Word: nationalizers
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...less an authority than General David Shoup, retired Marine Corps Commandant and Medal of Honor winner, accuses the armed services of relishing war for the sake of self-aggrandizement, of making the U.S. "a militaristic and aggressive nation." Physicist Herbert York, former Pentagon chief of research, development and engineering, warns that Americans will face a "Frankenstein monster that could destroy us." Not only are military motives questioned, but military competence as well. The defense complex is indicted for being unable to develop weapons that work well enough, wasting money needed for civilian purposes, giving bad and dangerous advice...
...accused are not without counsel. Many Congressmen, academics and ordinary citizens retain confidence in the nation's military leadership. Some, like Political Science Professor Morton Kaplan of the University of Chicago and Politics Professor John Roche of Brandeis, depict the military as scapegoats for a frustrated, roiled nation. If blame must be placed, it is argued, civilian policymakers deserve a goodly portion. Senator Henry Jackson of Washington bemoans the fact that the military has become the protagonist in the "latest version of the devil theory of history...
...much of the nation's wealth and brainpower to allocate to defense needs, two Eisenhower admonitions remain valid. In 1965, he warned in Waging Peace that "every addition to defense expenditures does not automatically increase military security. Because security is based upon moral and economic, as well as purely military strength, a point can be reached at which additional funds for arms, far from bolstering security, weaken it." In his farewell address in 1961, he argued : "Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods...
...Washington has been signing treaties and exchanging musicians? The Chinese, who have been shooting Russians lately? Those scrawny North Vietnamese, visited often by American journalists? Assorted revolutionaries in distant and backward countries, who might be influenced by Communists? At home, social needs became more pressing than ever. Did the nation really need all those billions for defense...
While U.S. strength cannot enforce a universal Pax Americana, however, the nation's muscle has done a reasonably effective job of protecting the balance in areas crucial to world stability, such as Western Europe and the Far East. For the time being, a strong military machine is essential?although not necessarily at its present size, or guided by its present axioms...