Angry Planet - Can an Apolitical Military Survive Democracy's Crisis?

Episode Date: June 25, 2021

So far, in the political battles at the heart of our democracy, they have been AWOL. Just as they should be.The military is an expressly non-political institution, even if they do report to an elected commander-in-chief.But with political divisions deepening, could that change?Eliott Ackerman took on just that issue in a recent column for the New York Times. Ackerman is a combat veteran, journalist and author. And he’s here to talk to us today.Ackermans’ article is here:https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/14/opinion/contested-elections-military.htmlAngry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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freedom has never state-guarded people. Anyone who is depriving you of freedom isn't deserving of a peaceful approach. Hello and welcome to Angry Planet. I'm Jason Fields. And I'm Matthew Galt.

Which side is the military on anyway? And the political battles at the heart of our democracy, they've been AWOL, just as they should be. The military is an expressly non-political institution, even if they do report to an elected commander-in-chief. But with political divisions deepening, could that change?

Elliot Ackerman took on just that issue in a recent column for the New York Times. Ackerman is a combat veteran, journalist, and author, and he's here to talk to us today. And his newest book is 2034. All right. So thanks for joining us. And can you start by giving us the thrust of your piece in the Times? Sure. Thanks for having me on. Yes. The piece I wrote in the Times, I think, is just evidences what I think is becoming obvious, which is that we're entering into a cycle of contested elections. I don't say that as a partisan. But listen, 2016 was not what I think we would call a smooth election with a smooth transition in which everyone in the country felt great about the outcome. And I would say in 2020, we saw that taken up yet another notch. And that as the as partisanship in this country, just becomes more and more intense, it would seem to be that we're going to see more and more of these elections where the losing side doesn't just walk away from the table and can see

that they lost, that they put together a narrative, that there are shenanigans around, whether it's the result of the election or questions as to whether or not the president is him or herself legitimate. So I think as citizens, we often experience that as what does that I mean, for us, it means the media we consume becomes ever more shrill. It means it's tougher to have political conversations around the dinner table. But I think what often gets lost in the mix is that the president of the United States, that person fulfills a very different role if you wear the uniform. So when you're in uniform, that person is not just the elected leader of the country.

That person is also the senior military officer in the United States, in so much as they sit at the top of a chain of command. And all orders derived from the president. So if we're entering these cycles where our political leaders on either side or questioning the legitimacy of the president, what they are in effect beginning to do is call into question the legitimacy of the chain of command that the military answers to. And that's very dangerous. And in many other countries, that has occurred. And that is a moment where you start to see the military getting engaged in politics because the lines of command are no longer clear. And so just in the piece, I wanted to just flag that whether it's January 6th, whether it's

Russiagate, these things have a little bit of a different resonance if you look at them through the lens of military. My first two questions would be you're a veteran yourself. Yeah. Obviously. What were the nature, what was the nature of political conversations like when you were serving? Or did they happen at all? I was, so I was on active being in the Marine Corps between 2003.

and 2009, pretty, pretty non-existent. We don't, and I, and I think still to this day, there's not a lot of talk about politics in the ranks. And I think that's consciously done because it doesn't matter. It's not material. In the piece, I opened with an anecdote, which was when I was in college and getting ready to go into the military, I did ROTC there. There was a lieutenant colonel who was like a visiting fellow on campus. He was great. Legacy Marine Corps officer.

I think he was a third generation, his family to serve in the Marine Corps. And on election day, one day I said, oh, like casual, did you vote? And he said, he's like, oh, no, I don't vote. Is that like, as though he was saying, I don't smoke. And that was the first time I'd ever come across an officer who doesn't vote. Now, granted, I think you should vote if you're in uniform. And I, and the vast majority of people in uniform do vote, at least that I've come across. But I have bumped into a few people like, yeah, I don't vote. I don't really feel comfortable voicing my opinion on who the commander in chief is. Because for me, it's not the president. It's the commander in chief. So we all saw, we've always saw, we've always,

seen those signs like not my president. That has a different resonance when you're a civilian. When you're in the military to say not my president has a very, has very different, different meaning. And I've also, since leaving the Marine Corps, I've covered conflicts in the Middle East. And so I've also seen the relationship that other countries have with their military and what happens when it becomes quite disfung. What are the flags that you're seeing now within the military itself? Obviously, there's a lot of red flags flying in the political realm. and even in the civilian realm. But what are you seeing in the military itself that's giving you pause

