The tragedy of the American/everyone's/modern military

[hellheaven1987]

The Article

It is a long read, so I would not quote any part. Yet to summarize the article, the author basically is trying to say how the disconnection between US civilian society and US military makes the civilian government, often act on the behavior of public, to pursue an aggressive foreign policy recklessly and hence needlessly waste the human lives and national resource. It is notable that, despite the article specifically aims on United States, the same situation is applied on any military today - China, Russia, or even some Third World countries such as Nigeria, if not actually worse in some cases.

So what is your opinion about it?

[Stavroforos]

Militaries have been like this throughout the history of modern states, from when states decided they wanted to have standing professional armies as opposed to mercenaries or vassals.

[Dante Von Hespburg]

I haven't had time to read the article yet in full alas, but just an opening stuff, it's interesting as recently a UK BBC documentary 'Lions last roar' (Seriously worth a watch) based on interviews with the US, British, Afghan and Taliban personnel and politicians basically paints the opposite picture for the UK- to our incredible detriment.

By this i mean, the Armed forces upper staff and MoD from around 2008 on-wards decided that in order to garner public support for the military operations (since British support for the foreign adventures of Afghanistan and Iraq was never really high and had dipped to new lows) decided to abandon the age old UK policy of showing a victorious military (Impossible to do in A-stan due to the fact the UK forces out there were underfunded, under-equipped and ridiculously few in number to complete a goal that changed every few years- 'fight the taliban- get out...oh now nation build...but we don't have the available forces to nation build...fight the taliban again...erm negotiate with them...fight them...nation build etc) and instead made a consciousness effort to show the 'human side' of the UK's armed forces to the public, who previously were mostly apathetic, hostile or didn't give a .

Hence the whole public jargon now of 'our hero's', 'our boys' etc etc. Why there was so many 'live stream' documentaries concentrating on individual units and soldiers journeys. This got the public interested (Something in your article which didn't seem to the a problem for the US and others), and supportive, but also made it personel, so every death was seen in a new light, the British army became 'victims and now victors' to put it in the words of it's former head.

This has led to Brits basically in the short-mid term not really being too thrilled about sending the armed forces to engage in such operations- because, well they don't want them to die.. as can be seen with Cameron getting whipped over Syria/the new Iraq issue and why the UK has not and will not deploy on any scale. So it's all rather backfired and public opinion to protect the young men and women serving from the ineptitude of government and from hostile wars which gain us no tangible (either moral or economic) benefit has curtailed the political establishment and armed forces of really doing their job and deploying to protect British interests abroad, perhaps in the long term. It's tied politicians hands when it comes to military intervention instead of allowing them free reign.

[hellheaven1987]

well they don't want them to die.

Well...

- Everyone would die anyway.

- If you don't want someone close has higher chance dying horribly in armed conflict, ban them to join military (or just disband your national military).

[Dante Von Hespburg]

Well...

- Everyone would die anyway.

- If you don't want someone close has higher chance dying horribly in armed conflict, ban them to join military (or just disband your national military).

Sorry perhaps i wasn't being very clear my friend. It's not literally they don't want them to die, but more i'm trying to highlight the large-scale reluctance for British service-men and women to be deployed in combat situations that 'aren't our business'- even when in fact British political interests may be on the line- but it doesn't seem that way to the public.

Also the closer-relationship sought after by the Armed forces with the general public has led to a certain idea of protectionism that many now see as a bad thing in that it's potentially handicapping the armed forces from doing their job.

As Phier has pointed out the British military establishment has basically managed to actually take an all-professional volunteer force...and yet somehow keep it so the public at large is still very interested/affected by what's going on from what should be a very small minority of the population.

It's a ridiculous situation really. The only bright side is that there's now extra impetus on the MoD to actually provide the amount of equipment and support needed for operations to get done effectively instead of an A-Stan fiasco in planning and logistics.

[Phier]

James Fallows

James Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States and once worked as President Carter's chief speechwriter.

Busy day but thats my first reaction.

[conon394]

Busy day but thats my first reaction.

