You need to understand where Bacevich comes from, as his experience both informs and colors his work. He is a West Pointer, Princeton-trained historian, late-war Vietnam veteran, retired Regular Infantry Colonel. After his retirement, he joined the faculty of Boston University, where he is Professor of International Relations and the Director of the Center for International Relations at that institution.

Much of the negative response to his book has been due, I think, to a visceral reaction to the title, and the blurbs. If you take the time to read it, you'll find that it isn't quite what it seems, nor quite what the spinners on both sides have made it out to be. Of course, since Bacevich and I were thinking on parallel tracks regarding the use of military force by the leaders of this nation (of both parties) didn't affect my judgment. Nope. Nada. Hah.

If you approach this book thinking that Bacevich is talking about militarism as in the way it was used to describe Pre-WWI Germany or WWII Japan, you will be caught up short. Bacevich is arguing that a confluence of factors – politics, military reaction to the failures in Vietnam policy, rampant consumerism and selfishness in the electorate, the advent of a “defense intellectual” class, and the Rise of the Evangelicals, interacted in such a way to have caused us to build a hyper-capable military system – for which we have no coherent policy on its use. We have made it too easy to use force, and we keep seeking the magic bullet that will make it the perfect tool,, and that because we have such a nice hammer, every problem tends to be looked at as a nail. Rather than taking real cognizance that force has it's limits, we have fallen into the trap that if we get just a little more precise, we can bend anyone to our will, and should – without immoral carnage on the scale of the World Wars. We forget that war tends to take on a life of it's own - dictating the terms, and not responding to your will. Much like the 'insurgency' in Iraq has taken over from that nice, clean March Upcountry in March, 2003.

While Bacevich doesn’t argue that the military is out of line and dictating things and defacto ordering the civilians around (the classic definition of militarism) he does claim both that the military abrogated its role to provide professional advice and at the same time is not sufficiently subservient to civil authority. In a passage that will greatly annoy fans of Creighton Abrams, he essentially accuses Abrams of usurping civil authority by deliberately building the force to constrain policymaker’s choices (by the heavy reliance on the reserves) which Bacevich implies is a serious breach of the concept of civilian control – and will later, with the other hand, lambaste the military for having built itself into a tool which can be used by the civil authority without having to pay the political costs of mobilization, etc, which he feels acts as a brake on irresponsible foreign policy adventures. All of which he will then lay at the feet of civilian policymakers for having failed to ensure proper oversight and control – and of being in thrall to a coterie of defense intellectuals who are enamored of force. He has little good to say about any of the Presidents since FDR, and he really pastes the Congress for abrogating their responsibility for declaring war.

So, who *is* to blame? You are, you ravening sybarite. Yep. You. Not the military, really. They are either behaving in predictable fashion (incompetent or being brilliant Machiavellians). Not the elected officials. Nope, they are just weather vanes, twisting in the wind. Bacevich savages all the President's since FDR. He's got little use for Clinton's feckless foreign policy - but he's really ticked at George. However... No, gentle reader - IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT.

Your desire for limitless freedom and economic upward mobility, manifested in your insatiable desire for oil, set this train in motion. And when you dismissed Jimmy Carter from the Presidency for daring to suggest that we conserve, lower our expectations, and adopt a more green and spiritual lifestyle over your irresponsible compulsion to buy SUV's, have air conditioning, and keeping the house just above freezing, well you, your sorry bastards, you set the stage for the acceleration of an already in progess action. And the politicians got the message. Bottom line, even though we don't realize it, *it is* blood for oil.

There, I've inoculated you against that theme that runs through the book. It will be there, popping up now and again. Don't let it distract you from the fact that whether or not you agree with it - I don't think that it undermines his thesis.

He takes 8 Chapters and 227 pages to make his point (footnotes, most of which are cites and not explanatory) push it to 262. It's a fairly quick read, and for those of us who lived through what is described, especially from inside the machine, will seem very familiar.

Chapter 1, Wilsonians Under Arms, talks about the Crusading nature of American Foreign Policy in the last century. He's not a fan. He also bemoans the fact that we have no ‘principled opposition’ any more.
Chapter 2, The Military Profession at Bay discusses how the Services set out to recover from Vietnam. I should note that this is an Army-centric book, but since the Army is the Elephant in the Living Room in this discussion, it's appropriate.
Chapter 3. Left, Right, Left. The Rise of the Neocons. Bad Neocons!
Chapter 4. California Dreaming - The Myth-making that gives us an idealized and romantic view of the American Soldier and our military heritage (keep in mind, Bacevich was one himself). This chapter merits a quote:

The New American Militarism draws much of it’s sustaining force from myth – stories created to paper over incongruities and contradictions that pervade the American way of life. The exercise of global power by the United States aggravates these incongruities. Americans want to feel secure, in their homes and where they work. Rather than safety, however, the possession of military might without precedent has in practice yielded a heightened sense of vulnerability. Americans see themselves as an idealistic people. But the dispatch of U.S. forces to oppose tyranny and create the conditions for peace does not evoke accolades from abroad. Instead, it fuels anti-Americanism and generates suspicions of our motives and intentions. Americans believe in democracy. But their democracy works such that the divide between rich and poor grows ever wider. In American, the winners control and ever-increasing percentage of the nation’s wealth. To be a member of the upper class is to have privileges, among them ensuring it’s someone else’ kid who is getting shot at in Iraq or Afghanistan. These are hard, uncomfortable truths, for which the existing political system does not provide an easily available remedy. So Americans concoct stories to make such truths more palatable. During the past quarter century, American politicians with the eyes firmly fixed on the main chance, assisted by purveyors of popular culture with a well-honed instinct for what sells, have promulgated a host of such stories. On result has been to contrive a sentimentalized version of the American military experience and an idealized image of the American soldier.

This chapter is where he really sets the stage for who is ultimately to blame.

