In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower asked the American people be strong in their faith that “all nations would reach peace with justice.” He requested further that our country be “unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation’s great goals.” Understanding the vast power at the disposal of the strongest military the world had ever known, the former five-star general of World War II and president made a point with his final words in office, calling on his fellow countrymen to understand the dangers such strength creates without an adherence to collective morals and values.
Arrogance, the antithesis of that humility, is pernicious. It spreads like wildfire, consuming everything around it and leaving in its destructive wake the smoldering ash of relationships, friendships, and partnerships. Its bellowing smoke clouds vision, isolating and insulating individuals and organizations from constructive criticism and innovative thought. In the private sector, arrogance may yield short-term gains but is ultimately disastrous for sustained success. To phrase it more succinctly, if you’re lucky, you might get rich, but it will never make you truly wealthy.
In the public sector, the impacts of arrogance are more egregious, with consequences rippling across communities, academia, cultures, ethnicities. When viewed further through the lenses of national security and foreign policy, the effects can be cataclysmic: families destroyed, lives lost. These ramifications may last for years, if not generations, eroding trust in institutions, safety within communities, and confidence between allies. For instance, according to a Gallup poll in May 2025, 69 percent of adult Americans have little to no trust that the government works in the best interest of society.
On this day dedicated to his memory, we recall the words of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who, like Eisenhower, spoke of humility and of arrogance. He viewed the U.S. government’s overconfidence as a blight founded in hypocrisy, staining the character of the nation and its citizens. During his April 1967 address in support of ending the Vietnam War and in the shadow of segregation, King delivered this message with blunt elegance:
…But honesty impels me to admit that our power has often made us arrogant.
We are arrogant in our contention that we have some sacred mission to protect people from totalitarian rule while we make little use of our power to end the evils of South Africa and Rhodesia, and while we in fact support dictatorships with guns and money under the guise of fighting communism.
We often arrogantly feel that we have some divine, messianic mission to police the whole world. We are arrogant, as Senator Fullbright has said, to think ourselves “God’s avenging angels.” We are arrogant in not allowing young nations to go through the same growing pains, turbulence and revolution that characterized our history.
We are arrogant in professing to be concerned about the freedom of foreign nations while not setting our own house in order. …Our arrogance can be our doom.
Fifty-nine years later, this theme remains salient as a foundational thread within national security and foreign policy. Recent events do not simply mimic the maelstrom of domestic and international turmoil in King’s era but are deeply committed reenactments of those same egotistical decisions across multiple areas of policy.
As concerns rise about the dawn of a budding technocracy, federal guardrails meant to ensure the least harm possible from emerging technologies are currently all but nonexistent. Thus far, the Trump administration has declined to close the gap, stating: “To win, United States AI companies must be free to innovate without cumbersome regulation. But excessive State regulation thwarts this imperative.” State legislatures are attempting to fill the vacuum, but in doing so they create an inconsistent tapestry of regulation that is difficult for any person or group working in multiple jurisdictions (as almost all today are) to navigate. In the meantime, unchecked AI tools are currently used in an array of nefarious activity from housing redlining to the generation of pornography, including content involving children. Contrary to the government’s purported belief that a self-regulated industry will do the least harm, historical evidence shows that strong public governance in coordination with industry provides the best outcomes.
In foreign affairs, the United States’ capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and its claims of responsibility for the governance and oil of the country, is yet another chapter in American nation-building. The government conducted the removal while the Maduro regime remained in power, despite assurances that this type of interventionism would never happen again. Instead, coupled with multiple Venezuelan operations leading up to the Maduro raid, in the last year alone the United States has conducted airstrikes in Yemen, Syria, Nigeria, Somalia, and Iran with more likely to come. The current overarching U.S. foreign strategy is steeped in American exceptionalism, nationalism, and power projection, and evokes the bravado consistent with the historic critiques of the American military as a “world police force.” It is a call back to King’s remarks on the government’s internal perception of itself as “God’s avenging angels” with everything to teach and nothing to learn.
