PART 2: NATO AND THE U.S. MILITARY

“The most fundamental characteristic of opportunistic policy is that it always and consistently leads to the sacrifice of the movement’s ultimate goal, namely the liberation of the working class, to its most immediate, indeed imaginary interests. . . . In militarism, the power and rule of both the capitalist state and the bourgeois class are crystallized . . . . To abandon the struggle against the military system amounts in fact to the same thing as renouncing the struggle against the present social order in general.” 

-Rosa Luxemburg, The Militia and Militarism (1899)

“By social-chauvinism we mean acceptance of the idea of the defence of the fatherland in the present imperialist war, justification of an alliance between socialists and the bourgeoisie and the governments of their ‘own’ countries in this war, a refusal to propagate and support proletarian revolutionary action against one's ‘own’ bourgeoisie, etc. It is perfectly obvious that social-chauvinism's basic ideological and political content fully coincides with the foundations of opportunism. It is one and the same tendency. In the conditions of the war of 1914-15, opportunism leads to social-chauvinism. The idea of class collaboration is opportunism's main feature. . . . Opportunism means sacrificing the fundamental interests of the masses to the temporary interests of an insignificant minority of the workers or, in other words, an alliance between a section of the workers and the bourgeoisie, directed against the mass of the proletariat. . . .

The imperialist war is the direct continuation and culmination of this state of affairs, because this is a war for the privileges of the Great-Power nations, for the repartition of colonies, and domination over other nations. To defend and strengthen their privileged position as a petty-bourgeois ‘upper stratum’ or aristocracy (and bureaucracy) of the working class—such is the natural wartime continuation of petty bourgeois opportunist hopes and the corresponding tactics, such is the economic foundation of present-day social imperialism. . . . Social-chauvinism is an opportunism which has matured to such a degree that the continued existence of this bourgeois abscess within the socialist parties has become impossible.”

-Vladimir Lenin, The Collapse of the Second International (1915)

Apply to Join 21CS: If you’re a DSA member, and interested in joining 21CS, be sure to apply here. You can also read Part 1 here.

The Question of NATO

DSA’s position on NATO is absolutely clear. In a statement from June 2021, the organization called for full opposition to NATO (a dangerous Cold War relic), and stated plainly that the “United States should immediately withdraw from NATO.” DSA provided a clear and well-explained rationale that everyone should read themselves, and our caucus further expanded on that history here. Similarly, in July 2024, the DSA International Committee joined a coalition of organizations to release the following statement on NATO’s 75th anniversary:

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a destabilizing, law-breaking force for militarization and war provocation. Its existence makes wars, including nuclear wars, more likely. Its hostility toward the few significant militaries in the world that are not among its members fuels arms races and conflicts. The commitment of NATO members to join each others' wars and NATO's pursuit of enemies far from the North Atlantic risk global destruction.

We hold up a vision of a world beyond NATO, where we invest to eliminate poverty, hunger, illness and homelessness; where we live in harmony with our environment; and where we resolve conflict diplomatically through the only global organization that represents the whole world – the United Nations.

NATO is very bad, and no self-respecting socialist of any tendency should support this unnecessary and dangerous military alliance. Ever since its founding by literal German Nazis (e.g., Adolf Heusinger), and its history of violent anti-Communist agitation (e.g., Operation Gladio), it has existed as an extra-legal cancer on the planet, dismembering Yugoslavia (1999),¹⁹ occupying Afghanistan for twenty years (2001-2021),²⁰ turning Libya into a slave market (2011), and spreading its military presence across Europe in 1999 (Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic), 2004 (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia), 2009 (Albania, Croatia), 2017 (Montenegro), 2020 (North Macedonia), 2023 (Finland), and 2024 (Sweden). The NATO military alliance has intentionally attacked a Chinese embassy, radio and television headquarters, passenger trains, refugee convoys fleeing conflicts, civilian bridges, and power plants. It has also used illegal munitions such as cluster bombs and depleted uranium, creating terrible civilian death tolls. Simply put, NATO is the inheritor of the previous century’s European fascist movements (greatly boosting Germany’s arms industry), and it is the organization that the U.S. uses to give a whiff of “internationalism” when it wants to blow up part of the globe against the wishes of the United Nations.

