Dr Strangelove Returns: Palantir and the New Military-Industrial-Digital Complex

Maybe he never went away. But Dr Strangelove is back now at the heart of America’s new military-industrial-digital complex. And Strangelove 2.0 might offer an even more existential threat than Kubrick’s original cigar-chewing model played with such absurdist aplomb by the great Peter Sellers. While the first Strangelove was just dumb, today’s powers-that-be at the Pentagon are both stupid and corrupt. That, at least, is the worrying view of Ben Freeman, the director of Democratizing Foreign Policy at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and the co-author of the upcoming The Trillion Dollar War Machine. Freeman sees companies like Peter Thiel’s Palantir—which just secured a historic $10 billion contract—as the new face of a military establishment that has grown exponentially more dangerous since Eisenhower's bipartisan warning. Today's war profiteers (in both political parties) wield AI, deepfakes, and automated kill chains while maintaining the same reckless nuclear thinking that nearly ended the world in 1962 Cuba. The result? A trillion-dollar budget that enriches contractors while making America infinitely less safe in an infinitely more dangerous world. What we’re really missing is a Kubrick 2.0 to restore Strangelove to our digital screens.

1. The Military-Industrial Complex Has Gone Digital Companies like Palantir represent a new evolution - the "military-industrial-digital complex" - where Silicon Valley tech firms are now central players in defense contracting, with Palantir recently securing a historic $10 billion contract.

2. It's a Bipartisan Problem, Not Just Trump Freeman emphasizes this spans party lines: Obama (despite his Nobel Peace Prize) oversaw record military spending, Biden sold arms at record levels, and the system perpetuates itself regardless of who's in the White House because defense contractors strategically place jobs in congressional districts.

3. More Weapons = Less Security America just hit a trillion-dollar military budget for the first time, yet remains ineffective at solving major global conflicts (Ukraine, Gaza, Korea). Meanwhile, diplomatic tools like the State Department are being gutted, creating a dangerous imbalance.

4. AI and Automation Pose New Existential Risks Beyond traditional nuclear threats, we now face "automated kill chains" where AI makes lethal decisions without human oversight, plus deepfakes that could trigger conflicts based on false information - combining old Dr. Strangelove logic with new technological capabilities.

5. The Revolving Door Ensures System Perpetuation Pentagon officials stay quiet about waste and corruption because they know defense contractors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin will hire them post-retirement for lucrative positions, creating a self-perpetuating cycle that prioritizes profit over actual security.

Keen On America is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.