And that is important why?

[Phier]

And that is important why?

Because he was the speech writer for on of the most inept presidents in US history when it came to the military and its use. Yes worse then W I will assume his mindset is such that military intervention is never justified.

Edit:

OK I got to read a bit and it boils down, to me at least, its the difference between a volunteer vrs conscript army. Its easy to go to war since the public at large isn't involved. Ok then so what? Things like "smaller mor agile force" seem pretty silly, we are plenty agile and by smaller they just mean weaker/cheaper. Its not like we take a long time to mobile or get anywhere on the planet when needed. The fact we don't need to go into "war mode" for war should be considered as a civilization, a good thing.

[chilon]

Because he was the speech writer for on of the most inept presidents in US history when it came to the military and its use. Yes worse then W I will assume his mindset is such that military intervention is never justified.
.

Fallows is one of the most thorough and objective journalists out there and your post is completely biased ad hominem attack.

Don't like the evidence? Just use a completely irrelevant ad hominem on the author.

Also the Ad Hominem isn't even based on anything but Phier's own ignorant subjective assertions.

Do tell please with examples

Don't fall into his red herring.

Instead of discussing the valid issue in the article Phier is trying to sidetrack the whole debate into him pontificating against a President from 35 years ago.

If Phier wants to talk about Jimmy Carter let him make his own thread in Thema to go on his subjective rants. Lets this thread discuss the actual article in the OP and not get sidetracked .

[justicar5]

Because he was the speech writer for on of the most inept presidents in US history when it came to the military and its use. Yes worse then W I will assume his mindset is such that military intervention is never justified.

Edit:

OK I got to read a bit and it boils down, to me at least, its the difference between a volunteer vrs conscript army. Its easy to go to war since the public at large isn't involved. Ok then so what? Things like "smaller mor agile force" seem pretty silly, we are plenty agile and by smaller they just mean weaker/cheaper. Its not like we take a long time to mobile or get anywhere on the planet when needed. The fact we don't need to go into "war mode" for war should be considered as a civilization, a good thing.

Arguable about not going into 'war mode' being a good thing, it makes war an easier sell to both government and the population, 'oh yea we can go fight a war in which thousands will die, but it wont affect your life' as opposed to 'war is a serious business, the nation will pay in blood and treasure and we need a damn good reason to do it', making war seem cheap while 'better' for civilians, runs the risk of making war seem easy or safe, which it can never be.

[conon394]

Because he was the speech writer for on of the most inept presidents in US history when it came to the military and its use.

Do tell please with examples

[mrmouth]

Do tell please with examples

Not possible. This is classic, Conservative dogma. Intellectually bankrupt thinking from a group that makes a sport out of it.



I agree that the separation between the military and civilian worlds could not be larger. Civilians falling all over themselves to praise a military and if I hear that "the American public is tired of war" I might lose my mind.

Using that to draw some of the conclusions he does, has me a little lost.

[Admiral Piett]

I don't agree that the civilian public at large recklessly desire's war, but rather some kind of action or retribution for horrific crimes. I think it's the other way around. Hot heads in the Pentagon or think-tanks are the more hawkish and most responsible for America's many conflict interventions.

[paleologos]

The Article

It is a long read, so I would not quote any part. Yet to summarize the article, the author basically is trying to say how the disconnection between US civilian society and US military makes the civilian government, often act on the behavior of public, to pursue an aggressive foreign policy recklessly and hence needlessly waste the human lives and national resource. It is notable that, despite the article specifically aims on United States, the same situation is applied on any military today - China, Russia, or even some Third World countries such as Nigeria, if not actually worse in some cases.

So what is your opinion about it?

I think that the author of the article is reading too much into the wrong facets of the situation.

It is so with any empire whose organisational stucture was designed to bring forth results that are no longer the results it's society needs:

In order for the most priviledged tiers of the imperial society to conserve their priviledges, they seek out - and more often than not - invent justifications for endless war so that the organisational structure of the empire does not begin to manifest just how outdated really is.

