After World War II, however, the exigencies of the Cold War required maintaining a sizable peacetime defense establishment, and this gave impetus to a highly politicized military. Because so much of the armed forces' energy during the Cold War was absorbed by the overarching threat of a nuclear armed Soviet Union, the military's politicization did not then present the pernicious threat that it does now. And while it is clear the world remains a violent and dangerous place, the absence of a superpower adversary is unsettling to a U.S. defense establishment still possessed of enormous resources and intellectual vigor. Too, while there has been a significant reduction in U.S. defense spending, it still remains more than triple that of any single potential adversary and greater than the defense budgets of China, Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and Russia combined.
Military officers spend hundreds of millions of dollars without any accounting .
They flout the Constitution they once swore to defend. Not only is the new all-volunteer military undiluted by the liberalizing effect of conscription, it is also the direct descendant of the traumatized forces that lost the Vietnam War. True, the U.S. military brilliantly rebuilt itself and triumphed convincingly, albeit in decidedly one sided engagements, in Desert Storm and Kosova. Still there is no question that this cycle of military failure and redemption has deeply effected the world view of those in uniform. Overlooked is the crucial fact that officers who concentrate on activities other than war eventually become something other than warriors.