and making this a concern for you? Yeah. Let me zoom out for a little bit because I think that's where my concern starts is I'm just watching America. Listen, if we look back over the long arch of history when you have Republican forms of government,

democracies that have very large standing military, that are professional. And you couple those large standing professional militaries with democracies that become very dysfunctional in their internal dynamics. That has never ended well throughout the course of history. So if we look at the dynamic that exists in the United States today, we have really, for the first time in our nation's history, since the 1970s, for the first time in nation's history, we have a very large standing military that's all volunteer.

Like we've never done that before. That's actually a really a relatively new thing in the history of our country. And frankly, it's something the founding father is warned against. But that's what we have. And really, in the last five, 10 years, the dysfunction in this country domestically in our politics has gone like right off the cliff. And you superimpose on top of all of that. Obviously, we have the Afghan withdrawal that's going on right now. But you've got 20 years of war.

So not only you have this longstanding, large standing military, but you also have a large standing military that kind of is increasingly, isolated and a subcast of America. It's like a subculture. So if you go back to like Roman times, one of the things that did the Romans in was they outsourced the legions. So there were no, towards the end of the Roman Empire, there were no Romans in the legions. The legionnaires were all French, Spanish, the people who were born and raised in a different culture. And so we're not doing that today geographically, but we are doing culturally. Like the military culture is increasingly divided. So when I look at all of that and I look at just what's happened in this country in the last year, frankly, it gives me pause. And sometimes I'm surprised that it's not

giving more people pause because it's not as though like I'm looking in the military and I'm hearing conversations among former comrades of mine that are like really concerning and they're all getting radicalized. It's more just that every single facet of American life we've seen has become politicized. So everything it's, is that on the left or is that on the right? Is that on the left or is that on the right? Every decision. Are you going to wear a mask? or you're not going to wear a mask? That's suddenly a political decision. It seems so odd that everything has become politicized.

The one place where you haven't seen that quite yet is in the military. But when it happens, it would be disastrous. I mean, there are many different ways I can imagine that happening. But like, those are the forces we're playing with it, and it scares me. Well, it's interesting. You mentioned Rome, right? And in that case, you had dysfunction at home. Let's say when you go back to Julia Caesar is just the example.

You have dysfunction at home, a military commander who feels that he's being wronged at home and who's a very dynamic and charismatic official. I'm just wondering, do you, is there any element of the military? Are there any officers in the military? And I don't mean by name. You don't have to call anybody out. But is the U.S. military susceptible to charismatic leaders in that way? Well, like, let me give you, this is the one that kept running through my head and the leader to the election this year. None of this happened, but it was like the perfect storm that I was like, God, if this ever happens, it would be horrible.

So let's say, for instance, let's say Trump had won, right? So let's say Trump had won the election. And we're sitting here now, and it's the days, weeks after the elections. I think it's safe to say if Trump had won the election that it was going to be close enough that the left probably would have said, hey, there were some shenanigans. We need to look at this. I don't think it would have just been, oh, he won. We'll get him next time. There would have, something would have happened.

And I also think people would have probably come out in the streets. So let's just say Trump's won the election. People are out in the streets. And we literally just have a repeat of what happened in Lafayette Square in June, like the exact same conditions. So now Trump's in the White House. I would think at that point you would probably have significant political leaders on the left saying he didn't win.

We have to look at this. He's not legitimate. And just questioning his legitimacy, he would have on the ground political violence or protest, even if it's not violent, just people on the ground. So you have an exact repeat of what happened in Lafayette Square, at which point, let's say Trump does what Tom Cotton was asking him to do and calls in the 80-second airborne. It's got an out of hand. These people need to be cleared out. And let's say you've got all this noise now on the left and the right and you've got maybe Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi saying these people have to be able to protest and he's not the president. And this order isn't even a lawful order anymore because he's not a legitimate president. And all it takes is like one. One lieutenant colonel to sit there and say, you know what, I've been told to gas all these protesters, and the person ordered me to do it isn't even legitimate. I'm not doing this. Now only I'm not going to do this, you all have a right to peacefully protest, and I will secure your right to peacefully protest.

