Ep. 5224 – Andrew Bacevich: Judgement Day for the National Security State – 3/27/2020

Scott talks to Andrew Bacevich about the ways U.S. military spending over the last few decades has indebted our country and will continue to impoverish future generations. The mistakes go back to America’s squandering of its Cold War peace dividend in the early 1990s, drastically expanding its empire in Europe and Asia instead of shrinking the military and focusing on prosperity at home. This problem escalated under Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama with more spending, more wars in more countries, and more dead American soldiers. All of this has cost the American people trillions of dollars and is likely to lead to worse problems than the ones we initially tried to solve. Bacevich hopes that a crisis like coronavirus, which exposes the fragility of our economy and our society, might finally force people to recognize how untenable the entire empire project is.

Andrew Bacevich is a Professor Emeritus of International Relations and History at Boston University. He is the author of a number of books including America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History and The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory. He is a regular contributor at The American Conservative and TomDispatch.com.

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