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Here are two books that each tell a story of post Cold War change from a
military "ground truth" perspective and also bolster the claim that
the military is a progressive institution--not in philosophy, but in
action.

The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21st Century by TX Hammes

Colonel Hammes describes how "Fourth Generation Warfare" or "4GW" has
evolved over decades, with powerful military forces from economically
advanced nations being defeated by seemingly weaker opponents. This
book illustrates what is meant by asymmetric warfare....and points out
how we, with our hardware and technology fixation...are using the
wrong tools for today's wars.

The Mission by Dana Priest

This book shows how, over the past decade, the US government has
become increasingly reliant on the military to carry out foreign
policy.

My post about progressives and the military needing each other
generated both pushback and agreement.  The comments made me realize
that this blog needs to help re-define what it means to be progressive
and what are the values of any nascent "progressive movement". I, at least, need to understand this better before plunging into what a progressive security alternative looks like.

Here goes: Today's progressive still has a basic faith in people, participation
and broadly shared well-being. However, given the degraded state of
our democracy, and the increasing decadence of our political leadership, progressives can simply go back to basics and reclaim many of the democratic principles enshrined in our history like problem-solving, compromise and benign, pragmatic nationalism.  Blogs can claim the role of the progressive journalists of the last turn of the century, who documented the frenzy of institutional corruption and
greed --and were motivated by a conviction that publicized facts would
lead to social transformation. In other words, that truth would set us free.

Truth is a little more problematic nowadays, however. Current political leadership are virtuousos at "truth management" and polls have shown how a chunk of the population believe the product that's served up despite hard facts to the contrary. Karl Rove has truly turned corporate public relations into a governing philosophy.  So we have to learn a hard lesson, there's a worldview and then there's facts.  If you're a non-negotiable conservative, when the facts don't fit the worldview, you don't chuck the worldview, you jettison the facts.

Today's new progressive movement needs to be non partisan but not apolitical.
In short, it needs to rescue our democracy by claiming the wide terrain that has opened up in the middle of the political spectrum. This is the fundamental reason why the military and progressives need each other.  The market fundamentalism of the conservative movement--along with its anti-government rhetoric-- has damaged cultural notions of sacrifice, common good and public service, the military's very reason for being.  This damage can be seen in the effects of privatization on the uniformed Americans serving in Iraq...where a private contractor earns several times more than a soldier.

The military institution--whose professional education system is
steeped in American history and the labors involved in building a
healthy democracy--looks more and more ideal as our civilian/public sector
systems fail.   Internationally this holds true as well: American JAGs
have become global human rights champions for their work defending the
rights of prisoners in Guantanamo.

The conservative strategy of substituting public relations for a
governing philosophy has impacted the military as well. Intentions
aside, the military has allowed the public and elected leaders to
persist in the belief that defense industry pronouncements equal
professional military opinion. As a Hill staffer, I visited military installations--trailed by industry staff (and lobbyists) where Lockheed or Boeing reps answered all the gadget and hardware questions and the uniformed professionals were mostly silent. Strategy, doctrine and the challenges they were really facing in the world went unmentioned.  Military involvement in policymaking is always controversial, but somehow this inaction has helped lead us to where we are now: with lots of non working missile defense and not enough body armor.

In two out of the last three years, the only budgets that have passed
in Congress within the fiscal year are the defense bills.  If all
Congress is willing to fund is defense, then pretty soon everything is
going to become a security issue.  This should frighten every
American, left, right and center.

Progressives need to stand together to turn back the contagion of institutional
pyromania unleashed on our federal government by conservatives.  Getting to know and understand the military, its history, culture and needs will hopefully lead to a more balanced and mutual respect.  This is an important first step in any progressive security alternative.