Unfortunately, the question of NATO is one where our DSA members in Congress have been particularly weak. As we noted previously, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez voted to expand NATO by adding Sweden and Finland (two countries that have troublesome histories) into this violent military alliance. The other DSA members of Congress and their allies have similarly been weak, and we haven’t been able to find any meaningful policy positions or votes pushing back against NATO.²¹ Rather, our DSA members have passively accepted the reckless pro-NATO positions of Rep. Hakeem Jeffries and Sen. Chuck Schumer. This is a terrible gap in DSA’s Congressional presence that we need to collectively fix. 

While most of the incoming DSA candidates for Congress have remained silent on the question of NATO (something that we, as an organization, also need to fix), one candidate — Melat Kiros — has publicly disavowed the DSA position on the NATO military alliance. During a June 2026 candidate forum, when pressed by her opponent on DSA’s call to withdraw from NATO, Kiros responded: “I have never and will never call for, nor endorse, a platform that says we should pull out of NATO.” This was a deeply ignorant thing to say.

Although Kiros was clearly trying to portray herself as the “responsible adult,” this was a tremendously reckless and ignorant statement. Especially from a self-described socialist. NATO is the quintessential anti-Communist force in the world today (other than the United States), and it is pure ignorance to accept the “common sense” of the Democratic party on the topic. That does not make you a “serious” adult; it makes you a reckless fool. It also does serious damage to all of the serious efforts that DSA has made towards organizing against NATO. 

At the local level, as DSA members chase after electoral campaigns, there have also been cracks. On this front, it's notable that Nithya Raman — someone who was bizarrely endorsed by the Los Angeles chapter of DSA even though she opposes BDS, supports Israel's "right to exist," and mendaciously conflates anti-Zionism with antisemitism — has also publicly disavowed DSA's position on NATO. For instance, Raman has said of DSA that "I don’t align with them on everything — including their comments on NATO." This is very bad, and also yet another reminder that there is strong ideological overlap between the kinds of Democrats who support Israel and and those who support NATO.

Given where we are now, however, with Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Melat Kiros exposing a bit of weakness on the NATO question, where do we go from here? Most immediately, DSA as an organization — both through the International Committee and various local organizations — needs to do a lot more political education on the topic of NATO. We will have difficulty pushing our candidates and elected officials unless we are clear, strong, and consistent on this point. In addition to background reading, political education and agitation is necessary.²² We understand that this type of advocacy will be muddied by the current conflict in Europe — which we previously wrote about here — but it is very important if we want to make any progress. Some members of DSA, particularly those who are trying to “fit in” with the Democrats for purposes of electoral campaigns, will want to just lay low and ignore the NATO issue, as if it isn’t a tremendously consequential issue, and we may need to be forceful to have the discussion. To the extent that there might be a presidential candidate next year, and the organization is attempting to step into the executive role, any potential candidates should be asked very specifically about their posture towards NATO, and we should only accept that position if it seeks to end the dangerous military alliance.²³ More immediately, DSA and its International Committee should reach out to Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and Melat Kiros, to give them guidance and the opportunity to change course on this very important subject. This isn’t a little thing that we just let slide (even though some liberals in the imperial core, and those who benefit from imperialism, might be inclined to let it slide). If we’re committed to socialism, rather than the dead-end strategy of pursuing a few liberal reforms here and there, then taking away capitalism’s weapon of NATO is absolutely necessary.

For the newest DSA members of Congress, particularly those who have not yet taken a position, political education is absolutely critical between now and January 2027. It will be very important to connect DSA’s platform to its candidates, and to make sure that its elected officials carry the platform forward rather than childishly disavowing it. We realize that there may be some on the “right wing” of DSA who either love NATO, falsely view it as the protector of the people of Europe, or who just want to let our elected officials say whatever they want to say in order to get ahead. For the most part, these individuals neither know nor care about NATO. Many just want to win an election, without regard to the material and organizational damage that a “socialist” president might cause on the world scale by pushing this right-wing military alliance forward. Some of them are just plain scared of “marginalizing” the organization by opposing NATO. There will be conflict with these groups, and that’s okay. Some of our comrades just need a discussion and more information; others might be entrenched pseudo-intellectuals who think that NATO is "anti-imperialist" somehow. Regardless, we can win as long as we organize.²⁴ 

There are some hopeful signs that we will be successful with some of the newer members of Congress. To her credit, Claire Valdez has been moving in the right direction on this issue. Her policy platform has appropriately called for diplomacy to wind down the conflict in Ukraine, and that is the right call. She has also appropriately flagged that the weapons manufacturers are the only ones who really benefit from the current conflict in Europe. Likewise, Darializa Avila Chevalier had once correctly explained the conflict as one precipitated by NATO’s post-Cold War “bullying” of Russia.²⁵ All of this is very positive. Still, we need to push further and we should never underestimate the gravitational pull of opportunism and careerism.²⁶ Until someone makes a clear statement, we should never make any assumptions. Early political statements like these are often somewhat vague, and we should never project our hopes and wishes onto people who are subjected to discipline by Democratic Party leadership.

