The Age of Illusions Quotes

“As for diversity within the military itself, highly publicized instances of tokenism—female officers becoming fighter pilots or graduating from the army’s Ranger School—divert attention from gaping inequities related to class.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory

“Yet implicit in this consensus were two notable assumptions: first, that the advantages enjoyed by the United States at the end of the Cold War were insuperable and sure to endure; second, that the great majority of Americans, along with any would-be challengers abroad, would comply with the terms of this consensus, coming to the inescapable realization that no real alternative existed.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory

“Indeed, Greenspan deemed it “fortunate” that “policy decisions in the U.S. have been largely replaced by global market forces,” so much so that “national security aside, it hardly makes any difference” whom Americans installed in the White House.9”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory

“The assumption of more growth providing an eventual remedy to income inequality remained intact. And the United States remained what it had been: a nation in which the needs of corporate capitalism take precedence over the common good.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory

“Of course, some captains are more adept at doing so than others. A successful president correctly discerns what existing conditions require and creates the impression that he is the master of circumstance rather than its servant. James Polk, Abraham Lincoln, and William McKinley offer illustrative examples.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory

“The self-assigned role of elite institutions in presidential politics is not to decide who will win, but to assess eligibility to compete.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory

“Americans were dividing into two camps. In the one were those with an “impulse toward orthodoxy,” clinging stubbornly to belief in “an external, definable, and transcendent authority.” In the other were those whose “impulse toward progressivism” made them increasingly averse to rules handed down from on high. In their view, individual empowerment required the privatization of faith, ending the practice of allowing religiously derived norms to affect public policy.19”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The Age of Illusions: How America Squandered Its Cold War Victory