The New American Militarism: A Book Review

The New Republic takes a look at a book I am planning to read, Andrew Bacevich's The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War. TNR finds the book "deeply wrong" but also "interestingly wrong." Bacevich's concern is that he sees among the American elite "a tendency to see international problems as military problems and to discount the likelihood of finding a solution except through military means." The reviewer finds fault with Bacevich's criticism of US Mid East policy dating back to the Carter days. This is where Bacevich's realistic critique takes a rather unrealistic turn setting up an almost utopian alternative existense that "strains credulty."

Bacevich is an interesting bird. As TNR notes he used to write for the National Review and the Weekly Standard yet he has been wary of the idea of empire since the start of the Global War on Terror (GWoT) or as the neo-cons sometimes refer to it World War IV. The latest issue of the Washington Quarterly features Bacevich's piece on World War IV (not available online) on the cover and he also managed to get an interesting piece in the paleo-con American Conservative. There he criticizes America's living room war: you fight, we consume. He contrasts Bush's call to arms to previous attacks on the U.S. (Ft. Sumter and Pearl Harbor). Needless to say he feels the Pres comes up short. BTW here is another here is another link that explains what the paleo-cons are all about.