Heterodox
What we’re not encouraged to do is to criticize or even to question America’s vast military establishment and its enormous power, even though President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us about that establishment in his famous farewell speech in 1961.It’s high time we Americans listened to Ike as well as to J.W. Fulbright. Let’s give the latter a close listen, shall we?… I stumbled across Senator J. William Fulbright’s 1970 book The Pentagon Propaganda Machine and, out of curiosity, bought it...
Read More »Andrew J. Bacevich — What Happens When a Few Volunteer and the Rest Just Watch — The American Military System Dissected
How to explain this paradox of a superb military that never gets the job done? Let me suggest that the problem lies with the present-day US military system, the principles to which the nation adheres in raising, organizing, supporting, and employing its armed forces. By its very existence, a military system expresses an implicit contract among the state, the people, and the military itself. Here, as I see it, are the principles — seven in all — that define the prevailing military system of...
Read More »Gregory Clark — Former Japanese Diplomat Hitoshi Tanaka Fears War on Horizon
Another backgrounder on Korea.Strategic Culture FoundationFormer Diplomat Fears War on Horizon Gregory ClarkSee also The US successfully dealt with rising nuclear powers China and Russia using diplomacy under the umbrella of deterrence. No reason that this would not work with Korea, too. The US media pictures Kim Jong Un as a madman on one hand and as evil personified on the other. This makes it difficult for the US leadership to use diplomacy. The reality is that like all other...
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