Organizing and Reorganizing for National Security

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Douglas Stuart's fine book on the origins and evolution of the American security state comes at a propitious time in the nation's history. In the midst of ongoing counterinsurgency and nation-building operations, Stuart recounts the history of the bureaucracies tasked with carrying them out. In so doing, he makes a plea for the reemergence of diplomacy as a central weapon in the U.S. political-military arsenal. That arsenal, according to Stuart, a professor of political science and international studies at Dickinson College, has long been more “mil-pol” than “pol-mil,” with the militarization of U.S. policy stemming from the very structure of the U.S. security state (p. 119). Tracing its development through the work of political scientist and governmental consultant Edward Pendleton Herring, Stuart argues that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 swept away old notions about the nation's place in the world and the means for protecting its interests. The resulting “Pearl Harbor system” (p. 3) and mindset that took root came to be based on several premises: that the United States needed a more effective framework for intelligence collection, analysis, and dissemination; that the military needed to play a more sustained role in foreign and security policy decision making; that military leaders across the service branches needed to cooperate more effectively amongst themselves and work more closely with civilian officials; and that the nation needed more efficient means for mobilizing industry and science in the name of national security (p. 7).