Neomilitarism

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Neomilitarism is a form of militarism that is adapted to the requirements of an advanced market society, such as the United States.[1] It has the following features:

  • Abandonment of conscription as a method of filling manpower requirements in military services. In other words, reliance on an Volunteer military. In the United States, conscription was abolished in 1973, following the report of the 1970 Gates Commission, which said that it was an unjustified intrusion on individual freedom. (Two influential members of the Commission were economists Milton Friedman and Alan Greenspan.)
  • A shift toward new technologies that increase military potency, and at the same time reduce manpower requirements, as well as the human cost of conflict, measured in own-force fatalities and casualties.
  • The rationalization and expansion of federal programs to promote military service. Federal spending on recruitment is pro-cyclical: as the economy improves, so too does military advertising. Between 1998 and 2001, the US military spent $1.6 billion on such advertising.

These policies emerged as the US military attempted to respond to public anger over the Vietnam war, which involved high levels of government expenditure and substantial deployment of conscripted personnel. Combined, they may be described as "neomilitarist" because they represent an attempt to maintain public support for the defense establishment without challenging fundamental tenets of a free-market society.

The effects of a shift to neomilitarism may include:

  • The sharp decline in the proportion of the US population that is employed in the active-duty military;
  • The substantial increase in popular respect for the US military since the end of the Vietnam war; and
  • A perception (evident after the Gulf War and other 1990s conflicts) that the US could engage in "techno-wars" that did not produce substantial casualties.

In combination, these effects may have increased the probability that policymakers would rely on the military in responding to national crises. This is a challenge to the reasoning of the Gates Commission, which predicted that the shift to an all-volunteer service would not alter the willingness of governments to use force during crises.[2]

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Roberts, Alasdair. The Collapse of Fortress Bush: The Crisis of Authority in American Government. New York: New York University Press, 2008, 14 and 108-117.
  2. ^ President's Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force. The Report of the President's Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office, 1970, 17.

[edit] References