Humanity Hanging from a Cross of Iron: Eisenhower's Forgotten Warning on the True Cost of War

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."--Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953

"Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind."

—JFK

First Atlas test launch, 1957*

The Eisenhower quote above is from a speech President Eisenhower gave on April 16 1953 six weeks after the death of Josef Stalin. It's been alternately called "The Chance for Peace" and the "Cross of Iron" speech. In this address Eisenhower called for global de-escalation and cooperative security as opposed to the Soviet Union's reliance on military force and regional dominance. 

In the middle of the speech Eisenhower notes that the prohibitive cost of armaments represents a theft from humanity, diverting resources from essential needs like healthcare, education, and infrastructure. He challenges the new Soviet leadership to prove their desire for peace through concrete actions, such as ending hostilities in Asia and supporting a unified, free Europe. Ultimately, the speech proposes a global fund for reconstruction, fueled by the savings from disarmament, to wage a "total war" against poverty and hunger rather than against other nations.

He then became quite specific on what increased military spending actually eant. The cost of modern armaments should not be understood as a line item in a budget, but as a direct sacrifice of human well-being. 

One modern heavy bomber (in 1953) cost the equivalent of a modern brick school in more than 30 cities; or two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 people; or two fine, fully equipped hospitals; or 50 miles of concrete highway.

One fighter plane cost the same as a half million bushels of wheat.

One destroyer could have built new homes for more than 8,000 people.**

This reframing was timeless because it pierced the abstract veil of national security budgets in order to force a moral reckoning. Eisenhower was not just making an economic point; he was arguing that a nation's true strength is measured in the well-being of its people, not the sophistication of its arsenal. To reiterate: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed."

Eisenhower’s speech was a direct and powerful appeal to choose a different future. The world faced a choice between the "dread road" of fear and arms and the "highway of peace" built upon a total war against poverty and need. His proposal was to dedicate the world's strength, resources, and imagination "to serving the needs, rather than the fears, of the world." The monuments to this new kind of war, he said, would be "roads and schools, hospitals and homes, food and health." 

It was as if the backbone of Eisenhower's speech was taken from Robert Frost's famous poem The Road Not Taken. There are two roads ahead, he said. We'd like you, leaders in the Kremlin, to join us as we stroll down the path of peace. It's the Kremlin's responsibility to choose correctly. 

How did this speech ultimately play out?  

As the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. The U.S. stockpile grew rapidly in the 1950s due to expanded fissile material production and thermonuclear weapon development starting in 1954. Production rates accelerated in the late 1950s, exceeding 7,000 warheads per year in 1959–1960. The Soviet Union's nuclear weapons collection grew much slower so that by the end of the decade the U.S. had nearly 10 times as many bombs and missiles as the Soviets.

While making a public appeal for peace, the U.S. was simultaneously taking clandestine measures to overthrow foreign leaders we didn't like. In 1953 we overthrew the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran in Operation Ajax. The following year we took down the democratically elected President Arbeniz of Guatemala. 

In 1956 and 57 the CIA, with British and Turkish intelligence, attempted military takeovers, assassinations, staged incidents, propaganda, and bribes to topple pro-Nasser governments under President Shukri al-Quwatly and successors in Syria. All plots were uncovered and failed, increasing Syrian ties to the USSR.

From 1957-59 the CIA gave support for the Permesta Rebellion in Indonesia. By providing arms, funding, and aerial bombings through front organizations like Civil Air Transport, the U.S. sought to destabilize President Sukarno's government. The effort failed, with the rebellion defeated by 1961 after a U.S. pilot was captured in 1958, exposing involvement.

 

In Iraq (1959) the CIA planned with Egyptian collaboration to support nationalist elements, including Ba'athists, in an assassination attempt on Prime Minister Abdul Karim Qasim on September 7, 1959. Tactics included providing weapons and training to prevent a perceived communist takeover. The attempt failed, and Qasim remained in power until 1963.

According to David Halberstam, in his book The Fifties, "Administration officials had few moral qualms either about their role or about deceiving the American press and people. They saw themselves in an apocalyptic struggle with Communism in which normal rules of fair play did not apply. "

Eisenhower’s speech was a direct and powerful appeal to choose a different future. How did our nation's actions align with his appeal for a peaceful future? 

I think it interesting President Eisenhower's last speech was a warning to Americans.

Here is the speech in which President Eisenhower first made reference to what he called the "military-industrial complex." President Eisenhower gave this speech just days before stepping down,  yielding power to the newly elected JFK.

More than seventy years later, as nations continue to build arsenals of breathtaking expense and destructive power, Eisenhower's words echo with renewed urgency. 