It is not that it fights wars that end up being unwinable.
The empire deliberatly chooses the types of conflict that it can prolong without winning of outright losing.
Such wars are not meant to be won.
They are meant to be perpetual.

[Dr Zoidberg]

I'm working my way through the article, but I agree with the author's premise. It's happening in a similar vein here in Australia too. We've idolised our military and their work, to the extent that any one who scrutinises or criticises - no matter how valid the reason - is accused of being unpatriotic.

A recent example was when our national broadcaster aired claims from asylum seekers that Navy personnel had injured them whilst intercepting their boats at sea. For example, some people claimed that they were forced to place their hands on hot engine pipes and received bad burns.

Now, instead of stating that the matters would be investigated - and Im sure the results would be that such things didn't happen - the PM, the Defence Minister and anyone else with access to a microphone instead leapt to the Navy's Defence and accused the ABC (the broadcaster) of being on "everyone's side except Australia's". As far as we're aware - because the Government isn't releasing details of how its dealing with irregular boat arrives - no investigation into the claims was ever carried out.

[chilon]

As Fallows uses quotes from military officials to point out, there is a massive culture of waste and political cronyism involved with the military-industrial complex. None of these are too surprising when you go back to Eisenhower's classic speech. The problems Fallows highlights with the ridiculously overexpensive and inefficient F-35 are basically an echo of the B-2 in the early 1980s, a bomber that most military experts said was a complete waste of money.

The real important things to note are how this wasteful, inefficient and corrupt process operates.

And the main effort of military leaders through the past decade, under the Republican leadership of the Bush administration and the Democratic leadership of Obama, has been to get rid of the A-10 so as to free up money for a more expensive, less reliable, technically failing airplane that has little going for it except insider dealing, and the fact that the general public doesn’t care.

And then the key to how why these boondoggles happen. This is important from a historical perspective regarding the B-2:

“Political engineering,” a term popularized by a young Pentagon analyst named Chuck Spinney in the 1970s, is pork-barrel politics on the grandest scale. Cost overruns sound bad if someone else is getting the extra money. They can be good if they are creating business for your company or jobs in your congressional district. Political engineering is the art of spreading a military project to as many congressional districts as possible, and thus maximizing the number of members of Congress who feel that if they cut off funding, they’d be hurting themselves.

A $10 million parts contract in one congressional district builds one representative’s support. Two $5 million contracts in two districts are twice as good, and better all around would be three contracts at $3 million apiece. Every participant in the military-contracting process understands this logic: the prime contractors who parcel out supply deals around the country, the military’s procurement officers who divide work among contractors, the politicians who vote up or down on the results. In the late 1980s, a coalition of so-called cheap hawks in Congress tried to cut funding for the B-2 bomber. They got nowhere after it became clear that work for the project was being carried out in 46 states and no fewer than 383 congressional districts (of 435 total).

[GreyFox]

Yeah, because a conscript army totally prevented the US from aggressive military intervention in Vietnam and Korea.

[chilon]

Yeah, because a conscript army totally prevented the US from aggressive military intervention in Vietnam and Korea.

Did you read the article?

Its not even remotely about a conscript vs. volunteer army. That was one poster's intentional red herring.

[O'Hea]

This was basically the thesis of a book by Rachel Maddow that I read a while back, arguing that the draft made the consequences of war more obvious to the general public and made the government less willing and less able to wage the kind of futile perma-wars we fight now. I thought it was a reasonable argument at the time, but now that I'm actually in the military I don't think that's necessary if we shift our forces over to relying more heavily on guard and reserve units. It's the best of both worlds, since you've always got trained and qualified people for the regular duty in our fleets, overseas bases, etc but you have the extra social and political resistance to large or long-running campaigns.

[sumskilz]

The author's thesis is that lack of personal connection to various military engagements the US is involved in breeds complacency and blind support. He then supports this with a map showing military enlisted per capita of various parts of the country. Why then is support for sustaining military engagements the lowest in regions that have the lowest enlistment? According to his thesis, places like Seattle and San Francisco should be the most supportive of ongoing engagements.