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AN INDEPENDENT RESOURCE FOR JOURNALISTS
The Eisenhower Media Network (EMN) comprises former military, intelligence and civilian national security officials who offer independent analysis based on decades of real-world experience, study and scholarship. Our mission is to offer critical, well-informed, and independent perspectives on national security, broadly conceived, consistent with President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s warning about the dangers posed to democracy and liberty by the military-industrial complex and its pursuit of incessant and needless warfare.
WHAT DOES EMN STAND FOR?
While diverse in their backgrounds, including political beliefs, EMN fellows agree on the following core tenets:
- The Eisenhower Media Network (EMN) is neither pro- nor anti-military.
- EMN is non-partisan.
- EMN members, in their capacity as former military service members and government officials, have sworn an oath to the U.S. Constitution to defend it against all enemies, foreign and domestic, while adhering to the principles and obligations of international law.
- EMN believes in the United States’ founding as a constitutional republic with a citizen-soldier ideal that is focused on the defense of the nation.
- EMN’s overarching goal is to widen and deepen the knowledge of our fellow citizens about the military while alerting them to serious issues and problems within the United States’ vast national security state.
- EMN is inspired by President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address in 1961, where he warned about the dangers of the military-industrial complex to democracy and liberty, as well as his “Cross of Iron” speech in 1953, where he warned about excessive and needless spending on military weaponry and the dangers of the same to humanity.
EMN’S MANDATE:
EMN is about educating, informing, and working with our fellow citizens, alerting them to problems and pitfalls, as well as inspiring them to work for and toward a national security structure that keeps the United States safe while minimizing war and military spending.
EMN echoes Eisenhower’s call for activism by alert and knowledgeable citizens to constrain and control the military-industrial complex so as to safeguard and expand U.S. democracy and individual liberties.
In 2026, the year of our nation’s 250th anniversary, EMN urges our fellow citizens to recall that the United States was founded as a republic with a citizen-soldier ideal that promoted peace, not as an empire that seeks and wages wars overseas while promoting a warrior ethos and military lethality.
As Eisenhower said in a speech at the Canada Club in Ottawa on January 10, 1946:
“I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.” That sentiment informs EMN’s mission, tenets, and mandate.
CORE AREAS OF FOCUS:
- No Unconstitutional, Unjust Wars
- Cut Trump’s $1.5 Trillion Pentagon Budget
- Nuclear Weapons & Minimal Effective Deterrence
- Climate Crisis as a National Security Threat
EMN FELLOWS IN THE NEWS
Fellow Michael Baker joins ten other retired senior military officers in a brief on the downsides of Trump’s National Guard deployment.
Lasting peace is in the best interest of our nation. That will happen only when every American has a direct stake—whether monetary or physical—in its execution.
