Salon Looks at the Militarization of US Policy

Salon has an article that looks at "how we became a nation of warriors". However, I think they miss a few key points...

Over the last century, militarism has warped our foreign policy -- and our soul.

As discussed in Geoffrey Perret's excellent book, A Country Made By War, the military has been a key pillar of this country since the beginning. It's not a "last century" phenomenon.

Embedded in the operation is a lone USAID official. Her minority status is symptomatic of a new age in U.S. foreign policy, one in which America, in peacetime as well as in war, is represented abroad more by warriors than by civilians.

While they get into the meat of this a bit more in the article, the simple fact of overseas missions is this: uniformed servicemembers are the most organized, capable, and deployable collections of professionals the United States has. If a comparable organization of civilians existed, they could be put to work. However, thus far we as a country have not prioritized such an organization.

By: Brant