We are at a critical moment right now, because there is currently a rupture within the Republican party regarding NATO. Donald Trump has taken the viewpoint that NATO is essentially a protection racket, saying: “If they don't pay, I'm not going to defend them.” This is effectively a threat to withdraw from NATO, because “mutual protection” is the centerpiece of the evil NATO pact. Of course, what Trump is doing here is attempting to force European countries to purchase more weapons from U.S. weapons manufacturers, and that is an outcome we need to affirmatively stop. Regardless, given this opportunity we need to stoke this tension, and sharpen this divide, rather than rushing to NATO’s defense like a bunch of brainless dweebs. Majorities of Republicans view NATO unfavorably now, and it is our task to likewise push the rest of the country.²⁷ The existing split on NATO is one of our biggest opportunities to finally get the U.S. to withdraw.

What can future DSA members of Congress do? For one, they can disrupt and criticize NATO operations, particularly through their committee positions and more generally through their offices. There is also a role that they can play in popularizing withdrawal from NATO; for instance, they could propose legislation to repeal Marco Rubio’s dumb legislation from December 2023 (22 U.S.C. § 1928f), a bill that purported to restrict the U.S.’s ability to withdraw from the NATO military alliance. This is a dumb law for a number of reasons, but it’s essentially a “no backsies” bill, attempting to restrict future Presidents and future Congresses (something the courts would probably reject) from withdrawing from NATO unless two thirds of the future Senators approve of the withdrawal. Introducing this kind of “no backsies” legislation, and openly agitating against its fake requirement of a two-thirds majority for withdrawal, could at least open up the conversation. There is also an opening to push on our candidates’ generalized pledges for demilitarization; the NATO death-pact literally requires member countries to contribute 5% of their entire GDP to weapons. When you examine the economies of all the NATO member countries, that translates to trillions of dollars that are required to be spent on escalating war. That alone — which is terrible for the environment and humanity — is cause enough to withdraw. Why would anyone willingly choose to stay inside such a stupid, world-destroying treaty?

At the end of the day, however, legislation to withdraw from NATO might not even be necessary (this depends on the whims of the courts). When former President Jimmy Carter realized that a military alliance with the right-wing separatists in Taiwan was a bad idea, he just withdrew from their dumb mutual defense treaty in 1979. Easy-peasy. A future president can likewise, in all likelihood, withdraw from NATO. A bunch of crybaby right-wing legislators tried to sue Jimmy Carter for withdrawing from the Taiwan pact, but the U.S. Supreme Court rejected their attempt out of hand. See Goldwater v. Carter, 444 U.S. 996 (1979). There is a good chance that the current court — particularly with its history of deferring to the President on foreign policy matters — would not challenge this decision, and would allow a future president to just withdraw from NATO notwithstanding Marco Rubio’s childish “no backsies” bill.

Of course, we realize that pushing for NATO withdrawal is ambitious. At the same time, a DSA candidate running for the presidency is a tremendous opportunity to strike a meaningful blow against U.S. imperialism, and dismantling NATO is absolutely necessary if we want to dismantle imperialism. We have a great opportunity here, and it is not a secondary consideration. Given that DSA passed R33, calling on the organization to “draft a platform” for a presidential candidate, now is the time to be bold. If a future candidate wishes to reject or sidestep our existing platform, or take a brand new stance on NATO, we will need to confront that directly. Regardless, we won’t win this battle unless we fight for it. The question is, can DSA fight against the actual instruments of imperialism, or will certain factions force DSA to become complicit in imperialism through a toxic combination of careerism and conflict-avoidance?

The Question of the U.S. Military

Our current DSA members of Congress have generally been good on the issue of U.S. military spending, and they deserve credit for regularly voting against bloated U.S. military budgets. They have voted against bloated military budgets in 2026 (H.R. 8800), 2025 (S.1071), 2024 (H.R. 5009), and so on. Of course, voting against tremendously bloated military budgets is a great thing, but it also doesn’t give us a clear picture of where these individuals will draw the line on military spending. Are they looking for slight reductions, or substantial and meaningful ones? This is an important distinction.

