Call it the new American isolationism, writes William J. Astore. Only this time the country — while pumped up with pride in its “exceptional” military — is isolated from the harrowing and horrific costs of war itself.
Empires built on dominance achieved through a powerful, expansionist military necessarily become ever more authoritarian, corrupt and dysfunctional, writes William J. Astore. Ultimately, they are fated to fail.
Collectively, Americans need to imagine a world in which they are no longer the foremost merchants of death, writes William J. Astore, as the arsenal of democracy became the arsenal of empire.
William J. Astore says that in America’s collective stockade of the mind, activism for peace is an aberration, while acceptance of the war state is second nature.