On Thu, 17 May 2007, Carrol Cox wrote:
> (I agree completely with the rest of your post.) What do you mean by the
> "security establishment"? Johnson speaks of the "military establishment"
> -- do you mean something different? My sense is that both under Clinton
> and under Bush the "military establishment" (or at least The Military) has
> only reluctantly gone along with the military adventurism of both
> administrations.
By security establishment I mean not only the military, but also, quite crucially, the think-tanks that develop, fine-tune and market its worldview and plans; the industrial base that puts enormous money into lobbying for weapons systems; and the bureaucracy that extends under the Secretaries of Defense and State, and the CIA and related intelligence agencies, all of which technically is civilian, but which is really part of a circulation of personnel that pass easily between the various spheres and make their careers between and among them. The people at the top have almost by definition been in more than one place -- you can't be a military man with political clout without going to Washington.
You are right that career military men opposed the Iraq war. So did career oil executives, career spooks, career think tank guys and emminent emeritus career guys from State and Defense.
And other career military men, etc. supported it. And to oversimplify, for one over-arching reason (that has generally been borne out): it was great for their careers to do so. It's not an accident that people who opposed it were overwhelming people who had quit or retired.
Michael