So protesters, I'm here. Where do you want my tanks to set up so you can peacefully protest? And that's it. And at that point, and I'm not saying one side is right at the other, but that's when you've crossed the Rubicon because you've had you then have a breakdown in the chain of command. And by the way, I don't say that. I'm not, again, I'm really not trying to say this as a partisan. I'll flip it. Let's say in 24, Joe Biden's in the White House and he wins and you have a repeat of January 6th, but in front of the White House. And some military hours says, I'm not going to, I'm not going to clear out all these right-wing protesters. So it's again, those are the forces that we're playing with right now as we roll from contested election and to contested election. And all it takes is a very unfortunate,

for something like that to occur. And I'll just finish. And let me just finish with this one point. No, I left the Marine, you know, I work as a journalist. I went to cover the war in Syria and the Arab Spring Wars. And in Syria, the thing that really took that from a protest movement to really a full-blown civil war was when there was a schism in the military. And when Assad was kind of clearing out these protesters, being violent with the protesters,

and it built and it built. And then finally, Sunni elements in the Syria military said, we're not doing this anymore. And not only are we not doing this anymore. we're going to join the protesters. And when people in the military defect, you know, they take their tanks and their artillery pieces and their jets with them. And that's how you go from a bunch of yokels with assault rifles to a real conflict. Do I think that's going to happen tomorrow? No, I'd say the odds are against it.

But I think the fact that we're even dabbling in this space is terrifying. I'll throw a newspeg in here to make it a little bit more, even more substantial for the audience. It's the brother of Michael Flynn, General Charles Flynn, has taken over the reigns of the U.S. Army in the Pacific. His character from all accounts is above reproach, but this is coming up in congressional testimony. People are talking about this in hearings. They do want to know, is this guy, does he have the same beliefs as his brother? Is he loyal to America? I have friends that are reporters in Hawaii that are getting these questions daily from their readers.

So it's not something, we've been doing a lot of speculating in the last five, ten minutes, but it is stuff that's rooted in reality. And we're having these conversations right now. The people that are even paying attention to the military are having these conversations right now, which, as you alluded to, is I think a big part of how we've gotten here. I think one of the unfortunate legacies, almost all the legacies are unfortunate, of the global war on terror in Afghanistan in particular, is that the military got segmented from the rest of the populace, right? The Polis does not understand its military. I think for a long time,

they were incredibly supportive of them without criticism. And I feel like even that is starting to fall away now. I mean, people are just not paying attention at all. How do you think we got to the place where we're completely divorced from a war that we fought for 20 years? And we're not really, like, I pay attention to it, but most of the people I know have no idea what's going on in Afghanistan. Some of them would probably think that, I know that some of them think that we left 10 years. And I'll give you a statistic in 2018 before those elections. I know it was a while ago, but I just have this in the back of my mind, 44% of Americans in 2018 couldn't even tell you if we were still fighting the war in Afghanistan. But listen, I think we made a little bit of a Faustian bargain. And what I mean by that,

if you look at America's wars, every war that America has fought in has come with a construct. And what I mean by that is you need a construct in terms of blood and treasure. So for instance, like the American Civil War, that saw the first ever draft in the United States was during the American Civil War. So that's how you got your blood. The first ever income tax was also used to fund the U.S. Civil War. We go to the Second World War, right? You had also another national draft and total national mobilization throughout our industry. And you had war taxes and war bonds.

In the Vietnam War, I'd say, was characterized by a very unpopular draft, which ultimately is what ended that war, or contributed to the anti-war movement that got us out of Vietnam. If you look after September 11th, we went to war, and our political leaders at the time knew they needed to create a construct to sustain this war. And I think learning from those lessons, it was how are we going to do this?

We're going to use our all-volunteer military, and we're going to fund it through deficit spending, meaning there won't be any war tax. Actually, the last balanced budget that the United States passed was in 2001. That's not a coincidence. So because of an all volunteer military and financing the wars through deficit spending, the American people, not because they're bad or morally wrong, but have we been anesthetized to these wars? And so because nobody's feeling it, is it any surprise that the war goes on for two decades? And what's worse is it creates a very dysfunctional relationship with war.

Like I think most people think, oh, war. And that's that thing that goes on over there that I'm not involved in, oh, China, sure, that's a war. I know a war is it doesn't really affect me. So it lumps all worse together. But, you know, I mean, to your point, Matt, it also, you wind up with a polis that is existing in real moral hazard where it's military. Listen, I'm not the first one to say. If you're in the military, from your point of view, oftentimes it's America's been at the mall and I've been fighting World War II for 20 years. And that's just it's not healthy. It is absolutely not healthy. But that's where we are. It's also, there's a flip side, which is that the military has, it's divorced, but it's also lionized. And we have this idea that it, you said in your article,

it's maybe the highest regarded institution in the U.S. government. Is that what you said? It scores like amongst the top three perennially Gallup does institutions that have the most confidence the American people. And the military is always top three. So people have no idea what the military is, but they know it's great. And we're constantly thanking people for their service in the most empty way possible. that too has got to be incredibly isolating for the military. But what does it do to your ego? How does it make someone actually feel?

Idea of deference is what is most concerning. And I think that it actually, actually, interestingly enough, feeds a little bit into this sort of cultural moment we've arrived at where everyone kind of exists within some type of identity epistemology. And we all have our kind of identities. And if you're a very very cultural moment, we've arrived at, where everyone kind of exists within some type of identity epistemology. And we all have our kind of identities. And if you're a veteran like that's an identity and in any conversation it's like rock paper identity and then you're allowed to make your point and in certain conversations i've long known particularly i was in the military if i wanted to talk about iraq or afghanistan i could shut down conversation based off my veteran identity it doesn't certainly work in other types of conversations but that conversation works well and i only brand that up because existing in a society where you give the critical issues of war and peace, the people who have jurisdiction to speak with authority over those issues are this one sort of substrata of your society. Again, it's not healthy. Like that dynamic, if we were sitting in

America and I'd say 1954, probably, you know, didn't really exist because everybody had served in uniform and frankly, people would call you on your shit and be like, yeah, I was there too. I don't care that you were. I don't have to thank you for your service. I did two years on the steamship. And that is a much, it's a much better way to be. But again, we've arrived to that point. You see that difference. I think one of the ways you've seen it manifest is that it's also, it is a political currency. So you see in 2016, really for the first time at the national conventions at the Democratic and Republican national conventions, you see very prominent speaking roles, one being given to General Allen from the Marine Corps. Officer I respect. He's an amazing officer I served under him. He's great.

He's retired. He was retired and was given a speaking role at the DNC. And then you have Michael Flynn, who is given a problem speaking role at the RNC. And listen, I would also just add one point. I'm not trying to advocate that if you're retired from the military, that you have absolutely no role in American public life or political life. Listen, Eisenhower was a president. Our first president, George Washington was a general. So this is certainly in our DNA.

But having those retired generals as political figures in a context where like everyone is served and we either have a very small military like we did at the beginning of our nation's founding, or we have a draft that everyone's service. It's much healthier than what you have now, are you have these political figures, and there's a very large, very separate, all-volunteer military. Again, I just feel like we're playing with very dark forces. Okay, I have a question that just popped into my head, and maybe it's a terrible question, but I figure I'll ask it.

Does it make a difference if the commander-in-chief not only has they not served in war, but we also, we could very possibly have a woman as commander-in-chief very soon. Do you think that affects the dynamic at all? Yeah, I think it's interesting. I think that there is, I think, listen, I think it depends on the person, but it gets into this idea, and I love that question, of deference again. So it's how is the commander-in-chief going to react to its military members? Listen, you look at a guy like Kennedy,

and Kennedy had served in the Navy with distinction in World War. too. But if you read about his administration, there were many times where he was bumping up against his military or felt as though he had to burnish his hawkish bona fides around the Cold War. And he navigated some of those, like during the Cuban crisis, he navigated that very well and was able to de-escalate. And other times like with Vietnam, I think he felt very beholden of not wanting to be perceived as a dove. That's Kennedy. I think we can go fast forward to Trump. I, and I'm not alone saying this, I found it kind of odd and a little distasteful how he was always wanted to be surrounding himself with these retired generals. I think with Trump's personality wasn't that he, I think he just thought

like, oh, these guys are tough guys and I'm a tough guy too, so we're all going to hang out like tough guys. I don't think it was that. I don't think it was quite as politically sophisticated. But I was just remarked, I think it really depends on the personality of the individual in charge. Listen, I could certainly imagine a very strong female president who's, I'm not playing this game. I don't care that I didn't serve in the military. I've got a vision. And I think of the one thing that ultimately military members know how to do is to follow the chain of command because it's ingrained in you for such a long time. But again, I think it really depends on the person. Yeah, and you have Tammy Duckworth, for example, who I don't think you can really doubt her

bone a few days if you use your term. Yeah, but you also had Jim Webb who didn't really move the needle at all. So I think it feels like it's about, I think this is more so now that it was even just 10 years ago, from the political side of things, it feels like it's the personalities that are politically expedient for them to use, Trump's surrounding himself with the generals. Something I worry about is the Pentagon is this large machine that is going to operate, if you are president, is going to operate independent of you in a lot of ways and will be there after you are gone. I think that there's so many different moving pieces and it's so connected to so many different parts of the American economy now, that it could be hard to stand up to that kind of thing.

But now we're getting into a whole different tangent, bringing everything into a different direction. My apologies. Well, talking about your book, the new book, you're actually looking into the future. And that's what we've been talking about the whole time. How do you deal with politics in your book? It's set in 2034. That's a couple of elections from now. So how do you deal with it?

Yeah, it's a really interesting question. You're dealing with it on two levels. Obviously, you're dealing with a little bit with, like, the predictive elements of how are we, what are we going to think, what do we think the world will look like in 2034? And then it's a novel. I'm a novelist. You also got to do it in a way so it feels real and it reads well and services the story. To speak to the latter for a moment, I think one of the things that's true was actually tricky

in the book imagines this war with China. And so you're going to have scenes that are taking place in the White House. and I knew that if you have a scene with the president sucks up all the oxygen in the room. And the book is very much focused on characters where one or two tears down from there. So how am I going to deal with this president? So a lot of what the president's only on stage once. And then you're also like, okay, if I make the president a Democrat, it's going to take the story in one direction, give the book one feel.

And if I make the president a Republican, it's going to take it in a different direction. And so there was that challenge baked into it. But so the president in the book is a woman, which I think is not remarkable. I'd be shocked if by 2034. We haven't had our first female president. But is a political independent. So she's run not through the Republican or the Democratic parties, which I think is plausible. And for the story, I think, you know, is interesting because I think one of the things that we have seen is the aggregation of power at the RNC and the DNC is not what it once was.

And the parties have become far more diffuse. A lot of that has to do with Citizens United. how campaigns are financed. I would actually argue that Donald Trump was not a Republican candidate. He was an independent candidate who hijacked the Republican Party and just used it for a ballot access line and all of that and did so successfully. So in the future, it's, yes, it's this sort of crazier politics and the two parties. The largest plurality of America today identifies political independence. So I don't think it's insane to think that by 2034, some politicians are going to say, you know what, I feel like the party label is more baggage, is more a hindrance than

to help and I'm going to run as an independent. So that's what the world looks like. Now, that actually doesn't sound crazy to me either when you think about we constantly poll. This is actually, I think, misleading. We poll Democrats and Republicans. And we say 85% of Republicans believe X or Y. And same with Democrats. Okay, but that's registered Republicans. We're talking about actually relatively small. It's not 40% anymore. I think it's down to 30% or even less. in the country. It's even smaller than that if you consider that a lot of these polling places, especially the older ones, are still doing just landlines and haven't all moved on to calling cell phones or reaching out to people in other ways. So yeah, I think any.

Yeah, I would just say party affiliation kind of hovers, Democrats hover in the low 30s now, and Republicans is about 25%. So think about that. The largest political block in the United States are independents. It's obvious they're not a monolith, but they're folks who, you know, decide not to identify. All right. In replendant. listeners, we're going to pause there for a break. We will be right back. All right, angry planet listeners, thank you for bearing with us. We are back. Now, can I ask you an ugly question? I have all sorts of different flavors of questions, but this one's ugly. Your experience, both inside the military and out of white supremacy, it's become, it's, the concern over it led Lloyd

Austin to do a standout. And it just sounds like that. It just sounds like that. like people are extremely worried about it? Should they be extremely worried? I think what they're worried about is, again, this politicization of the U.S. military. So, like, for instance, one of the things that was reported in this standout was that certain units were having military members, you know, after January 6th, they retake their oath of office. I politically, I self-identify as in the middle. I have never considered myself much of an idiot on any side. I'm probably the last guy to run out and join a protest. I'll watch it, but I won't participate.

But if some- A journalist. Yeah, like a journey, I'm a journalist. But when I heard that, I was like, man, I was like, if I were in uniform today and someone said to me, Elliot, you need to read, January 6th, 7, you need to retake your oath of office. I'd be like, screw you. No, I don't.

Like, what's the matter? My word's not good anymore. I gave you my oath to office and I've made good on my oath of office. And so that's like my personal reaction. And I can't imagine. that there aren't, not everybody, I'm sure there's a lot of people, be like, oh, yeah, no problem. I'll do it. It doesn't bother me a bit. But there are also other folks who are going to have their back's going to get up when they're asked to do that. And so the concern that I have is why are you

going to introduce that? It's, it's, again, you're forcing people into a binary when you don't need to force them into a binary. Listen, if I wanted to go around my like platoon or my special operations team when I was serving, like, hey, I want to sit down with each one of you. And I'm I want to know exactly where you sit. Every person I served with would have had a point of view. It's not like they had no political point of views, points of view. But don't ask. Why would you ask?

It's just you need to leave that stuff at the door. And so I think the concern you hear about this is, you know, what good do we get picking at this? Because I don't think it's going to reduce radicalism in the military. And anecdotally from friends of mine who are my peers who are still commanders. And what I hear from them is we're being forced to talk about all this stuff that I don't really think helps us at all. So anyway, so that's sort of my concern.

I will say anecdotally, it's going to be white supremacy in the military. I never, I served in pretty diverse units. Like, I never saw it. Like, we were too busy getting shot out to worry about weird racial, racial categorizations. Does that mean nothing ever happened and there was neary a racist remark uttered amongst Marines? No, of course not. But it was never like percolating up to the surface in any real meaningful way in any unit I ever served with. This is something I worry about with this.

The turning in of the white supremacist in the military into, and white supremacists in America in general, into the new boogeyman and using it as a method to extend Department of Homeland Security powers to do things within the country. And so it's interesting to get your perspective on it. I am also of another mind where I'm like, you read some of these stories and you hear about the people that get caught. And you're like, this is concerning.

But why can you expand on the idea that bringing this stuff up and talking about it can make it worse or just aggravates people? Does that question make sense? Because you empower people. You give them tons of airtime. It's like Donald Trump. Do you want to know how America could have avoided Donald Trump? We could have just stopped talking about him. I mean, like, it seems like maybe we finally kicked him off Facebook and like he's less relevant.

I think the way you, the way in 2000, early 2015 and then 2016, he got all this power was because he drove ratings and he became relevant because he was constantly in the conversation. He, that's how he got all of his power. And then he won and nobody thought he would win. And I listen, I share that concern. If you want to take these sort of really, I think went until relatively recent memory, like groups like the KKK, I don't think the KKK has been a meaningful force in American political life for a pretty long time. Where are you from? I've got family down, man. I lived in the South.

I'm saying meaningful. You know what I mean? Where people are like, well, who's the KKK? Really meaningful. As someone who lives in South Carolina, the KKK store got shut down just a few years ago, literally the store. They're meaningful, political. Let me just wait.

Do you think talking about the KKK every day on national news outlets is going to make them more or less of course in American politics? No. You're right. I just, but I think that we have to thread the needle between platforming people and having appropriate concern for small, but in some cases, determined groups of people that have radically different views of what the country should be and are in some small instances willing to use violence to get to that place. And I think a lot of it is just because of where I live and where I've always lived, I see it every day. And there's just, it's just different down here. It just feels like all of that stuff feels very different down here than it does in other parts of the country.

No, listen, I lived in the South for six years and had deep roots in Texas. But I continue to have the concern that when you empower the fringes on either side and you talk about them and talk about them. And like you said, you turn them into a boogeyman, you're giving them power that they otherwise would not have had. Is that, is it a binary where we either are covering them 24-7 and talking about them all the time or we're just letting them do their thing and pretending like they don't exist? No, but like anything, I think the truth and the solution resides somewhere in the middle. And listen, I don't think, I don't think that the narrative of American life, particularly over the last six years, has been, oh, more we talk about all the horrible people that exist in America, the better things get. I think it's been quite the opposite.

And I think we have plenty of proof for that. So why, as you say, are do we keep platforming these people? Yeah, it's fascinating because we also now no longer have a single media. any stretch. So one side can, not to completely break it down into just two sides, but one side gives some people on the other side may not. Or it often feels like the left hand side, let's say, needs to counter program as opposed to taking initiative, frankly. It feels like instead of a monoculture, we have two monocultures. I know that's a misnomer or a malapropism, but it feels like that way. Feels like two different universes with all sorts of bizarre. spinoffs underneath them.

Yeah, I agree. The thing, and to take it back to the military, the thing that concerns me is if you look at the, listen, if you look at the U.S. Civil War and you read contemporaneous accounts of the U.S. Civil War as in the months, in the immediate lead up, as everything's falling apart, you had your radicals on either side for years and years. And these are the, you know, these were ideologues. And then you get to the point where like now the everyday people and the everyday people are all being forced to choose.

And so much of those contemporaries accounts, it's not like everyone's, you know, some people were, but it's not like everyone's high-fiving and it's just really excited for this. Here we go. Dark Night of the Soul, I choose this way. And then they go. And so, again, it's this idea. If you keep pushing and pushing, when it breaks, people will choose. And the thing, and, you know, and again, why I wrote that piece is I can dream up scenarios

where it breaks and then everyone is forced to choose, even when they really don't want to choose. So what do you see now? You've given us the warning. How do you see it working out? I don't have a prescription of how you get out of this. I've always been like an advocate for a draft. Actually, I think a draft would be a great thing in this country in terms of just breaking down and readjusting our relationship with the military.

That doesn't mean like the entire U.S. military is conscripted. If you were to have about, I've advocated for 5% of the U.S. military, which has 65,000 people would be conscripts. Just the specter of a draft which forced people to start paying attention in a way that they have not for a very long time. And I think it takes, listen, I think it takes, I think it takes, I think it takes, leadership. But the problems are, again, it's like this perfect storm. I mean, we've got bad leadership. We've got a civil military divide. We have foreign adversaries now who know, I mean,

push the button. What are the, you know, I mean, we talk about who are we platforming. Let's talk about who our adversaries like platforming. And I say, if like the Chinese and the Russians love giving that person air time, maybe we also shouldn't love giving that person air time. Maybe they're not good for us. But you just have all these, so external forces. You also have our media culture. And this stuff is all conspiring, I would say, against the good health of our republic. And yeah, I don't know about you guys. I have little kids. Like it worries me when I think about what America's going to look like when they're sitting in my chair.

Oh, I can't decide whether I'm worried about that or global warming or I've got little kids too. So I know what you mean. But, you know, that's my warning. I don't have a one description. We're a doom and gloom show. So this is all great. But I do think you're, I've been thinking about this a lot lately. that part of the reason that American civil life is so fucked right now

is because we don't feel like a unit in any way. The country doesn't. And I think that not having things like the draft or even some sort of civilian service that all Americans have to be party to is helping keep us divided. And I know that there's a lot of people on both sides of the political spectrum that would balk at both of those ideas.

But I think we're living in a world we're living in the consequences of not feeling like a cohesive country. I didn't go back. What do we do? I was talking to starting a friend about this the other day. And the analogy I would use is it's like election to election. It's like we're going out, you know, to a restaurant or to a club and we're getting completely hammered drunk and we're driving home. And we've gotten in the habit of doing that.

And if you're in the habit of drunk driving, you'll probably two times, three times. for it. You'll make it home. A lot of times you're going to make it home. But obviously, eventually, you're going to wrap your car around a telephone pole. And I don't know if it's going to be a telephone pole. It's going to be a tree. If you're going to run off a cliff. But if you get into this habit, you will do it. And I'm like 2016, 2020, like, we're in the habit when I wish I like, I wish I knew how to like take the keys away and like sober us up. Because I look at 2024. I mean, like, let's just, let's talk about 2024, right? So you're going to have. first of all, I think we're going to have the midterms, right?

So the midterms are going to happen. I would say conventional wisdom is the Republicans will win back to the House. So that means we're going to go into two, at least two years of investigations with all the Bidens. They've been just waiting since 2018 to do this. And we're going to be talking about Hunter's laptop and who the big guy is in Ukraine in a lot of detail. So that will bring up lots of ill sentiment between the parties. Again, maybe we even have another impeachment. You know, that'll be fun.

then we'll roll into 2024, and then there's going to be a question, is Biden going to run for a second term? I mean, he'd be 86 years old when he finishes the presidency. I think that's a big question mark. And if he is going to run, then you've got a candidate in 2024 who is an octogenarian. If he's not going to run, he has to announce that relatively soon after the midterms, because you've got to get the Democrats time to have a process. And at which point, he's a lame duck president. So you've got to have all that going on to say nothing like the Michigas does. It's going to be the Republicans and is Trump going to run again? And if it's not, it's just going to be, I rolling into 2024, I'm just like, oh, my God,

OiVe, this is going to be such a headache. It's not like it's not going to be clean or pretty. And one thing, just to go back to an earlier point of yours, not very far back, we have master manipulators from outside the country who are doing a great job and will obviously continue to work in 2024, 2022-2020-24, they've gotten really good at this, right? One thought going back to we were talking about things bringing this country together. It's fascinating because we have at least two major enemies who are actively working against the United States right now. And we don't see them as enemies.

We don't have that as the unifying force that we should. And I'm curious why that might be. Some of us see them as enemies, for sure. Come on now. No, but not as a unifying force. no that's fair. We've united us. Like we're not, I mean, I think we all are probably about the same age, right?

Like we're not watching. I mean, listen, I grew up watching like Rambo 3, Red Dawn, Rocky 4, you know, everyone knew with a lot of clarity kind of what the narrative was. And I feel now it's very mushy. But I think that's your point because they are master manipulators. I don't think conflict is going to look like future conflict won't look like what prior conflict was. Like for instance, in 2034 in the book, like we, you know, we talk about Taiwan and get

into what it would look like if the Chinese invaded Taiwan. And the scenario we get into in the book, it looks a little more conventional. But it also wouldn't surprise me is if the Chinese made a play on Taiwan, if it looked like what happened in Hong Kong, just this sort of slow erosion of democratic norms, maybe there's an attack in Taiwan that is blamed on some. I actually don't believe it would look like saving private Ryan, but on the shores of Taiwan. I think it would look like this sort of threat from within. And then suddenly China seizes the airport under some pretense.

And you know, next thing you know, it's sort of this soft, this kind of type of soft influence and the softer in type of invasion. And I think that's what we should expect going forward. And I don't say that just from the Chinese, but also from, you know, our adversaries like the Russian, how do they, how do they exert influence? It's not in very direct and dramatic ways because it doesn't need to be. Well, to me, that's the kind of cheerful note that we like to end on. Tell us a little bit more.

Give us, pitch us the book here at the end of the show. So 2034 is a work of speculative fiction that imagines what it would look like if the U.S. and China went to war in that same year. And it's co-with Adamo James DeVridis, who was the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe. He and I are both graduates of the Fletcher School. And we started writing the book. We share an editor at Penguin Press. And so Jim came to our editor with this idea of writing a book in that tradition of books

Failsafe for the Bedford Incident or the Third World War by General John Hackett. And he said, aren't you and Elliot friends? Why don't you guys do it together? It would be fun. So I like to tell people, it sounds like a little bit like this podcast. We say for a very grim book, we had a lot of fun writing it and we think it's pretty fun read. That is the attitude that we like to cultivate around here, yes.

Elliot Ackerman, thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah, thank you guys. That was fun. All right, Angry Planet listeners, that's all for this week. Angry Planet is me, Matthew Galt, Jason Fields, and Kevin Nodell. It was created by myself and Jason Fields. If you like the show, we do have a substack at AngryPlanet.substack.com, where? For a mere $9 a month, you get access to two bonus episodes every month.

We will be back next week with another conversation about conflict on an Angry Planet. Stay safe until then.