Well, then maybe I will have to offer some more.

Bacevich rightly ties together two speeches by Eisenhowerfrom both of which  I have quoted here in in that past.  The better known is his farewell address, with its warnings about the Military-Industrial Complex.  The earlier one, in 1953, warned about the opportunity costs of military expenditures.  Bacevich quotes from both.

And certainly in the past Bacevich has written - in articles, in his books - about the impact of the national security state upon the economy and the politics of our nation.  He is insightful.  Many perhaps saw him on Bill Moyers.

I have read - and reviewed here - several of his books.  I have reviewed some of his articles and op eds.  For some reason, reading this piece in the Atlantic struck me with even more force than what I read before.  I can give a brief sense by offering a few words from early in the article.  After referring to the often forgotten April 16 1953 speech Ike gave to the American Society of Newspaper Editors, Bacevich writes

In this speech, the president contemplated a world permanently perched on the brink of war—"humanity hanging from a cross of iron"— and he appealed to Americans to assess the consequences likely to ensue.

cross of iron -  Eisenhower was of course making an indirect reference to the 1896 speech by Williams Jennings Bryan about crucifying this nation upon a cross of gold.  But, as Bacevich notes in these few words, Ike thought more broadly  - all of the world, all of humanity, permanently perched on the brink of war.

That 1953 speech was offered in the aftermath of the death of Stalin.  In a sense, as Bacevich notes, it propounded a policy that had no chance of success, that would be rejected by the Soviets, and was thus perhaps appropriately dismissed by the newspaper commentary.   But it contained more, as Bacevich notes in this paragraph:  

Largely overlooked by most commentators was a second theme that Eisenhower had woven into his text. The essence of this theme was simplicity itself: spending on arms and armies is inherently undesirable. Even when seemingly necessary, it constitutes a misappropriation of scarce resources. By diverting social capital from productive to destructive purposes, war and the preparation for war deplete, rather than enhance, a nation’s strength. And while assertions of military necessity might camouflage the costs entailed, they can never negate them altogether.

Ponder that for moment -  a military hero, in 1953, was arguing that the diversion of resources away from social purposes to the destructive purposes of war depletes rather than enhances the nation's strength.  In other words, it makes us LESS secure.

Somehow we seem never to have learned that lesson.  Through administrations of both parties, in times of armed conflict and cold war, always we seemingly find justification for ever more military and related spending.  Meanwhile bridges fall into the Mississippi, school buildings crumble, teachers get laid off, the only real growth industry at home outside the military is the building of private penitentiaries as the percentage of our population incarcerated skyrockets well beyond that of any other nation -  are we Americans really that less law abiding than tyrannical dictatorships or failed states or kleptocracies like the modern day Russia?

Let me return to Bacevich.  My intent is to insist that you read him, that you pass on to others his article.

Allow me to offer a few not so random selections that can speak for themselves.

This national-security state derived its raison d’être from—and vigorously promoted a belief in—the existence of looming national peril. On one point, most politicians, uniformed military leaders, and so-called defense intellectuals agreed: the dangers facing the United States were omnipresent and unprecedented. Keeping those dangers at bay demanded vigi­lance, preparedness, and a willingness to act quickly and even ruthlessly. Urgency had become the order of the day.

In his 1956 book, The Power Elite, C. Wright Mills, a professor of sociology at Columbia, dubbed this perspective "military metaphysics," which he characterized as "the cast of mind that defines international reality as basically military." Those embracing this mind-set no longer considered genuine, lasting peace to be plausible. Rather, peace was at best a transitory condition, "a prelude to war or an interlude between wars."

Let me offer a few comments.  Look at the first of those two paragraphs. Note the words omnipresent and unprecedented.  I was struck in reading them, a description first of the 1950s and then the later years how much they have been recycled, only now the threat is not the looming specter of the Russian Bear, but the supposed existential threat posed by extremists who are ostensibly Muslim and also supposedly hate us for our freedoms.  If the entire world wide membership of Al Qaeda and all affiliated groups is even 20,000, we are so threatened that the answer is supposed to be massive expenditures on the  military - at the cost of $1,000,000 per soldier in Afghanistan per year - and upon "intelligence."  

I am fond of Mills, whom I first read as a sophomore in political science in 1964.  That phrase of "military metaphysics" is a key for Bacevich, and is useful in helping us understand what has happened to our nation.

What is key for Bacevich is this -  Eisenhower, President, former military hero, had no meaningful control over what was happening.  During his presidency, our stockpile of nuclear warheads expanded from 1,000 to 24,00o.  

As commander in chief, Ike exercised only nominal control over this development, which was driven by an unstated alliance of interested parties: generals, defense officials, military contractors, and members of Congress. True, Eisenhower had established "massive retaliation"—the threat of a large-scale nuclear response to deter Soviet aggression—as the centerpiece of U.S. national-security doctrine. Yet even as this posture was intended to intimidate the Kremlin, the president expected it to offer Americans a sense of security, thereby enabling him to rein in military expenditures. In that regard, he miscalculated badly.

