Category: Warism

It is hard to imagine the United States finding healing

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 8 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—April 28, 2025

In the fifty plus years that I have been paying attention, I have felt that most Americans have been shielded from much of the brokenness of our society. Domestically, the people who suffer the most have generally been separated from the general population and shunted to unnoticed pockets of poverty and imprisonment. And throughout my lifetime, few Americans have been much aware of the brokenness we have visited on foreign lands through our wars and other interventions.

Now it seems that our political system has been degraded enough that the nation has put into power an administration that does not actually care that much to keep the brokenness hidden. And the future looks troubling for as far ahead as one can imagine. One could say that in light of our long history of causing harm around the world, we have a kind of grim justice being visited upon an ever-wider swath of Americans. However, you can be sure that the people at the top of our social pyramid (the ones most responsible for the suffering of the vulnerable at home and abroad) will themselves manage okay until the entire system collapses.

American delusions of goodness

I read something the other day that underscored my perception of the trouble we are in. David Brooks is a well-known columnist for the New York Times and author of numerous bestselling books on politics and social trends. He wrote an article in the May 2025 issue of The Atlantic called “I should have seen it coming” that various of my Facebook friends have linked to. Brooks is a kind of never-Trump Republican, so it is not surprising that his article focuses on how disastrous the second Trump presidency is for the US. He makes some good points, in criticizing Trump, but it was a different aspect of the article that troubled me more (not that I am not also troubled about Trump).

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Pacifism in a time of war and chaos [American Politics #16]

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Ted Grimsrud—March 10, 2025

I am deeply troubled by the wars and rumors of war, the social chaos, and the strong sense of pessimism that seem to be so much a part of our current situation. I also feel confused, uncertain, and relatively powerless. At such a moment, reflection on my core convictions is one way to steady my nerves, if nothing else. Almost exactly three years, a couple of weeks after Russia’s intensifying the conflict with Ukraine with their “special military operation,” I published a blog post on my Thinking Pacifism site that came out of such reflection, “Thinking as an American pacifist about the Russian invasion.” In this post, I want to update the thoughts I shared then.

“Pacifism” as a core conviction

It is challenging to be a pacifist in an environment with a strong cultural consensus in favor of military action. The United States has been deeply involved in the war that has been going on in Ukraine since 2014. When that conflict greatly intensified three years ago, the US prowar consensus also intensified, with both strong support for accelerated military aid for Ukraine and strong condemnation of Russia, usually couched as condemnation of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. It has been virtually impossible to find dissent from the insistence on support for war in the American mainstream media, among Democratic Party politicians, and in my social media circles. But this support for war is at odds with my pacifist convictions.

I do believe that being a minority, even a small minority, due to one’s convictions is not a good reason to weaken one’s convictions. We should, of course, always be open to testing the validity of our convictions in face of challenges. However, it is actually to be expected that pacifist convictions will not widely be shared when the cultural zeitgeist favors war. Rather than doubt the validity of my pacifist convictions, I want to ask how these convictions speak to my warist context.

I use “pacifism” here to refer to a fairly general belief. I use it as roughly equivalent to, say, being a humane person, a person who supports social and political self-determination for all people, a person who affirms the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pacifism affirms that to support war is antithetical to humane values, to the practice of self-determination, and to an affirmation of universal human rights. In what follows, when I use “we” I mean those of us who affirm these pacifist convictions (even if one may not like to use the term “pacifism” itself—I use this term as a convenient rubric for this set of convictions, but I care about the convictions more than the term itself).

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Theater of the absurd [American Politics #15]

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Ted Grimsrud—March 3, 2025

As I try to pay attention to the wider world spinning out of control and heading toward who knows what kind of fresh hell, I keep trying to reflect on my peace-oriented core convictions and to learn more about history. My core convictions remind me that the US seems bent on world domination and thus, by definition as long as this is the case, seems unable actually to contribute to world peace. Americans who do care about peace need to question the idea that there is some way in our current world for the US to play a constructive role in peacemaking. It has rarely happened in the past eighty years, and it doesn’t seem likely to be happening any time in the foreseeable future.

Two fantasies

From the questionable idea of the US role as an agent for peace comes the fantasy that the Biden/US/NATO policies in Ukraine were about something other than trying to take down Russia and seeking to further enrich US-based war profiteers through the proxy war. Many liberal pundits and corporate media reporters continue to push the idea that the war is a stalemate that can be turned in Ukraine’s favor rather than recognizing that Russia pretty much controls the situation and will heretofore call the shots with Ukraine on the brink of collapse.

