Welcome to The Dig, a podcast from Jacobin magazine. My name is Daniel Denver and I'm broadcasting

from Providence, Rhode Island. This is the war that never ends. The war on terror's

permanence should be remarkable. It should be an outrage.

But it is precisely because the war has become permanent that it has long since been rendered normal that the US is engaged in a state of

continuous and cascading global conflict against an enemy so undefined that most any new threat can fit the bill.

And indeed, as warfare spreads, new enemies to fight constantly emerge.

Obviously, the war on terror has led to widespread global chaos and bloodshed.

It has also however become one of the most basic features of American social and political life.

Yet what's weird and incredibly dangerous

is that there's little public discussion

over how profoundly permanent war

has warped this country over its 16 long years of existence and the key

role that it along with other factors has played in making Donald Trump a reality.

Today my guest is Andrew Bacevich.

Bacevich grew up in Indiana, graduated from West Point in Princeton, served in the

Army, became an academic, and is now a writer.

He is the author, co-author, or editor of a dozen books,

among them American Empire, the New American Militarism,

the Limits of power, Washington rules, breach of trust,

and most recently America's war for the Greater Middle East, a military history.

Over the past few weeks, the possibility of Trump provoking a nuclear war with North Korea

has understandably garnered widespread attention as a conflict much older

...