Main Page | Month Archive | Library | Email Updates | RSS Feed

THE NEW AMERICAN MILITARISM: HOW AMERICANS ARE SEDUCED BY WAR
By Andrew Bacevich


Reviewed by Gerald Loftus
SEP 19, 2007

Whatever emerges from America’s predicament in Iraq, at some point we will say “post-Iraq” just as we speak of “post-Vietnam.” Andrew Bacevich, in The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced By War provides a vital guide on how to avoid the kind of post-Vietnam reaction that saw the military hit its drug-ridden nadir in the seventies, only to be elevated to the all-in-one American miracle cure for foreign headaches. He shows how the national narrative of the joys of “power projection” was woven by decades of persuasion in churches, on television, in scholarly journals. Bacevich has a good cinema sense, as seen in his analysis of the role of such Reagan-era films as An Officer and a Gentleman and Top Gun in the glamorization of the military. When first published in late 2005 (now out in paperback), The New American Militarism was a timely critique of what Bacevich sees as a decades-old bipartisan affliction. The passage of time only makes his book more relevant—and, as we shall see, more poignant. You don’t get more credible commentators on the American fascination with things military than Andrew Bacevich. West Pointer and retired career Army officer, Bacevich teaches at Boston University. He writes extensively on international affairs, and has been highly critical of the Bush Administration’s willful march to war in Iraq. But don’t expect another lefty screed; Bacevich is (perhaps was) a “self-described conservative.” Citizen soldier of the Cold War and Vietnam, Bacevich is concerned with the imperial-sized defense budgets that spawn global military engagements. But more than mere size and willingness to “deploy,” he sees American illusions on the efficacy of military action as a long-term danger to our republic. His prescriptions are conservative with a small “c,” and include reinstating the Constitutional role of Congress, ensuring that U.S. armed forces are used for national defense, and enhancing strategic self-sufficiency. This soldier-academician is particularly exercised at the increasing separation of the military from American society, and short of calling for a restoration of the draft, he suggests steps to reduce the gap—moves that would themselves act as a brake to the tendency to “send in the military.” In meticulously footnoted chapters tracing the rise of interventionist neo-conservatism, of the nuclear era national security “priesthood,” of messianic Christian fundamentalism suffused with martial biblical certainties, and of “mythmaking” Reaganism from the Great Communicator, it becomes clear that the American reflex to using military force overseas is not the sole domain of the current President. Bacevich sees under George W. Bush a “new Wilsonian moment,” where Bush channels our quixotic World War I President and fancies himself as remaking the Middle East in the image of America. Contemporary Democrats—Madeleine Albright prodding then General Colin Powell with “what is the point of having this superb military… if we can’t use it?”—are revealed as equally tempted by the use of force to carry out their objectives, in this case, intervention in the Balkans. Many are familiar with General-President Dwight Eisenhower’s admonition against the pervasive “military…...  -->

Call for Book Reviews The USC Center on Public Diplomacy invites book reviews submission from scholars, researchers, practitioners and professionals. To read the Call for Book Reviews, click here