Battleland

Today’s Slow-Motion U.S. Military Coup

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The militarization of the United States that outgoing President Dwight Eisenhower warned of in 1961 is happening. No, that’s not some claim lobbed by a radical pinko comsymp leftist, but an argument made by William Olson, a “distinguished professor of international security studies” at the Pentagon’s own National Defense University (although he did work at the State Department, as well as the Pentagon, before arriving at NDU):

The consequence today is the militarization of our foreign policy and the dominance of the military in planning and implementing broad areas of domestic policy as well. It is, in effect, a slow motion coup in which increasingly military officers and military counsel dominates strategic thinking and significant parts of the political agenda, in a reversal of Clausewitz’s dictum that war is an extension of politics.

Olson asks some tough questions about the size, shape and mission of the U.S. military, and what – if anything – should be done, over at the Small Wars Journal website. Cleanse your mental palate by checking it out.