The United States Tops the Charts in a Certain Industry, But It’s Not Clean Energy

Here’s a picture I took yesterday of a decommissioned fighter helicopter at a display of old vehicles of various types.  This particular unit was deployed in Vietnam from 1965 through 1968.

One of the veterans responsible for answering questions from the crowd explained that, since the close of World War II, the United States has been involved in over 50 armed conflicts around the world.  Though he didn’t seem to be offering a judgment about that, I have to think most of the audience shared the same feelings I had: wow, we certainly are a warlike nation.   

As depicted in the chart above, at $640 billion annually, our military is by far the largest on Earth, more that the next eight countries combined. Sadly, we’ve chosen to ignore the warning President Eisenhower gave us when he left office in 1961:

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.

We’re struggling to achieve a place of relevance in the migration to clean energy.  But what we lack there, we more than make up for in the industry of death and destruction.  My advice to the American people: let’s do what we can to make a trade there.