THE WASHINGTON UNION PAPERS: NO. 21

HOW THE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX DRAINS PUBLIC WEALTH

To the People of the United States,

A nation that siphons the sweat and toil of its people to fatten the pockets of war profiteers is not a republic—it is a hostage, a captive empire ruled not by the will of its citizens, but by the greed of arms dealers and defense contractors who see human suffering as a revenue stream.

A government that prioritizes arms deals over education, military contracts over healthcare, and weapons over infrastructure is not acting in the interest of its people—it is serving an empire of greed, an unelected kingdom of war profiteers who grow fat while the American worker struggles to make ends meet. The military-industrial complex, once warned against by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, has metastasized into a financial leech, siphoning off public resources that should be invested in the strength of the people rather than in the machinery of destruction.

It is not national security that drains our treasury. True national security is built on the strength of an educated workforce, on the stability of a healthy population, on the resilience of a well-maintained infrastructure. It is not the defense of our land that bankrupts our future, but the unchecked, unaccountable, and insatiable expansion of a war economy that siphons wealth from the people and funnels it into the hands of corporations that thrive on destruction. We have allowed the defense industry to grow into an insatiable beast, one that does not merely prepare for war but requires it, feeds on it, depends on it for survival. It is not the safety of the nation that compels endless military expansion—it is the pursuit of profit, the prioritization of shareholders over soldiers, of quarterly earnings over human lives.

The war economy does not rest. It does not pause to ask whether another fighter jet, another aircraft carrier, another missile program is truly necessary. It does not stop to consider whether the trillions spent on overseas conflicts could be better used to rebuild the failing roads, the crumbling bridges, the aging power grids that leave Americans vulnerable in times of crisis. The war economy demands expansion, demands more contracts, demands more funding, not because the nation is under threat, but because its very existence depends on continued growth, on conflict that never truly ends. It is an empire within an empire, a shadow government that dictates spending priorities, that ensures no matter how dire the needs of the people, the military budget remains sacrosanct, untouchable, immune to austerity.

The average American pays their taxes believing in a social contract—that their contributions will go toward the greater good, toward roads that allow them to travel safely, toward schools that prepare their children for a better future, toward a healthcare system that does not leave them destitute in times of need. But instead, those hard-earned dollars disappear into the black hole of defense spending, into weapons systems designed not for national defense, but for global dominance, into military bases constructed in faraway lands while American communities rot from neglect. They are told there is not enough money for affordable housing, not enough money to ensure clean drinking water, not enough money to guarantee that no child in this country goes to bed hungry—yet there is always, without fail, enough money for another war, for another military intervention, for another blank check to contractors who do not protect the nation, but plunder it.

We are not bankrupted by security. We are bankrupted by a system that values destruction over construction, that invests in warships instead of workers, that builds bombs instead of bridges. The richest country in the world claims it cannot afford to guarantee healthcare as a right, but it can afford to spend more on its military than the next ten nations combined. It claims it cannot afford tuition-free college, but it can afford to drop millions of dollars’ worth of ordnance in conflicts that have no clear objective, no defined strategy, no benefit to the people funding them. It claims it cannot afford to end poverty, but it can afford to ensure that the defense industry never sees a reduction in profits, never has to experience the belt-tightening that is demanded of ordinary Americans every time a budget crisis looms.

The cost is not measured in dollars alone. It is measured in the roads not repaired, in the schools not funded, in the hospitals that close their doors. It is measured in the exhaustion of a working class asked to sacrifice everything while the war machine feasts without restraint. It is measured in the dreams deferred, in the futures stolen, in the slow decay of a nation that once prided itself on progress but now sinks into a state of permanent war. This is not a temporary imbalance. It is not an unfortunate oversight. It is the direct result of a system designed to serve the few at the expense of the many, a system that takes from the builders of the nation and gives to those who only know how to destroy.

A country that cannot provide for its people is not a strong country. A country that allows children to go without food while weapons manufacturers see record profits is not a country led by the will of the people, but by the greed of the powerful. A country that has the resources to ensure prosperity for all but chooses instead to fund endless war is not a nation looking toward the future, but one that is marching toward its own decline. If we wish to reclaim our future, we must reclaim our priorities. We must demand that the wealth of this nation be used not to fund the ambitions of arms dealers, but to build a society that is strong because it invests in its people, not just in its wars.

