Identify Books Toward Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power
| Original Title: | Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power |
| ISBN: | 0307970388 (ISBN13: 9780307970381) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Colin Powell, Ho Chi Minh, George W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan, Barack Obama, Lyndon B. Johnson, Rachel Maddow, Edwin Meese, Jeremy Scahill |
| Literary Awards: | Grammy Award Nominee for Best Spoken Word Album (2013), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for History & Biography (2012) |
Rachel Maddow
Paperback | Pages: 288 pages Rating: 4.07 | 17638 Users | 2062 Reviews
Description In Favor Of Books Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power
"One of my favorite ideas is, never to keep an unnecessary soldier," Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1792. Neither Jefferson nor the other Founders could ever have envisioned the modern national security state, with its tens of thousands of "privateers"; its bloated Department of Homeland Security; its rusting nuclear weapons, ill-maintained and difficult to dismantle; and its strange fascination with an unproven counterinsurgency doctrine.Written with bracing wit and intelligence, Rachel Maddow's Drift argues that we've drifted away from America's original ideals and become a nation weirdly at peace with perpetual war, with all the financial and human costs that entails. To understand how we've arrived at such a dangerous place, Maddow takes us from the Vietnam War to today's war in Afghanistan, along the way exploring the disturbing rise of executive authority, the gradual outsourcing of our war-making capabilities to private companies, the plummeting percentage of American families whose children fight our constant wars for us, and even the changing fortunes of G.I. Joe. She offers up a fresh, unsparing appraisal of Reagan's radical presidency. Ultimately, she shows us just how much we stand to lose by allowing the priorities of the national security state to overpower our political discourse.
Sensible yet provocative, dead serious yet seriously funny, Drift will reinvigorate a "loud and jangly" political debate about how, when, and where to apply America's strength and power--and who gets to make those decisions.
From the Hardcover edition.
Declare About Books Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power
| Title | : | Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power |
| Author | : | Rachel Maddow |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 288 pages |
| Published | : | March 27th 2012 by Random House Audio |
| Categories | : | Nonfiction. Politics. History. War. Military Fiction |
Rating About Books Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power
Ratings: 4.07 From 17638 Users | 2062 ReviewsWrite-Up About Books Drift: The Unmooring of American Military Power
I spent six years on active duty in the Air Force and I dealt with some of the material the author talks about towards the end of the book regarding America's nuclear program. I want to commend the author on her research, she is spot-on with the facts and gives IMO an accurate view of what is wrong and how to fix it.The author does a very good job of showing how the military drifted to what it is now where civilians don't feel the burden of war because the President (all recent modern"The Constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vest the question of the war in the Legislature." -James Madison (124)"We all have an interest in America having an outstanding military, but that aim is not helped by exempting the military from the competition for resources. With no check on its growth and no rival for its political influence,
Having trouble rating this one. Ultimately, I call it amazing because of Maddow's remarkable ability to clear away clutter from the last 40 years to look at one particular thread of history--the consolidation of military control in the hands of POTUS, and what that has done to us as a country.It took me almost a month to read this (oops, overdue library fines), even though it's under 300 pages, because I had to keep putting it down. It HURT. I'm old enough to remember all of this. When I read
Any book that points out that Jeff Sessions is an idiot and manages to use the word chickenshittery multiple times is off to a good start, but Drift goes the extra mile and provides an interesting and well-researched study of military bloat and the U.S.'s relative comfort with a near-perpetual state of war. After a quick examination of the country's initial view of the importance of making the population feel the costs of war across the board, Maddow launches into a really fascinating (if
The story of Drift goes something like this: once upon a time, the founders of the United States revolted against the British military presence in America and the tax burden of paying for that military. Those same founders were so worried about the problems that come with a standing army that, in the Constitution, they explicitly included several checks and balances to keep the US a peaceable nation, and the military a band of citizen-soldiers. This went along fine until Vietnam, when the
Published 5 years ago but relevant as all hell to today. My favorite quote (among many) from it:"America's structural disinclination toward war [by its Constitution requiring the President to obtain the approval of Congress before declaring war] is not a sign that something's wrong. It's not a bug in the system. It is the system. It's the way the founders set us up--to ensure our continuing national health. Every Congress is meddlesome, disinclined toward war, and obstructive of a President's
The main idea of this book, is that in recent decades it has become too easy for America to go to war. America's recent presidents have been gradually setting precedents for taking the country to war. Congress has been far too slack in checking this power in the hands of one person. Too often, Congress has not had a healthy debate on the wisdom of going to war. Sometimes presidents have simply acted covertly; Reagan comes to mind with the Iran/Contra affair and the attack on Grenada. At other
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.