Chapter 5. Onward. Those thrice-damned Evangelicals take over the military and turn it into a bastion of Warrior Monks. (There *is* a grain of truth in that, from my experience).
Chapter 6. War Club (double entendre! The Defense Intellectuals, those thrice-damned thinkers who strove to shape the military and the policies that employ it into what it is today. How we built the tools, and why, and how the Generals and Intellectuals have divorced the Army from the People, making it easier to engage in Imperial Adventures.
Chapter 7 Blood for Oil – why American foreign policy since WWII has been focused on oil. And who’s to blame for that.
Chapter 8 Common Defense - do what I say, and all will be better.

The solution? Well, of course he has some thoughts on the subject – some of which reflect his West Point upbringing… and not an ROTC background, like yours truly. This is also the time for another quote, to show he’s not quite the raver the spinners have been making him out to be.

There is, wrote H.L. Mencken, “always a well-known solution to every human problem – neat, plausidble, and wrong.” Mencken’s aphorism applies in spades to the subject of this account. To imagin that there exists a simple antidote to the “military meta-physic” to which the people and government of the United States have fallen prey is to misconstrue the problem. As the foregoing chapters make plain, the origins of America’s present-day infatuation with military power are anyting but simple. American Militarism is not the invention of a cabal nursing fantasies of global empire [sorry, DU’ers! Ed.] and manipulating an ususpecting people frightened by the events of 9/11. Further, it is counterproductive to think in these terms – to assign culpability to a particular president of administration and to imaging that throuwing the bums out will put things right. Yet neither does the present-day status of the United States as sole superpower reveal an essential truth, whether positive or negative, about the American Project. Enthusiasts (mostly on the right) who interpret America’s possession of unrivaled and unprecedented armed might as proof that the United States enjoys the mandate of heave are deluded. But so too are those (mostly on the left) who see in the far-flung doings of today’s U.S. military establishment substantiation of Major General Smedley Butler’s old chestnut that ‘war is just a racket” and the American soldier “a gangster for capitalism” sent abroad to to the bidding of Big Business or Big Oil.

His prescription?

1. Heed the intention of the Founders. Bacevich is a constructionist… Avoid foreign entanglements. Nothing in the Constitution sets forth that the US is obligated to save the world from itself. Not quite back to isolationism, but close. Bring it back to “Promote the Common Defense” Leave aside for a moment that sometimes the best defense is a good offense. In another venue,
Bacevich even allows that pre-emption *is* a viable option. He argues that with the exception of WWII, *all* of our military adventures in the past 120 years have made us less safe, not more.

2. Revitalize the concept of separation of powers. In other words, Congress should do its duty in regarding declaring war, and raising and equipping armies, and quit deferring to the Executive. Rumsfeld will *not* like this discussion.

3. View force as a last resort. Bacevich argues throughout the book that the honing of the force to its current and projected state make it too easy to view force as a first option, or to at least consider it much earlier than it should be. There are 3 subsets.

a. Reserve the right to act in our own defense, unilaterally if needed. Which Bacevich views as allowing us to act against Al Qaeda as we choose – of course, the enabler for that is precisely the military machine that so worries Bacevich. (Think Hellfires from Predators).
b. The US will not tolerate behavior posing a proximate threat to the nation and citizens – which Bacevich avers would allow Afghanistan, but does not allow for Iraq.
c. We can act, in concert with other nations of goodwill, in internationally sanctioned activities, humanitarian or otherwise. I.e., had we gotten UN approval for Iraq, Bacevich would be all for it. Well, not, actually, he uses the term “might” in italics regarding OIF. He does think it would be just peachy for us to lead the way against genocide and ethnic cleansing… one wonders about those Kurds and other mass graves in Iraq, or the Marsh Arabs… but I digress. So, even though he savages President Clinton and General Clark about Kosovo, he thinks it would have been okay as long as we had UN approval. He specifically enjoins against us claiming sole right to be the world’s conscience (no argument from me).

4. Enhance US self-sufficiency. He recognizes that we can’t just unplug from the grid. Basically, he wants us to do more with less, give up our grandiose economic dreams, and live like good little democratic socialists and minimalist consumerism. Be more like Europe. He points out that the US didn’t have a problem with Islam until we needed to ensure access to oil for the west. And Islam didn’t have a problem with us until we showed up in their neck of the woods. I think his analysis is a bit simplistic there, and completely ignores the impact of global media. But it doesn’t make it all wrong, either.

5. Organize US Forces explicitly for National Defense. Shed unnecessary obligations and make Allies who can defend themselves, do so. In other words, get out of Europe, Korea, and Japan for starters. Focus on defending the homeland, and the requirement for power projection goes away. Of course, we are doing this… at least the withdraw part. He makes a good point that if we aren’t stuck someplace else, we aren’t as likely to get involved in someone else’s problems by default, allowing us to pick and choose where we will get shot at. He believes the Euros (less Great Britain) have been getting a free ride in this regard and should pay their way.

6. Determine an appropriate gauge for the level of US Defense Spending. Rather than setting goals such as X percent of the GDP, he suggest we peg it to what others are spending, his offered rule of thumb being to match the combined spending of the next ten most expensive military players. I’d have to run the numbers, I have no idea what the impact of that would be, but it’s certainly grounds for discussion.

7. Enhance alternative instruments of statecraft. Not a surprising suggestion from a guy who runs an Institute of International Relations. Setting the self-interest aside, getting the State Department re-energized, and making the Officer corps a little more “brit” in outlook and cosmopolitanism isn’t a horrible idea. My Canadian readers, if any have lasted this long, will perk up their ears at his discussion of ‘soft power’. He would have us take the money he feels would be saved on the ‘hard’ side and spend it on the ‘soft’ side.

8. Revive the moribund concept of the citizen-soldier. Recognizing that a draft is a political non-starter, he wants to change recruitment patterns. Rather than just a few ROTC scholarships – he wants to entice the monied classes with shorter enlistments and better education benefits – fine enough, but that hasn’t worked yet – we do that already. I guess he wants to shift to full-rides/debt forbearance in the thought that will bring in the children of the elites. I don’t think so, though more power to him. He wants us to find ways to keep the military from just being a self-selecting group of lower-class shmoes and self-generating officer elites (like my background).

