I recently lampooned former pentagon guru Caspar Weinberger's newest venture into fantasy [The Next War] as outlandish speculation. I did however carefully couch my ridicule with the term "meaningful" war. This would eliminate any military engagements that were not in our national interest such as every military confrontation since the end of World War 2. Both Caspar and I could agree to all sorts of plausible scenarios in which we engage [at most likelihood indirectly] any number of countries in significant military confrontation - none of which would involve promoting or protecting the best interests of our nation and/or its citizens.
In one of my novels [all on the drawing board], a major subplot involves the overthrow of the Chinese government and the establishment of a citizen's democracy in the southern region of present day China. This citizens' revolution was masterminded by my protagonist in the United States in a thesis on China. Since this democracy movement involved overturning the corrupt business and labor practices of those businesses in China there was intense lobbying - and a media disinformation campaign - for US intervention to squash the revolution. The intervention would have been done on the pretext of "protecting Social Security retirement savings" invested in the corruptly run country as a heavily privatized Social Security had diverted a large portion of its tax revenue into investiture in 3rd world hellholes such as China. In my book the protagonist, unlike peace and justice activists today, had a large enough media forum to successfully rally public opinion against this type of ill advised military venture; in Caspar's book we would have been drawn in. In my book there was a negligible amount of bloodshed; in Caspar's book there would have been heavy casualties on all sides and public opinion would have turned against the intervention in our country since it would have nothing to do with our real interests - and everything to do with the interests of those who write campaign checks and dictate our severely dysfunctional foreign policy with a "defense" budget over twice the size we really need.
The basic problem with Weinberger's premise - even if taken at face value - is that the solution he would have us reach [more military spending] would do nothing for the problems that he has envisioned for us. How would a larger arsenal [we can already obliterate the planet] deter future agression? He would have us blithely assume that the geopolitical realities have not changed since our last meaningful war and that a major war between significant powers is still doable. The bigger question is: why won't any of Caspar's true believers buy my bridge over the Willamette River?
1/26/97