Emasculating the Military
Pussycats — Why the Rest Keeps Beating the West and What Can Be Done About It, by Martin van Creveld, Mevasseret Zion, Israel: DLVC Enterprises, 2016, 240 pages.
The policy changes that often come in the aftermath of a presidential election provide a context for reevaluating some of the principles that guide those who govern, and they allow for a comparison with the principles enunciated in the U.S. Constitution. The ever-growing propensity of both Republican and Democrat administrations to embroil these United States in foreign conflicts that have the character of undeclared wars has continued even as the percentage of the citizenry willing to enlist in the armed forces has fallen to historically low levels (for example, currently .4 percent of the American population is active-duty military personnel). The percentage of adults willing to serve in the military continues to rapidly decline even as the Department of Defense budget continues to soar, and the success of U.S. strategy has become more and more dubious, even as the military appears to many observers as an organization that is being transformed by feminists and homosexual activists into a social experiment aimed at changing our society, rather than fighting against the enemies of the American Republic.
In a new book, Pussycats — Why the Rest Keeps Beating the West and What Can Be Done About It, Israeli military historian Martin van Creveld examines the current plight of Western militaries in the context of the historical expectations for fighting forces. As van Creveld observes, “As society becomes more peaceful — in the absence of major war, never in history have Westerners been less likely to die a violent death — people, men in particular, tend to become less willing to take risks, are less robust, and are less resilient. Both in law and in practice, countless problems that used to be settled by the antagonists themselves now require the intervention of social services, police, the courts, or some combination of all three.” One result has been that a smaller and smaller portion of the population is willing to assume the risks attendant with defending the country, and the government has turned to mercenary forces (“contractors”) and relies less and less on recruits. In van Creveld’s words:
JBS Member or ShopJBS.org Customer?
Sign in with your ShopJBS.org account username and password or use that login to subscribe.
Subscribe Now
- 24 Issues Per Year
- Digital Edition Access
- Exclusive Subscriber Content
- Audio provided for all articles
- Unlimited access to past issues
- Cancel anytime.
- Renews automatically
Subscribe Now
- 24 Issues Per Year
- Print edition delivery (USA)
*Available Outside USA - Digital Edition Access
- Exclusive Subscriber Content
- Audio provided for all articles
- Unlimited access to past issues
- Cancel anytime.
- Renews automatically