9. Rexamine the role of the Guard and Reserve. Essentially, he wants to expand the Guard and give them the Homeland Defense mission, and take the funding away from the Regulars (which, btw, reduces their ability to be sent to cause mischief abroad) to pay for it. Essentially – he wants two Armies. The Guard, which defends the homeland, and the Regulars, which back up the Guard in the Homeland, and go abroad to do all that foreign stuff. Can anyone spell “Foreign Legion?” And nothing like setting the two against each other. This is arguably his least practical suggestion, in my view.

10. Reconcile the Military Profession to American Society. Bacevich fears incipient Praetorianism in the Officer Corps. Bacevich wants all officers to graduate from conventional universities – and shut down the Academies as colleges. The Academies survive as Officer Basic Training – kind of along the lines of Sandhurst. I think here he overplays his own experience. Most officers *do* graduate from conventional Universities. And most field grade officers *do* have Master’s Degrees, most of them from conventional institutions, and many of them paid for out of pocket and done on their own time. And while the basic military school system will still exist, he would abolish all the post-graduate military programs, and have all officers go to conventional institutions for higher education… and he does have an idea for countering leftwing bias – simply endow and fund the programs, which will draw the people. I think he’s naïve here… While he doesn’t state it explicity, from tangential comments you can draw the inference that we should eliminate on-post housing, AAFES (military department stores), and the Commissary, so that soldiers have no sense of ‘apartness’ and being aloof from the concerns of average citizens. Putting words in his mouth – he wants us to view our jobs as being no more and no less than any other, and to have virtually no sense of community outside the one (civilian) in which we live. There are merits to the argument – but he has no concept of how expensive that would be. Or, perhaps he does, because he doesn’t come out and actually recommend it, though it’s there between the line.

The book is worth reading for those interested in military affairs, in and out of the service. While having lived through it, like I did, will provide some perspective, the book still holds together for the younger folk and the non-military person. You don’t have to be a war geek for this book to have meaning – and in fact, if you aren’t a war geek, you are Bacevich’s target.

I could keep tweaking this, but I’m just going to throw it out there and let the Usual Suspects have at it. Should be an interesting discussion – especially if you’ve read the book and think I’m out of my mind.

Asking a question, not quibbling, put down the sharp object before ya hurts yourself again(ack!): what do you mean by 'precise'? Are we talking about Powell Doctrine or Paveway munitions here? Is it the rules we have that govern how we use the mil, or the tools? Or both?

So, would you say he has a penchant for the Diamond thesis that maximizing stnd of living is actually counter productive then?

Tangent alert:
How do I square this: http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=20868
with your 'kinda true' statement about Evangelicals and Warrior Monks? I got it from the 'odd circle'. Remember, I'm a total outsider.
Ry

Total B.S. the good Colonel needs to look a little more closely at the past, the U.S. had nothing to gain economically by fighting in places like Korea and Viet Nam. If economic considerations drove military decisions we would have invaded Saudi Arabia and not Iraq and Afghanistan, hell by his reasoning the first place that should have been taken is western Canada which is the single largest exporter of engergy to the U.S. He seems to believe that the U.S. is somehow guilty for being so sucessful and his placing blame on Neocons(read Jews) and evangelicals shows his bias against any sort or religion and as result the moral and ethical decisions that they force people to make. He is proposing that we go the way of the weasel and admit that all the problems of the world are all our fault isolate ourselve in monastic exsistance as punishment for our capitalistic views and belief that there is such a thing as right and wrong. When people give up religion for socialist governments it becomes much easier to make decisions that have no moral or ethical bearing and are made for simple expediency.
If someone is naieve enough to believe that the choldren of the upper crust will be enticed by shorter enlistments he has completely departed from reality. If he wants to revitalise the ideal of the citizen soldier why not just call for a return of the draft. The whole premise of the book is flawed because it make the assumption that our reasons for fighting are not what we say they are. If we claim to be fighting communism in Korea or Viet Nam we must be casting about for some economic advantage, in what steaming jungle real estate, Kimchee. This is the same empty argument put forth by less articulate people claiming the invasion of Afghanistan was all about oil, oil that Afghanistan does not have. One can claim that the first gulf war was about oil but that is to ignore the moral and ethical postion of the U.S., once you have liberated one country from tyranny by a neighbor you incurr an obligation to hold yourself to the same moral standard elsewhwere at different times. If France and the rest of europe deserved to be freed from Nazism then didn't the Kuwaitis deserve to freed from Ba'athism? The people who seem to think that U.S. military actions since world war two are unethical or unjustified seem to be saying that the non white people of the world don't deserve the same freedoms as the white people of the world.
In the end the Colonel is dead wrong, he fasils to see that it is necessary to do waht is right wether it is popular or not, and the U.S. has done the right thing in trying, anmd generally succceding in protecting and spreadin freedom across the globe.

I will tell you why it set my teeth on edge:

1) Unfortunately, when I saw him giving his last two lectures, they were at left wing (or at least, left of center) organizations. (I've caught him twice on CSPAN) and I have a problem embracing something that is garnering such attention from these folks, who would be just as happy to use our forces in a dozen somalia's and rawanda's. Not that I think those places couldn't use help, but I think that you can't go to these places and not "pick sides" which is a problem with UN peace keeping missions. They never come out right because we don't use our moral judgement to determine who would be best suited to take on the roll of ally and who needs to be defeated.

It's the ugly moral relavitism that sucks you in and gets you stuck in things like Viet Nam and Korea. Not defining the enemy and committing to his total destruction or defeat. (PS...my problem with "war on terror"; I understandt he problems of identifying the enemy, but it seems there are definitely a better way to do this).

My other issues are with his historical references. For instance, I would agree with you that it is hardly ever the "elites" that join the military. It's been that way since the revolutionary war. I mean, one would hope that he would recall the riots during the civil war and who has been the cannon fodder or served as enlisted men forever. And, getting these "elites" in the military, won't make them share the same hardships as their fellows from the farm because they will always have more access to funds to go to school and become officers.

To me, that actually smacks of some 19th century elitism where the sons of lords bought their commissions and joined the regiments with the fanciest uniforms. Didn't make them better leaders and it often led to more war. Not exactly what I have in mind.

