Synopses & Reviews
A masterful account of how sixty years of American militarism created the Cold War, fanned decades of unnecessary conflict, helped to fuel Islamist terror, and threatens to bankrupt the country.
For most of the twentieth century, the sword has led before the olive branch in American foreign policy. In eye-opening fashion, State vs. Defense shows how America truly operates as a superpower and explores the constant tension between the diplomats at State and the warriors at Defense.
State vs. Defense characterizes all the great figures who crafted American foreign policy, from George Marshall to Robert McNamara to Henry Kissinger to Don Rumsfeld with this underlying theme: America has become increasingly imperial and militaristic.
Take, for example, the Pentagon, which as of 2010, acknowledged the concentration of 190,000 troops and 115,000 civilian employees inside 909 military facilities in 46 countries and territories. The price of America’s military-base network overseas, along with the expense of its national security state at home, is enormous. The bill comes in at well over $1 trillion. That is equal to nearly 8 percent of GDP and more than 20 percent of the federal budget. (By comparison, China, Russia, Cuba, Iran, and North Korea, the five countries Pentagon planners routinely trot out as conventional threats to the national well-being, have a cumulative security budget of just over $200 billion.) Quietly, gradually—and inevitably, given the weight of its colossal budget and imperial writ—the Pentagon has all but eclipsed the State Department at the center of U.S. foreign policy.
In the tradition of classics such as The Wise Men, The Best and the Brightest, and Legacy of Ashes, State vs. Defense explores how and why American leaders succumbed to the sirens of militarism, how the republic has been lost to an empire, and how “the military-industrial complex” that Eisenhower so famously forewarned has set us on a stark path of financial peril.
From the Hardcover edition.
Synopsis
A masterful account of how sixty years of American militarism created the Cold War, fanned decades of conflict, helped fuel Islamist terror, and now threatens to bankrupt the nation. For most of the twentieth century, the sword has led before the olive branch in American foreign policy, and the United States can no longer afford the dangers provoked. With a struggling economy biting at heels and international affairs in a precarious state of unprecedented scope, American citizens have to wonder; what’s happened? State vs. Defense characterizes figures who crafted American foreign policy, from George Marshall to Robert McNamara to Henry Kissinger to Don Rumsfeld with this underlying theme: America has become increasingly imperial and militaristic.
In the tradition of classics such as The Wise Men, and The Best and the Brightest, State vs. Defense explores how and why American leaders succumbed to the sirens of militarism, how the republic has been lost to an empire, and how the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower so famously forewarned has set us on a stark path of financial peril.
About the Author
Stephen Glain has been a journalist for twenty years. He spent four years in Hong Kong writing for the local
South China Morning Post before joining the
Wall Street Journal in 1991 with stints in Tokyo, Seoul, and then Tel Aviv and Amman. His book
Mullahs, Merchants, and Militants was named the best book of 2004 by online magazine
The Globalist. His articles on U.S. foreign policy, East Asia, and the Arab world have appeared in
The New Republic, The Atlantic, The Nation, the
Financial Times, Gourmet, Smithsonian, Newsweek, The National, and elsewhere. Visit his website at www.StephenGlain.com.
From the Hardcover edition.
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1: Archetype
Chapter 2: The Wages of Fear
Chapter 3: Seeing Reds
Chapter 4: Inside Job
Chapter 5: Rogue Orientalists
Chapter 6: Treaty-port Yanks
Chapter 7: War for Peace
Chapter 8: Looking-Glass War
Chapter 9: Madmen
Chapter 10: Interregnum
Chapter 11: 1983
Chapter 12: Endgame
Chapter 13: Reformation
Chapter 14: The Weight of Peace
Chapter 15: Denouement
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index