Desiring Machine

The other night I went and watched the Eugene Jarecki film Why We Fight. A compelling documentary that starts with Eisenhower’s famous farewell address warning against the military industrial complex and traces the complex and fascinating history of this dynamic relationship between military, industry, and government. I am as liberal as they come and while I like a Michael Moore Bush bash as much as the next lefty, I really appreciated the gravitas and solemnity of this movie. Just the grave warning by Eisenhower himself, arguably the 20th century’s best Republican president, would have made this movie. The extent of Eisenhower’s contribution in my mind began and ended with the interstate system. And having travelled on many of its roads I have a profound respect for the interstate system he helped foster. A true marvel of the modern world. However, this movie for me gave Eisenhower much more depth. The gravity with which Eisenhower warns us against the armaments industry and its “potential for disastrous rise of misplaced power”. Eisenhower, with his intimate relationship to the military, was well aware of the machinations of the war industry and that makes his warning all the more serious. What I really got most out of this film was how difficult and intractable this problem is, and that Eisenhower probably understood this better than any president since him.

I will not pretend there are simple solutions to this problem. I am opposed to war in general and have major misgivings about the war in Iraq in particular. But I fully recognize that military serves useful functions. Under Eisenhower, it helped build out the interstate system, in the 60’s and 70’s it helped lay the foundations and research and development that ultimately gave us the internet. The effect of both these on our society and the world in general are difficult to overstate. However, the central thesis of this film and Eisenhower’s concern is a simple one: the total and sum influence produces a genuine risk of wielding “unwarranted influence” on our society and the world. The direct outgrowth of this influence is its power to create and perpetuate war and its ability to sap resources from the rest of society. I think the movie gracefully demonstrates how pervasive this is. There is not a single source of power and control. Although a lot of responsibility is thrown at the feet of our congress. The whole phenomenon is very dynamic in its organization and not necessarily hierarchical but diverse and divergent. With policy, the force of decisions come from far and wide. I recognize how intractable this problem is. I have great sympathy for those who find themselves in need and look to the military for career and socioeconomic advancement. I have family members who work and have worked in companies that are part of the larger war industry. I myself derive my living from a computer company, Sun Microsystems, that in no small part finds its products in military and government applications. I know people who work at Boeing. Eisenhower in his speech in 1961 puts it very succinctly:

The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

One of the more poignant moments in the film is when one of the workers in an American bomb factory expresses remorse and reservations over the fact that her hand has probably touched one of the bombs she sees explode over Iraqi villages on TV. And even more stunning is the contrast of this sentiment with the seemingly glib, smug and nearly celebratory exuberance of the fighter pilots who were the first to drop bombs in the opening salvos of the war in Iraq.

For me the mood of the movie is one of a melancholy and an overwhelming sense of how intractable the war industry seems to be. And judging from the paltry handful of people in the theater the subject matter of this film is not something many others are eager to experience either. The film doesn’t seem to offer many solutions and raises many questions. I know I don’t have any easy answers but I think films like these are instructive. And if anything it is important that we embrace the gravity of these questions. The film shows me that Eisenhower, more than most, felt the gravity and understood “why we fight”.