Also, I think I reject his idea that the common people are being led around by their noses or are so damned greedy they'll sacrifice their sons for it.

Next, the oil issue. Seriously, oil was found in Saudi Arabia at the turn of the century and its been an issue long before WWII. That's why the brits were interested in keeping their foot in the area post WWI and why we fought off the Germans who were plowing to it in WWII. It's a resource that everyone wants and needs. I feel like, very much that we are acting as policemen there, but for a purpose that is above our own need of oil. World wars start over resources. If the areas not free and flowing oil to all nations, then some nations are going to get pissed and go after it with arms. In a nuclear world, I think that would be really nasty.

And, Islam has had a problem with the west for centuries. It's not like this is a new phenomenom. Anyone reading history knows that the caliphates have expanded and contracted at least twice and both times they tried to move into Europe.

So, my problems are largely with his historical references or acting as if the use of military power for economic or "interests" is a new phenomenom for the 20th century. It's been going on since the war of 1812. Mexican American war, civil war, spanish american war and wars in between. (Indian wars even could be attributed to economic expansion).

The only thing that he has right is that our current technology allows us to do it more often and that maybe an issue. However, even with "soft power" our names have been mud because everyone sees us as greedy bastards taking over their countries with our corporations and pop culture, even if our military is no where to be found (original complaint of most of the Islamists).

It doesn't get better, either way. Neither do I see it getting better because globalization is here to stay. Been going that way since the first guy loaded up his wagon and trekked across europe to sell his wares. Since the advent of the silk route and the crossing of the vikings to new foundland. Man keeps expanding and whenever he does, he comes up against other men either living or expanding themselves.

and, in every case, these wars have been about controlling land and resources. In regards to idealization of a group of people, I think he has both established an ideal of what he thinks America was about and that we have fallen from that ideal when I don't think that ideal ever really existed.

Ry - I'll square your circle with the caveat that I'm talking about the Army, not the Navy, and I'm really talking about the change in the open religiosity of the Officer Corps over time, from 1975 (when it was rare) to 2000, when prayer here and there, and 'witnessing' at events was more and more common, enough so that at times I was vaguely uncomfortable with it - especially when coming from senior leaders.

Not to say faith has no place, but that there was a definite increase in the open expression thereof, and it came more from the evangelicals, in my limited experience (i.e., I don't know every officer or attend every function, I can only remark on what I noticed over time).

Ry - precision, in the guise I was using it, refers to the ability to more precisely target, therefore allowing you to use fewer munitions of smaller size, putting fewer of your own people at risk, while at the same time reducing the amount of collateral damage in the target area, thus, in the perception of the policy maker, making it *easier* to use that little silver hammer, since instead he would have to use a 20 pound sledge. Bacevich's contention (and on this I agree) our technology gains have made it possible for us to more quickly (but not neccessarily usefully) reach for the hammer when we should be using a saw, file, or drill instead. Howzzat?

Chris - I see that I sit in the middle between you and the Professor. But I disagree in some aspects. Yes, he is, as you said, immensely naive in some aspects, and his distate for religiosity comes through in the book.

I found his history of the process to be generally useful, and whether he intended it or no, when his biases leap up to bite, they do so very obviously. I don't think his analysis of what happened is too far off, either.

His central contention that I agree with is that we have built ourselves a tool that is too easy to use, and we don't fully understand the consequences of using it. And his total annoyance with what happened in Iraq and subsequent colors his judgement.

That said, as early as the middle 90's I was struggling myself with how the military we were building made it *too* easy to go to war, especially over little things, or in piddling ways, like much of the Clinton years.

Especially as I watched the wailing and gnashing of teeth when the Serbs *dared* to cross a border and snatch three US troops while a US-led Coalition was bombing... or the angst when an airplane got shot down and we might have lost a pilot... when we were (unintentionally) blowing up buses and trains and the Chinese embassy... that was just unfortunate, but my god, harm one hair of our people and we just went silly.

My own personal rule of thumb is - if it ain't worth getting any of our people killed over, can it be worth killing for? This is not the same thing as saying that we shouldn't try to fight with no casualties, nor that we should not try to limit damage to the enemy's infrastructure - but if a war aim isn't worth taking casualties over, how can it be worth inflicting them?

The part of Bacevich's argument I most agree with is just that - when we've built ourselves a system that we can almost kill without risk - have we/should we not spend time now building a toolkit to help us evaluate when we should use it, so we don't have those feckless cruise missile attacks that characterized the 90's.

As for Bacevich's concern regarding Praetorianism, he's got the same blinders there that he does regarding officer education - he's concerned that the elites have no bond with the services... but the Services certainly have a bond with Red America and with a good chunk of *not elite* blue-state America. He looks around and doesn't see many people like himself in the service, so that means that the Services are detached from America. Not that the elites are detached from America...

Oh goody, this one is shaping up nicely! I'll just sit back and wait for some more Good Stuff.

My main problem is that their is an underlying assumption that economic success is the problem. By this reasoning every society that has risen to prominence is evil or in the wrong. Part of what the founders wanted wass to create a nation where it would be possible for people to do their best regardless of their age, race, sex or background. He seems to miss the point that economic sucess comes along with political freedom. If you take this to its natural end he is basically advocating communism so we will never com into conflict with any other nation or group. He also seems to lack acertain understanding of the modern world and the way it has been changed by technology since the end of the second world war that makes it possible for non state entities to to something only states could do in the past, and that is to wage war. Furthermore he is advocating turning the military into a reactive rather than proactive force. The Soviets were in this position in 41-42, never dictating the action but reacting to whatever the Germans did and it nearly ended in disaster for them. Imagine trying to this with regar to terrorism, it would be a diaster that makes Sept. 11th look like a street corner mugging. His base assumption that we are somehow undeserving is of our success is just a parriting of the same tired eurolefty arguments I have heard before and they still don't hold water.

John, it's exactly your argument to Chris that I much prefer Barnett's vision(one of the thrice damned defense intellectuals) in PNM over what you're saying Bacevisch wrote.
It seems Bacevich is going with the 'wall them out' routine. Tha' willna' wrk S'aire.

