Following a disastrous four years of Trump’s “America First” policy, President-elect Biden’s pledge to restore American power and prestige in the world offers a sense of comfort and relief to many.
With a price-tag of more than $1.2 trillion dollars, there’s intense debate about plans to overhaul U.S. nuclear forces. What many don’t realize is that there’s considerable money within this debate, and it’s coming from the very companies that will make billions if the United States upgrades its nuclear forces.
A progressive international agenda needs to begin with a frank assessment of the present strategic culture and connect domestic and global progressive priorities. Global threats such as climate change and nuclear weapons have not been prioritized, while national treasure is squandered in endless wars.
“Well, we like war. We’re a war-like people,” the comedian George Carlin, whom I’ve been missing of late, pronounced way back in 1992, on the heels of America’s triumphalist First Persian Gulf War “victory.”
As President Obama left office in 2016, he warned the incoming President Trump that North Korea would be “the most urgent problem” that he would face. That problem remains today, and in many ways has worsened.
