Editor’s Note: This is Part I of a series by former CIA analyst Melvin A. Goodman addressing the presidency and the Pentagon.
Part II will deal with President Obama’s difficult inheritance of two wars in addition to a war on terrorism as well as the legacy of presidents who contributed to the militarization of national security policy. Part III will deal with President Obama’s mishandling of this inheritance and what the Obama administration needs to do to reverse the situation:
Fifty years ago, President Dwight D. Eisenhower told his senior advisers in the Oval Office of the White House, “God help this country when someone sits in this chair who doesn’t know the military as well as I do.” Several months later, he issued his famous warning about the military-industrial complex.
Now the United States finds itself in a cul-de-sac, with no way out of increased military deployments and expenditures, and no evidence that President Obama has a firm hand on the national security tiller.
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