Beyond Purges in the U.S. Military: Towards Conversion

Introduction: The Removal of Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia and the Crisis of Military Command

The United States military apparatus is experiencing a profound crisis of command, reflecting deeper contradictions within the political, economic, and social foundations of American imperial power. The widespread removal of senior military officers, the restructuring of promotion pathways, and the ideological campaign against Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives are not simply episodes of partisan intervention or disputes over traditional civil-military relations. They are expressions of a broader struggle over the organization of state power, the direction of capital accumulation, and the authority to command the institutions responsible for projecting American power internationally. Viewed through the historical development of racial capitalism, this crisis brings into focus the interconnected roles of class power, white supremacy, patriarchal authority, and technological transformation in reshaping the national security state.

The removal of Lt. Gen. Brett Sylvia on October 29, 2026, provides a revealing point of entry into this crisis. As Director of the Joint Staff Directorate for Strategy, Plans and Policy (J5), Sylvia occupied a central position in the Pentagon's strategic planning architecture. The J5 coordinates long-range force design, alliance management, interagency planning, and strategic risk assessment. Its importance lies in its capacity to connect operational commands, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, civilian leadership, and international military partners within a framework of strategic continuity. The removal of its director therefore raises fundamental questions about the future of professional military judgment, institutional planning, and the relationship between military expertise and executive authority.

Sylvia's dismissal formed part of a much wider campaign against senior officers whose professional judgment, institutional commitments, or perceived political orientations were viewed as incompatible with the priorities of the Trump administration. The American Enterprise Institute's (2026) Military Leadership Tracker documented at least twenty-four flag and general officers who had been fired, removed, or replaced. Broader reporting suggested that more than eighty generals and admirals had been removed, pushed into early retirement, or seen their advancement pathways curtailed. Those affected included Adm. Alvin M. Holsey of U.S. Southern Command, Gen. Michael E. Langley of U.S. Africa Command, Gen. Xavier T. Brunson of U.S. Forces Korea and the Combined Forces Command, and Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The scale and reach of these removals point to a sustained effort to reorganize the military hierarchy and establish political conformity as an increasingly decisive condition of command.

The consequences extend throughout the officer corps and beyond the military itself. The removal of senior commanders responsible for force projection, theater operations, alliance management, and institutional planning creates uncertainty about the relationship between professional achievement and political loyalty. It also carries particular significance for Black officers and other groups whose access to senior military leadership emerged through decades of struggle against institutional exclusion. The targeting of leaders associated with the post-Civil Rights expansion of military participation, alongside the dismantling of DEI initiatives and the exclusion of transgender service members, signals an effort to redefine military authority and citizenship through a narrower framework of racial, gender, and ideological conformity.

This crisis must also be situated within the changing political economy of imperial power. The struggle over military command is inseparable from the struggle over the allocation of public resources, the future of military procurement, and the growing influence of financial capital and venture-backed technology firms in the national security apparatus. The relationship between established defense contractors, emerging defense technology companies, and the institutions responsible for strategic planning is being transformed by the expansion of artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, surveillance infrastructures, and algorithmic warfare. The purges therefore raise a larger question: who will control the institutions, technologies, and resources through which American military power is organized and exercised?

These developments have generated resistance among veterans, civil liberties advocates, labor organizers, immigrant rights networks, anti-war coalitions, and anti-racist movements. Their opposition reflects a wider recognition that the struggle over military leadership is connected to the defense of political freedoms, democratic accountability, and the future direction of the national security state. At the same time, opposition to authoritarian intervention within the military cannot be separated from a critical examination of the bipartisan commitment to military expansion and American imperial power. Defending professional military judgment does not, in itself, constitute opposition to militarism.

This intervention argues that the current crisis of military command represents a struggle over the reorganization of state power under conditions of imperial decline, economic stagnation, and technological transformation. It examines the ideological struggles within the ruling bloc, the crisis of accumulation within the military-industrial complex, and the convergence of executive authority with financial and defense technology capital. It then considers how algorithmic power, surveillance, and automated systems are reshaping the relationship between military command and political authority. The central argument is that the military purges are not an isolated assault on professional norms. They form part of a wider effort to reconstruct the national security state around executive loyalty, racial and patriarchal hierarchy, and the expanding power of private technology capital. Understanding this process requires moving beyond the immediate controversy over military appointments to examine the deeper relations of force shaping the future of American imperial power and the possibilities for democratic transformation.

