07-09-2021, 08:19 AM
Informative to compare Butler to Mattis.
Mattis looked and sounded very good. But when Trump was POTUS, the top military echelon feared losing some of their perks and they turned on him, Mattis included.
Lessons therein, regarding the dangers of a republic too amply rewarding their military leadership. The leadership comes to see those perks as their due and will vigorously resist any attempts at reform.
Way back in the 1980s, I read a book called "The Pentagon and the Art of War". It was really about the culture of senior military leadership and the tremendous inflation of the number of flag officers (as a ratio to other military personnel) since the end of World War II. The problems we see today in the waffling of the top brass regarding their obligations to the Constitution and the deliberate weakening of morale with BS like critical race theory were already indicated in that work -- as the author (Edward Luttwak, one of the top U.S. military historians) assessed the corrosive effects of careerism on the integrity and discipline of the military.
Forty years hence, and the chickens have come home to roost with a nasty attitude.
Cheers
Mattis looked and sounded very good. But when Trump was POTUS, the top military echelon feared losing some of their perks and they turned on him, Mattis included.
Lessons therein, regarding the dangers of a republic too amply rewarding their military leadership. The leadership comes to see those perks as their due and will vigorously resist any attempts at reform.
Way back in the 1980s, I read a book called "The Pentagon and the Art of War". It was really about the culture of senior military leadership and the tremendous inflation of the number of flag officers (as a ratio to other military personnel) since the end of World War II. The problems we see today in the waffling of the top brass regarding their obligations to the Constitution and the deliberate weakening of morale with BS like critical race theory were already indicated in that work -- as the author (Edward Luttwak, one of the top U.S. military historians) assessed the corrosive effects of careerism on the integrity and discipline of the military.
Forty years hence, and the chickens have come home to roost with a nasty attitude.
Cheers
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Location: The lost world, Elsewhen