The modern military-industrial complex is not merely a drain on resources; it is an economic parasite. It thrives not on innovation, not on necessity, but on perpetual crisis. It has transformed war into a business model, where peace is a threat to profits, where diplomacy is secondary to destruction, where conflicts are prolonged not for strategy but for stock prices. Corporations that manufacture bombs and missiles see their revenues surge when war looms, their stocks climb when another conflict ignites, their executives celebrate contracts while soldiers bury their dead. These firms, entangled in the corridors of power, whisper in the ears of politicians, ensuring that war remains a priority, that defense budgets never shrink, that no matter the state of the economy, the weapons industry always prospers.

While the American people are told there is not enough funding for universal healthcare, for debt-free college, for modernized infrastructure, there is always, without fail, money for war. Every request from defense contractors is met with swift approval, every budget increase is rubber-stamped with bipartisan enthusiasm, every billion-dollar weapons deal is treated as an economic victory rather than an allocation of resources stolen from public needs. Trillions flow into the Pentagon with minimal oversight, funding programs that overcharge, that mismanage, that fail. The very companies that claim to protect America bleed it dry, overcharging for parts, falsifying invoices, funneling taxpayer dollars into executive bonuses and corporate buybacks rather than into the well-being of the citizens who foot the bill.

The irony of this unchecked military spending is that it does not make America safer—it makes it weaker. It drains the national treasury while leaving the true pillars of security—education, healthcare, infrastructure, and innovation—starved of the resources they need to flourish. A nation does not achieve strength through the accumulation of weapons alone; it is fortified by the prosperity of its people, by the opportunities afforded to its workers, by the stability of its economy. But when billions are funneled into defense contracts while classrooms overflow, when hospitals are underfunded while defense contractors see record profits, when small businesses struggle to survive while arms manufacturers receive unlimited government backing, the nation is not being secured—it is being hollowed out from within.

America's dominance was not built by the barrel of a gun, but by the ingenuity of its people, by the industries that fueled its rise, by the scientific breakthroughs that transformed the world. But today, rather than investing in the factories of the future, in the research that could revolutionize medicine and technology, in the infrastructure that sustains economic expansion, we are shackled to a war economy that prioritizes destruction over creation. We build tanks that will never see battle, fighter jets that cost billions but struggle to perform, military bases that sprawl across the world while our own cities crumble. The price is not just measured in dollars—it is measured in lost potential, in the opportunities that never come to fruition because the resources that could have created them were squandered on endless conflict.

A nation cannot bomb its way to prosperity, nor can it sustain its global standing through military might alone. True power is measured in economic strength, in the resilience of supply chains, in the ability of a country to produce what it needs rather than depend on foreign entities. Yet, even as we pour trillions into the machinery of war, we have allowed our manufacturing sector to erode, our infrastructure to decay, our technological advancements to lag behind competitors who have chosen to invest in progress rather than in perpetual war. We stand on the edge of an era defined by artificial intelligence, by clean energy, by biomedical innovation—yet our public resources are spent not on advancing these frontiers, but on maintaining the illusion that brute force alone can secure our future.

Empires of the past that chose war over welfare, that built their economies on conquest rather than on the prosperity of their people, all met the same fate—collapse from within, not from without. Rome, once the most powerful civilization in the world, did not fall because it lacked legions but because it abandoned its people in pursuit of endless military expansion. The British Empire, which once ruled vast territories, found itself unable to sustain the cost of war while maintaining the well-being of its own citizens. The Soviet Union, despite its military strength, collapsed not under the weight of foreign invasion, but under the economic rot caused by excessive military spending at the expense of domestic stability.

And now, America stands at a crossroads. We can continue to believe that military supremacy alone guarantees our future, or we can recognize that national strength is built from the inside out. We can continue to funnel limitless wealth into the hands of defense contractors while public services are cut, or we can choose to invest in the real foundations of power—an educated workforce, a thriving industrial base, a healthcare system that does not bankrupt its citizens, an infrastructure that supports commerce rather than obstructs it. We must decide whether we will follow the path of past empires, consumed by the cost of maintaining endless militarization, or whether we will reclaim the true meaning of national security—one that is measured not in bombs and battleships, but in the strength, prosperity, and well-being of the people who call this nation home.

We have become a nation where private defense corporations dictate foreign policy, where arms manufacturers shape military strategy, where war is no longer a last resort but a business necessity. This is not security. This is not strength. This is the systematic looting of the American taxpayer under the guise of patriotism. And those who dare to question it are branded as weak, as un-American, as naive to the realities of global power. But there is nothing patriotic about the reckless waste of public funds. There is nothing strong about a nation that cannot provide for its own because it has committed itself to the perpetual feeding of a military-industrial beast that is never satisfied.

