On Politics: The Militarization of American Policy
Abstract
Politics is the continuation of War by other means. Or so it seems based on the record of military actions around the world since the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Within the United States, the military instrument of power has ascended to preeminence, to the detriment of a grand strategy that synchronizes all the other instruments of national power: diplomatic, economic and informational. This unfortunate evolution would certainly cause considerable consternation to Clausewitz. The United States is leading the way in this trend. Its foreign policy and potentially its domestic, rely on the military as the predominant driver of policy. The exercise of strategy development has, if not halted, been so retarded by the fast pace of technological innovation, the volume of available information, speed of information dissemination and paralysis in the face of an environment of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. Can this trend of militarization of policy be reversed? Can there be a greater effort to develop a more coherent synchronized strategy that encompasses all elements of national power? Perhaps the only group that can reverse this is the professional American military's senior officers.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Mar 15, 2006
- Accession Number
- ADA449411
Entities
People
- Michael T. Moon
Organizations
- United States Army War College