Let me repeat that first sentence:  As commander in chief, Ike exercised only nominal control over this development, which was driven by an unstated alliance of interested parties: generals, defense officials, military contractors, and members of Congress.

That is the pattern that continues, throughout our own time.  It is that which drives our continued presence in Afghanistan.  It is not that Obama did not want something different.  Allow me to jump ahead to what Bacevich has to say about that, in his penultimate paragraph  

Thanks to its allies and abettors, the military-industrial-legislative war complex remains stubbornly resistant to change ­— a fact President Barack Obama himself learned during his first year in office. While reviewing his administration’s policy in Afghanistan, the president repeatedly asked for a range of policy alternatives. He wanted choices. According to Bob Woodward of The Washington Post, however, the Pentagon offered Obama a single path—the so-called McChrystal "surge" of additional troops. As recounted in Woodward’s book Obama’s Wars, the president complained: "So what’s my option? You’ve given me only one option." The military’s own preferred option was all he was going to get. (Just months before, Woodward himself had helpfully promoted that very option, courtesy of a well-timed leak.)

If the description Bacevich has offered is accurate, it raises real questions about the ability of the civilian leadership to effectively control the military.  Or let me be more precise:  given the power wielded by members of the Armed Service committees in the House and Senate, the military can feel almost arrogant in challenging a President who wants to take them where they do not want to go.

What Bacevich does not address, but which I believe must be asked is this -  knowing that Obama wanted to end DADT, did the military - most of the top leadership not really being committed to DADT - use that as a bargaining chip in order to get a continuing commitment in Afghanistan?  I honestly don't know.  I would tend to say that Gates and Mullen were sincere in wanting to end DADT.  But I also note that both have seem reluctant to end our commitment in Afghanistan.  We should not have to raise such questions, but given how, even with a decorated general as President, the military and its allies in Congress and in industry were able to run over his objections in continuing to promulgate their "military metaphysics," one does have to wonder.

I am not hostile to those who serve.  While I no longer would make the same choice I did at 19 of enlisting in the Marine Corps, I can respect those who make the choice for uniformed military service.  I remain concerned that the military is with the all volunteer force too divorced from the rest of American life, in a way that is healthy for neither nor for the nation.  

I have far greater concern for not as visible expansion of the "intelligence" function which has expanded well beyond the gathering of information to functioning as a paramilitary separate from the chain of command.  Yes, the CIA had its share of rogue operations in the past.  But consider this:  

The national-security state continues to grow in size, scope, and influence. In Ike’s day, for example, the CIA dominated the field of intelligence. Today, experts refer casually to an "intelligence community," consisting of some 17 agencies. The cumulative size and payroll of this apparatus grew by leaps and bounds in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Last July, The Washington Post reported that it had "become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work." Since that report appeared, U.S. officials have parted the veil of secrecy enough to reveal that intelligence spending exceeds $80 billion per year, substantially more than the budget of either the Department of State ($49 billion) or the Department of Homeland Security ($43 billion).

There is something bothersome, at least to me, that we spend so much with so little oversight.  All we know is that the budget exceeds $80 billion.  It could be 2 or 3 times that number without our knowing.  Is not there a valid question yet again about the opportunity costs associated with more drones killing more bystanders in Pakistan, both in the accumulated anger against Americans (and concomitant recruits to Al Qaeda) and the loss of revenue for other purposes at home?

There are many discussions we need to have in this nation.  Honest discussion.

Discussions without demonizing, without demagoguery.

We need honest discussions about what kind of nation we think we are, and what should be the role - and at what cost - of our commitment to the apparatus of the national security state.

In his farewell address, Eisenhower challenged the American people to take responsibility.  

Perhaps it is time for voices to be raised for just that purpose.

We cannot get our economy under control with controlling health care costs.  We know that.

We also cannot get our economy under control without controlling the expenditures on the national security state.  Eisenhower warned us that such expenditures actually made us weaker as a nation, less secure. He had by the end of his 8 years realized clearly that he could not make the change by himself as President.  One can read what Bacevich has written about Obama and Afghanistan and almost feel sorry for our current President.

But let me let Bacevich have the last word on this, with his final paragraph:  

No doubt Dwight Eisenhower would sympathize with President Obama, having himself struggled to exercise the prerogatives ostensibly reserved to the chief executive. Yet Ike would hardly be surprised. He would reserve his surprise—and his disappointment—for the American people. A half century after he summoned us to shoulder the responsibilities of citizenship, we still refuse to do so. In Washington, military metaphysics remains sacrosanct. No wonder we continue to get our pockets picked.

Dare I even end with my final word in the form of a question?

Peace?????