2025-02-17
8 分钟The Economist. Hi, John Pridow here.
I host Checks and Balance, our podcast on US politics.
Welcome to Editors Picks.
Here's an article from the latest edition of The Economist handpicked by our team and read aloud.
I hope you enjoy it.
In the Pentagon, they must surely be on high alert.
On February 9th,
President Donald Trump declared that it would soon become the target for Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency,
DOGE.
Accusing it of hundreds of billions of fraud and abuse,
Mr Trump will unleash his insurgents, fresh from feeding foreign aid into the woodchipper.
Their work could not be more important or more risky.
That is because America's armed forces face a real problem.
Not since the Soviet Union launched Sputnik and built huge tank formations at the height of the Cold War have America's military vulnerabilities been so glaring.
In the killing fields of Ukraine, America is being out-innovated by drone designers.
In the seas and skies off China,
it is losing its ability to deter a blockade or invasion of Taiwan.
The stakes are all the higher
because the Pentagon is a place where MAGA ideology meets reality.
Mr Trump's foreign policy is transactional.