Melvin A. Goodman: What Eisenhower Could Teach Obama
[Melvin A. Goodman, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy and adjunct professor of government at Johns Hopkins University, spent 42 years with the CIA, the National War College, and the U.S. Army. His latest book is Failure of Intelligence: The Decline and Fall of the CIA.]
Fifty years ago, President Dwight D. Eisenhower told his senior advisers in the Oval Office of the White House, “God help this country when someone sits in this chair who doesn’t know the military as well as I do.” Several months later, he issued his famous warning about the military-industrial complex.
Now the United States finds itself in a cul-de-sac, with no way out of increased military deployments and expenditures, and no evidence that President Obama has a firm hand on the national security tiller.
A central problem for the nation is the increased power and influence of the Pentagon over the foreign and national security policies of the United States.
No president since Eisenhower has fully understood the Pentagon’s dominant position in military and security policy. Armed with his knowledge and experience as World War II’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Eisenhower made sure that he could not be outmaneuvered by his military advisers, particularly on such key issues as the Vietnam War and tensions with the Soviet Union.
Now President Obama has found himself in a position where the military wields far too much influence on Capitol Hill; controls too much of the depleted U.S. Treasury; and has the leading policy voice on both security and diplomatic issues.
Obama proclaims Reinhold Niebuhr as his favorite philosopher. But he would do well to take heed of the philosophy and advice of Eisenhower, who had a far better understanding of America’s infatuation with military power....
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Fifty years ago, President Dwight D. Eisenhower told his senior advisers in the Oval Office of the White House, “God help this country when someone sits in this chair who doesn’t know the military as well as I do.” Several months later, he issued his famous warning about the military-industrial complex.
Now the United States finds itself in a cul-de-sac, with no way out of increased military deployments and expenditures, and no evidence that President Obama has a firm hand on the national security tiller.
A central problem for the nation is the increased power and influence of the Pentagon over the foreign and national security policies of the United States.
No president since Eisenhower has fully understood the Pentagon’s dominant position in military and security policy. Armed with his knowledge and experience as World War II’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Eisenhower made sure that he could not be outmaneuvered by his military advisers, particularly on such key issues as the Vietnam War and tensions with the Soviet Union.
Now President Obama has found himself in a position where the military wields far too much influence on Capitol Hill; controls too much of the depleted U.S. Treasury; and has the leading policy voice on both security and diplomatic issues.
Obama proclaims Reinhold Niebuhr as his favorite philosopher. But he would do well to take heed of the philosophy and advice of Eisenhower, who had a far better understanding of America’s infatuation with military power....