True Then, True Now
"...no 'Deparment of Defense' ever won a war."
-- Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers
1959
The Department of Defense was only 12 years old when Heinlein wrote that line for Juan Rico, having been born by the landmark National Security Act of 1947, an act that literally transformed the U.S. Government into the completely dysfunctional behemoth it has become today. At that time, it had only been tested by North Korea, a test it decidedly failed. Today, that failure has resulted in the survival of a nightmarish hostile regime, with which we are still at war today, acquiring nuclear weapons, extorting the American people and firing long-range ballistic missles at ocean space quite near Hawaii.
On the Fourth of July, no less.
Here we are, no less than 48 years from Heinlein's protagonist's statement, and it's still true. Year after year, war after war, Americans are now as a matter of course expected to die to deliver liberal democratic regimes to people who don't want them, when they are not posted to protect places like Germany and Japan, who despise them.
And, year after year, the American people behold this and collectively shrug.
Oh, sure, there are lots of outraged people. And, God knows, there are still thousands of honorable military men and women, doing their best under trying circumstances.
But the problem is one of first principles, of first approach. Right now, our entire system is set up for failure, as should be obvious to anyone contemplating Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and, now, Iraq.
A collection of "citizens" receiving "government services" who pay taxes to the "Defense Department" is defeated before it begins.
A people make war, not a collection of citizens.
A nation fights wars, not a government.
A War Department wins wars, not a Department of Defense.
-- Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers
1959
The Department of Defense was only 12 years old when Heinlein wrote that line for Juan Rico, having been born by the landmark National Security Act of 1947, an act that literally transformed the U.S. Government into the completely dysfunctional behemoth it has become today. At that time, it had only been tested by North Korea, a test it decidedly failed. Today, that failure has resulted in the survival of a nightmarish hostile regime, with which we are still at war today, acquiring nuclear weapons, extorting the American people and firing long-range ballistic missles at ocean space quite near Hawaii.
On the Fourth of July, no less.
Here we are, no less than 48 years from Heinlein's protagonist's statement, and it's still true. Year after year, war after war, Americans are now as a matter of course expected to die to deliver liberal democratic regimes to people who don't want them, when they are not posted to protect places like Germany and Japan, who despise them.
And, year after year, the American people behold this and collectively shrug.
Oh, sure, there are lots of outraged people. And, God knows, there are still thousands of honorable military men and women, doing their best under trying circumstances.
But the problem is one of first principles, of first approach. Right now, our entire system is set up for failure, as should be obvious to anyone contemplating Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War and, now, Iraq.
A collection of "citizens" receiving "government services" who pay taxes to the "Defense Department" is defeated before it begins.
A people make war, not a collection of citizens.
A nation fights wars, not a government.
A War Department wins wars, not a Department of Defense.