So who is more convincing in your opinion: Niall Fergusson('benevolent hegemony') or Bacevich(quasi-isolationist)?--open to all.

Oh, you cleared things up fine. I just wanted to be sure. You know me, I can make myself see 4 different things in a paragraph if I let myself.

I'm not going into a lengthy discussion of something that I have not read. Besides, I type slow and there is alot of discussion here.

From what you say, Sir, I can partly agree with what the author say's, according to you. As well Partly disagree. I beleive we have a public that is out of touch with the Military, but, has unreasonable faith in it. This is due to it's being out of touch and Media Image. I won't get into either of those. I will say that Joe Public has more faith in a Air Force Captain in an F-15 than they do an entire Airborne Division. It may be resumptious for me as an NCO to say, but, we do need to revamp the Officer Corps. From what you say, Sir, I don't think he has the answer.

We, as a nation, lack Grand Strategy. It realy fell off of the radar with the end of the cold war and a President with a Socialist Agenda. Some would argue that it didn't realy exsist before and I can't say that I blame them.

We do tend to be the worlds Cops. For goodness sake, we have a wide open border(and an enemy very much bent on putting a hurting on us) and we have troops Sitskreiging in Kosovo. What were we thinking? What are we thinking now. It's false security and that's Washington DC's fault.

As for what we are to do? We have to change Foreign Policy. I can't say exactly how we are to do that. However, somethng mentioned in "Presciption #1" makes me think of Col. John Boyd's "Distance From Disorder". We do that in our daily lives, you have family that fuss and fight, you keep your distance from them. You say hello at the reunion and go on about your buisness. And, yes, stop defending not so apreciative allies. Help them help themselves. Stop the Defense Welfare.

I may make folks mad, but, it's true. Despite what we have done, we are yet to destroy Al Qaida's resolve. That is a sign that we need to thuroughly examine our way of buisness, but, Socialist Complacancy is not the answer.

Now, I've said my peice, and though only part of it. It's onlt self examination and constructive critiscism, every thing else is useless.

Willy

Willy - why do you have more confidence in a Captain in an F-15 than an Airborne Division (just curious) and what changes would you make to the Officer Corps?

Speak up, Sergeant! We don't allow no stuffy rules about insubordination to affect us here!

Actually, that one area I agree on. Let the Euros now defend themselves. Who is the would be aggressor?

as for AQ or any other faction, if I didn't think everyone would freak, after 9/11, I would have declared war on Saudi Arabia. See, I know that it would start WWIII (or IV depending on what ideas you subscribe to) over the oil that would be interdicted, but, as far as I can see, the heart of our Islamo fascist problem lies in Saudi Arabia and these folks would have known we were serious, and that's where I would have called it at the same time took out the taliban.

While I don't subscribe to Iraq as viet nam, I do see some similarities, such as this tendency to do "soft war". I'm wondering if anyone has noticed that doesn't work very well?

But, that's why I don't make foreign policy.

Actually, Bacevich contends we're in WWIV, and have been since the Teheran Embassy seizure.

No worries, Kat - I'm not a diplomat, either.

Sir, respectfully you missread me. I said the American Public has more faith in an Air Force Captain in and F-15 than they do an Airborne Division. Not, that I do, Sir. Reason being that they think it's easy. "Well Let's bomb them". Some think it's that easy. Too many movies.
As for the Officer Corps, I think Major Vandergrife has it more right then any other. We have too many Officers, yet, we don't have enough Captains. I would have them stay in Leadership Positions longer, even a Major running a Comapany. Change the ticket punch practices...put them in charge. Have NCO's work as Assitant S-3's Etc.
Some Officers are overly self important, as well as NCO's. In some units more so.

OK, I'm gone for now. Much Apprecieated, Sir.
Willy

Seeing as all you all are most likely extremely well trained in the art of ushering opposing forces to their date with the Lord, I would just like to point out in light of the fist pumping reference to me above that I would not, I have not and I will not advocate for the acceptance of any principles that any of you do not like as set out in this book I never heard of. Good night. Nice boots. I am leaving now. Bye.

[Stage direction: chubby leftie exits swiftly...]

Ah, thanks for the clarification, Willy. Yes, I did misread that.

As for the officers, yes, we do have some pompous asses. I remember a Lieutenant once... but he got over it.

As for the rest - any Commonwealth officer heads reading this are probably nodding north to south. I suspect I would keep more officers than you, but certainly not as many as we have now.

Working on the TRADOC side of things for some time now, I see where the elimination of officer positions in the past (replacing with civlians or not at all) has caused some real problems with synching civilians to real world operational issues.

And even replacing them with contractors who are retired or reserve officers has now started to raise problems - much as I try to keep abreast of what is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, any time I sit down with recently redeployed soldiers, my sense of isolation from what's going on increases, and I scramble harder to re-evaluate what I'm doing in light of that... and yes, I do talk to NCOs and Lieutenants - to make sure I get the bottom's up view. In some respects, the blog has been invaluable in making those contacts!

Sir, I would say that you are in more of a position of authority to speak on the Officer corps being one yourself as well as working full time in it, myself a Reservist and spending time in NCOES for the last few years. I too deal with TRADOC. It has been some time since I delt with anythng else. Over the years it seems that once an Officer is getting good at his position he is wisked away into some other one. I admitt it's good for both Officers and NCO's to get the feel of Staff Posistions, Leadership means more. As for Civilians in fill in's can be a problem I imagine. One common thing, we, as Soldiers are capable of doing a better job. That is once we can arrange to do for ourselves to do so.

I agree with Being in WWIV and it starting with Tehran.
Willy, Appalachian Intellectual

I am late to this. I am also reluctant to enter too deeply into it because it is a big subject, with numerous treacheries for those who are not fully schooled in the arts of war, and for those who haven't read the book. Both describe me because, although I do have more than a little clue about the arts of war, I've zero practical experience, and that counts for a lot--at least to me.

