THE CHRONICAL REVIEW has a thoughtful article by Michael Nelson, "Warrior Nation". Many writers have decried the militaristic nature of the American republic, but Michael Nelson has some observations worthy of your attention in his commentary on Andrew J. Bacevich's new book, Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War, Reasons to Kill: Why Americans Choose War by Richard E. Rubenstein, and political-science professor Peter Beinart's recent The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris. First, the roots run deep:even in colonial times, "there was either a declared war or a conflict for 79 of the 179 years from just before the founding of Jamestown until 1785, nominally the end of the Revolution."
Second, the end of the Draft and the removal of ROTC from most American colleges has caused a shift in the make-up of the officer core over time.
With the partial exception of Bacevich's Washington Rules, however, all of them neglect or underplay the importance of two critical Vietnam-era decisions: the replacement of the draft-based army with the All-Volunteer Force (AVF) and the roughly simultaneous expulsion of Reserve Officer Training Corps units from many elite campuses. Taken together, those decisions have made the nation's inclination to war and other military action greater than at any time in its already war-saturated history.