Or, we have the fantasy that Trump is a genuine peacemaker who has a plan in mind that will lead to an end to the war. This second fantasy attractively serves as an alternative to the first. I am not as confident in my critique of it. However, because Trump also seeks US world domination and because he also seems to want to somehow squash China (hence, the motive to leave the Ukraine war to the Europeans and focus US energy on China), I actually see little hope that he genuinely seeks peace. We should also note that at the same time that Trump lectures Zelensky about peace he also approves an “emergency” allotment of $3 billion of weaponry to Israel in apparent support for the Israeli refusal to negotiate in the second phase of the agreed-upon ceasefire with Hamas and instead to plan for more violence.

The amazing dustup between Trump (with his faithful sidekick J.D. Vance) and Ukrainian president Zelensky on Friday was shocking theater. As never before we saw a US president being intensely argued with in public—and arguing back. I have no idea what was and is going on in the background and what the fallout will be from this angry display. Reactions I have read seem to show more about the various observers’ predispositions concerning these people than any particular insights about what was actually going on.

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Despairing political confusion [American politics #14]

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Ted Grimsrud—February 24, 2025

I have believed for a long time that the world will be better off when the American Empire falls from its stature as the most powerful superpower. For a long time, I hoped against hope that this fall would be voluntary, that somehow the US would choose to let go of its drive to dominate the world as the top dog and find ways to be collaborative in a multipolar world.

Is the American Empire falling our only hope for peace?

I now simply cannot imagine that a voluntary giving up of domination will happen. It seems likely that only the American Empire falling apart and involuntarily losing its hold of the world’s reins of power will save the world. And it seems like we are headed toward that outcome perhaps more rapidly than ever. This may be good for the world—though not if the US fights so hard against its demise that it takes the rest of the world down with it.

I don’t understand very well the details of what is going on right now. Obviously, we see a shocking assault on the federal government by the newly installed Trump administration, an assault that seems ill-considered, ill-planned, vicious and destructive for viciousness’s and destructiveness’s sake. At the same time, I do not trust or respect most of the critiques of Trump, et al, that come from Democrats and the mainstream corporate media.

It seems like an extremely important sensibility for me—though I see little evidence of this in most of the discourse on our current situation—to see that both sides in our current political alignment in this country can be, in fundamental ways, wrong. Trump’s (and his acolytes’) horrifically misguided visiting what may be irreversible damage on our country does not negate the Democrats’ own misguided politics.

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Where is American Warism Headed?

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 4 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—October 22, 2024

We live in a time of great uncertainty. I find it difficult not to be quite discouraged about the direction the world seems to be going. What kind of future do we have? The presidential election in the United States that we are in the middle of (I mailed in my ballot the other day) is considered by many to be one of the most important we have ever faced.

No matter the outcome, warism will win the election

One of the outcomes of this election, though, that does seem fairly certain is that the American military and American militarism in general will remain engaged and expansive regardless of who is elected. We all know that Trump is all for militarism even if his (empty) rhetoric at times may seem to claim otherwise. Likewise, the Harris campaign has made it clear that she will be committed to continue on the warist path followed by the Biden administration in both Ukraine and Western Asia. So, with regard to what I believe is the most important issue facing our country—our involvement in global wars and preparations for war—this election will change nothing no matter how it turns out.

The two big wars we currently are fighting—in Ukraine and in Israel/Palestine—have not been going all that well for our side. In both cases, we see that American might seems to count for much less than what has been assumed. Simply the fact that both continue to be unresolved in itself tells us a great deal about the ineffectiveness of our weapons and leadership. Could it be that we are nearing the end of the post-World War II era of American military domination? Has the US quest for global dominance finally failed? If so, what will be the consequences?

Is American dominance coming to an end?

I recently read a challenging and surprising book that argues that indeed the end of an era is at hand. America’s Final War by Andrei Martynov (Clarity Press, 2024) argues that the US military is facing a failure in Ukraine that signals a profound shift in the balance of power and a certain descent into loss of power and influence by the American Empire. I thought that the failure to achieve quick victory in these two wars might indicate that American dominance is no longer what it once was. Martyanov goes further—the end is actually at hand. Is this possible?

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On voting for warmongers—or not [American Politics #11]

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Ted Grimsrud—September 26, 2024

I still haven’t figured out what to do with my ballot for the 2024 presidential election. Our mail-in ballots arrived the other day and are sitting on our dining room table. There are some things I am certain about—I won’t simply throw the ballot away. I will vote (though not enthusiastically) for the Democratic Party candidates for the House and the Senate. I will not vote for Donald Trump.