So with that qualifier, I would like to add this: I like what Chris Denny wrote up top, and the discussion that followed. I think what's missing is the fact that many people choose to believe that all government action is economically motivated or, rather, is based purely on ulterior motives because that is easier to believe than the possibility some people might actually mean well. As I see it, pessimism is a lazy man's armor against difficult or unwelcome thoughts, and is especially useful when one might have to take something on faith, i.e., that some people really do have noble hearts. In truth, I find that some people can believe in God far more easily than they can in the nobility of a fellow human. I think this is so because, while it's at least possible that God is divine and good, some people simply cannot believe that any other person might actually embrace a code of conduct not rooted in money, power, lust, or other easy-to-understand human obsessions. One cannot understand what one cannot imagine; thus, the basest of motives is attributed to all governmental actions and to our leaders because that is easier to accept than they might be right and--heaven forefend--smarter or more noble than us.

I could go on, but I think that says what I want to add for now.

On another note, Kat wrote: "For instance, I would agree with you that it is hardly ever the "elites" that join the military. It's been that way since the revolutionary war."

I humbly beg to differ because actually, this is somewhat inaccurate, though maybe only by degree. The elites have been the leaders of the militaries of the world since long before the United States was formed. True, some hordes have been led by common soldiers, raised up through the ranks (numerous examples abound); but in the years since at least the time of Christ, Armies have increasingly been led by those who were best trained to lead, and who were the richest, most powerful people--in other words, the elites of their day. This is in many ways true even today.

I understand that many of us today think of the elites of yesterday as being pampered (or not being willing to become common cannon fodder), but many units in the Civil War were formed by wealthy influential people. As federal units became more common, it became easier for non-elites to assume leadership roles, as did Truman, who was a common man; however, JFK, the Roosevelts (several of them), the elder Bush, and many others since before the founding of this country have been among the Elite. I know it is an uncomfortable reality for some, but almost all of the "Founding Fathers" were elites, and many of them were soldiers or leaders of fighters at some point in their lives. George Washington was certainly not a common man....

So what is my point? Well, some people have to lead and some have to follow. In our history, those best suited to lead often did (or at least had first crack at it), and those who were deemed best suited were most often the elites of their times, or at least from elite families. West Point, Annapolis, and the other schools with military histories were not populated solely, or even mostly I'd suppose, by people who got there on merit alone. Even now, money and influence go a long way toward paving a path to a military academy, to say nothing of family connections.

As for what constitutes "elite," well, I suppose that might be open for discussion too, but I mean people of privilege, wealth, and born-and-bred opportunity. And those kinds of folks, at least, are at least as common on the battlefields of America as any professional academic or pampered intellectual (pseudo or otherwise). The rank and file may be mostly po', dumb folks like me, but not completely, and certainly the leadership of our military has not been solely common since forever.

~SangerM

Quibble alert:
I'm not entirely sure I agree with Willy or Bacevich on this over reliance/overconfidence in our military. Yes, some of us hangers-on, who watch every History Channel promo-video about American military hardware, might be that way; or folks that vote republican even if the candidate's wackadoodle might be that way. But the bulk of the country?
I'd say the country is at least bifurcated on the issue, and more likely requiring something like 3d poli-sci modeling to find out what the public really believes.
Remember that before both the Gulf War and OIF: we had the talking heads talking about KIA being in the tens of thousands for GW, and saying that almost every battle was going to be another Kursk or Stalingrad for OIF. Before that we had people misunderstanding Francis Fukiyama and saying there's no need for a big military anymore because all the big questions had been settled(Mr. Kerry call your office). During all this time we have had a plethora of anti-war groups running around deploring violence of any kind and repeating the mantras 'make love, not war', 'bikes, not bombs', 'these are the only arms we'll ever need(drawing of people walking with arms around each other)', and now we've got Kucinich types wanting to create a dept of peace.
I'm not buying this argument yet(maybe that's why I should read the book. We needs the Rotorhead for the proper headslapping sound effects).

I do think Willy is real close on the F-15 jockey vs. a division though. You hinted at it by posting the SP bit on pictures and the casualty aversion wrt Bosnia in an earlier comment: air power doesn't have any strong visuals to attach negatives to. Groundpounders only get on TV when they're shot, bleeding, or otherwise miserable. All the fotage we've got from the GW is all rather positive. Anyone seen an image of a downed jet since the downed F-117? But we've seen smuggled photos of caskets, soldiers shot up pretty badly, video of soldiers 'executing' jihadis(the mosque deal and the soldier who mercy killed the Iraqi), and Abu Ghraib. People trend toward the viscreal over the abstract. We've got images of PBI nastiness, but little in the way of Farts and Darts follies.
So yeah, he's right. We see it on tv, read about it in the papers, and every time someone puts the Top Gun dvd in the player.

One last thing: Alan, boots? What's that about?

Thanks for the link (I think... I haven't read the book yet, so I don't know the full implications of your saying I would be comfortable with the book, I'm really not as left-leaning as I come across, you should have heard me when Clinton was President...).

I am intrigued by your comment on "Those thrice-damned Evangelicals take over the military and turn it into a bastion of Warrior Monks. (There *is* a grain of truth in that, from my experience)." I want to know more about your finding a grain of truth in Evagelicals in the military turning it into a bastion of Warrior Monks. Yes, I'm sure it is only a small grain of truth, but it is intriguing to me nonetheless.

Now I have to see if Amazon.fr has this book in English and in stock so I can get it in a reasonble amount of time... damn it...

Well, I didn't mean to insinuate the bulk of America was willing to squeeze down on the trigger. I meant to insinuate(and could have done a better job) that Americans put too much faith in Technology. What you said is true.
Willy
I think the boots may be about my Blog pic.

AS Chick Hearn used to say, 'No blood no foul.' As John can tell you Willy I read things wierdly, sometimes perpendicularly to the intended or most obvious interpretation. Just 'cause I took something away from it you didn't intend doesn't mean you didn't do it properly.
Yeah, I think you're correct: we're a technocratic society. Have a problem? Throw money at it, and technology will be developed to make it go away. Wehter that be casualties in war or washing clothes the approach is mostly the same.

Seems you've started something with this Evangelical Warrior Monk thing, S'aire. Good luck. En SPiritus Sanctus, and all that. Might get ugly.

