罗斯福提出“民主兵工厂”,赫格塞斯倡导“自由兵工厂”


分析:扎卡里·B·沃尔夫
2小时前
发布时间:2026年2月6日,美国东部时间上午6:00

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1940年,当富兰克林·D·罗斯福希望美国人在不实际参战的情况下加入对抗纳粹德国、法西斯意大利和日本帝国轴心国的战争时,他呼吁美国人转变经济重心,为全球民主国家提供装备。

“我们必须成为民主的伟大兵工厂,”罗斯福在著名的炉边谈话中说道,呼吁以快得惊人的速度全面调整美国经济。“对我们来说,这是一场和战争本身一样严重的紧急情况。我们必须以同样的决心、同样的紧迫感、同样的爱国主义和牺牲精神来完成我们的任务,就像我们身处战争中一样。”

FDR炉边谈话16:论民主兵工厂! 节点运行失败

告别“民主兵工厂”,迎来“自由兵工厂”

86年后的今天,美国在技术层面虽未参战,但五角大楼负责人彼得·赫格塞斯(Pete Hegseth)正以措辞的关键转变重提“兵工厂”理念。他在全美各地的国防承包商集会上提出的“兵工厂”,目标是“自由”而非“民主”。他希望改革“国防工业基础”,并让五角大楼能够更快地采购武器。

过去几周,赫格塞斯在蓝源公司(Blue Origin)设施与杰夫·贝佐斯(Jeff Bezos)共同探讨火箭技术;在得克萨斯州SpaceX设施与埃隆·马斯克(Elon Musk)讨论人工智能;在洛杉矶谈太空议题,在弗吉尼亚州诺福克(Norfolk)讨论海军舰艇。

更关注物质财富而非民主

但与罗斯福呼吁扩充军备不同,特朗普政府的“美国优先”理念更侧重于美国的物质利益,而非捍卫他国民主。

例如,在美国军方“俘获”前委内瑞拉领导人尼古拉斯·马杜罗(Nicolas Maduro)后,政府正与马杜罗政权残余势力合作开发该国石油资源,而非支持近期选举中被认为得票更多的反对派领导人。

此外,唐纳德·特朗普总统将对乌克兰民主的支持与获取乌克兰矿产资源挂钩——只有在对方同意支持乌克兰对抗俄罗斯侵略的前提下,他才会提供军事援助。

呼吁大幅增加国防开支

与此同时,特朗普政府计划动用国家“信用卡”,大幅增加战争能力投入。

近年来,五角大楼预算常年维持在约1万亿美元,但特朗普在竞选时承诺削减政府开支,如今却计划将明年国防预算飙升至1.5万亿美元。

“这是1939年的时刻,或希望是1981年的时刻——紧迫感日益加剧,敌人集结,威胁加剧,你能感觉到,我也能感觉到。”赫格塞斯在去年11月美国海军战争学院的演讲中回顾二战和冷战历史,阐述“兵工厂计划”。需要指出的是,他在“自由兵工厂”相关演讲中尚未提及罗斯福。

但与当时轴心国和苏联的明确威胁不同,当今威胁边界模糊。部分原因是特朗普鲁莽的外交风格疏远了欧美长期盟友,并对中国等对手采取反复无常的态度。例如,特朗普对《新削减战略武器条约》(New START)到期视而不见,该条约曾确保美俄数十年限制核武库规模。

特朗普“金穹”计划耗资巨大

特朗普宏伟计划中最昂贵的一项是构建多层导弹防御系统——他称之为“金穹”(Golden Dome),旨在以以色列“铁穹”(Iron Dome)类似的方式保护整个美国。

赫格塞斯承诺改革国防承包体系、利用创新技术并削减繁文缛节,将其描述为五角大楼采购的“商业优先”理念。

“国防部当然大力支持盈利,”赫格塞斯在海军战争学院演讲中直言,“毕竟我们是资本家。”

美国企业研究所(AEI)的托德·哈里森(Todd Harrison)评估称,“金穹”计划若实施,承包商将获得巨额利润,但最终可能耗资数万亿美元,且效果未必达100%。“这是一次打破常规的真诚改革,却也掺杂着表演性政治。”哈里森评价道。

尽管军事承包体系需要改革已成共识——马斯克旗下企业严重依赖国防合同,去年他曾承诺在“政府效率部”削减预算时不会放过五角大楼——但随着特朗普呼吁国防开支增加66%,这一时代或许已终结。

修复系统的双重挑战

“显然,这一努力充满活力与兴奋,但接下来是双重难题。”新美国安全中心(New America)高级研究员、战略家彼得·沃伦·辛格(Peter Warren Singer)指出,“最大的困难可能是建立一个公平透明的体系。”

国防合同资金分配体系虽旨在遏制腐败,但流程复杂、效率低下。赫格塞斯近期与曾资助总统夫人纪录片的亿万富翁、以及其政府前成员举办活动,而这两人如今都跻身争夺纳税人资金“兵工厂”的承包商之列。

FDR had the ‘Arsenal of Democracy.’ Hegseth has an ‘Arsenal of Freedom’

Analysis by Zachary B. Wolf
2 hr ago
PUBLISHED Feb 6, 2026, 6:00 AM ET

A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt wanted Americans to join the fight against the axis of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan in 1940, without actually entering the war, he called on Americans to pivot their economy to equip democracies around the world.

