The United States has not formally declared war in over 80 years, yet it remains one of the most violent and militarized nations on Earth. It conducts military operations in dozens of countries, maintains over 750 overseas military bases, and pours hundreds of billions of dollars into its defense apparatus annually. But this relentless projection of force is no longer confined to distant lands. The U.S. government has turned its machinery of war inward. And though it never says the words out loud, it has, in effect, declared war — not just on foreign threats, but on its own people.
A Nation Without Peace
War in the United States no longer requires a declaration. Since World War II, every major conflict — Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and more — has proceeded without Congressional war powers being formally invoked. The government has sidestepped the Constitution, opting instead for open-ended Authorizations for Use of Military Force (AUMFs) and executive discretion, allowing endless war under the guise of national security.[¹]
This has created a political reality where violence is continuous and structural — no longer an event, but a permanent feature of governance. The targets may shift, the terrain may change, but the logic remains: identify an enemy, expand state power, and suppress resistance. That logic has now turned fully inward.
The American Public as a Threat
What happens when a government built for and by the people begins to view those same people as its primary threat?
The United States is no longer merely suspicious of its citizens. It has reclassified them — not in name, but in policy and practice — as a potential insurgent population. Dissent is now conflated with subversion. Protest is treated as violence. Speech is monitored as a precursor to extremism. The average American is not presumed innocent, but preemptively guilty in the eyes of a sprawling, militarized security state.
This shift is not theoretical. It is institutional. Agencies like the FBI, DHS, NSA, and local police forces operate in a state of counterinsurgency at home, adopting the tactics, language, and frameworks of war. From urban neighborhoods to online spaces, the American citizen is being watched, categorized, managed — and in too many cases, violently suppressed.
Counterinsurgency on U.S. Soil
The counterinsurgency model developed in Iraq and Afghanistan — “clear, hold, build” — has come home. Military-grade surveillance, predictive policing algorithms, and drone technology are deployed across U.S. cities. The Department of Defense’s 1033 Program has flooded local law enforcement with over $7.4 billion in surplus military gear, including armored vehicles, assault rifles, and night vision equipment.[²]
These tools are not being used to repel invading armies. They are being used to patrol American streets, particularly in poor and marginalized communities. SWAT teams now carry out tens of thousands of raids annually, mostly for low-level drug offenses — often with catastrophic results.[³] In the eyes of the state, the enemy is not foreign. It is domestic. It is you.
Surveillance as Preemptive Control
The surveillance state is not designed to protect citizens — it is built to control them. The 2013 revelations by Edward Snowden made it clear: the NSA and other intelligence agencies are systematically capturing the communications of millions of Americans without probable cause, under secret interpretations of secret laws.[⁴]
This is not surveillance in service of justice. It is surveillance as deterrence. As management. As preemptive suppression. It teaches Americans to self-censor, to comply, to avoid drawing attention. It is the quiet violence of total control — the same methods used in occupied territories now repurposed for the homeland.
Criminalizing Truth, Crushing Dissent
The government has also retooled its legal system to treat those who expose state wrongdoing as enemies of the state. Whistleblowers are not protected — they are prosecuted. Chelsea Manning, Edward Snowden, Reality Winner — these individuals were not spies. They were citizens who revealed crimes, corruption, and lies. And for that, they were hunted and punished under the Espionage Act, a law designed not for patriots, but for traitors.[⁵]
Meanwhile, protestors exercising their First Amendment rights are surveilled, infiltrated, kettled, beaten, and arrested. Movements for racial justice, environmental protection, and anti-corporate accountability have all faced militarized crackdowns. The legal system now serves not justice, but power — and it wields that power like a weapon.
Economic War: The Other Front
This war is not waged solely with bullets and tear gas. It is fought through economic violence as well. Tens of millions of Americans are burdened with debt, denied healthcare, trapped in precarious work, and criminalized for poverty. Public infrastructure is neglected. Schools are underfunded. Prisons overflow.
Meanwhile, the state pours endless resources into policing, incarceration, surveillance, and military expansion — not to protect, but to contain. To keep the public docile, desperate, and divided. This is strategic. It is war by other means — slow, invisible, and devastating.
A State Hostile to Its People
Let us be clear: the U.S. government no longer sees the American people as its sovereigns. It sees them as risks to be managed. As problems to be solved. As threats to be neutralized. The language may be couched in terms of safety, security, and stability — but the reality is far more sinister.
