The War Caste

The disconnect between military and civil society should be cause for great concern on both sides. The level of communication between the two has quite possibly never been lower, in spite of this Long War and unprecedented civilian access to information. Somehow, the military and their families and the general American public have divorced. The average American's military knowledge is more abysmal than their general political knowledge. The two sides look across the great chasm at each other with a mixture of curiosity and contempt.

To civilians, the military has been mystified, vilified, or enshrined in a sacred shroud of secrecy, often all of the above. It is too large, too complex, too secretive to be understood, and thus civilian responses range between hero-worship and paranoia. To the civilian mind, Special Operations Forces are running around the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan by themselves like Jack Bauer, shooting, maiming, torturing whoever they want.

To the military, they and their families bare 100% of the costs of this conflict, which a majority of the schizophrenic American public supported before they decided not to support it. Civilians are at best held in mild contempt. At worst viewed as sheep to be herded and shown the error of their ways.

The military doesn't rule this country, we must be helpful servants, always subordinate to our civilian masters. And we must be advocates. Just as there are organizations of doctors who advocate nationalized health care, or organizations of scientists to advocate the concept of Global Warming, it is our job to respectfully bring discussions of grand strategy and corresponding force structure to the national civic debate. The only difference is that we do not have the option to disobey or defy our civilian leaders once they give an order.

If we in the military fail in this task, we can expect time and time again for civilians to jump on the bandwagon when we say we can complete a mission, and immediately jump off when the going gets tough. And up to this point, we have failed in this task. We must not lose the hearts and minds of the American people, for they, just as easily as the Iraqi or Afghan peoples, can veto our efforts to complete the mission they assigned us.