THE WAR MACHINE: A book review

Wars are woven into the fabric of human history. Most people are aware that national security has always been a fundamental preoccupation of almost every government. What they’re not aware of is the extent to which wars are engineered by an elite minority of the population to enrich themselves or gain and maintain power.

The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home by William D. Hartung and Ben Freeman (of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft) is a timely, unflinching analysis of the military-industrial complex that U.S. President Eisenhower warned us about—only now it’s grown to monstrous, trillion-dollar proportions.

As someone who, from its inception, has supported the Quincy Institute (a rare outfit in Washington that actually dares to question sacred cows), I was reasonably familiar with the book’s subject matter. Still, the information it contains shocked me at times. With reams of evidence, historical sweep, and a healthy dose of outrage, the authors show how the military-industrial complex (MIC) doesn’t just waste money—it distorts policy, corrupts democracy, and sets the stage for decline. And it does this with the blessing, if not the urging, of our elected politicians.

When the military hammer is the biggest tool in the box, every problem starts looking like a nail. That old proverb has never been more dangerously true than in today’s Washington. Hartung and Freeman lay it out chapter by chapter: how a permanent war economy, sold as security, actually makes us less safe. Its primary goal, they argue, is enriching a narrow elite at the expense of everyone else. 

The book is part economic analysis, part cultural indictment, and part call to action. It deals in the kind of clear-eyed realism that anyone who has read a bit of history will appreciate. The authors waste no time exposing the pattern, the same old racket—hype, waste, and regret.

The U.S. now spends nearly a trillion dollars annually on its military—over half of federal discretionary spending. That’s more than the next eight largest military powers combined. This isn’t prudent defense; it’s a recipe for endless conflict. 

Lockheed Martin’s F-35 joint strike fighter stands as a grotesque monument to the system’s failures. The F-35, a flying Swiss Army knife no one asked for, was supposed to be the future. Instead, it’s become the poster child for runaway costs. Delays turned from years into decades, software glitches abounded, and the aircraft still struggles with basic reliability. Originally pegged at around $35 million per plane, the cost ballooned and the total program lifecycle cost is now projected at well over $2 trillion. 

The Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) The LCS—the “Little Crappy Ship” in navy circles—has fared even worse. Conceived as a cheap, flexible littoral platform, it ballooned in cost (each ship over $500 million), suffered catastrophic mechanical failures, and proved so fragile and under-armed that the Navy is retiring them early. Billions down the drain for ships that, even though they can’t fight in high-threat environments, continue to receive funding.

This waste isn’t accidental. It’s structural. Hartung and Freeman meticulously trace the “Iron Triangle”—the Pentagon, defence contractors, and Congress—lubricated by lobbying (hundreds of lobbyists, many dual-registered as foreign agents), the revolving door (generals and officials cashing in at defense firms), think tanks funded by the very interests they analyze, and university research grants that turn academia into an adjunct of the arsenal.

Hollywood, meanwhile, produces recruitment propaganda disguised as entertainment. Top Gun (1986), Pearl Harbour (2001), and Top Gun: Maverick (2022) are quintessential examples: high-octane action with dazzling sequences, cocky heroes, and romanticized military life. Top Gun had extensive Pentagon cooperation (access to jets and bases), great for boosting awareness and recruitment interest. The narrative was simple: we are the white hats, and ourenemies are evil. 

In truth, of course, war is hell, and it’s never as simple as good versus evil. But glorifying war and portraying America as the world’s good cop helps keep the war machine running smoothly.

The media amplifies the threat. Noam Chomsky described mass media’s role in manufacturing consent, shaping public opinion to support the interests of powerful elites (government, corporations, and dominant private interests). They achieve this through structural corporate “filters” that process news (hello CBS and 60 Minutes), marginalizing dissent under the guise of independent journalism.

The MIC makes sure that no politician dares strangle the golden goose. A compliant political class ensures that the defense budget remains untouchable. White elephants like the F 35 and the LCS keep getting funded because the jobs they are said to create are spread across multiple congressional districts like fairy dust, ensuring bipartisan support.

