One of the things I go after in the new book is the nonsense that "we" are at war. Lots of deployments of volunteers - basically for continual anti-terror duty - is not "forever war" and the public keeps supporting it no matter how much they pretend otherwise. /1
Do we need to do this kind of anti-terror, great power policing? Probably not. But stop saying "we're" at war. You're no more at war than the British public was in the late 19th century. No one is being drafted and nothing is being asked of you, the average citizen. Nothing. /2
Are the volunteers "at war?" No, but they're in danger all the same. War is a social and political undertaking. What we do now is a kind of outsourced security tasking to volunteers who are willing to do it for our nation and our people. Dangerous, but not "forever war." /3
And the American public could stop any of this at will. But as @dandrezner once pointed out, foreign policy is not a constraint on policymakers, because the public doesn't know or care about it. Sadly. /4x
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