Ideological Struggles within the Ruling Bloc in the United States

Since the Second World War, Democrats and Republicans alike have sustained a bipartisan commitment to the centrality of U.S. military power in managing the international system and preserving American global supremacy. This shared strategic orientation rested on an extensive national security apparatus, a permanent military establishment, alliances, and a military-industrial complex that transcended changes in party control. Under the second Trump administration, however, this established conception of military power has increasingly given way to a more personalized and politically instrumental understanding of force. The abduction of the president of Venezuela in January, the unleashing of a new war against Iran, bellicose rhetoric directed at Canada, and Trump's response to turmoil in the bond market all reflect this shift. When asked whether additional interventions might be needed to stabilize financial markets, Trump replied that "the ultimate intervention is our military. And if we have to use that, we will." This statement reveals a conception of military power extending beyond geopolitical dominance to encompass the management of economic and political crises. It also signals a departure from the institutional and strategic mediation through which successive administrations have traditionally exercised American military power.

This personalized conception of force requires a military hierarchy organized around presidential loyalty. Professional expertise, independent strategic judgment, and institutional continuity become potential obstacles when military command is expected to execute presidential preferences without question. The campaign of removals and ideological purification must therefore be understood as part of an effort to redefine the relationship between military authority and executive power. The objective is not simply to replace particular officers but to establish a political and ideological orientation throughout the command structure.

The cultural justification for this reorganization centers on anti-wokeness and the restoration of a hypermasculine warrior ethos. Pete Hegseth has made the warrior ethos a central feature of his military agenda, presenting physical toughness, martial virtue, and narrowly defined combat effectiveness as the foundations of military professionalism. This language converts opposition to diversity initiatives into a purported defense of military effectiveness. The emphasis on physical and physiological benchmarks, alongside the stigmatization of those deemed insufficiently masculine, serves a wider ideological purpose: to define the ideal military subject through white, heterosexual, and patriarchal norms. The warrior ethos thus becomes an instrument for disciplining the ranks and establishing ideological conformity as a measure of military legitimacy.

The treatment of former Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. illustrates the political significance of this ideological campaign. Brown, only the second Black officer to serve as Chairman, represented a generation of Black military leadership whose advancement reflected the protracted struggle against racial exclusion within the armed forces. His professional formation included a master's degree in aeronautical science, decades of experience in airpower planning, and a central role in shaping U.S. military modernization and strategic planning focused on competition with China. His marginalization, alongside the treatment of Austin, carries significance beyond the careers of two senior officers. It signals a rejection of the post-Civil Rights expansion of Black leadership within the national security establishment and an effort to restore a narrower conception of military authority organized around white supremacy and personal loyalty.

As Cedric Robinson demonstrated in Black Marxism, racial capitalism organizes social and institutional power through historically constituted hierarchies of race, class, and gender. Black feminist scholarship further demonstrates that race, gender, sexuality, and bodily difference operate as interconnected relations of power rather than as separate forms of oppression (Robinson, 2000; Crenshaw, 1991; Collins, 2004; Enloe, 2000; Belkin, 2012). These insights are essential to understanding the ideological reorganization of the military. The assault on Black leadership, the dismantling of diversity initiatives, and the expulsion of transgender service members constitute interconnected efforts to redefine military citizenship and restore a patriarchal order. Anti-Black racism, homophobia, and transphobia function as mutually reinforcing instruments for policing belonging, disciplining the ranks, and legitimizing a militarized ideal of white heterosexual masculinity.

These developments must also be understood in relation to the historical struggles that transformed the armed forces and the wider society. The post-Civil Rights expansion of military participation did not emerge as a gift from military institutions. It reflected decades of popular contestation by Black freedom movements, anti-war organizations, labor struggles, feminist movements, and civil liberties advocates. These struggles created institutional pressures that challenged racial exclusion and arbitrary authority within the national security establishment. The current reorganization seeks to reverse some of these gains and weaken the institutional sites through which popular demands have acquired a measure of influence. Resistance from below is consequently part of the political struggle over the future of military authority. Black political organizations, LGBTQ advocacy groups, veterans' associations, civil rights coalitions, and democratic movements continue to challenge the narrowing of military citizenship and the imposition of racial, gender, and ideological conformity.

