"Today as never before in their history," the book relentlessly argues, "Americans are enthralled with military power." They naively exaggerate its effectiveness, overlook its horror, romanticize the military profession, and accept the normalization of war as an instrument of policy. There is no single culprit in this shift, certainly not just the Bush administration and its neocons, although they get their fair share of blame. The march to militarism has been a bipartisan project into which various elites, popular culture, and religious movements have shepherded society and government institutions with scarcely a thought.

The review in its entirety can be read here.

Richard K. Betts is director of the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University and the author of Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises (Columbia University Press, 1991).