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Military adventurism has been the graveyard of great powers for millennia. From the Habsburgs to the Ottomans to late-stage Britain, overextension and debt-fueled militarism have undermined fiscal strength. Niall Ferguson’s Law is worth recalling here: when interest payments on the national debt surpass military spending, great powers start ceasing to be great. 

The U.S. crossed that threshold in 2024. It’s now paying more to service yesterday’s borrowing than to defend against tomorrow’s threats. The irony: the empire that spends like there’s no tomorrow may find there isn’t one.

Look no further than the war with Iran which, despite Trump’s proclamations, may or may not really be over, and which both sides claim to have won. It accomplished nothing that Obama hadn’t achieved with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015, and that Trump threw out.

Since the war began, the US has spent at least $30 billion in direct costs and, since October 7, provided Israel with some $20 billion in military aid. Weapons get expended and replaced. Contractors thrive. Meanwhile, taxpayers foot the bill through higher debt, inflation, and neglected domestic needs. 

In other words, the Iran War fits the pattern perfectly. An unnecessary war with uncertain objectives that burns through untold billions and nobody wins—except the Military Industrial Complex. Endless engagements justify endless budgets. Who’s next?

Brown University’s Costs of War project (Watson Institute) pegs the total budgetary costs of post-9/11 U.S. wars (primarily Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Syria, and related operations) at about $8 trillion through FY2022 (with ongoing obligations through the mid-2020s). Again, that’s money that could have gone to education, healthcare, infrastructure, clean energy.

The $3.4 trillion the U.S. has spent countering China militarily since 2012 (according to another Costs of War paper) could have gone to debt reduction or funded decades of universal free college. Instead, it funds perpetual-motion war machines.

Now the “no more wars” president is pushing for a $1.5 trillion defense budget, a whopping $500 billion increase to the current budget. Ignore what politicians say on the campaign trail. Once in office, they all seem to succumb to the gravitational pull of the MIC. The machine doesn’t care about party labels; to them, government is a uniparty.

The book shines when it unmasks the cultural part of the machinery. Think tanks churn out threat assessments meant to justify more spending. Silicon Valley “disruptors” peddle AI-driven autonomous weapons that promise efficiency but risk escalation. Universities take Pentagon dollars and produce research that aligns with procurement pipelines. The propaganda is subtle, pervasive, and effective. 

As the authors note, this isn’t conspiracy so much as convergent incentives. Everyone gets a piece of the action—except the taxpayer, of course, and the Tom Cruise wannabe who comes home with PTSD and a prosthetic limb.

What solutions do Hartung and Freeman recommend? They’re refreshingly practical rather than utopian. They urge campaign finance reform to reduce the influence of defense money. Greater transparency and real oversight of Pentagon accounting (still famously unauditable—the Pentagon has failed its annual financial audit for eight consecutive years). 

They urge foreign policy that’s less reliant on military force, prioritizing diplomacy, alliances, and restrain. A strengthening of the peace movement and public scrutiny. And a redirection of resources toward genuine security needs rather than endless modernization of platforms that underperform. They advocate shrinking the war machine and restoring congressional war powers. 

In the end, The Trillion Dollar War Machine is a sobering reminder that empires don’t fall because they run out of enemies—they fall because they run out of money and wisdom. We’ve seen this movie dozens of times through history. The difference today is that the downside isn’t just lost investor dollars—it’s needless death and suffering and the growing risk of national insolvency.

Hartung and Freeman have done us a service. Whether Washington listens is another matter—not likely in an administration seeking to increase the defence budget by 50 percent, and with a Secretary of Defence who decides he’s really the Secretary of War. 

Putting the public interest ahead of defense contractors will only happen if voters inform themselves and demand change. That’s not easy when the media is being turned into a propaganda machine and bots outnumber humans on the internet. We need a return to factual information, critical thinking, and big-picture understanding. The Trillion Dollar War Machine is a great place to start.