He says that this militarism took form after the 1960s, and was not the product of a single administration or a single political party, but of a convergence of interest among various powerful groups: <\/span> <\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\u201cMilitary officers intent on rehabilitating their profession; intellectuals fearing that the loss of confidence at home was paving the way for the triumph of totalitarianism abroad; religious leaders dismayed by the collapse of traditional moral standards; strategists wrestling with the implications of a humiliating defeat that had undermined their credibility; politicians on the make; purveyors of pop culture looking to make a buck: as early as 1980, each was military power as the apparent answer to any number of problems.\u201d His is not a polemic against the military (Bacevich is a West Point grad), or against war. It\u2019s a polemic against military idolatry. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; and some in Integrated Defense Systems . . . . <\/span> <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew Bacevich ( The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War ) writes, \u201cAmericans in our time have fallen prey to militarism, manifesting itself in a romanticized view of soldiers, a tendency to see military power as the truest measure of national greatness, and outsized expectations regarding the efficacy of force. To a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history"],"yoast_head":"\n
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) writes, \u201cAmericans in our time have fallen prey to militarism, manifesting itself in a romanticized view of soldiers, a tendency to see military power as the truest measure of national greatness, and outsized expectations regarding the efficacy of force. <\/span> To a degree without precedent in U.S. history, Americans have come to define the nation\u2019s strength and well-being in terms of military preparedness, military action, and the fostering of (or nostalgia for) military ideals.\u201d <\/span> <\/p>\n