How many divisions does Elon have?
Having US troops all over the world, meddling in one foreign conflict after another trying to replace independent leaders with puppets costs over a trillion dollars a year and makes us less safe.
Wednesday, February 19th, 2025
Bill Bonner, writing from Baltimore, Maryland
The question was framed, according to some historians, by Josef Stalin at the Potsdam Conference. Winston Churchill had suggested that the Pope might be brought in to provide moral backing to the Allies’ campaigns against Hitler.
Stalin must have wondered how morality would hold up against Panzer tanks.
“How many divisions does the Pope have?” he allegedly asked.
We wish we could be in the room when the question comes again.
Of all the bloated bureaucracies…among all the corrupt and self-serving federales… and all their boondoggle programs — the military stands out. It fails every audit. It spends trillions, and claims not to know where the money goes.
But it goes somewhere. And those who get it know where it went. They’ve bought and paid for almost every member of the House and the Senate. They’ve put on countless half-time shows…and granted ‘access’ only to toady journalists. They expect to get their money’s worth.
In ancient Egypt, the surplus production of the Nile Valley was spent building monuments to dead rulers. In China, under the first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, much of the surplus output was spent building a Terracotta Army of more than 8,000 soldiers, intended to protect him in the afterlife.
And in America, circa 2025, ‘national defense’ is a sacred myth. Having US troops all over the world…meddling in one foreign conflict after another…trying to replace independent leaders with puppets — all in, it costs over a trillion dollars a year…and almost surely makes Americans less safe.
But now, the US firepower industry may be coming under attack. According to the Washington Post, Musk’s shock troops have crossed the Potomac:
The Trump administration has directed defense agencies to turn over a list of their probationary employees by the end of Tuesday, with the expectation that many could be laid off as soon as this week, according to five people familiar with the matter.
The directive coincides with the arrival at the Pentagon of personnel from Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service, which has overseen the firing of thousands of probationary employees in other federal agencies and coordinated the dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development.
“Uh… you want to see our records?” the brass will ask…stunned and confused as Elon and his band of callow nerds arrive at the Pentagon.
“That’s classified,” they will reply.
“We’re here to root out waste,” Elon will explain.
“No useless aircraft? No easily sunk ships? Close unnecessary bases? Stop useless weapons development? Fire some of the three million people who get our paychecks? Tighten our belts? Cancel our beach-house plans?”
“Yeah… that’s right,” Elon might reply.
“What about our enemies?” they’ll ask.
“What enemies?” Elon will reply. “You know perfectly well that there is no country on earth capable of crossing the ocean with a viable armada. They’d be wiped out by missiles and bombers before even leaving port.”
“Uh… what about Russia… China… terrorists?”
“Are you kidding? Russia has a tiny economy. China’s economy depends on selling stuff to Americans, not attacking them. And terrorists have never been anything more than a fake enemy.””
But it’s one thing to reduce spending by USAID. It’s another to reduce it for the US Army, Navy and Air Force. The last time the Pentagon had to cut its budget was after WWII. The troops came home. Soldiers were ‘de-mobed.’ Eisenhower (who knew more about the military than any president since) peeled nearly 30% off the Department of Defense outlays.
That was then…before firepower became the nation’s defining industry, with effective control over both political parties. Today, for appearances sake, the warfighters are likely to shed a few ‘probationary’ employees. Maybe they’ll sacrifice some weapons that they never wanted anyway.
But why should the world’s ‘most lethal’ fighting force take its orders from an immigrant from Africa? Sooner or later, whether voiced or tacit, the question is bound to come up:
“And how many divisions do you have, Elon?”
Regards,
Bill Bonner
We just experienced this first hand when obama had the CIA overthrow the democratically elected leader of the Ukraine and replace him with a pro-US leader in 2014 and it cost the Ukraine Crimea. In 2022, Boris Johnson and biden, convinced zelenski to not seek peace with Putin which would have saved thousands of Ukranian lives and alot of its territory in exchange for no NATO membership. The only president to not get us involved in this BS was Trump.
Just finished up an obscure read. The biography of a young George C. Marshall. The same Marshall that devised the eponymously named "Marshall Plan" to assist in rebuilding Europe in the wake of the destruction of WWII. My curiosity on the subject was triggered by a realization that our involvement across the globe is surely a violation of George Washingtons warning about "entangling alliances", and that it wasn't too long ago that the United States maintained a much smaller military profile and did quite well, regardless.
A realization that while funding DEI theatre productions or Gay themed comic books today seems to not involve projecting an objectionable kinetic military presence around the globe, as in "we're only here trying to help", it is, nonetheless a form of cultural colonialism and one not likely to change "hearts and minds", but an intrusion that is far more likely to engender grassroots hostility.
Time too, to reign in the spending. Spending that was established as a spigot of well-meaning funding after WWII but a program that has now morphed into what may properly be understood as a potential predicate for igniting future hostilities.
The world is a devil's brew of competing cultures and some, quite violent in defense of their religious and cultural history. Let's give all the moralizing a rest and cut back on our spending as well - and yes, let's build that wall and warily guard our borders as even with regard to international affairs, "strong fences make good neighbors".
The better way to influence the world is found in the current administration policy initiative of "Reciprocity" in trade. Not culturally intrusive in nature, just an objective program based on the leveling of trade with specific regard to commercial terms such as VAT taxes, Tariffs, government subsidies and adherence to all international bodies governing trade, such as territorial jurisdictional maritime rulings out of the Hague. Not simply allowing some trade related rules to stand and others to be violated.
The better way to cast light on the worlds darkest places is through setting example and pursuing regulated, conditions based, even-handed trade access, not through policies of belligerency, either militarily or culturally.