My initial impulse after reading Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power was to run to all my military friends and family and tell them, “You MUST read this!” Then I was stopped by an uncomfortable realization that I was re-inforcing the very point Rachel was trying to make in her book about the drift between the role of the American military and the American populace as a whole. In other words, not just my military friends and family should read this book, but EVERY American should read this book.
This is a detailed, thoughtful look at how the role of our military has changed in American society. Drift makes the case that we, as a nation, have drifted away from America’s orginal ideals and become a nation weirdly at peace with perpetual war; including all the financial and human costs that entails. The book makes the argument that war has become too easy to get into and that our country relies on the same small contingent of the population (currently hovering around 1%) to sacrifice while the vast majority of Americans remain unaffected.
Rachel then asserts that things used to be different. In WW2 the whole nation pitched in on the war effort. She then categorizes- starting with the Vietnam War- the series of events and decisions that led us to the situation we have today.
She explains that there is a reason why we had so many barriers to war in our government and policy. It all started with the framers of the constitution and their concern that the decision to go to war should not be the responsibility of one man, the President. That, in fact, the natural inclination of the executive branch would be to wage war (and garner the political heft and accolades that came with it.) The only way to mitigate that natural propensity is to take the decision out of the President’s hands and place it within the power of Congress. In Congress, the matter of whether to go to war would have to be vigorously debated and the arguments put forth in a public forum. If the choice was to engage in military action at that point, it would be with eyes wide open and the majority support of the American public.
Another issue that is addressed in this book is the privatization of our military and how outsourcing has affected how we choose to engage in war. Not only has it increased our costs of functioning, but it has allowed presidents and the Pentagon to circumvent the oversight of Congress. Can’t get Congress to agree with your decision to go to war? Never mind, we’ll just re-route some of these defense dollars to this private company of contractors to go do the job for us. Unfortunately, those military contractors are less accountable and don’t have to follow the same rules of engagement that our military would.
One of the more disturbing chapters had to do with our nuclear weapons and the fact that we have not been able to maintain the upkeep on them. Particularly troubling was the fact that we no longer know how some of these systems even work, and can’t replicate some of the more fundamental components necessary to keep our nuclear weapons in proper repair. Here’s a quote from the text:
Page 220-
Fuzes, for example, were failing, and there was nobody around who could fix them: “Initial attempts to refurbish Mk21 fuzes were unsuccessful,” admitted an Air Force general, “in large part due to their level of sophistication and complexity.” The fuze that previous generations of American engineers had invented to trigger a nuclear explosion (or to prevent one) were apparently too complicated for today’s generation of American engineers. The old guys, who had designed and understood this stuff, had died off, and no one thought to have them pass on what they knew while they still could.
Um, can you say, “Holy Smokes?!” Not only that, but this is just one example. There are other components or key safety features that we no longer know how to make, as well.
You would think that a subject like this would be dry. Perhaps, in the words of most authors it would be. However, Rachel lends a light touch, a sharp sense of humor, and a conversational tone to the discussion. She does not play the role of partisan hack and fling accusations at “the other side.” She doesn’t puff up into rage and histrionic ire. This book is not a conspiracy theory run amuck. Instead, she simply lays out the various events and short-sighted decisions that have left us with an out-of-control defense budget and a privatized, disconnected “leviathon” military which lacks proper oversight.
Seriously, go read this book!
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