As Chalmers Johnson noted in The Sorrows of Empire, one of the first signs of militarism is when its proponents come to put military service and all things military above the integrity of the government structures and processes the military are supposed to protect.
In a twisted kind of “We have to burn the village in order to save it” mentality, civilians and the political classes elevate all things military above democratic processes and deliberate state functions. The ends justify the means. Worse, they come to believe they must display a “warrior’s culture” if they are to ingratiate themselves with real men of war.
This helps explain why many who have never served in the military adopt a callous and cavalier attitude toward war. Their lack of experience means they have to “out military” the military guys. This is the genesis of our modern day Chicken Hawks.
Military men, on the other hand, “pay court” to the pet schemes of the new political “warrior class” in an attempt to both promote within the system and, eventually, earn their stripes with the civilian-tied contractors.
But the real goal of many high-level military personnel is to gain access to key government positions, or to secure a new career in the defense industry. With civilians trying to find a place in the new “warrior culture”, and with military men cozying up to the new civilian political class (of Chicken Hawks), the goal is to out-do one another in preparing for constant war.
The end result – as we know all too well – is that much of America’s national security policy has centered around simply trying to scare us into believing we are under siege and need military messiahs for our salvation. Fear rather than analysis drive policy.
The proper functions and duty of government become secondary to addressing the needs of the new warrior culture, which helps to institutionalize war into our political system. Democracy is sacrificed to militarism and all things military.
The end result is a misguided and conflict-pandering need to promote wars that are not well understood by Americans (Iraq, and perhaps Iran), while former warriors are idolized for their service, prompting America’s cowering electorate into giving someone like John McCain a pass on his policy prescriptions for society (being a POW does not a president make).
America’s electorate is forced to suffer at the feet of this process, which we call militarism.
This is yet another disasterous legacy of George W. Bush, the politics of fear, and his Blundering Wars Project …
- Mark
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