After the Apocalypse: America's Role in a World Transformed (American Empire Project)

by Andrew J. Bacevich

Subsuming and going well beyond national defense, the concept of national security emerged during World War II and grew to maturity during the Cold War. National defense had meant something specific and concrete: protecting the American people where they live. National security implied far greater ambitions. Its defining feature was elasticity. Depending on circumstance, it could mean many things, even incorporating intangibles like prestige and credibility. As national security supplanted national defense, protecting the American people was demoted to the status of a lesser concern. When it came to designing and deploying U.S. forces, other priorities took precedence. The perceived imperatives of national security during the Cold War provided a rationale for raising up immense nuclear forces, permanently garrisoning Western Europe with large troop contingents, and fighting costly wars in Korea and Vietnam. Mere national defense would never have sufficed to justify the many billions expended on each of these undertakings. Each was sold as contributing to a broader purpose. Indeed, almost anything could be justified as long as it was linked to the phrase “national security.”