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When Monk went to the well for his next non-fiction book a couple of weeks ago, he winced when he picked up James Mann's Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet, thinking perhaps he had gone too far in collecting books on Dubya and the War on Terror. (He still has Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack in the stack of delivery boxes!)
However, seeing how the book is not likely to become more enticing over time, especially if optimistic wishes come to pass and Kerry wins in November and the Vulcans fall out of power, Monk decided to stick with it and get some value for his purchase. And he is glad to be delving deeper behind the scenes of our foreign policy.
The excerpt below is Mann's characterization of the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance, which is a report that the Pentagon puts out as it's statement of goals and purposes. Wolfowitz, one of the Vulcans, was the architect. The Soviet Union had collapsed the year before, which was the primary object of Pentagon planning. The 1992 DPG sets out a new purpose for the U.S. military...
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"The main point shouldn't be to block rival powers, but rather for the United States to become so militarily strong, so overwhelming that no country would dream of ever becoming a rival. America should build up its military lead to such an extent that other countries would be dissuaded from even starting to compete with the United States. The costs would be too high, America's military technology would be so advanced, its defense budget so high that no one else could afford the huge sums necessary to embark on a long-term military buildup that, even if successful, would still not catch up to the United States for thirty years or more. Thus the United States would be the world's lone superpower not just today or ten years from now but permanently."
-- James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans
When Monk went to the well for his next non-fiction book a couple of weeks ago, he winced when he picked up James Mann's Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet, thinking perhaps he had gone too far in collecting books on Dubya and the War on Terror. (He still has Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack in the stack of delivery boxes!)
However, seeing how the book is not likely to become more enticing over time, especially if optimistic wishes come to pass and Kerry wins in November and the Vulcans fall out of power, Monk decided to stick with it and get some value for his purchase. And he is glad to be delving deeper behind the scenes of our foreign policy.
The excerpt below is Mann's characterization of the 1992 Defense Planning Guidance, which is a report that the Pentagon puts out as it's statement of goals and purposes. Wolfowitz, one of the Vulcans, was the architect. The Soviet Union had collapsed the year before, which was the primary object of Pentagon planning. The 1992 DPG sets out a new purpose for the U.S. military...
___ ___ ___
"The main point shouldn't be to block rival powers, but rather for the United States to become so militarily strong, so overwhelming that no country would dream of ever becoming a rival. America should build up its military lead to such an extent that other countries would be dissuaded from even starting to compete with the United States. The costs would be too high, America's military technology would be so advanced, its defense budget so high that no one else could afford the huge sums necessary to embark on a long-term military buildup that, even if successful, would still not catch up to the United States for thirty years or more. Thus the United States would be the world's lone superpower not just today or ten years from now but permanently."
-- James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans