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This post was conceived after I saw Eisenhower's speech referenced in relation to a recent article noting our current trillion dollar defense budget, the highest in U.S. history. 

Related Links 

Eisenhower's "The Chance for Peace" Speech

Dylan's Masters Of War Didn't Just Apply to the Cold War

*The SM-65 Atlas was an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. With the proliferation of intercontinental missiles there was simultaneously a surge in family fallout shelters and air raid drills.

**Based on the way planes and ships are built today (e.g. the F-35 fighter jet), these numbers are way off.

Anchors Aweigh—or Anchors Astray? America’s Maritime Crisis

China builds ships. The U.S. builds excuses.

Sometime within the past year I read an article about how China was actively building or upgrading ports on the Western coast of Africa. More recently I caught a story showing the significant superiority of China's shipbuilding over our American efforts. 

Both these stories came to mind as I read yesterday's story in The Bunker, an eNewsletter I receive from the Project On Government Oversight (POGO). Yesterday's article was titled Anchor's Astray, addressing the phenomenal waste that goes on at the Pentagon. The story outlined a scuttled project to build build up to 20 small warships after the first two came in at two billion dollars, far above budget. 

This led me to investigate how many ships China is building compared the U.S. Here's some eye-openng data peraining to military ad commercial ship production. Commercial ships include domestic/merchant vessels, such as cargo ships, tankers, and container ships.

 Ship Production Comparison: United States vs. China

WARSHIPS

U.S. Fleet Size (2024): 296 battle-force ships (e.g., destroyers, submarines, carriers).

--- Annual Production (2024): ~1.13 Virginia-class submarines (goal: 2.0); 6 new ships requested for FY2025 (below 10-11 needed annually for 381-ship goal by 2042). 

--- Recent Trends: 82% of programs delayed (e.g., Constellation frigate: 3+ years behind; Columbia submarine: 1+ year delay). Net fleet decline projected: -9 ships in FY2025. 

--- Capacity: Limited to a few yards; overall output lags due to backlogs and costs ($40B/year planned but underfunded).

CHINA Fleet Size (2024): 370+ battle-force ships (largest globally). 

--- Annual Production (2024): 11+ major combatants launched (~130,000 tons); 23 destroyers added in past 10 years (vs. U.S. 11). 

--- Recent Trends: 8 cruisers since 2017 (vs. U.S. 0); submarine force to grow to 80 by 2035. Projections: 395 ships by 2025, 435 by 2030. 

--- Capacity: 230x U.S. total shipbuilding capacity; dual-use yards enable rapid scaling.

DOMESTIC/COMMERCIAL SHIPS

U.S. Global Market Share (2024): 0.1% (ranks 19th-22nd globally). 

--- Annual Output (2024): 3 large vessels ordered (out of 5,448 global); ~8 delivered. --- Recent Trends: Tonnage output <0.04% globally; total U.S. post-WWII commercial tonnage exceeded by one Chinese firm in 2024 alone. Focus shifting to revitalization via incentives (e.g., SHIPS for America Act targeting 250 U.S.-flagged vessels). 

--- Capacity: ~80 oceangoing yards, but minimal for large vessels; vulnerable to foreign supply chains.

CHINA Global Market Share (2024): 53% (leads world; 57% of completions by deadweight tons). 

--- Annual Output (2024): >1,000 vessels; 48.18 million dwt completed (up 13.8% YoY); 113 million dwt ordered (up 58.8% YoY). 

--- Recent Trends: 75% of global new orders in H2 2024; dominates bulk carriers, tankers, containers. Backlog: 208.72 million dwt (up 49.7% YoY). Slight dip in early 2025 orders (to ~52%) due to U.S. trade policies, but rebounding. 

--- Capacity: ~150 yards; state-owned CSSC alone outproduces entire U.S. historical commercial output.

Accordiing to The Atlantic, the U.S. shipbuilding industry, once a global powerhouse capable of producing over 5,500 vessels during World War II, has deteriorated into a shadow of its former self, capturing just 0.13% of the global commercial market in 2024 and facing chronic delays in naval production.  This handicap stems from a century-long interplay of policy neglect, economic shifts, and structural vulnerabilities, leaving the industry unable to compete with subsidized powerhouses like China (59% market share) or keep pace with national security needs.  

According to Contrary Research, China is now the leading powerhouse of the high seas. As of late 2025, the U.S. Navy's fleet hovers around 290 ships—projected to decline despite ambitions for 381—while shipyards grapple with backlogs that could take years to clear.  

The roots trace back to the post-Civil War era, when the U.S. opted against sustained public investment in maritime infrastructure, unlike European rivals who subsidized their fleets aggressively. This laissez-faire approach accelerated after World War I, as wartime booms faded and commercial demand for U.S.-built ships waned amid rising trucking competition for inland and coastal routes.  

By the 1980s, post-Cold War "peace dividend" cuts slashed budgets and fleet sizes, shrinking the number of capable shipyards by 80% and output by 90% from 1950s peaks.  Today, this historical atrophy manifests in a fragmented industrial base, where public yards suffer from obsolescence and private ones from overreliance on sporadic naval contracts. 

A core handicap is the acute workforce shortage, exacerbated by demographics and cultural shifts. Shipyards are hemorrhaging experienced workers through retirement—a "generation gap" leaving teams less productive and reliant on inexperienced hires who require heavy supervision—while struggling to recruit replacements.  Turnover exceeds 20% among younger employees, driven by low starting wages (despite competitive averages of $62,000–$83,000), demanding physical conditions, and a societal push toward college over trades.  

Entry-level jobs often demand 1+ years of experience, creating a catch-22 that stifles growth, and limited vocational training pipelines mean shipbuilding competes poorly with less hazardous fields.  This crisis compounds design and production flaws: U.S. vessels are notoriously complex, with "concurrency" (building before designs are finalized) leading to rework, delays (e.g., Constellation-class frigates years behind), and costs ballooning 30–50% over estimates.  Foreign subsidies enable rivals to iterate faster and cheaper, while U.S. monopsonistic procurement caps profits at 6–8%, deterring private investment in skills or tech. 

Supply chain fragility and infrastructural decay further immobilize the sector. Post-pandemic disruptions, inflation, and overreliance on foreign suppliers—even from China for critical components—have spiked costs for raw materials and parts, delaying projects by months. With fewer domestic suppliers than decades ago, bottlenecks ripple through yards, where outdated facilities (e.g., limited dry docks) and modular construction lags hinder scalability. High labor costs—coupled with stringent U.S. regulations like the Jones Act, which mandates domestic builds but stifles volume—make American ships 2–3 times pricier than Asian counterparts, eroding commercial viability. Meanwhile, global competitors like South Korea and Japan leverage dual-use yards for steady commercial-military output, investing in automation and modular techniques that U.S. facilities lack. 

Revival efforts, including the 2025 "Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance" executive order and $32.4 billion in FY2025 funding, aim to address these via workforce training, allied partnerships (e.g., with Japan), and supply chain fortification—but progress is glacial. Without bolder subsidies, immigration reforms for skilled trades, and a pivot to simpler designs, the U.S. risks ceding maritime supremacy, with dire implications for trade, deterrence, and surge capacity in conflicts. The industry's plight isn't inevitable; it's a policy choice, one that demands urgent, comprehensive reversal to rebuild what was lost.

Related Link

The Warship That Shows Why the U.S. Navy Is Falling Behind China

The Dire State of Our Shipbuilding Infastructure

The High Cost of Doing (Shipbuilding) Business

Sources: realcleardefense.com, americarenewing.com, The Atlantic, usni.org, freightnews.com

Strange Word Game: What is a "Suicide Drone"?

Gemini-generated image

I saw this news story a while back and decided to copy it here as a topic for future consideration. 

BREAKING: 3 American soldier killed and at least 24 wounded after a suicide drone strike on a U.S. base in Jordan right on the border with Syria. Iran and it’s proxy groups are the main suspects. Major escalation!

Now as I understand it, suicide is the intentional taking of one's own life. It is something people do, and maybe lemmings. But does a machine intentionally take its own life? I mean, wouldn't the drone have been programmed to self-destruct? Does the drone have a mind of its own and volition? Does this mean that missiles should be called suicide missiles now? And why not call mines in a mine field suicide mines when they blow up? Should bombs be called suicide bombs?

Yet the phrase suicide drone has become a common part of our current vernacular, as illustrated here in these statements from X.com:

---Watch how HMS Diamond (D34) Type 45 air-defence destroyer of the #RoyalNavy targeted and destroyed one of the Kamikaze/Suicide drones of #Iran's #Houthi rebels.

---JUST IN: Multiple US senators, Including Lindsey Graham, Tom Cotton, and John Cornyn, are now calling for direct strikes on Iranian forces after the deadly suicide drone attack that killed three American service-members and injured dozens more

---China has developed a suicide drone considered the most cost-efficient in the world, with a price not exceeding $10,000. This drone, named Feilong-300D, is the cheapest in its class compared to well-known counterparts, such as the Iranian Shahed-136.

---According to REUTERS, the LUKOIL oil refinery in Volgograd has stopped operating after a Ukrainian suicide drone attack last night.

---An AQ 100 Bayonet suicide drone (called the HF-1 by the Germans) during an attack on Belaya Sloboda in the Kursk region. The AI software is supplied by the German company Helsing, and production is financed by Germany.

Even if inaccurately named, what I find disturbing is seeing how many countries are flooding the world with these small, medium and large military craft. In today's X feed you will see drones being manufactured in Russia, the U.S. and China (in massive quantities) but also in more than 20 other countries including, but not limited to, U.K., Canada, German, France, Italy, Poland, Sweden, Iran, North Korea, Israel, Ukraine, Algeria, Turkey, South Africa, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Brazil, Nigeria, and Indonesia.

How do you like them apples? What are the implications for future warfare? 

"Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird... It's a plane... It's a Suicide Drone!"

Leo Tolstoy on Pacifism and Non-Resistance to Evil

Leo Tolstoy, 1897

A conscientious objector is an individual who refuses to perform military service or participate in armed conflict due to deeply held ethical, moral, or religious beliefs. The concept is rooted in the conviction that certain actions, particularly those involving violence and killing, are fundamentally incompatible with one's principles. 

For Leo Tolstoy, pacifism and non-resistance to evil were fundamental beliefs rooted in the teachings of Jesus Christ, specifically Matthew 5:39, "Resist not evil." 

 

Tolstoy's influence went beyond being one of the greatest and most influential authors of all time, nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature each year from 1902-1906. He was also nominated several times for the Nobel Peace Prize. (1901, 1902 and 1909.) His novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina have often been cited as two of the greatest books of all time.

Though Count Tolstoy grew up in upper crust society, in his mid-forties he underwent a moral crisis that resulted in his embrace a life of self-renunciation and anarchism, which at that time meant owing no allegiance to any state or political power. His ideas on non-violent resistance had a profound impact on future leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King, and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. It was a stance toward life that he took seriously.

It is also a conviction that stands at odds with many other Christian leaders throughout the centuries. The first who came to mind, and the reason I decided to write about this, was C.S. Lewis, who in his writings defended the idea that Christians could participate in war, especially in the defense of justice and in resisting evil. One of his radio talks during World War II addressed this and was later published in a small volume titled The Weight of Glory.

Saint Augustine supported the notion of war under certain conditions.He made a distinction between just and unjust wars. This notion of "Just War Theory" was expanded upon in greater detail by Thomas Aquinas eight centuries later. Martin Luther viewed military service as acceptable for Christians as a form of service to lawful authority. And Dietrich Bonhoffer participated in a plot to assassinate Hitler.

In short, these and many other Christians has found ways to reconcile their faith with military service. But who is right? 

Tolstoy stands in separate camp. His understanding of the teachings of Jesus, especially as delineated in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) forbids Christians from taking up arms to go to war.

 

In the year 1884 Tolstoy wrote a book titled "What I Believe," in which he made a sincere statement of his beliefs. The response to this book prompted to amplify his convictions with a follow-up titled "The Kingdom of God Is Within You." The preface begins as follows:

In affirming my belief in Christ's teaching, I could not help explaining why I do not believe, and consider as mistaken, the Church's doctrine, which is usually called Christianity.

Among the many points in which this doctrine falls short of the doctrine of Christ I pointed out as the principal one the absence of any commandment of non-resistance to evil by force. The perversion of Christ's teaching by the teaching of the Church is more clearly apparent in this than in any other point of difference.

* * *

Many Christians today would find Tolstoy's ideas so radical that they are not worth the slightest consideration. I myself feel challenged by them. Would any of the original Apostles become soldiers for the Roman Empire had they been recruited for military service?

The entire document is online courtesy of the Gutenberg Project. Here is a link followed by a couple excerpts.

TOLSTOY’S “The Kingdom of God Is Within You"

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43302/43302-h/43302-h.htm

"Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."—John viii. 32.

THE DOCTRINE OF NON-RESISTANCE TO EVIL BY FORCE HAS BEEN PROFESSED BY A MINORITY OF MEN FROM THE VERY FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY.

Among the first responses called forth by my book were some letters from American Quakers. In these letters, expressing their sympathy with my views on the unlawfulness for a Christian of war and the use of force of any kind, the Quakers gave me details of their own so-called sect, which for more than two hundred years has actually professed the teaching of Christ on non-resistance to evil by force, and does not make use of weapons in self-defense. The Quakers sent me also their pamphlets, journals, and books, from which I learnt how they had, years ago, established beyond doubt the duty for a Christian of fulfilling the command of non-resistance to evil by force, and had exposed the error of the Church's teaching in allowing war and capital punishment.

