Breach of Trust Quotes

“In this way, the bravery of the warrior underwrites collective civic cowardice, while fostering a slack, insipid patriotism.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country

“The actual legacy of Desert Storm was to plunge the United States more deeply into a sea of difficulties for which military power provided no antidote. Yet in post–Cold War Washington, where global leadership and global power projection had become all but interchangeable terms, senior military officers like Sullivan were less interested in assessing what those difficulties might portend than in claiming a suitably large part of the action.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country

“American warriors may not win wars, but they do perform the invaluable service of providing their countrymen with an excuse to avoid introspection. They make second thoughts unnecessary. In this way, the bravery of the warrior underwrites collective civic cowardice, while fostering a slack, insipid patriotism. In”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country

“For a democracy committed to being a great military power, its leaders professing to believe that war can serve transcendent purposes, the allocation of responsibility for war qualifies as a matter of profound importance.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country

“In its quest to control an unruly world, the Pentagon—acting in the name of the American people—slices and dices that world into smaller and smaller segments, while neglecting to assess the actual costs and benefits of the persistent meddling that it terms engagement. In this way, the regionalization of U.S. military policy serves to perpetuate sterile thinking.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country

“If they believe war essential to preserving their freedom, it’s incumbent upon them to prosecute war with the same seriousness their forebears demonstrated in the 1940s. Washington’s war would then truly become America’s war with all that implies in terms of commitment and priorities. Should Americans decide, on the other hand, that freedom as presently defined is not worth the sacrifices entailed by real war, it becomes incumbent upon them to revise their understanding of freedom.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country

“Reflecting on the mind-set in 1960s Washington that gave rise to Vietnam, the literary critic Alfred Kazin once wrote, “Power beyond reason created a lasting irrationality.”21 Kazin’s observation applies in spades to the period following the Cold War. With the collapse of communism, Washington convinced itself that the United States possessed power such as the world had never seen. Democrats and Republicans alike professed their eagerness to exploit that power to the fullest. A sustained bout of strategic irrationality ensued, magnified and reinforced by the events of 9/11. Sadly, the principal achievement of President Obama, who came to office promising something better, has been to perpetuate that irrationality.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country

“Call it Westhusing’s Theorem: In a democracy, the health of the military professional ethic is inversely proportional to the presence of hired auxiliaries on the battlefield. The pursuit of mammon and the values to which military professionals profess devotion are fundamentally incompatible and irreconcilable. Where profit-and-loss statements govern, devotion to duty, honor, and country inevitably takes a hit.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country

“For those enjoying access to rarified policy circles, intently surveying the globe in search of anything remotely resembling a nail, the all-volunteer force provides the proverbial hammer.1 In the eyes of those who formulate policy or aspirants maneuvering for a chance to do so, the professional military by its very existence enriches the list of conceivable policy alternatives. The signature phrase of contemporary American statecraft—“all options remain on the table”—derives its potency from the implied threat of military power, like some avenging angel, instantly available to back up Washington’s demands.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country

“As Faust’s formulation suggests, individual choice had now fully eclipsed state power as the principal determinant of who will defend the country. The end of conscription had shorn the state of its authority to compel service. The evolving identity of the all-volunteer force, culminating in the abandonment of DADT, progressively curtailed the state’s authority to deny individuals the option of serving, except on narrowly drawn grounds of mental or physical ability.47 The conversion of military service from collective obligation to personal preference was now complete and irrevocable. With that, an army that in the 1960s had been politically radioactive became politically inert—of no more importance in national domestic politics than the Bureau of Indian Affairs or the Forest Service.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country

“In the purer ages of the commonwealth, the use of arms was reserved for … citizens who had a country to love, a property to defend, and some share in enacting those laws which it was in their interest, as well as duty, to maintain. But as the public freedom was lost in extent of conquest, war was gradually improved into an art, and degraded into a trade … That public virtue which among the ancients was denominated patriotism derived from a strong sense of interest in the preservation of free government … Such a sentiment … could make but a very feeble impression on the mercenary servants of a despotic prince. Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country

“justified the hyperbole. With the ongoing “war” approaching the ten-year mark, the U.S. economy shed a total of 7.9 million jobs in just three years.3 For only the second time since World War II, the official unemployment rate topped 10 percent. The”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country

“Rather than offering an antidote to problems, the military system centered on the all-volunteer force bred and exacerbated them. It underwrote recklessness in the formulation of policy and thereby resulted in needless, costly, and ill-managed wars. At home, the perpetuation of this system violated simple standards of fairness and undermined authentic democratic practice. The way a nation wages war—the role allotted to the people in defending the country and the purposes for which it fights—testifies to the actual character of its political system. Designed to serve as an instrument of global interventionism (or imperial policing), America’s professional army has proven to be astonishingly durable, if also astonishingly expensive. Yet when dispatched to Iraq and Afghanistan, it has proven incapable of winning. With victory beyond reach, the ostensible imperatives of U.S. security have consigned the nation’s warrior elite to something akin to perpetual war.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country