Franklin “Chuck” Spinney, is a retired military strategist and author of the 1998 report “The Defense Death Spiral,” who served in the U.S. Air Force before becoming a high-profile critic of the Defense Department’s weapons acquisition process and overall strategy. In this episode, Chuck explains why it is “ridiculous” to blame the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan on President Biden, how the war on terror has been used to justify ever-larger defense budgets, his recollections of the military strategists Pierre Sprey and John Boyd, and how the ongoing growth of the “military-industrial-Congressional-complex” is undermining American democracy.