From C. Wright Mills to Seymour Melman, scholars and activists have demonstrated how the expansion of a permanent war economy concentrates political and economic power, distorts national development, and undermines democratic institutions. The contemporary ideological offensive must be situated within this longer critique of militarism. Its significance lies not only in the restoration of exclusionary cultural norms but also in the political conditions it seeks to establish for the expansion and reorganization of military power. The struggle over military authority is therefore inseparable from the struggle over the resources, contracts, technologies, and institutions through which the accumulation of capital takes place. These ideological transformations lead directly to the political economy of defense spending and the crisis of accumulation within the military-industrial complex.

Crisis of Accumulation and Militarism without Industrialization

The purge of senior military planners cannot be separated from broader transformations in the political economy of defense spending and the long-term consequences of U.S. deindustrialization. The national security apparatus—encompassing the Department of Defense, nuclear weapons programs within the Department of Energy, intelligence agencies, veterans' benefits, and the Department of Homeland Security—commands vast public resources. While the official national defense baseline sits closer to $1.5 trillion, independent full-spectrum analyses that factors in long-term veteran care, domestic security, and defense-related debt interest place the total aggregate expenditure closer to $2.5 trillion (Office of Management and Budget, 2025; Project On Government Oversight, 2024). Personnel battles within the Pentagon are therefore also battles over who will direct the allocation of these massive funds and shape the future architecture of militarism.

Historically, military procurement was dominated by defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics. These firms formed the core of the postwar military-industrial complex and depended on large-scale manufacturing programs, long procurement cycles, and stable bureaucratic relationships within the Pentagon. The F-35 program exposed the contradictions of militarism in an era of deindustrialization. Despite being the most expensive weapons system in history, the aircraft is produced through an extensive transnational supply chain that reflects the erosion of the industrial base that once underpinned American military power. Global subcontracting and fragmented production networks have displaced the vertically integrated model that characterized the Cold War. Increasingly, the industrial landscape of the United States resembles that of Britain during its long postwar decline. The British military-industrial complex, anchored by firms such as Vickers, Hawker Siddeley, and later BAE Systems, contracted alongside the erosion of Britain's imperial reach and became increasingly integrated into U.S.-led strategic structures. The consequences extended beyond production, undermining the material foundations on which important sectors of military capital and the institutions that served them were organized (Barnett 1986; Edgerton 2006).

This political-economic transition is best understood not as the replacement of legacy defense contractors but as the integration of software capital into an increasingly fragile industrial order. Firms such as Palantir, Anduril, and Scale AI do not manufacture ships, aircraft, or armored vehicles. Instead, they seek to control the software, data, and AI infrastructures through which those platforms are operated. While traditional contractors contend with fragmented supply chains, rising costs, and production bottlenecks, defense-tech firms position themselves to capture a growing share of military expenditures through algorithmic systems, cloud architectures, and autonomous weapons technologies. The resulting struggle is less about the production of military hardware than about who controls and extracts value from the digital systems increasingly governing contemporary warfare. The crisis of accumulation within the defense sector thus takes the form of a conflict between an industrial oligopoly rooted in manufacturing and an emerging venture-backed technology bloc seeking dominance over the architecture of software-defined warfare.

This transformation has destabilized sectors of military capital whose profitability depends on long-term state commitments to major weapons platforms such as aircraft carriers, fighter aircraft, and armored vehicles. Such investments require decades-long planning horizons and procurement regimes administered through institutions such as the Joint Staff and its strategic planning apparatus. Officers assigned to organizations such as the J5 play a central role in translating geopolitical assessments into force-structure and procurement decisions.

At the same time, the defense sector is increasingly shaped by firms such as Palantir, Anduril, SpaceX, Scale AI, and OpenAI, together with the venture capital and private equity networks that finance them. These actors promote a software-centered model of warfare built around artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, predictive analytics, and networked command architectures. For this emerging defense technology bloc, traditional planning institutions often appear less as strategic assets than as obstacles. Long-term force planning, alliance interoperability requirements, procurement reviews, and bureaucratic oversight slow the deployment of software-driven capabilities. Weakening institutional constraints and removing senior planners therefore facilitates a shift in procurement priorities toward firms promising accelerated innovation and automated lethality (Brose 2020; Abrahamsen et al. 2021).

These economic shifts have been reinforced by an ideological alignment. Insurgent figures within the defense technology sector, including Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and Palmer Luckey, have championed racist political currents that disparage diversity initiatives, celebrate strong executive authority, and view existing institutions as impediments to technological transformation, making them natural allies in efforts to reshape military leadership through loyalty tests, purges, and institutional restructuring. They also expose a limit in the terms of the contest. If the quarrel is between two fractions of military capital, shifting contracts from one to the other leaves private control over the means of warfare intact. The firms rising in the second fraction own the software, data, and space infrastructure on which command increasingly depends, so their ascent concentrates that control further. 