“We must be the great arsenal of democracy,” Roosevelt said in a famous fireside chat, calling for a complete reordering of the US economy at breakneck pace. “For us this is an emergency as serious as war itself. We must apply ourselves to our task with the same resolution, the same sense of urgency, the same spirit of patriotism and sacrifice as we would show were we at war.”

FDR Fireside Chat 16: On the Arsenal of Democracy!节点运行失败

Out with the ‘Arsenal of democracy,’ in with the ‘Arsenal of freedom’

Eighty-six years later, the United States is, again, not technically at war, but Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth is echoing the arsenal idea with a key a shift in word choice. The arsenal Hegseth is pitching in a series of speeches at defense contractors around the country is for “freedom” rather than “democracy.” He wants to reform the “defense-industrial base” and enable the Pentagon to buy weapons much faster.

In the past few weeks Hegseth talked rockets alongside Jeff Bezos at a Blue Origin facility. He talked about artificial intelligence alongside Elon Musk at a SpaceX facility in Texas. He’s talked about space in Los Angeles and Navy ships in Norfolk, Virignia.

More interested in material wealth than democracy

But unlike Roosevelt’s call to build up arms, the Trump administration’s America First mindset is more focused on material gain for the US than on defending democracy in other countries.

After the US military snatched former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, for instance, the administration has been working with the remnants of his regime to access the county’s oil rather than support opposition leaders thought to have gotten more votes in recent elections.

President Donald Trump has also conditioned his support for Ukraine’s democracy on access to Ukraine’s mineral wealth in exchange for supporting the country’s military against aggression from Russia.

Call for a massive increase in defense spending

At the same time, The Trump administration wants to pull out the national credit card and spend a lot more money on warfighting capability.

The Pentagon’s budget has hovered around $1 trillion annually in recent years, but Trump, far from cutting government spending as he promised on his way into office, now wants to supercharge defense spending to $1.5 trillion next year.

“This is a 1939 moment or hopefully a 1981 moment. A moment of mounting urgency. Enemies gather, threats grow, you feel it, I feel it,” Hegseth said, drawing on the history of Word War II and the Cold War during a speech last November at Naval War College, laying out the arsenal plan. Although it’s important to note that he hasn not yet mentioned Roosevelt in an “arsenal of freedom” speech.

But unlike the Axis and Soviet threats in those eras, the threat today is less well defined. Today’s threat is also at least partly due to Trump’s brash diplomatic style, which alienates longtime allies in Europe and North America and acts erratically towards adversaries like China.

Witness the nonchalance with Trump brushed off the expiration Thursday of the New START treaty, by which the US and Russia agreed for decades to limit their nuclear arsenals.

Rather than seek agreements, Trump wants a Golden Dome

The most expensive example of Trump’s grand plans to defend the US is his call for a multi-layered missile defense system – he calls it the “Golden Dome” – to protect the entire US in the same way tiny Israel employs its Iron Dome system.

In part to facilitate that kind of new, out-of-the-box idea, Hegseth is promising to remake defense contracting, harness innovation, and cut red tape. Hegseth calls it a “commercial-first” mindset for the Pentagon’s acquisitions.

“The Department of War is, of course, big time supportive of profits,” Hegseth said at the Naval War College. “We are capitalists after all.”

Big ideas cost big money

Trump’s dome plan, in which contractors see lucrative opportunity, could ultimately cost multiple trillions of dollars without being 100% effective, according to an assessment by Todd Harrison at the American Enterprise Institute.

“I think it is a combination of an honest, no-sacred-cows effort to fix a long-broken system and performative politics,” Harrison told me.

The fact that military contracting and procurement need fixing is indisputable. Elon Musk, whose companies rely so heavily on defense contracting, promised not to spare the Pentagon in his Department of Government Efficiency cost-cutting efforts last year. But that seems like a bygone era of Trump 2.0 now that the president is calling for a 66% increase in defense spending.

Trying to fix a system is laudable, Peter Warren Singer, a strategist and senior fellow at New America told me.

“There’s obviously a lot of energy and excitement around this effort, but now comes the double hard part,” he said.

What could be most difficult is creating a system that is fair and transparent

The system by which tax dollars for defense contracts is awarded – as difficult as it is to maneuver and slow as it is to work – evolved from an effort to cut down on graft and abuse.

Hegseth has now held events with one billionaire who funded a documentary about the president’s wife and another who was part of his administration. Now both men are among the contractors interested in the arsenal of taxpayer dollars.

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