However, I don’t know if I will vote for Kamala Harris. Unlike in the past, I will probably not vote for a third-party candidate. But I might leave that line blank. Or, a slight possibility, I might decide at the last minute to go ahead and vote for Cornel West (kind of for old times’ sake, I have greatly appreciated his speeches and writings over the years).

Almost exactly twelve years ago, I wrote a blog post: “Should a pacifist vote for a warmonger?” (plus, two follow-ups: “More thoughts about voting [or not] for a warmonger” and “Faith and politics [including voting]”). My answer, in relation to the re-election campaign of Barack Obama, was a carefully reasoned “yes.” That assertion elicited a truly enjoyable and lengthy conversation in the comments section of my post from a diversity of friends and other readers. Some agreed with me, and some did not. Those who disagreed were generally of a mind that not voting for president was a valid principled stance for Christian pacifists. Some who agreed with my decision to vote for Obama did not agree with my characterization of him as a “warmonger,” but were happy I was not sitting the election out.

What’s different compared to 2012?

Now, though, I am saying that I’m not yet persuaded to vote for Harris. What is different this time around? That is a challenging question for me. Before I looked at my 2012 post, I was not thinking about what I had decided back then. Now I realize that I am changing my argument. Why? Do I think I was wrong back then?

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The most important election? [American Politics #10]

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Ted Grimsrud—September 16, 2024

I have always been interested in American politics and presidential elections. One of my oldest political memories is a dinner time conversation with my best friend’s family sixty years ago when we were lamenting that it looked like Barry Goldwater was going to win the Republican nomination over our more moderate favorites Nelson Rockefeller or William Scranton. I was ten years old. That was only the first of many disappointments for me about presidential politics.

Still, I feel like this current election is the worst in my lifetime. On the one hand, we have Donald Trump. Even with a long list of morally corrupt and warist predecessors, Trump seems to me to stand clearly as the worst person and worst leader ever to be president of this country. Yet, on the other hand we who cannot support Trump are given the major party alternative of a candidate who is up to her elbows in the administration of an overt and on-going genocide in Gaza and a US-initiated proxy war in Ukraine that is edging ever closer to a nuclear End Game.

The terrible irony for a peace-oriented citizen is that while we are being taught by the media that we live in a hyper-partisan age with extreme polarities between blue and red politics, on the issues that matter the most we face an implacable wall of bipartisan agreement. We don’t have the option of voting for peace. Both sides are all war, all the time. Probably the most disillusioning element of the consequences of Joe Biden’s 2020 victory over Trump has been the almost utter silencing of any kind of anti-war sentiment in the Democratic Party—certainly in relation to the proxy war in Ukraine and also largely in relation to the genocide in Gaza. The Democrats couldn’t even bring themselves to allow a short, innocuous, fully vetted speech from a pro-Palestinian speaker at their recent nominating convention.

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Is there an end in sight? The US Empire sinks ever lower [American Politics #9]

~ Ted Grimsrud ~ 5 Comments

Ted Grimsrud—April 22 2024

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” (Dylan Thomas)

I have come to feel one little sliver of gratitude for the current devastating violence that Israel (with the backing of the United States) is visiting on Gaza. It helps us see more clearly the reality of the US/NATO backing of the doomed Ukrainian war against Russia and the reality of the scaling up of American war cries in relation to China. The US Congress’s recently passed spending bill to fund billions for war and war preparation in Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan makes obvious the actual dynamics.

The motives of the US Empire: Corporate profit and domination

I’d say first of all, the US/NATO pursues these wars and possible wars in order to redistribute money from their taxpayers to corporate war profiteers. And, then, second, these wars and possible wars are justified as necessary to further the empire’s obviously failing agenda of being the dominant power in a “unipolar” world. This agenda, of course, is framed in terms of resisting the expansionist intentions of Russia and China. However, when we look at the whole picture in light of the destruction of Gaza, we see more clearly that there is nothing defensive about any of these situations—Gaza is simply about conquest and devastation. To see that about Gaza in turn helps us see what, in reality, the others are about as well.

A recent, typically insightful essay by Aaron Maté helps make all of this clear. He points out, first, that this new bill is all about directing money to the war corporations. He quotes House Armed Service Chair Mike Rogers: “Nearly all the money we’re spending to arm Ukraine [and, I may add, Israel and Taiwan] doesn’t leave this country,” but instead “goes directly to US companies and American workers to produce more weapons at a faster pace.” As it turns out, a lot of the money in this particular bill won’t even go to Ukraine or Israel in any direct way but rather will be spent simply to rebuild the American store of weaponry.

