Andrew Bacevich Column

There is a posting at Tom Dispatch of an Andrew Bacevich op-ed, on why the political posturing threatening to cut military spending is a farce.  I don’t agree with everything Bacevich says, but he is always worth reading.

POW: Bacevich on Extension 720

Milt Rosenberg recently had Andrew Bacevich on his show, Extension 720. This was a very brave discussion as Milt in the last few years has evolved into a conservative wing-nut. I'm shocked and immensely pleased that Milt hosted the show as well as he did.

Bacevich is one of the most perceptive critics of American foreign policy writing today, and his views deserve far more attention then they get. Kudos to Milt for giving him a platform, and constructively engaging his ideas.

Next: 1968

I've started reading Nixon Agonistes: The Crisis of the Self-Made Man by Garry Wills. I'd seen a reference to it somewhere as one of the best works on Nixon but could never find it in libraries. A few weeks ago I found it at the Goodwill Store in SE Portland, they have an excellent book section for those in the area.

It also has some relevance to the Bacevich work, in that one of the catalysts for militarism in America is the counter-reaction to the cultural changes of the 60's. The sections I've read so far cover 1968, and it's eye-opening to someone who wouldn't exist for a few years. Wills describes an atmosphere of fear, mistrust, and paranoia dominating society. Violence- be it racial, political, and everything else- was a constant expectation and it was frequently met (much more frequently then today's boogieman, terrorism). At first glance I'd say it's inaccurate to see Bacevich's militarists as countering the spirit of the 60's, their seige mentality seems more like a continuation of it. Everyone was afraid or angry about something, conflict was the norm. Some people moved on, others stayed in their bunkers. The latter are today's militarists.

Book Review: The New American Militarism

I finished reading The New American Militarism on the plane yesterday, great book and heartily recommended. Bacevich describes himself as a conservative critic of the Iraq invasion, which he sees as resulting from the institutionalization of militarism within American society. The book pointedly avoids blaming Bush or administration officials, instead looking at a series of broad cultural dynamics, both civilian and military. These include briefly,

• Conservative christians, who adopted a seige mentality in the wake of the cultural changes in the 60's.
• The idolization of the military in the 80's and 90's, in a generational reaction against perceived injustices in the 70's.
• The development of smart weapons and the broader seperation of military and civilian society, which made "clean" war seem like a possibility.

This resolves a problem I had with an earlier work, American Empire. There he argued for a fundamental continuity between the Clinton and Bush administrations, which I didn't buy. The discussion here implies a continuity of circumstance more then in the actions and initiatives of the presidents, and Bacevich states explicitly in the preface that

What is most striking about the most powerful man in the world is not the power that he wields. It is how constrained he and his lieutenants are by forces that lie beyond their grasp and perhaps their understanding. Rather then bending history to their will, presidents and those around them are much more likely to dance to history's tune.

Bacevich at the end offers a surprising reinterpretation of the last 30 years, where he adopts the neocon lingo of World War IV with a twist: instead of radical Islam waging war against a sleepy Western world he sees America fighting for political dominance of the broader Middle East, in a continuation of the western tradition going back to Alexander the Great. This idea is offered as a sketch, and I'd like to see him use another book to flesh it out.

This is good stuff with continuing relevance, particularly for those confused by why so little has changed under Obama.

UPDATE: I added this to the book review site with an addendum here.

Good Op-Ed

I don't have as much time for reading as I used to, but this piece by Andrew Bacevich stood out enough that I remembered it a week later. As good a short wrap up of Bush's administration as I've seen.

Good Bacevich Op-Ed

Andrew Bacevich has a good Op-Ed in the Washington Post on the truth and consequences of escalation in Iraq.

Look beyond the spin, the wishful thinking, the intellectual bullying and the myth-making. The real legacy of the surge is that it will enable Bush to bequeath the Iraq war to his successor...

Remember when it was considered politically possible to withdraw troops from Iraq? A time when it was politically possible to at least TALK about our purpose in maintaining the occupation of Iraq?

POW: Bacevich

The Carnegie Council has an excellent lecture from Andrew Bacevich in 2005 up here. He is fast becoming one of my favorite 'public intellectuals', to borrow a phrase from Richard Posner.

Bacevich Op-Ed

Andrew Bacevich, author of many books on foreign policy and father of a son killed in Iraq two weeks ago has an op-ed in the Washington Post (reg. required).

Memorial Day orators will say that a G.I.'s life is priceless. Don't believe it. I know what value the U.S. government assigns to a soldier's life: I've been handed the check.

New Book Review

I finished reading a book by Andrew Bacevich on the plane coming home from Chicago, you can see my thoughts on it here.