The Inadequacy of American Power

Abstract

The primary mission of America's far-flung military establishment is global power projection, a reality tacitly understood in all quarters of American society. At the end of the Cold War, Americans said yes to military power. The new American militarism manifests itself through an increased propensity to use force, leading, in effect, to the normalization of war. The prospect of the United States launching a preventive war without the sanction of the U.N. Security Council produced the largest outpouring of public protest that the country had seen since the Vietnam War. Since the end of the Cold War, having come to value military power for its own sake, the United States has abandoned this principle and is committed as a matter of policy to maintaining military capabilities far in excess of those of any would-be adversary or combination of adversaries. In former times American policymakers treated the use of force as evidence that diplomacy had failed.