After the Apocalypse: America's Role in a World Transformed (American Empire Project)

by Andrew J. Bacevich

Consider the toll in recent years from massively powerful hurricanes. In 2005, Katrina caused $125 billion in damage. In 2012, came Sandy: $75 billion. Twenty seventeen proved to be a banner year with Hurricanes Harvey ($125 billion), Irma ($65 billion), and Maria ($91 billion) occurring within a two-month period. These financial figures do not include the hundreds killed, thousands injured, and tens of thousands left homeless.34 Had such devastating losses resulted from enemy attack, Americans would have had no difficulty in situating them under the heading of national security failures, much like Pearl Harbor or 9/11. As it is, they are written off as misfortunes that fall beyond the writ of our trillion-dollar-per-annum national security apparatus. For any threat to which there is no obvious military response, the national security state gives itself a pass—the equivalent of a fire department refusing to respond to any emergency unless smoke and flames are evident.