Monday, September 4, 2017

Drift--by Rachel Maddow

Drift: The Unmooring of American Military PowerDrift: The Unmooring of American Military Power by Rachel Maddow
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is a book well worth reading. I have enormous respect for Rachel Maddow, and even more after reading this book, which is basically a long-form essay. Military policy is in no way my favorite topic, and not even particularly interesting to me, but this is written with such a clear voice (just how she sounds in interviews and on the news) with so many real-life examples that I found it as compelling and entertaining as it was informative. Rachel has a quirky manner (which I rather like) which includes bouncing from hard facts to folksy commentary, and from biting satire to disarming concern and empathy. She does not make this topic about herself, but she makes it a personal communication, from her to you, from her store of knowledge to your new information.

The title comes from a quote by Adm. Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Obama, who said, "If the military drifts away from its people in this country, that is a catastrophic outcome we as a country can't tolerate." Her thesis is that this is exactly what has happened. It's not just about the ballooning cost of defense, and what that means to other priorities, but the social and political ramifications of these changes.

Because she is scrupulously fact-based--working from news data, biographies, interviews, transcripts, and other verifiable sources, which are clearly described in the back--and conscientiously fair when making her case--avoiding hyperbole or personal animus--it is difficult not to follow her to her conclusion: we've allowed our society to become dissociated from the pain and sacrifice of war which now falls on military families only; we've allowed others--CIA, Blackwater/Xe and other mercenaries, SEAL teams and rangers, etc.--to prosecute war without our knowledge or consent; and we've made it easy for the executive to wage war instead keeping it as a prerogative of Congress, where the Constitution put it. She argues that these and other points need to be pushed back on, and ends with a series of recommendations that (IMO) should probably be in the democratic platform--if not the republican.

Good stuff, on a dry topic. And I couldn't help but think as I read it that John Oliver could make several really good episodes of Last Week Tonight out of this information.

And now, this...

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