Procurement reform thus becomes a terrain of conflict between rival fractions of military capital, and the crisis of the military-industrial complex is not merely technological. It reflects an intra-class struggle over the future form of military power, the allocation of defense resources, and the institutions through which the state organizes war production. The purge is best read as more than a loyalty test. It is also part of an effort to displace the institutional guardians of the post-Cold War security order and to reorient state power toward actors aligned with financialized and AI-driven militarism. These struggles extend beyond procurement into the structure of state power itself. They also expose a limit in the terms of the contest. If the quarrel is between two fractions of military capital, shifting contracts from one to the other leaves private control over the means of warfare intact. The firms rising in the second fraction own the software, data, and space infrastructure on which command increasingly depends, so their ascent concentrates that control further. SpaceX shows how this concentration works in practice. Starship is the human landing system under a $2.9 billion NASA contract for Artemis, a program whose officials openly cast it as a race against China’s goal of a crewed lunar landing by 2030, while the same firm provides launch services to the Space Force and reportedly holds a classified Starshield contract, so that one private company now sits inside both the civilian and the military preparations for a long-term strategic confrontation with China. This is why the question of public ownership, taken up in the conclusion, cannot be separated from the politics of procurement.

The growing influence of financiers such as Stephen Feinberg, founder of Cerberus Capital Management, illustrates the convergence of financial and military power. Through acquisitions of firms including DynCorp, one of the largest military service contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan, Cerberus positioned itself at the intersection of war-making, logistics, outsourcing, and capital accumulation. As Deputy Secretary of Defense, Feinberg moved from investing in the defense sector to exercising direct authority over the allocation of military resources. Critics have argued that he has used this position to advance reforms that weaken traditional acquisition procedures, reduce bureaucratic oversight, and accelerate contracting with firms promising rapid technological innovation.

At stake is not simply administrative efficiency but a struggle within the military-industrial bloc itself. Established defense contractors and the planning institutions associated with platform-based warfare derive their power from long procurement cycles, major weapons systems, and stable strategic planning processes. Challenging them is an emerging coalition of financiers, software firms, AI companies, venture-backed defense startups, and private equity investors seeking faster acquisition pathways and greater access to defense spending. The contemporary crisis of the military-industrial complex is therefore not merely technological. It reflects an intra-class struggle over the future form of military power, the allocation of defense resources, and the institutions through which the state organizes war production.

In a moment of imperial decline and the strategic defeat in Iran, the conflict also reveals an important limit. If the contest is confined to rival fractions of military capital, shifting contracts from one set of firms to another leaves private control over the means of warfare intact. Indeed, the software-centered model may deepen that concentration by placing command, surveillance, communications, logistics, and data infrastructures under the authority of a small number of private corporations. SpaceX demonstrates how this concentration operates in practice. Starship serves as the human landing system under NASA's Artemis program, while the same company provides launch services to the Space Force and reportedly holds classified Starshield contracts. A single corporation thus occupies a strategic position within both civilian space exploration and the military preparations associated with long-term geopolitical competition with China. The issue is therefore not simply which firms receive defense contracts but who owns and controls the infrastructures on which contemporary military power increasingly depends.

The Pentagon purges should be understood within this wider transformation. They were not merely ideological loyalty tests but part of a broader effort to reconfigure the institutional balance of power within the national security state in favor of actors aligned with financialized and AI-driven militarism. Beneath the rhetoric of efficiency, innovation, and loyalty lies a struggle over the future direction of American militarism and the forms of economic and political power that will govern it. At the same time, these conflicts are not confined to elite institutions. Labor unions, anti-war organizations, climate justice movements, civil rights activists, and advocates of social investment increasingly challenge the diversion of public resources toward perpetual militarization. Their demands raise a more fundamental question: whether the immense resources concentrated within the national security state should continue to sustain war-making capacities or be redirected toward social reproduction, public infrastructure, public health, education, and ecological reconstruction.

Neo-Fascism, Algorithmic Power, and the Struggle for Control of the State Apparatus.