The time has come to break this cycle. The time has come to demand accountability, to redirect resources toward true national security—one that builds rather than destroys, one that lifts rather than oppresses, one that invests in the future rather than mortgaging it for the next arms deal. Let it be known that in this moment, we refused to be led by fear, refused to be manipulated by those who profit from perpetual war, refused to accept that the only path forward is one paved with military contracts rather than with opportunity for the people.

Let it be written that we did not bow before the merchants of death, that we did not surrender our future to those who see war as a business and destruction as profit. Let it be known that we shattered the chains of the military-industrial complex, that we refused to let the fate of a great republic be dictated by those who grow rich off the suffering of others. Let it be recorded in the annals of history that when the moment came to choose between war and wisdom, between death and dignity, between empire and justice, we did not hesitate—we chose the people. We chose to build a nation where the wealth of our labor was spent not on missiles, but on minds; not on warships, but on wages; not on drone strikes, but on dreams.

We chose to build schools instead of bombs, to construct hospitals instead of fighter jets, to raise up a generation that is armed with knowledge instead of rifles, equipped with opportunity instead of shackled by debt. We chose to repair our cities instead of destroying others, to mend what was broken in our own land instead of breaking the homes of others.

We chose to lead by example, not through brute force, to project power not through fear, but through innovation, prosperity, and an unshakable commitment to justice.

Let it be remembered that when given the choice between pouring our wealth into weapons or into the prosperity of our own citizens, we did not cower before the war profiteers, we did not tremble at the threats of lobbyists and contractors who feed on endless conflict like parasites on a dying host. We did not let our treasury bleed to satisfy the insatiable hunger of arms dealers who have never seen a war they didn’t love, never heard a lie they wouldn’t tell, never encountered a peace they wouldn’t try to kill. We chose prosperity, not for the few, but for the many. We chose to lift our people out of poverty rather than line the pockets of defense executives. We chose to create rather than to destroy, to uplift rather than to annihilate, to invest in a world where our children inherit hope rather than the wreckage of unnecessary wars.

We chose strength—not the false strength of perpetual warfare, not the fleeting power of occupation and intervention, but the true strength that comes from a nation that stands tall because its people stand tall. Strength that is rooted in an economy that flourishes because it is driven by invention, not invasion; by progress, not plunder. Strength that comes from a society where no child goes hungry because we spent our wealth feeding our own instead of funding foreign conflicts. Strength that comes from a nation whose workers thrive, whose families prosper, whose dreams are not deferred by the empty promises of endless militarization. Strength that is measured not in body counts and military budgets, but in educated citizens, in healthy communities, in the kind of power that cannot be bombed into submission because it is built from within.

We chose to break the chains of the military-industrial complex, to reclaim our resources, to reject the notion that war is our fate, that conflict is our destiny, that our economy must be sustained by endless bloodshed. We chose to stand against the forces that would sell our national soul for another round of contracts, another decade of war, another generation of soldiers sent to fight battles waged not for freedom, but for profit. We declared, with absolute conviction, that the wealth of our people belongs to those who labor, to those who build, to those who dream, not to the cowards who sit in boardrooms and grow fat off the wars they will never fight.

And in doing so, we secured not only our security, but our future. We redefined what it means to be powerful. We reclaimed what it means to be just. We reshaped the arc of history so that America could once again stand as a beacon—not of military dominance, not of conquest and control, but of ingenuity, of hope, of an economy that thrives because it invests in the strength of its own people, not in the weapons that destroy others. And when the world looked back upon this moment, let them say: here, in this time, the war machine was broken. Here, in this time, the people reclaimed their wealth, their dignity, their future. Here, in this time, America rose—not as an empire of war, but as a nation of builders. And we never looked back.

Let it be known that the generations that followed did not inherit a nation enslaved to the defense contractors, did not grow up in the shadows of war that was waged not for liberty but for corporate dividends. Let it be known that when we rose to reclaim our economy, to reassert our values, to invest in our people, we built a new foundation of prosperity that could not be shaken by the profiteers of destruction. We built industries that did not manufacture death but created life, that did not enrich the few at the expense of the many, but lifted all people toward a future not marred by conflict, but illuminated by possibility. We built cities where infrastructure was modern, where public services were strong, where health and education were treated as national priorities rather than afterthoughts.

We did not simply dismantle the war machine—we replaced it with something greater. We built a future where strength was measured in knowledge, where leadership was defined by wisdom, where influence was earned not through intimidation, but through the undeniable power of a people who had risen above the siren song of endless war. And when the world looked back upon this moment, let them say: here, in this time, America was reborn. Here, in this time, the people seized their destiny, broke free from the chains of militarism, and chose not to rule through war, but to lead through the boundless power of peace and progress.