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Drift
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Drift (2012) (edit title/settings)

The Unmooring of American Military Power

by Rachel Maddow (Author) (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

"One of my favorite ideas is, never to keep an unnecessary soldier," Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1792. Neither Jefferson nor the other Found­ers could ever have envisioned the modern national security state, with its tens of thousands of "privateers"; its bloated Department of Homeland Security;... read more

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  • “"The Constitution is designed to inconvenience one person from taking us to war. War is a very solemn and sobering and extraordinary act and it should not be granted to one person."”
    Representative Ron Dellums
  • “The idea was for us to feel it-uncomfortably-every second we were at war. But after a generation or two of shedding the deliberate political encumbrances to war that they left us- of dropping Congress from the equation altogether, of super-empowering the presidency with total war-making power and with secret new war-making resources that answer to no one but him, of insulating the public from not only the cost of war but sometimes even the knowledge that it's happening-war making has become almost an autonomous function of the American state. It never stops.”
  • “When civilians are not asked to pay any price, it's easy to be at war-not just to intervene in a foreign land in the first place, but to keep on fighting there.”
  • “It lessens the possibility of stranding our military in conflicts the country doesn't support or, worse, doesn't care about. Have a work-around for that political sensitivity must have felt like genius to those who wanted war without the hassle, but even in the short run, that work-around had clear unintended consequences. Not only was there little public debate about the merits of a major American deployment, there was also less pressure to bring the mission to a quick conclusion. ~ on private military contractors”
  • “Privatization made it all easy, and quiet.”
  • “"Congress in recent decades has avoided its responsibility."”
    Pultizer Prize winning columnist and longtime student of the Constitution Anthony Lewis
  • “"They're not accountable to anybody and they know that."”
    Intellegence source commenting on private military contractors

First Sentence edit see section history

In the little town where I live in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, we now have a "Public Safety Complex" around the corner from what used to be our hokey Andy Griffith-esque fire station.

Table of Contents edit see section history

Prologue: Is It Too Late to Descope This?

Chapter 1: G.I. Joe, Ho Chi Minh, and the American Art of Fighting About Fighting

Chapter 2: A Nation at Peace Everywhere in the World

Chapter 3: Let 'Er Fly

Chapter 4: Isle of Spice

Chapter 5: Stupid Regulations

Chapter 6: Mylanta, 'Tis of Thee

Chapter 7: Doing More with Less (Hassle)

Chapter 8: "One Hell of a Killing Machine"

Chapter 9: An $8 Trillion Fungus Among Us

Epilogue: You Build It, You Own It

Notes on Sources
Acknowledgments
Index

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Rachel Maddow (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Crown
Country: USA
Publication Date: March 27, 2012
ISBN: 0307460983
Page Count: 288

Classification edit see section history

Links to Supplemental Material edit see section history

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