The architecture of counterinsurgency — designed for Baghdad and Kandahar — is now deployed in Minneapolis, Portland, Atlanta, New York. We live under a state that operates in a permanent posture of domestic warfare. It will not say this out loud. It doesn’t need to. The policies speak for themselves.
If the government treats its citizens as enemies, deploys the tools of war against them, and suppresses every effort to resist or reform — then the conclusion is not radical. It is simply honest:
The American people are under siege by their own government.
Representative Democracy: A Failed Illusion
This state of domestic war is not an aberration within a healthy democratic system — it is a feature of representative democracy itself. From the founding of the U.S., the structure of government has been designed to filter the will of the people through elite institutions: the Electoral College, the Senate, judicial appointments, gerrymandered districts, corporate-funded campaigns, and lobbyist-written legislation. These mechanisms do not expand democracy — they neuter it.
The Constitution was not written by farmers, workers, or the enslaved. It was written by wealthy landowners, many of whom owned slaves and feared the popular will. Their aim was never full democratic participation. It was control — a system in which a small political class could govern in the name of the people while ignoring their needs.
Today, that same elite political class — regardless of party — serves the interests of capital, empire, and institutional preservation. Elections become symbolic rituals. Representatives become gatekeepers. And the people are given just enough voice to legitimize a system that no longer represents them.
The result is what we see now: a state that surveils its own citizens, brutalizes the poor, criminalizes dissent, and wages war — all while claiming to act on behalf of “the people.”
The Only Solution: Direct Democracy
If the people are ever to be free, power must be taken out of the hands of a ruling class altogether. The only viable alternative is direct democracy — a system with no professional political class, no elite representation, and no vertical hierarchy of power.
In a truly democratic society:
- Decisions are made directly by those affected by them.
- Communities control their own institutions.
- Workplaces are democratically managed.
- Resources are equitably distributed.
- Power is decentralized, transparent, and accountable.
This is not utopian fantasy. It is the logical next step in the evolution of freedom. If we can organize wars, surveillance empires, and global corporations with stunning efficiency, we can organize democratic councils, cooperatives, and local assemblies with the same commitment — and without violence, hierarchy, or oppression.
It is not enough to demand reform. The system is not broken. It is functioning exactly as intended — and that is the problem. Representative democracy has proven to be a machine of elite control wrapped in the language of popular rule.
The only way forward is a revolution in how power is structured — and that revolution must be horizontal, inclusive, and nonviolent. It must be led by the people, for the people — with no rulers, no masters, and no exception.
The Illusion of Peace
Just as the U.S. hasn’t declared war abroad since 1941, it will never declare war on its citizens. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t waging one. The war is simply unspoken. Its frontlines are in protests, workplaces, courtrooms, and neighborhoods. Its weapons are not only rifles and drones, but algorithms, data, and fear.
The refusal to declare war is not a sign of peace. It is a strategy of denial — one that hides authoritarianism behind the mask of law, that buries violence under bureaucracy, and that replaces justice with obedience.
The Time to Name It
We must name this war — because only by naming it can we begin to resist it. This is not about partisanship. It is not about individual corrupt officials or bad policy. It is about a system that has fundamentally transformed its relationship to the people it claims to serve.
The war is real. It is here. And it is being waged against us. The answer is not to elect new rulers — it is to end the rule of the few altogether. Because in the end, freedom will not be granted. It must be taken — by all, together.
Sources
- Congressional Research Service, “The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force: Issues and Current Status.” https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R43983
- Defense Logistics Agency, 1033 Program Data Summary. https://www.dla.mil/DispositionServices/Offers/Reutilization/LawEnforcement/
- Radley Balko, Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police Forces. PublicAffairs, 2013.
- The Guardian, “NSA collecting phone records of millions of Verizon customers daily,” 2013. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order
- The Intercept, “Reality Winner Sentenced to Over Five Years in Prison for Leaking NSA Report,” 2018. https://theintercept.com/2018/08/23/reality-winner-sentenced-leak-nsa/
- Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The New Press, 2010.
- Sheldon S. Wolin, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism. Princeton University Press, 2008.
- Noam Chomsky, Requiem for the American Dream. Seven Stories Press, 2017.
- David Graeber, The Democracy Project: A History, a Crisis, a Movement. Spiegel & Grau, 2013.