Um...I think that my general commentary on "elites aren't common in the military since the revolutionary war", was more of a ratio context.

I'm well aware of who raised the regiments in our 18th and 19th centuries as well as who were the leaders of WWI. But, on a scale, these may lead, but not as many will die.

I also think that today, the "elites" are largely comprised of over intellectualized blow hards who would run to Canada if they thought they had to go to war. I just wondered what happened to the days when it WAS deemed an honor and part of their "elite" status to join the military and serve?

Make way, fool rushing in. And in no particular coherency.

I can see your and Bacevich's point on making it "too easy" to go to war. I've had this discussion with my Dad before, and that is why he supports heavy use of the reserves and Guard - to remind us that there are people out there. My concern is that the Guard and Reserves are not big enough - I know there are a lot less Utah Guard units than there were 15 years ago. Has anyone else seen the same thing? (I guess Bill would be the guy to ask on that one.)

And I definitely believe that converting the Regulars into a defacto foreign legion is a Bad Idea. That would serve to only further isolate the military from basic society - see British Empire, 1850-1910 (also Kipling, "Tommy").

Okay, I'm geting this second hand (I'm not sure I want to make time to read this one!), but when someone starts fretting over the "evangelicals" I start getting wary. Personal issue - while I don't ascribe to their point of view, they don't seem that scary to me, and what they believe gets exaggerated, in my opinion. (See Powerline on the sliming of James Watt for an example.) Some individuals cross the line - but is it an institutional problem (as Basevich seems to believe) or a series of individual ones?

John - any thoughts of your own on the officer corps?

Here's some questions I would like to hear Basevich or likeminded individual to answer (but you're stuck with them, John):
1) How does Afghanistan fit into this mold of Basevich's okay war, but Iraq does not? Iraq supported terror groups, failed to honor UN obligations, and tried to assassinate a former US President only a few years out of office. I guess we still are having the same old arguement we have been having since 2002. What constitutes a threat?

2)Looking at Bosnia & Kosovo, what is the right answer? What role should morality play in foreign policy? (Would we all agree that we should act to stop a second Holocaust? If so, when?)

Wow. Long and whiny. And I managed to spell Basevich six different ways in one piece!

Oh, and the wife reminds me to do this: Thanks for the review John. She did up the book buying allowance(wuhoo!), but at the cost of the McDonalds allowance(lip quiver).
thanks

kat-missouri wrote:

> I just wondered what happened to the days when it WAS deemed an honor and part of their "elite" status to join the military and serve?

Kat, I'm not sure they don't still exist or that it's not still the same for a lot of folks, in just about the same proportion. Vietnam was a problem for a lot of folks, so that really can't be counted. For example, to this day, I honestly don't know what I would have done if I had been drafted. My former WWII Marine step father was opposed to that war, as was my former WWII Army step father. I thought the war was wrong then, I still do (I've changed a LOT in 35 years, but not my opinion of that war). Frankly, I'm just glad I never had to decide what to do. I finished HS on 27 Aug and was in the Army on 5 Sep, my choice, age 17. The draft would have been different to me....

But I'm not an "elite," by any standard. I knew quite a few in the Army, though; most were Officers (no slam there, just an observance), but a few were enlisted (albeit not in combat arms roles, so much).

See, Kat, it's like this (IMHO): education and intelligence counts in more ways than most folks realize. It's the educated people who get to pick the jobs they want, and so when an educated person gets to choose, he or she will generally go for the harder, cooler stuff. While many folks do move up on merit, money often guarantees education, so there is less chance wealthy 'elites" will be in non-officer, low-vis, or low adventure jobs.

Even so, I think many Americans would be surprised to know just how many people from well-heeled families are in the service...

And for the record, I consider many military families to be among the "elites" of our country as well. The military is no less a profession than law, as you well know, and a good many American families have a history of service in one branch of the Armed Forces or another. Those people have connections and influence far beyond what most people realize, even if they don't necessarily have a lot of money.

Anyway, I don't think the situation is quite as stark as some make it out to be, no more, in fact, than that Congressman was right about the racial demographics of the dead and wounded in our current wars.

~SangerM

UtahMan wrote:

>What role should morality play in foreign policy?

If I may interject: Avoiding discussions about what morality actually is, I think this depends on what we want our position to be (how we want to be viewed by others and ourselves) and how much we are willing to sacrifice for our morality. If we choose to view morality the way we view the Monroe Doctrine, then we'll adhere to a moral view when it suits us and ignore the moral issues when it doesn't.

If you take the Machiavellian view that EVERY decision must increase the stability of the kingdom and ensure the continued power of the Prince (i.e., the government), then you probably agree with the way the US has used the Monroe Doctrine since it was articulated, and you would probably agree that morality is good to have, but politics is politics so we'll ignore morality when it might hurt us. We may elect our governments, but that doesn't mean we want them to do anything detrimental to our national well-being, no matter how moral it might be (remember Jimmy Carter?)

Basically, morality is an important national trait for us, and helps define our ethos, but I think most people would agree that it is but one of many factors that should influence our foreign policy. Some people call that relativism, but consider: Many of our strategic mineral resources can only be gotten from countries that are probably not on Amnesty International's white-list, but we continue to do business with those folks. Why? 1) We need the minerals. 2) Diplomacy is often saying "Nice Doggy" while you look for a big rock, and 3) one of our long-term national strategic goals has been to influence by example, through engagement. Sanctions and isolationist actions only cause people to turn away from us, and to seek what they need elsewhere. Morality alone might demand we shun the immoral, but that would be dumb because it would be counter productive.

As for whether morality should drive us to stop a second Holocaust, I think the answer is a clear yes, because that's what WE believe is right. However, the problem now, as it has been since WWII is knowing when something is a Holocaust, and even knowing what best to do about it. Also, we may want to rush in and stop the evil, but people in this country really do feel that most people have the right to folly and self-determination. I know this may sound too pat an answer, but Americans are raised knowing how this became a country. With our rearing, it's hard to understand just what a miracle our revolution was, not just in its success, but in its conception.