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A resolution to the problem of violence in the Old Testament? [Peace and the Bible #4]

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Ted Grimsrud—November 24, 2023

The Old Testament has a poor reputation among many Christians (and others) for telling stories of terrible violence that is either initiated directly by God or clearly favored by God. Certainly, this can be a problem for Christian pacifists. But it actually should be a problem for anyone who gives the OT authority as divinely revealed scripture. I had a student once who thought he was in favor of OT violence and sought to gather evidence for an argument against pacifism. As he studied the OT, though, he realized that it was a lot more violent than he had anticipated; before long he had given up on Christianity altogether. Thus, I would say that the “problem” requires attention, even for those who do not find it a deal-breaker for faith.

Not long after I became a pacifist in 1976, I had a short time of struggle as I confronted the problem of violence in the Old Testament. I was assured by some people I respected that the problem could be overcome. So, I kind of put it on the back burner and moved ahead with developing my peace theology, emphasizing, of course, the message of Jesus. Since that time, I have not been troubled by the OT problem all that much but have focused more on finding a peace message on those writings. However, I have remained interested in how to think about divinely initiated violence. Here are some of my current thoughts.

An alternative political economy

The first argument for a certain kind of pacifist reading of the Old Testament that I encountered was a chapter in John Howard Yoder’s book The Original Revolution, the first book on Christian pacifism I ever read. Yoder drew heavily from his colleague at the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminaries, Old Testament professor Millard Lind. A bit later, I used the library at the University of Oregon to track down Lind’s PhD dissertation on war and the Old Testament that Yoder cited. Lind turned that work into a book, Yahweh is a Warrior: The Theology of Warfare in the Old Testament. As it happened, this book was published late in 1980 when I was a student at AMBS. In the spring of 1981, Millard taught a class on the book, and I was fortunate enough to be able to take it.

In my memory now, the class was quite helpful, though it was fairly narrowly focused. The main emphasis was on how to understand the stories in the books of Exodus and Joshua of God’s violent intervention in liberating the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt and driving the Canaanites out of the promised land. Millard’s main point, as I remember, was that the stories tell us that God fought instead of the Hebrews. It was a unique moment in the people’s history that was not repeated. The key motif was that the people needed to depend on God for their security, not on their own military might. After they settled in the promised land and established a territorial kingdom, their political dynamics changed. They became “like the nations,” including establishing a standing army. Crucially, the kingdom became quite corrupt, practicing injustice against the vulnerable in their community and also beginning to practice idolatry. Because of these injustices, God turned against the Hebrew kingdom and allowed it to be destroyed by the area’s great empires, Assyria and Babylon.

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More critical thoughts on America’s proxy war [American politics #7]

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Ted Grimsrud—October 5, 2023

[Early in 2022, after Russia greatly accelerated its military engagement with Ukraine, I wrote  several blog posts and then some shorter posts on Facebook  with my reflections. After many months, I decided to re-engage these issues as the war continues unabated. I posted several times recently on Facebook and consolidated those into a blog post, “And they call it democracy…. Critical thoughts on America’s proxy war.” Here are a couple more posts.]

History may not repeat itself but at times it sure rhymes (9.22.23)

I recently read a book from the late 1970s, The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, by Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman. It is a detailed report on the carnage visited on various countries around the world (e.g., Indonesia, Thailand, the Dominican Republic, and—especially—Vietnam) by the American Empire in the 1960s and 1970s. The section on Vietnam especially caught my attention as I thought of America’s involvement in the current Russia/Ukraine war.

On the surface, the differences between the Vietnam War back then and the current war in Ukraine are obvious and significant. Back then, it was the US invading Vietnam with hundreds of thousands of our troops; now, we are mainly only offering military aid (no troops) to Ukraine as it is invaded by Russia.

However, I find it instructive to think of a few of the similarities. With the Vietnam War, the US military planners well knew by 1965 that it was a war they could not win. From that point on until the final withdrawal ten years later, the US pursued extraordinarily destructive military operations for purposes entirely separate from actually defeating their Vietnamese enemies. It was clear during that entire time that eventually the war would end with a US defeat. So, why did they continue? It had to do with broader American “strategic interests” in the world and with American “prestige.”

Is the same kind of dynamic present in our current conflict? The much-heralded Ukrainian “counteroffensive” seems not only to have failed; it seems quite likely that the US/NATO leaders who pushed for that effort knew it would fail from the beginning. Why would they do this? It is hard to imagine an alternative to the reality that it’s about “strategic interests” and “prestige” that have absolutely nothing to do with the wellbeing of the Ukrainian people.

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