Instead, a question concerning how Bush's policies have affected the might of the military in terms of recruitment and allied support:
Its volunteer army is indeed stretched: it could not fight another small war of choice. But it can still muster 1.5m people under arms and a defence budget almost as big as the whole of the rest of the world's. And it could call on so much more: in relation to the country's size, its defence budget and army are quite small by historical standards. Better diplomacy would enhance its power.Why are fewer men and women enlisting in today's military? Is it simply fear of dying in a time of war? In part...but I don't think that's the whole story.
One irony of the “war on terror” is that Mr Bush's hyperventilation worked against him in terms of getting boots on the ground: neither his own countrymen nor his allies were sure enough that they were really under threat. (And why should they be? An American-led West spent four decades tussling with a nuclear-armed empire that stretched from Berlin to Vladivostok; al-Qaeda is still small beer.)
The current administration abandoned Roosevelt's wise maxim, "Speak softly and carry a big stick," much to our country's detriment. People must remind themselves of a time when all-out nuclear holocaust was a very serious possibility, just around the corner, and not be deluded by buying into the bullshit "existential conflict of our generation" mentality. And I think that more people are waking up to that fact. We are not living in a time of "greatest threat", our military is needed much less today than at many times in our history.
The "war on terror" cannot be fought with guns. Terrorism is a tactic. It cannot be "defeated". Ideology cannot be shot with even the beautiful Heckler & Koch 416 (a superior arm over the standard Army-issued M4). And that's why fewer people want to buy into that rhetoric.
If we have no clear enemy and no clear strategy, if our young men and women are unsure of the motives of this war, and suspect an executive's stubborness is the sole reason for our continued conflict...they will not be impelled to risk their lives for such a failed policy. And thus it should come as no surprise when recruitment in 2005 was down 25%, or when 38% fewer black men enlist, or the growing ranks of thugs and criminals -- even gangs -- in our honorable services. It isn't that our country is being sapped of courage to fight. We're being drained of faith in our leaders to morally direct fighting in general, and to manage wars they've begun. We see through the veil, and the grand Wizard of Oz booming out stark warnings and spreading terror turns out to be just another power-hungry politician.
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Technorati tags: Politics
