Necessary Facts: U.S. Military Goes Back to the Future

Thursday, July 16, 2026

U.S. Military Goes Back to the Future

President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned of the military-industrial complex. (Farewell Address - https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/president-dwight-d-eisenhowers-farewell-address ) In Power & Market Murray N. Rothbard showed the consequences of using political processes for market goals (https://mises.org/library/book/power-and-market-government-and-economy): anything you do that is not "economical" must be an economic loss. Economic calculations derive from the relationship between time and money. Therefore, political choices necessarily result in temporal losses. Whereas businesses plan for the future, governments live in the past.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/07/us-seeks-cheaper-hunter-killer-drones-after-iran-destroys-1b-worth-of-reapers/

https://arstechnica.com/ai/2026/07/us-military-sent-explosive-drone-boats-into-combat-for-the-first-time/

As a consequence of entropy, merging the military with corporate industries did not jump the military to a higher quantum state of better actions from better decision-making. Instead, the corporations became more averse to change and less invested in disruptions from entrepreneurs and "intrapreneurs".

Jane Jacobs differentiated the guardian mode from the commercial (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_of_Survival) by contrasting 15 behaviors in each. Some of those are approximately analogous and others are obvious opposites.

Jacobs herself was a "democratic socialist" and she emigrated to Canada because Pres. Richard Nixon was elected. Therefore, it is significant that she recognized the Guardian Syndrome as a standard for socialist nations. She meant that normatively, not positively: statistically, not ethically. In other words, Jacobs described what she discovered, not what she sought.

"What comes out of a team or a committee is the most daring idea that the least daring man can accept." John Arnold. "Space, Time and Education," Astounding Science Fiction, May 1953, pp. 9–25. Introductory remarks by John W. Campbell, Jr., editor, pp. 9–10.

https://www.cleveland.com/insideout/2012/12/bob_gesking_makes_remote-contr.html

Bob Gesking makes remote-controlled model boats: Home Hobbyist (gallery)

Updated: Dec. 13, 2012, 2:49 p.m.
Published: Dec. 13, 2012, 1:49 p.m.

Communities of hobbyists have been building radio-controlled vehicles for the air, land, and water since the early 1950s. Brothers Walter and William Good built and flew their Big Guff in 1938. The idea of a radio controlled aeroplane was tested by the UK military during World War I.

As political entropy decreases the energies of enterprise, the military becomes ever less advanced. And, generally and broadly considered, that is a good thing. However, that only reflects the more basic truth that we are all getting poorer because of political decisions being made in market contexts and markets being subsumed by political operations.

The best society separates power and market for the same reasons that it separates church and state.

"The influential head of Google, Eric Schmidt, has called for civilian drone technology to be regulated, warning about privacy and security concerns. Cheap miniature versions of the unmanned aircraft used by militaries could fall into the wrong hands, he told the UK's Guardian newspaper. Quarrelling neighbours, he suggested, might end up buzzing each other with private surveillance drones. He also warned of the risk of terrorists using the new technology. Mr Schmidt is believed to have close relations with US President Barack Obama, whom he advises on matters of science and technology.” -- BBC Technology News here Touted on Slashdot here