[Peace-discuss] Bacevich on military matters

[C. G. Estabrook]

B. seems to be doing more that "talking /only/ about the effectiveness of the 
military...":

"Today the West no longer looks quite so triumphant" as it did to Fukuyama, but 
we've come to "another endpoint of sorts ... the Western way of war has run its 
course ... For Fukuyama, history implied ideological competition, a contest 
pitting democratic capitalism against fascism and communism [but] military might 
had determined that competition's course as much as ideology..."

Was WWII and the Cold War /only/ about who had the most effective military? If 
so, the Germans, Japanese, and probably even the Russians would have won [as 
war-gamers, among others, assure us]. But in retrospect, it seems a though those 
(like the US Civil War) were contests in which the largest economy won.

Today Bacevich's criticism, such as it is, of 'the Empire' seems to be that it 
is being done poorly, not that its existence was a crime.


On 7/31/10 12:29 PM, Morton K. Brussel wrote:
> Bacevich was talking /only/ about the effectiveness of the military, and how
> that has changed. He doen't go into the political aspects. I'm sure you are
> aware that he has criticized the Empire elsewhere, although I don't know whether
> he has condemned the global capitalism that is inherent to it. --mkb
>
> See the article of Nader on Common Dreams which rather effectively describes
> what's happening in Afghanistan.
>
> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/31-4
>
> Nader also neglects to discuss the motivations for our occupations, although one
> of his readers does:
>
> /Mr. Nader forgets to address the primary reason the US went in Afghanistan, to
> secure the oil and natural gas pipeline and therefore maintain the American
> hegemony in the region, as determined by the Cheney's energy task force meetings
> in 2001./
>
> /…/
>
> /The cost in dollars and blood means nothing to politicians and the corporations
> when so much profit's at stake and when they're personally out to make billions.
> Casualties, armaments and expenditures at record levels mean nothing when
> compared to the financial goals already achieved, and the ones which will be
> achieved in the next few years. The US will not leave/.
>
> On Jul 31, 2010, at 12:09 PM, C. G. Estabrook wrote:
>
>> I don't think so. It seems rather silly to me. Bacevich argues that there's
>> been a Fukuyamist change - "The End of (Military) History" - because of "the
>> Failure of the Western Way of War."
>>
>> But it hasn't failed. The US and Israel control the vast region from Palestine
>> to Pakistan, from Central Asia to the Horn of Africa - home of the world's
>> hydrocarbons - despite occasional setbacks (e.g., the US never wanted
>> elections in Iraq, but the resistance of the population insisted upon them).
>> Bacevich seems to think that the occupations have failed. On the contrary, it
>> looks to be in pretty good shape, as the US Congress votes $33 BILLION more
>> for escalation in Afghanistan.
>>
>> It's important to see that the governments of the US and Israel want war, and
>> the people of the region don't. The existence of the war justifies the
>> presence of the US & Israeli military throughout the region. Add to that the
>> significant social groups in both countries that depend on war - "defense"
>> industries, oil companies, construction and mercenary outfits, settlers and
>> employers of cheap labor, etc.
>>
>> It looks as though the only thing that could stop the current success of the
>> "the Western Way of War" is a revolt of domestic populations - and/or of the
>> military - in the US and Israel. But there's little sign of that.
>>
>>
>> On 7/30/10 9:45 PM, Morton K. Brussel wrote:
>>>
>>> A thoughtful analysis.
>>>
>>> http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/07/29-6
>>>
>>>
>>> The End of (Military) History? The US, Israel, and the Failure of the Western
>>> Way of War
>>>
>>> by Andrew Bacevich
>>>
>>> "In watching the flow of events over the past decade or so, it is hard to avoid
>>> the feeling that something very fundamental has happened in world history." This
>>> sentiment, introducing the essay that made Francis Fukuyama a household name,
>>> commands renewed attention today, albeit from a different perspective.
>>>
>>> Developments during the 1980s, above all the winding down of the Cold War, had
>>> convinced Fukuyama that the "end of history" was at hand. "The triumph of the
>>> West, of the Western /idea/," he wrote in 1989, "is evident... in the total
>>> exhaustion of viable systematic alternatives to Western liberalism."
>>>
>>> Today the West no longer looks quite so triumphant. Yet events during the first
>>> decade of the present century have delivered history to another endpoint of
>>> sorts. Although Western liberalism may retain considerable appeal, the Western
>>> way of war has run its course.
>>>
>>> For Fukuyama, history implied ideological competition, a contest pitting
>>> democratic capitalism against fascism and communism. When he wrote his famous
>>> essay, that contest was reaching an apparently definitive conclusion.
>>>
>>> Yet from start to finish, military might had determined that competition's
>>> course as much as ideology. Throughout much of the twentieth century, great
>>> powers had vied with one another to create new, or more effective, instruments
>>> of coercion. Military innovation assumed many forms. Most obviously, there were
>>> the weapons: dreadnoughts and aircraft carriers, rockets and missiles, poison
>>> gas, and atomic bombs -- the list is a long one. In their effort to gain an
>>> edge, however, nations devoted equal attention to other factors: doctrine and
>>> organization, training systems and mobilization schemes, intelligence collection
>>> and war plans.
>>>
>>> All of this furious activity, whether undertaken by France or Great Britain,
>>> Russia or Germany, Japan or the United States, derived from a common belief in
>>> the plausibility of victory. Expressed in simplest terms, the Western military
>>> tradition could be reduced to this proposition: war remains a viable instrument
>>> of statecraft, the accoutrements of modernity serving, if anything, to enhance
>>> its utility. … (read on)