The New American Militarism Quotes

“In war-as-spectacle, appearances could be more important than reality, because appearance often ended up determining reality.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“What is most striking about the most powerful man in the world is not the power that he wields. It is how constrained he and his lieutenants are by forces that lie beyond their grasp and perhaps their understanding.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“the United States military did not fight a decade-long war to preserve South Vietnam; rather, it fought a one-year war ten times over.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“The war that the officer corps prepared itself to fight was the war in which the prospects of actually having to fight were most remote. This made perfect sense.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“Ethnic cleansing, genocide, failed states, civil war, terror: these became the defining characteristics of the decade-long interval between Desert Storm and the events of 9/11.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“For American officers, the starting point for retrieving professional legitimacy lay in avoiding altogether future campaigns even remotely similar to Vietnam. As”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“Americans entrust their security to a class of military professionals who see themselves in many respects as culturally and politically set apart from the rest of society.53”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“Even as U.S. policy in recent decades has become progressively militarized, so too has the Vietnam-induced gap separating the U.S. military from American society persisted and perhaps even widened.47”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“war had become “a spectacle.” It had transformed itself into a kind of “spectator sport,” one offering “the added thrill that it is real for someone, but not, happily, for the spectator.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“war is inherently poisonous, giving rise to all sorts of problematic consequences, and that military power is something that democracies ought to treat gingerly.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“The marriage of military metaphysics with eschatological ambition is a misbegotten one, contrary to the long-term interests of either the American people or the world beyond our borders.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“One result has been to contrive a sentimentalized version of the American military experience and an idealized image of the American soldier.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“As it turned out, Clark’s shortcomings as a strategist—particularly failing to accurately take the measure of Milosevic—were as nothing in comparison to his deficiencies as a battlefield general.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“effort to rebuild American military power while restricting its use, initiated by Creighton Abrams and carried to its fruition by Colin Powell, failed.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“Given the brief attention span of the American people, the liberation of tiny Kuwait eclipsed the fall of the Berlin Wall as a historical turning point.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“The liberation of Kuwait in 1991 that seemingly redeemed the military profession was also the event that vaulted Powell to the status of national hero.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“The Weinberger Doctrine created a series of tests, in essence preconditions for any policy decision that might put American troops into harm’s way.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“In short, Vietnam had demonstrated that when it came to deciding when to go to war and how to fight, civilians were not to be trusted.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“As the writings of Walton and others suggest, many evangelicals view the requirements of U.S. national security in the here-and-now and the final accomplishment of Christ’s saving mission at the end of time as closely related if not indistinguishable.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“Americans believe in democracy. But their democracy works such that the divide between rich and poor grows ever wider. In America, the winners control an ever-increasing percentage of the nation’s wealth. To be a member of the upper class is to have privileges, among them ensuring that it’s someone else’s kid who is getting shot at in Iraq or Afghanistan. These”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“History had singled out the United States to play a unique role as the chief instrument for securing the advance of freedom, which found its highest expression in democratic capitalism.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“The Abu Ghraib debacle showed American soldiers not as liberators but as tormentors, not as professionals but as sadists getting cheap thrills.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“Only influence there—prior to any actual decision to intervene—could prevent feckless civilians from committing the nation to wars or quasi-wars not to the military’s own liking. In”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“The question that generals wanted to hear from their civilian masters after Desert Storm was not “What are you doing for us?” but “What can we do for you and the troops?” The”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“The resulting fractious, at times even dysfunctional, relationship between the top brass and civilian political leaders is one of Washington’s dirty little secrets—recognized by all of the inside players, concealed from an electorate that might ask discomfiting questions about who is actually in charge.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“In an era that exalts individual autonomy above all other values, the state as a practical matter has long since forfeited its authority to command citizens to defend the nation.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War

“Otherwise acutely wary of having their pockets picked, Americans count on men and women in uniform to do the right thing in the right way for the right reasons.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War