thinking of the Defense Department and the military industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about still drives the thinking and spending that Hagel and Obama want to alterThe current enemies of the US are cyber attacks amp8211 from China other nations and rogue hacker groups and global terrorist groups There is no nation state that wants to engage the US in a traditional or nuclear war The future of dealing with cyber warfare terrorist groups and even rogue countries will be largely technological The concept of placing of hundreds of thousands of American service men and women in harms way in some other country will be viewed as archaic by 2020 and perhaps barbaric by 2030Drones global positioning satellites ever more connectivity and ever smaller and powerful technologies will be the future of warfare It is truly odd to have such resistance to drones where the collateral damage is relatively small compared to the catastrophic collateral damage from nuclear weapons that the country largely embraced during the Cold War Can anyone please tell me when there was a war that had no civilian collateral damage War is warThe United States spends more on its39 military every year that the next 13 countries combined We currently have enough kill power to annihilate the human race several times over So when President Obama and now Secretary of Defense Hagel talk about lowering the number of nuclear warheads there will still be enough to annihilate humanity multiple timesFinally in the fiscally restrained near term future of the US it will untenable to spend 25 of the budget for the military Much of this goes to personnel military bases in place since WWII and overly expensive weapons systems that are for the old model of nation state warfare Expenditures based upon no longer valid Cold War legacy thinkingWhen you look at the Senators who voted against Hagel you see people who are trapped in 20th century legacy thinking and who represent the military industrial complex one of our greatest generals warned us about What are these guys so insecure about Nothing Then look at who contributes to their campaignsHagel and his boss potentially represent a completely new way of looking at how the Defense Department should be recast to face the dangers of this new century That makes the legacy thinkers who have had no real budget restraints for decades nervous It should Time to face the future of our nation39s threats and time to spend money in ways that will meet them and defeat themDavid Houle is a futurist strategist and speaker He has always been slightly ahead of the curve Houle spent more than 20 years in media and entertainment Most recently David is a featured contributor to Oprahcom Check is out here wwwoprahcomdavidhoule David can be contacted at DavidDavidHoulecomRead all Davidamp8217s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Evolution ShiftCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

Click to Make Your 2025 Contribution to Support the MediaVillage Education Foundation

The Hagel Nomination and a 21st Century Defense Department

Author

Publish date

Channel

David Houle

Empowering Women in Media: Insights from Industry Leaders (Video) - By E.B. Moss

More Videos:

Click to Make Your 2025 Contribution to Support the MediaVillage Education Foundation

The Hagel Nomination and a 21st Century Defense Department

Enjoying This Commentary? There's More to Love

David Houle

Empowering Women in Media: Insights from Industry Leaders (Video) - By E.B. Moss

The payment was successful

Cookies