The convergence of military purges, hyper-masculine nationalism, defense-tech capital, and executive overreach reflects an intensifying struggle within the ruling bloc over control of the state apparatus, a struggle taking place under conditions of economic stagnation, geopolitical rivalry, and rapid technological change. As theorists of fascism from Antonio Gramsci to Martin Kitchen have argued, fascist projects seek to transform the relationship between state power, law, and coercion. Their objective is not merely to subordinate bureaucracies to executive authority but to remove the institutional guardrails that constrain arbitrary power, expand the reach of security and policing agencies, weaken legal accountability, and concentrate authority in leaders claiming to embody the will of the nation. Historically, however, such projects have also generated counter-movements. Mobilized and organized citizens railing against ‘No Kings’, democratic organizations, civil rights campaigns, anti-colonial movements, and anti-fascist coalitions have repeatedly emerged to contest the concentration of state power and defend spaces of democratic participation. The outcome of authoritarian crises has therefore never been determined solely by struggles within ruling elites.

The integration of algorithmic systems into military decision-making serves a distinct political function within the modern neo-fascist state. Algorithmic power does not merely accelerate target recognition or data processing; it systematically displaces human deliberation, institutional debate, and legal-procedural oversight under the guise of real-time technocratic necessity. By delegating command choices to predictive algorithms and automated targeting networks, executive authority can bypass traditional planning bodies, such as the Joint Staff J5, which historically evaluated long-term strategic risks and alliance commitments. Techno-authoritarian figures like Peter Thiel and Palmer Luckey champion a model where algorithmic efficiency replaces democratic accountability, converting complex geopolitical decisions into automated, closed-loop technical outputs. In this framework, digital surveillance, automated coercion, and executive unilateralism converge, neutralizing internal institutional dissent and solidifying an unmediated pipeline between presidential decree and automated military force.

Conclusion: Anti-Fascist Struggles, Electoral Resistance, and the Transformation of State Power

The purges of senior military officers, the targeting of strategic planning institutions such as the Joint Staff J5, the assault on diversity initiatives, and the growing influence of venture-backed defense technology firms constitute interconnected elements of a broader restructuring of the American state apparatus. These were clearly spelt out in Project 2025.These developments reflect an effort to concentrate executive authority, subordinate professional military judgment to presidential loyalty, and redirect the resources of the national security state toward an increasingly financialized and algorithmically organized system of warfare. The struggle over military command is therefore inseparable from the wider struggle over the political economy and ideological direction of American imperial power.

The November 2026 midterm elections demonstrate that this authoritarian project has encountered significant political resistance. The massive defeat of the Republican Party and the transfer of control of both chambers of Congress to Democrats represent a major setback for the Trump administration. The electoral outcome reflected widespread opposition to the administration's economic policies, the war against Iran, its support for the Israeli genocidal war in Palestine, its exercise of executive power, and its assault on democratic institutions. The demand for congressional checks and balances signals that the concentration of presidential authority has generated opposition extending beyond established political organizations. The elections have consequently altered the institutional balance of forces confronting the administration and created new opportunities for congressional investigation, public accountability, and resistance to authoritarian consolidation.

The election of retired Vice Admiral Nancy Lacore to represent South Carolina's First Congressional District provides an especially revealing connection between the military purges and this broader political development. Lacore, who served for 35 years in the Navy and became the sixteenth Chief of the Navy Reserve, was removed from her command by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in August 2025. Her subsequent election to Congress represents a striking reversal of political fortunes. An officer removed from one of the highest positions in the Navy Reserve has entered the national legislature through an electoral victory in a traditionally Republican district. Her election demonstrates that the removal of senior military officers does not necessarily extinguish their political agency or their capacity to participate in struggles over the direction of the American state. It also brings the consequences of the Pentagon's leadership purge into the legislative arena, where questions of military professionalism, independent judgment, executive authority, and public accountability can acquire renewed political significance. Her victory should not, however, be interpreted as evidence that the electorate voted exclusively against the military purges. Its significance lies in the convergence of opposition to the administration's policies with the electoral emergence of a former senior military officer directly affected by its actions.

The significance of these electoral developments must nevertheless be assessed against the bipartisan foundations of American militarism. Democratic and Republican administrations alike have sustained enormous military budgets, expanded weapons procurement, financed overseas military operations, and reinforced the power of the military-industrial complex. The bipartisan commitment to maintaining American military supremacy has survived changes in presidential administrations and congressional majorities. Democrats have historically supported the expansion of military spending and the projection of American military power, even when criticizing particular wars, procurement decisions, or presidential exercises of authority. Critical analysis must recall that preceding Democratic administrations—including those of Barack Obama and Joe Biden—actively expanded executive war powers (destroying Libya), sustained high defense budgets, and conducted major military interventions abroad. The current struggle therefore cannot be understood simply as a contest between Republican militarism and Democratic opposition to militarism. It concerns the struggle over who commands the national security state, whose interests its resources serve, and the political and economic purposes for which American military power is organized.