In our Program de Lucha, one of our most important demands is one for “the permanent closure of the hundreds of US military bases across the world.” These are major satellites around the world for U.S. imperialism, where U.S. soldiers regularly abuse local residents; DSA has actively waged campaigns against military bases in Japan, South Korea, and Guam.²⁸ The economic distortions of U.S. imperialism should never be underestimated, and dismantling this unjust international system is one of the most important things that DSA as an organization — within the belly of the beast — can realistically accomplish.

Although some within DSA might be overconfident that our candidates will move in the right direction, we need to closely examine their past statements and how our candidates have moved historically. For instance, Zohran Mamdani had the opportunity to reduce the size and scope of the NYPD, a kind of microcosm of the military. He may still do that before his term is over, but it doesn’t look likely. Rather, he quickly abandoned any notion of “defunding” the NYPD, and even flirted with the idea of increasing NYPD headcount (something that our comrades in the Emerge caucus successfully fought against).²⁹ Most significantly, he ceded control of the NYPD to the right-wing billionaire heiress and zionist Jessica Tisch, who had cracked down on pro-Palestine protesters during the height of the genocide.³⁰ There is a non-zero chance that the exact same thing could happen for a DSA candidate (e.g., Rep. Ocasio-Cortez) when it comes time for the U.S. president to reduce the imperialist U.S. military. In fact, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez is already signaling that she intends on abandoning this plank.

Ilhan Omar is another cautionary tale for how left-ish candidates can slip on this issue. On February 2, 2022, Rep. Omar was cautiously opposed to escalating the conflict in Ukraine: “The consequences of flooding Ukraine with half a billion dollars in American weapons, likely not limited to just military-specific equipment but also including small arms and ammo, are unpredictable and likely disastrous.” That was a great position, especially given the notorious presence of neo-Nazis within the Ukrainian military and its corrupt right-wing president. She was right; flooding Ukraine with weapons was a terrible idea and it did lead to terrible consequences. However, under pressure from Democratic party leadership, Rep. Omar was eventually transformed into a more “compatible” position. On April 20, 2024, she issued a very short press release, boasting that she “voted to provide Ukraine and Taiwan critical aid.” This is gross and bad. We have no business sending weapons to either Ukraine or Taiwan. This is right-wing military posturing, and it is obviously the result of pressure from the right-wing Democrats.

It’s not just Ilhan Omar, either. We wrote previously about how Rep. Ocasio-Cortez likewise voted to send billions of dollars in military funding to Taiwan (HR 8036 in April 2024) and bragged about sending “tens of billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars in military assistance” to the right-wing proxy war in Ukraine. Even local candidates like Francesca Hong have run away from the DSA position on imperialism, and towards the right-wing Democrats on the issue of military spending.

So what have our incoming DSA candidates for Congress had to say about U.S. military spending?

Chris Rabb is absolutely correct in calling to “radically reduce” the Department of War, and Darializa Avila Chevalier’s earlier joke about cutting 100% of the budget was good to hear (we'll see how far she pushes), but some of the other statements skew a bit conservative. Melat Kiros, for instance, has only called for “cutting Pentagon spending by 10%.” Assuming a starting budget of $1.15 trillion (the most recent proposal for this year), a 10% cut would only reduce the budget down to $1.035 trillion.³¹ We can do better, and hope that Darializa Avila Chevalier keeps pushing for the larger cuts that she once believed in.

To her credit, Claire Valdez has specifically called for military reductions, and for winding down military bases abroad, emphasizing the negative environmental impacts of militarism. That’s good. However, there is also a lack of detail here, and — similar to Kiros — she explicitly only calls for a “fraction” of the military budget to be cut.³² Of course any cut — big or small — would be a “fraction,” so we just want to stress that the details matter.

Given DSA’s clear position, and the lack of clarity from our candidates, DSA can and should fill this vacuum. DSA, through its International Committee and elsewhere, should make it absolutely clear that “radically” reducing the U.S. military and its overseas bases is absolutely necessary for any of our representatives at the federal level. For too long, too many within our ranks — out of opportunism and careerism — have been playing footsie with ambitious, empty-headed politicians, and have been too reluctant to push on this absolutely necessary issue. If we don’t push them on the issue of military spending, then they will only be pushed by pro-military media figures, consultants, and politicians. You can already tell that our candidates are a bit fearful, and the same structural dynamics noted by Luxemburg and Lenin will play out again right in front of our eyes. In order to move this issue forward, and avoid repeating past mistakes, DSA as an organization will need to get more specific on its targets for military reductions (particularly for a presidential candidate) and generally work to avoid DSA-adjacent politicians offering very small numbers. Now that we are growing in strength, we need to work harder at clarifying and implementing the anti-imperialist aims that we have already all agreed on. We’re socialists, dammit! Everyone knows that the U.S. military is a threat to the entire world, and is the single largest weapon projecting the power of capitalism and imperialism. This is not just some campaign slogan to jettison. We can all say it loudly, and work towards addressing the very real and material problem.