In a whole series of arguments and texts showing that war—that is, the wounding and killing of men—is inconsistent with a religion founded on peace and good will toward men, the Quakers maintain and prove that nothing has contributed so much to the obscuring of Christian truth in the eyes of the heathen, and has hindered so much the diffusion of Christianity through the world, as the disregard of this command by men calling themselves Christians, and the permission of war and violence to Christians.

* * * 

And a little further on:

Conscientious objectors at Camp Pike, AK

But in the recent cases of refusal on the part of Mennonites to serve in the army on religious grounds, the government authorities have acted in the following manner:

To begin with, they have recourse to every means of coercion used in our times to "correct" the culprit and bring him to "a better mind," and these measures are carried out with the greatest secrecy. I know that in the case of one man who declined to serve in 1884 in Moscow, the official correspondence on the subject had two months after his refusal accumulated into a big folio, and was kept absolutely secret among the Ministry.

They usually begin by sending the culprit to the priests, and the latter, to their shame be it said, always exhort him to obedience. But since the exhortation in Christ's name to forswear Christ is for the most part unsuccessful, after he has received the admonitions of the spiritual authorities, they send him to the gendarmes, and the latter, finding, as a rule, no political cause for offense in him, dispatch him back again, and then he is sent to the learned men, to the doctors, and to the madhouse. During all these vicissitudes he is deprived of liberty and has to endure every kind of humiliation and suffering as a convicted criminal. (All this has been repeated in four cases.) The doctors let him out of the madhouse, and then every kind of secret shift is employed to prevent him from going free—whereby others would be encouraged to refuse to serve as he has done—and at the same time to avoid leaving him among the soldiers, for fear they too should learn from him that military service is not at all their duty by the law of God, as they are assured, but quite contrary to it.

The most convenient thing for the government would be to kill the non-resistant by flogging him to death or some other means, as was done in former days. But to put a man openly to death because he believes in the creed we all confess is impossible. To let a man alone who has refused obedience is also impossible. And so the government tries either to compel the man by ill-treatment to renounce Christ, or in some way or other to get rid of him unobserved, without openly putting him to death, and to hide somehow both the action and the man himself from other people. And so all kinds of shifts and wiles and cruelties are set on foot against him. They either send him to the frontier or provoke him to insubordination, and then try him for breach of discipline and shut him up in the prison of the disciplinary battalion, where they can ill treat him freely unseen by anyone, or they declare him mad, and lock him up in a lunatic asylum. They sent one man in this way to Tashkend—that is, they pretended to transfer him to the Tashkend army; another to Omsk; a third they convicted of insubordination and shut up in prison; a fourth they sent to a lunatic asylum.

* * *

The position of Christian humanity with its prisons, galleys, gibbets, its factories and accumulation of capital, its taxes, churches, gin-palaces, licensed brothels, its ever-increasing armament and its millions of brutalized men, ready, like chained dogs, to attack anyone against whom their master incites them, would be terrible indeed if it were the product of violence, but it is pre-eminently the product of public opinion. And what has been established by public opinion can be destroyed by public opinion—and, indeed, is being destroyed by public opinion.

The time will come and is inevitably coming when all institutions based on force will disappear through their uselessness, stupidity, and even inconvenience becoming obvious to all.

The time must come when the men of our modern world who fill offices based upon violence will find themselves in the position of the emperor in Andersen's tale of "The Emperor's New Clothes," when the child seeing the emperor undressed, cried in all simplicity, "Look, he is naked!" And then all the rest, who had seen him and said nothing, could not help recognizing it too.

The story is that there was once an emperor, very fond of new clothes. And to him came two tailors, who promised to make him some extraordinary clothes. The emperor engages them and they begin to sew at them, but they explain that the clothes have the extraordinary property of remaining invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position. The courtiers come to look at the tailors' work and see nothing, for the men are plying their needles in empty space. But remembering the extraordinary property of the clothes, they all declare they see them and are loud in their admiration. The emperor does the same himself. The day of the procession comes in which the emperor is to go out in his new clothes. The emperor undresses and puts on his new clothes, that is to say, remains naked, and naked he walks through the town. But remembering the magic property of the clothes, no one ventures to say that he has nothing on till a little child cries out: "Look, he is naked!"

This will be exactly the situation of all who continue through inertia to fill offices which have long become useless, directly as someone who has no interest in concealing their uselessness exclaims in all simplicity: "But these people have been of no use to anyone for a long time past!"

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What do you think? Is Christianity compatible with military service? Can a nation armed to the teeth with missiles and bombs, and supplying such to the rest of the world, be considered a Christian nation?