The Pentagon's publicity clout

Stephen Walt has a post commenting on two meetings of the safely establishment Council on Foreign Relation (CFR) in which senior military officials are offered a prominent presence (Military-Intellectual complex? Foreign Policy 04/27/2012) :

None of this is all that surprising, but am I the only one who sees it as more evidence of the creeping militarization of U.S. foreign policy? The Pentagon already spends several billion taxpayer dollars each year on public relations; does CFR need to give it another platform from which to purvey its views? More importantly, will any well-known advocates of a more restrained and less militarized global posture be given a chance to lay out their views at the annual meeting? What about experts who think U.S. military leaders were at least partly responsible for the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan?

America's founding fathers were wary of excessive military influence, and by the end of his long career, so was President (and five-star general) Dwight D. Eisenhower. They understood that in a free society, powerful institutions should be confronted and held accountable. Since 9/11, however, we've seen a predictable but growing deference to military expertise and advice. Politicians bend over backwards to tell us how much they support "the troops" and hardly anyone in office is willing to challenge military leaders openly. Just read Bob Woodward's book Obama's Wars, and you get a good sense of how civilian authorities can get rolled by those in uniform.

Tags: militarism, stephen walt

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