Once again, DSA can create a candidate questionnaire for potential presidential candidates, and a minimum policy program for its federal partners. Any federal level candidates who have specifically campaigned against U.S. military bases abroad may be our best partners for these purposes, but there is also more that we can do as an organization. In addition to centering general military reductions, we can demand very specific policies at the federal level that push back against past and present U.S. military policies, including:

1. The immediate end to all military support for the State of Israel, including a total unwinding of any defense-industrial partnerships integrating the two countries’ military supply chains, and a dismantling of the colonial “Board of Peace” that farcically named Donald Trump as president for life with the sole right to name his successor.
2. The immediate and unconditional return of President Nicolás Maduro to his home in Venezuela, together with a complete end to all economic sanctions and other mechanisms of coercion and control against Venezuela and its representatives.
3. The immediate and unconditional end to all hostilities against Iran, Yemen, and Lebanon. Instead, we can implement in good faith the June 12, 2026 Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that had been signed to surrender Trump’s war of aggression. Implementation includes affirmatively preventing Israel from any further attacks against Lebanon.
4. The immediate and unconditional end to all economic sanctions against Cuba, the immediate removal of Cuba from its improper placement on the “State Sponsors of Terror” list, and the renunciation of the coerced treaties and agreements regarding Guantanamo Bay (which shall completely revert back to Cuba’s ownership and control).
5. The immediate end to all military support for the Taiwan separatists in China, and a new policy of close cooperation on clean energy initiatives — rather than hostile confrontation — with China.³³
6. The immediate closure of military bases overseas, as part of a broader initiative to de-escalate tensions abroad and completely stop the U.S. policy of hostility towards socialist and communist countries. This can start with the immediate closure of Soto Cano Air Base (Honduras), which had historically been used by the U.S. to support right-wing death squads across Latin America. It can also include the military bases in Okinawa (Japan) and Osan Air Base (South Korea), which have been used to threaten China. Given the incredibly broad scope, this policy will need to be more deeply developed by DSA if it really intends on running a candidate for the presidency. 

The details of such a program could be developed as a common DSA project in the lead-up to the internal DSA presidential candidate discussions, with more developed expertise from our cadre of anti-imperialist and international experts. A project like this would require diligence and attention to detail. We should absolutely not leave this type of issue to the political consultant class, which has no interest in pursuing this type of policy. There is also much to do in restructuring, and dismantling many of the operations, of the various geographic unified combat commands (SOUTHCOM, AFRICOM, etc.). There may be some electoral-minded comrades within our ranks, who think that you can just run a presidential campaign with a few snappy slogans (modeled after Zohran Mamdani’s successful use of three main policy platforms), but there is so much more to actually capturing and winning power. If we don’t lead on developing and demanding socialist international policies, and calling in our best allies, then nobody else will. If we want to contest for power at the highest levels for socialism, then programs like this are absolutely necessary and will require intense collaboration.

WE WILL CONTINUE WITH PART 3 NEXT WEEK, DISCUSSING OUR NEXT STEPS AND MOVING FORWARD.

Footnotes

¹⁹ During the attacks on Yugoslavia, the U.S. admittedly leaned heavily on a “terrorist group” (in the words of U.S. envoy Robert Gelbard) called the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), including Hashim Thaçi. This is an old playbook, much like how the U.S. supported the mujahideen in Afghanistan, the Contras in Nicaragua, the Bay of Pigs in Cuba, and so on. Even former NATO Secretary General Lord Carrington said that NATO “caused ethnic cleansing,” rather than prevented it. There is much more to say about the Yugoslavia case, including the use of “atrocity propaganda” to coax gullible liberals (people who only read headlines) deeper into the war, because it is obvious that people keep on falling for the same tricks. We’ll leave that for another time, though.

²⁰ The disastrous NATO campaign in Afghanistan killed hundreds of thousands, and displaced millions, destroying much of the country’s infrastructure. In 2022, after the NATO forces lost the conflict, the Biden administration stole $9 billion of the country’s bank reserves, further impoverishing the country as the U.S. was forced to leave.