This distinction is essential to understanding the political significance of the 2026 elections. Democratic control of Congress creates opportunities to investigate the Pentagon purges, challenge arbitrary executive authority, scrutinize defense contracts, and restore institutional checks on presidential power. But it does not automatically challenge the underlying structures of imperial accumulation. The danger is that opposition to Trump's authoritarianism could become a defense of the previous military establishment, thereby preserving the bipartisan political and economic arrangements that have sustained permanent war, support the state of Israel, enormous military expenditures, and corporate accumulation through public financing. The struggle for real democracy must therefore extend beyond restoring established institutional practices toward challenging the economic interests and relations of power that have historically organized American militarism.

The election of Nancy Lacore gives this contradiction a particularly important expression. Her movement from military command, through removal by the Trump administration, to elected office demonstrates that resistance to the purge can acquire a new institutional form. Yet her election also raises a broader question: will the new congressional majority use its authority primarily to restore the professional military establishment, or will it confront the bipartisan political economy through which military budgets, procurement systems, and overseas interventions have been sustained? The distinction between defending professional military judgment and challenging the imperial purposes to which that judgment is directed must remain central to the broader democratic struggle.

The concentration of military, communications, surveillance, artificial intelligence, and space infrastructure in corporations such as SpaceX, Palantir, and Anduril further exposes the limits of conventional institutional reform. These corporations increasingly occupy positions of strategic importance within the national security apparatus, enabling private capital to exercise control over infrastructures essential to military command, communications, intelligence, and warfare. Their growing influence represents a concentration of economic and coercive power that threatens meaningful public accountability. The comparison with the historical breakup of the Bell System is instructive, but the scale and character of contemporary military technology monopolies require more far-reaching measures. The political demand must include the nationalization of strategic military and communications infrastructures, including those controlled by SpaceX, and the structural breakup of corporations whose monopolistic control over essential technological systems places public power and national security under private corporate command. Public ownership and democratic control of these infrastructures must become central questions in any serious program for transforming the national security state. Regulation alone cannot resolve the fundamental contradiction between private accumulation and public control over the means of warfare. As Seymour Melman argued in his work on economic conversion, the productive capacities, technical expertise, and industrial resources now organized around permanent war making must be redirected toward socially useful civilian production under democratic control.

Conversion is therefore not simply an economic alternative but an ecological necessity, requiring the redirection of labor, technology, and public investment away from military production and toward the reconstruction of human and natural environments. The ecological consequences of militarism further widen the political stakes. Endless military expansion accelerates environmental destruction through carbon emissions, resource extraction, toxic contamination, and the diversion of public resources from ecological reconstruction. The struggle against neo-fascism must therefore be connected to the struggles for international solidarity, reparative justice, environmental reconstruction, peace, and the expansion of social provision. Reducing military expenditures, ending forever wars, dismantling the corporate structures that profit from permanent militarization, and redirecting public resources toward public health, education, housing, infrastructure, and ecological repair are essential dimensions of an alternative political and economic order.

The central question is consequently not who will manage an increasingly militarized and automated imperial order, but whether organized social forces can transform the institutions, economic priorities, and relations of power that reproduce it. The 2026 midterm elections demonstrate that authoritarian consolidation is neither politically uncontested nor electorally irreversible. The defeat of the Republicans has opened new terrain for struggles over executive authority and democratic accountability. The election of CIA democrats gives this development particular significance for understanding the relationship between military purges and resistance within the wider political system. Nevertheless, electoral victories and changes in congressional control cannot dismantle the structures of imperialism, racial capitalism, and militarized accumulation. That transformation requires sustained organization among working peoples, anti-racist movements, veterans, anti-war coalitions, environmental justice organizations, and other democratic forces. It requires challenging the bipartisan commitment to permanent military expansion, establishing public ownership and democratic control over strategic infrastructures, and redirecting the material resources of society away from war and toward human needs. The future of real democracy will ultimately depend on the capacity of these organized forces to transform not simply the personnel who command the state, but the economic and political relations through which state power is exercised.

Horace G. Campbell is a peace and social Justice activist. He is also Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University and Chairperson of the Global Pan African Movement, North American Chapter.  He is the author of Global NATO and the Catastrophic Failure in Libya, Monthly Review Press, 2013. 

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