Domestically, the use of Immigration and Customers Enforcement (ICE) in widespread roundup operations – reportedly to capture “the worst criminal” noncitizens – has led to the erroneous arrests and deportation of individuals with a valid, legal status, including U.S. citizens. Inspections of facilities have declined as detention rates and deaths in custody have steadily risen according to a new report from the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), based on the 2025 data provided by Homeland Security. A number of those arrests have been conducted without warrants or probable cause, in violation of the individuals’ constitutional rights. Human rights groups reported detainees have been held in substandard conditions – such as those found in the notorious “Alligator Alcatraz” Floridian detention facility – akin to the conditions the United States often condemned as inhumane in other countries. In another instance, the government has reopened arguably unhealed wounds, utilizing the former site of a World War II Japanese internment camp to house immigrants. That facility was recently the site of an immigrant detainee’s death that the medical examiner is reportedly likely to classify as a homicide.
Additionally, ill-prepared and trained ICE agents with limited background checks have engaged citizens, in what some former senior ICE officials and experts have identified as violations of agency procedures and conduct, sometimes with violent and fatal results. Images of these events draw comparisons to civil unrest abroad and harken back to memories of King’s civil rights era: military-style uniforms and masks similar to those used in Venezuela by the Special Action Forces (FAES) and Iranian security forces; regular use of smoke and gas grenades; deaths of unarmed civilians; and the detention of legal bystanders who speak up.
Alongside these events, the United States’ recent pressure and threats against longstanding NATO allies over desires to acquire Greenland sent diplomatic shockwaves through Western stability. The U.S. has long maintained a base on the island that is currently being expanded under previously agreed-to terms. Approximately 150 American service members are stationed at Pituffick Space Base in Greenland alongside hundreds of Canadian, Danish, and Greenlandic troops. The territory’s government stated the U.S. military could have easily expanded its footprint with the support of both Denmark and Greenland’s governments. Instead, the Trump administration’s offer to buy the autonomous territory outright and a rumored plan to pay citizens directly have been rebuffed by the government. Polling indicates both citizens of Greenland and the United States are against it. This aligns directly with King’s warning: “We [The U.S. government] feel that our money can do anything.”
Still, tensions around this issue persist. “Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland,” Senior White House Advisor Stephen Miller defiantly proclaimed during a national news interview. He refused to discuss the potential use of force to acquire the territory even if Greenlandic officials continue to reject U.S. conservatorship. Now, numerous leaders within the European Union and Parliament have strongly condemned U.S. official statements on the issue, and allied soldiers recently deployed to conduct military exercises on the island. On Jan. 17, President Donald Trump announced tariffs beginning Feb. 1 against several NATO countries supporting Greenland with a June 1 deadline to increase percentages to 25 percent if the territory wasn’t sold to the United States by that time.
With all the evolving challenges facing the United States, a fundamental question exists: What type of citizen of the global community does America want to be, and what values define our country? The United States has never been able to achieve any strategic victory alone, yet now it dives deeper into isolation. We do this while leveraging the same tactics used by those we removed from power, labeling them dictators against democracy. How is that “peace through strength”? Strategic bombings of authoritarian regimes in support of civic upheaval while, domestically, unnamed masked agents conduct sweeping raids, threatening lawful citizens with arrest, will not achieve Eisenhower’s “peace with justice.”
In his closing remarks from that storied speech, King spoke of hope through his own patriotism and love of country.
Let me say finally that I oppose the war in Vietnam because I love America. I speak out against it not in anger but with anxiety and sorrow in my heart, and above all with a passionate desire to see our beloved country stand as the moral example of the world…
The U.S. government, through a constitutional structure of checks and balances in equal branches of government, is inherently imperfect. The Constitution’s preamble immediately references the mission of creating “a more perfect Union” as its guiding principle. The document has required 27 amendments throughout the 237 years since its 1788 ratification. Yet, in that imperfection we have remained resilient, maintaining the promise of hope for all those who dream of a better future. We always strive to be more perfect, to be better.
The actions of the U.S. government – all within the first year of the administration’s term – do not embody the “shining city upon a hill” or invoke the pride of the words captured in “The New Colossus,” etched in bronze on the side of our international symbol of freedom:
…cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
Instead, these acts are materials in the construction of a house of hubris, and this house – our house – is on fire. With humility and our collective morals and values we must extinguish the flames, or “our arrogance will be our doom.”
FEATURED IMAGE: The Martin Luther King Jr Memorial in Washington, DC (via Getty Images)
Great Job Bishop Garrison & the Team @ Just Security Source link for sharing this story.
