The year is 2030 and President Pierce Bush addresses the nation:

“My fellow countrymen, in the past, enemies of America required massed armies, and great navies, powerful air forces to put our nation, our people, our friends and allies at risk. What has changed in the first three decades of the 21st century is that, in the hands of terrorists, weapons of mass destruction have become a first resort — the preferred means to further their ideology of suicide and random murder. These terrible weapons are becoming easier to acquire, build, hide, and transport.

“We’re determined to confront those threats at the source. We will stop these weapons from being acquired or built. We’ll block them from being transferred. We’ll prevent them from ever being used. America, and the entire civilized world, will face this threat for decades to come. We must confront the danger with open eyes, and unbending purpose. I have made clear to all the policy of this nation: America will not permit terrorists and dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most deadly weapons.

“Thanks to the vigilance of the Central Intelligence Agency, news has reached us that, on the Central Asian black market, the Uzbekistan branch of al-Qaeda has acquired a single antimatter weapon small enough to fit into the palm of your hand but powerful enough to destroy a major city. Armed with such a weapon, small groups of fanatics, or failing states, could gain the power to threaten the cities of great nations, threaten the world peace, or our very existence.

“So, my fellow Americans, I have today ordered our Special Forces X-Force of Super Cyborg Soldiers to spearhead an invasion of Uzbekistan to wrest that antimatter bomb, perhaps the most dangerous weapon on a planet of dangerous weapons, from the hands of the terrorists. I thank you and may God bless you all.”

(Adapted from President Announces New Measures to Counter the Threat of WMD, February 11, 2004)

Sound like a post-governorship Schwarzenegger movie, a selection from one of Philip K. Dick’s nuttier novels, or maybe an offshoot from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock? Hmmm. Well, not exactly.

Let’s start with that antimatter weapon. It turns out, according to San Francisco Chronicle Science Writer Keay Davidson, that the Pentagon, “is quietly spending millions of dollars investigating ways to use a radical power source — antimatter, the eerie ‘mirror’ of ordinary matter — in future weapons… for example, antimatter bombs small enough to hold in one’s hand, and antimatter engines for 24/7 surveillance aircraft.” And here’s the good news: The hope is that our scientists can create “a new generation of super weapons… [including] a so-called ‘clean’ superbomb that could kill large numbers of soldiers without ejecting radioactive contaminants over the countryside.”

Gee, sounds like a real advance. And, as Dr. Seuss might once have said, that is not all, oh no, that is not all. It may be true that, when it came to post-invasion Iraq, the Bush Pentagon was incapable of planning its way out of yesterday, no less into tomorrow, but when it comes to imagining global domination by force into the wee distant future, it’s the undisputed global planning champ. Nothing is too sci-fi to be on the drawing boards for America’s future war-fighters: paralyzing microwave rays from the heavens for use in crowd control; ray guns (familiarly called “pain rays”) for deployment here on Earth; laser beams to destroy incoming missiles; anti-satellite weaponry for the sort of space wars that once were the province of science fiction. You name it and someone somewhere in the military-industrial-academic complex is probably at work on it — or it’s already a weapons system heading for deployment.

Recently there’s been a good deal written about “peak oil” (beyond which the curve of global oil production must descend); but perhaps another term should enter our language, “peak military.” Whether or not Hubbert’s Peak proves a “law” of global oil production, there has to be some kind of similar law of advanced weaponry production. Perhaps it could be described something like this: Sooner or later, any weapon system you create for yourself will become available to others. This law would have the following corollary: Whatever you create for brain-numbing sums will someday be available cheaply enough so that even small groups of fanatics can obtain it. “Peak military” would then be the self-annihilating point — whether already reached or not — beyond which we descend into the hell of planetary destruction or its local equivalent.

The United States, once locked in a fierce, spiraling arms race with the Soviet Union, now finds itself in a mad arms race of one. It stands almost alone on the planet in creating ever more frightening and destructive weapons systems for the coming decades and beyond. From new generations of nuclear weapons to initial generations of space weaponry, the Bush administration has only accelerated this process. Sooner or later, however, there are always others ready to tango.

Oh, and as for those X-Force Super Cyborg Soldiers a future President Bush might send into Uzbekistan to secure that antimatter weapon (and maybe a crucial Central Asian oil source too)… well, see the article by Nick Turse, Tomdispatch’s military-industrial-academic-entertainment complex reporter…

[This article first appeared on Tomdispatch.com, a weblog of the Nation Institute, which offers a steady flow of alternate sources, news, and opinion from Tom Engelhardt, long time editor in publishing and author of The End of Victory Culture and The Last Days of Publishing.]

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