It took the Ukraine war to show how broken the U.S. war machine really is. President Eisenhower warned about the military-industrial complex in 1961 and we know that it is ten times as worse as he even imagined. But after almost two years of war in Ukraine and tens of billions of American weapons transfers, we now know how limited -- if not dysfunctional -- the MIC really is. Yale scholar and lecturer Michael Brenes joins us to discuss how this happened historically, and what Washington might do to claw the industry back from the five mega-corporations that now dominate and control U.S. defense manufacturing and supply.
In the first segment, Kelley and Dan talk about the latest events in Gaza and Israel and bemoan the exploitation of the conflict by outside warmongers who want to drag the U.S. into a wider conflict with Iran.
More from Michael Brenes:
How America Broke its War Machine, Foreign Affairs, 7/3/23
The future of restraint after Ukraine, Foreign Exchanges, 12/19/22
Great-Power Competition Is Bad for Democracy, with Van Jackson, 7/14/22
Mike Brenes on the broken defense industry: you can't get ammo from a stone