Today's Boston Globe carries an article entitled, "The Failure of an All-Volunteer Military", which argues that the volunteer army came about because, after the Cold War, we "came to see war as something other than a human enterprise; the secret of military superiority ostensibly lay in the microchip. The truth is that the sinews of military power lie among the people, who legitimate war and sustain it." But, in the opinion of the author, Andrew Bacevich, because of our approval of the volunteer military, we have forfeited our right to legitimate this war and are unwilling to make the sacrifices that are necessary when a nation, not its mercenaries, is at war.
I disagree with Bacevich about the people's ability to legitimate a war. I don't think that has ever happened. Our leaders have declared war and we had little say about it. My WWII childhood has embedded the idea in me that war means sacrifice for all of us. But Bush's idea of sacrifice is not the same as mine.
The article also caused me to think about whether enough people want to spend their career in the military so that the country is truly capable of defending itself in a variety of hostile situations.
2 comments:
It's rare I pass judgment on an article after only one paragraph, but the phrase "....unnecessary wars that once begun prove unwinnable" turned me off the rest of it.
"Unnecessary wars" should never be started in the first place and are not due to a nation's inadequate military, but its inadequate politicians. There is a rise of late in the idea that Americans are not sacrificing enough in this war to win it. Winning is still the most important issue, at least for the American media, when in reality the most vital fact is that America's inadequate politicians (and some British) remain unpunished for starting this unnecessary war in the first place. They still demand "victory", yet no-one can define what "victory" really means. Victory for whom? America? Iraq? George W Bush? America was never at war with Iraq, so how can it be victorious? The true fact is that Bush was at war with Saddam Hussein. He won. Saddam is dead. In the process of killing Saddam he stirred up a hornet's nest that refuses to go away so he can bring his "victorious" troops back home. American sacrifice now means killing or subduing enough of the hornets to allow a withdrawal of most troops, with a least a modicum of dignity. I believe Bush's "surge" is designed to allow this, and also to subdue the insurgency sufficient for the oil companies to get working. I doubt it will work. Sending another 100,000, as Bacevich tentatively advocates, (I did read it all in the end!) wouldn't pacify Iraq, it would send the insurgents underground to continue their war French Resistance-style. I believe this is what may begin to happen when Bush's "surge" starts to bite.
Sorry for such a long comment!
According to Wikipedia:The United States military budget is larger than the military budgets of the next twenty largest spenders combined, and six times larger than China's, which places second. The United States and its closest allies are responsible for approximately two-thirds of global military spending (of which, in turn, the U.S. is responsible for the vast majority). Military spending accounts for 19% of the United States' federal budget, and approximately half of its federal discretionary spending, which comprises all of the U.S. government's money not accounted for by pre-existing obligations.
When will it be enough?
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