I think Americans want other people to be trying for themselves to earn their freedom. Or, lacking the ability to do so, we at least want them to "want" our help. Look, the Czech Velvet Revolution was a bloodless miracle. The Polish Solidarity movement was also an astonishing thing. Not because they succeeded (though that too is hard to even imagine), but because they got started. And yet. And even yet, many Americans saw all of that as just so. Hey, we did it, they're doing it, good for them. What's for dinner? That it is not possible for a people like the Iraqis to do the same without our help is not something we can easily understand.

And look, for all I know and believe about the right of our felling Hussein, I must admit I was NOT happy when I watched our Army invade Iraq. It felt wrong, it tasted wrong, and it made me quite unhappy and very nervous. Why? Because WE don't invade other countries. Period. We rescue people. We save people from bad guys. We are the US Cavalry coming over the hill....not the mongol hordes.

I believe it will be for the best, both for us and for the Iraqi people, but the night I watched our Army cross into Iraq, I was beset by doubts. Where was an opposition leader asking our help? Where were the ex-pats cheering us on? Where was the resistance? In Iran we know there are people who are resisting the dictatorship, we know there are forces seeking reform. On Iraq we only had the word of Colin Powell to go on. But to be honest, it was his word alone that sustained me and still does. I decided to place my faith in General Powell because I choose to believe he is an honorable, moral man. I also decided that even if he was bending the truth, he must have a good reason for doing so, and so that was ok with me too. But I did not think then that he was bending the truth. I still don't.

So should we stop a holocaust? Yes. But I picture the US as a big, muscular tired guy sitting on a bench with a bunch of lightweights, and he sees that no one else is going to get up, so with a groan he gets to his feet and grabs his baseball bat.... That's us. Doing it because someone has to. Because others won't. Because we can.

Damn it all to hell....

John, Thanks for the time and effort you put into this; I linked to it yesterday and am grateful for your very fair and very thorough reading of Bacevich's work. Like an earlier commentor, I too was suspicious of Bacevich's choice of Lefty venues when I saw that he had published a related column in Mother Jones (the one to which I responded a while back). I think you've given his views fair treatment and yet poignently responded where you think he goes astray (as I believe he often does). Well done!

Just read the offering at Uncosidered Triffles. IS this how Bacevich writes in 'New American Militarism'? If so I'll have to really question wether this is a book to add to my collection.
Lots of problems with the essay for me--but having grown up in Orange County, CA my experiences are waaaaay different from most of the country's(no, it's not because OC is full of 'The Beautiful People' but because of the nexus it was for defense contracting--we had a really different opinion of things there than most other places because of that).
1) Echoing Mr. Shake, is the 'superiority' feeling in the mil so bad, and isn't it natural? Or, maybe those who were so pushing the Jesusland vs. US of Canada stuff should be terribely ashamed of themselves too? Oranges to tangerines comparison, since the mil has the ability to go pretorian and decide who is Ceasar while the jackalopes can only be annoying, but I'm driving at a latent nature of groups: the sense of being apart and special. Maybe the mil, as evidenced by delftsman the other day and if you hold that he's the norm, might hold civilians in contempt but to a man they still accept civillian control. They're pretty adamant about that too, IMHO.
This point of Bacevich's seems like chickenlittle-ism to me. Fearmongery of the worst kind.
2) Ignores what all this military muscle and drive for supremacy buys, not just for the US but for the world. I'm not gonig to sift through my files but if you look at world nautical piracy we're comming out of the period of the lowest number of occurances in history. That coincides with the numbers and near total dominance of the waves by the RN and the USN. THe USN is now shrinking, and guess what? We're seeing more piracy.
As Barnett, no friend to republicans if you read the guys blog, says: the mil brings security, security brings economic developement, econ dev brings all the other rule sets(like human rights, etc.).
3) War is a meat grinder? Sure, if you look at only a selective group of conflicts. YOu look at a diametric and equally selective grouping you find war to be eminently survivable(I'm stealing from the first chapter of Dupuy's 'Number's, Prediction, and War' here, big time).
That's a highly partisan view, and a jaundiced one at that.
4) This guy's a Buchanon-ite from what I've seen in his essay, not a flamming lefty(unless he's using the ultra-paleocon diatribe as cover). Niave. It's not 1860 anymore. The economies of the world are rather interconnected. A downturn in Spain affects us in the US. 'God, language, borders' isn't enough.
5) John, I'd like to see a post fleshing out a bit more why you think Bacevich is right that we're reaching for the 'silver hammer' too readily, if you think you can pull it off without creating to much of a verbal brawl(not asking you to open yourself up to be flayed--that's not civilized).
6) Is this really new? Isn't this the end product of the Cold War where we waited 50 years to use military power to end a problem?
Was it the the US zeitgeist to eschew military solutions from the birth of the nation 'til now? I think this guy stole to many bases here, and if this essay in Mother Jones is indicative of what's in NAM I'm a little gunshy to buy(and I don't want to get food stains in other people's books).
Ry
p.s. Sanger will you stop with the self deprication? Gawd. Dude, you're smarter and more eloquent than I am(cheese eating college-boy civillian that I am). You're proll'y better read too. So quit putting yourself down or I'll have another temper tantrum.

I recently interviewed Bacevich. You may find it a worthwhile read, though your own review is very in-depth.

http://www.theadventuresofchester.com/archives/2005/05/blog_interview.html

Excellent review, John.
Thanks for doing all that work in order to share the book with us.
I'll pass it along for the Vets who read my blog.
I know they'll be interested.

Thanks for the reminders John. Not all of these deaths will make national news, so we don't always hear about them- esp. the non-combat related deaths.

So sad... but then again, that's why we Dance In Memorium- to honor their lives and their service.

Deaths in training make even less news. There have been two here at Ft Jackson since I got here-the first on the Night Infiltration Course (NIC-where trainees crawl under live machine gun fire) and the second from heat stroke. I've seen the fallout from two other in my brigades during my 9 years in the Army-a truck accident in Yakima, and a M113 broken track rollover at Graf.

Being a soldier is dangerous work, even when nobody's shooting at you.