²¹ Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Cori Bush (D-MO), and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) all voted the wrong way on H.Res. 1130, effectively giving “socialist” support to the brutal anti-socialist NATO military expansion. Jamaal Bowman, in particular, has been dopey on the NATO issue, issuing a statement on February 23, 2022 that “I support NATO and will continue to do so.” This has sadly been one of the lesser-discussed issues within DSA.

²² See, e.g., Michael Parenti — Against Empire (1995); Vijay Prashad — The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South (2012); Medea Benjamin & David Swanson - NATO: What You Need To Know (2024).

²³ For crying out loud, even Tucker Carlson has stated: “I would pull out of NATO immediately if I were the U.S. president.” It would be extremely embarrassing if, in a future presidential debate, a “socialist” defended NATO (against DSA’s position), and the right-wing blowhard was the one advocating for DSA’s position (leaving NATO).

²⁴ Imperialism is not a secondary issue. Unfortunately, the “Workers Deserve More” platform masks some of this through vagueness. Nevertheless, opposition to NATO is implicit in the demand to “end all foreign wars.” NATO is a key driver of foreign wars. In fact, NATO requires its members to spend a certain percentage of their national budgets on weapons. One cannot seriously or legitimately claim to oppose foreign wars without opposing NATO’s role in world affairs.

²⁵ Again, Darializa Avila Chevalier has walked some of this back, using more Democrat-friendly rhetoric around the topic. To her credit, she still maintains that we need to put “diplomacy first,” but this is generally a step backward rather than a step forward, and we remain concerned that she may likewise slip on the NATO issue under pressure from the right (and a lack of pressure from the left).

²⁶ There is also negative influence from non-DSA “progressives.” In addition to weakness from the so-called “progressive caucus,” Abdul El-Sayed has also been terrible on this issue, telling NBC News that he would support sending military aid to the right-wing government of Ukraine. Likewise, Florida Senate candidate Angie Nixon has told FOX News that she is open to “possibly increasing” U.S. commitments to NATO. These are not sophisticated or “pragmatic” positions, but are weak and contemptible positions.

²⁷ We suspect that some on the “right wing” of DSA will point to the relative popularity of NATO among Democrats (a group that has been heavily propagandized by politicians like Hillary Clinton and news outlets like MSNBC) as a reason for a DSA-backed candidate to either avoid the issue or, worse, double-down on NATO support in opposition to DSA’s clearly stated position. We can’t let these people win, and will note that this is exactly the problem of “tailism” that must be avoided. It’s effectively selling out the planet, and becoming complicit in imperialism.

²⁸ It is odd that DSA Syracuse ran a candidate for the New York State Assembly (Maurice “Mo” Brown) who was literally a Guantanamo prison guard, and who brags about it as his “greatest non-political achievement” on his website. We aim to shut down military bases like these, and look forward to Mo Brown clarifying his position.

²⁹ One of the problems Zohran faced at the local level was that there was no alternative ever offered by the left to take over the NYPD. We might have a similar problem at the national level with the U.S. military, and if we want to avoid the same fate we should collectively think through who specifically we would want to lead the U.S. military during a potential DSA presidency (where we would dramatically reduce its size and scope). In the absence of a strategic plan for the left, opportunists like Morris Katz will fill this vacuum, bad analysis will prevail, and we will potentially end up repeating the Jessica Tisch pattern.

³⁰ City & State reported on August 21, 2026 that “Mamdani’s NYPD is still working with Israel.”

³¹ To make matters even worse, Melat Kiros’ stupid and unnecessary defense of NATO also has implications for our military spending. As NATO has been reiterating, member countries have “committed to investing 5% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in defence.” Assuming a GDP of $32.475 trillion, that would mean that the U.S. is aiming to spend $1.624 trillion on the military. Simply put, you can’t claim to want to cut the military, while also doubling down on NATO.

³² As to the degree of a cut, our comrades in the Reform & Revolution caucus call for “slashing the Pentagon budget,” and Jacobin has published an op-ed titled “Cut the Military Budget in Half.”

³³ We appreciate that our comrades in the Groundwork caucus have stated in their platform on anti-imperialism that they aspire towards a platform that includes “ending the nascent Cold War with China.” We likewise appreciate that Claire Valdez and Oliver Larkin have gestured towards similar policies. We believe that there is a broader consensus building within DSA that U.S. positioning against China is harmful, and have written about the topic here.