First, I want to thank Andrew for the outstanding contribution he's made to discussions of foreign policy over the past decade. I've read all of his books and a number of articles, and it's easy to see why he's carved out a place for himself as a highly respected commentator with a distinct voice and point of view. His dual careers as a professional soldier and now an accomplished academic carry authority in their own right. His personal sacrifices - readers should note the dedication of The New American Militarism to his brother-in-law, the late George Blough, and of The Limits of Power to his son Andrew - give that authority even more credibility, especially in the world of the armchair theoreticians, where the moralizing can be easy and cost-free, to them anyway. On top of all that, he seems to have moved some distance - not without incurring a measure of rancor - from the conservative think tanks and publications that first sponsored his work.

Without turning my contribution into a full-blown review, which I don't have the competence to write anyway, let me say that this is an extremely timely book, just how timely perhaps the author himself could not have guessed, as we read in his initial post. It's hard to dispute the fundamental point that our several crises are inextricably connected with one another. I also sympathize with Andrew's contention about how American "profligacy" has dictated our policies in ways profound, disturbing, and now, it seems, self-defeating as well. He is not alone in saying this. Whether our elected leaders can say it is another matter. Jimmy Carter's dismal precedent is not encouraging. Yet it seems painfully obvious that the country is going to have to learn to live with less and not the perpetual more.

The lines of discussion I'd like to pursue are:

THE MILITARY CRISIS
This is what Bacevich knows best and it's the area where I'd most like to hear him. Is post-WWII generalship as bad as he says? Also, it seems that he is more skeptical about the possibilities of getting away from the AVF than in his previous book - true? Can a counter-argument be made that some type of citizen service isn't totally unrealistic? What about, e.g., expanding the presence of ROTC on campuses? I think there's much to be gained from having the military on campus - on the part of both the military and the academic community, where, at least in the sector of academic life I inhabit there is a deeply rooted adversarial mentality regarding the military (not shared, I add, by our students). By the same token, imagining a future in which our security depends on the likes of mercenaries and soldiers of fortune is pretty dispiriting.

AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM
This is after all the topic of the book. I don't find anything here that's very original - though I applaud seeing Reinhold Niebuhr back in circulation: his stock went into steep decline after Vietnam, at least among the left, though I never ceased to admire him from a distance. What about the positive benefits of seeing ourselves as exceptional? It's not all a witch's brew, as the author surely knows. I'd be the first to criticize theocon pitchmen like the late Richard Neuhaus, whom I heard say he expected to meet God as an American (I guess he knows now). But there really is something extraordinary about our "fair experiment" (Jefferson). I know it wasn't in Bacevich's mind to give a rounded presentation. But his authorial voice is not free from a certain satisfaction in playing the Cassandra. Niebuhr, whose insight he rightly lauds, believed deeply in the exceptional role of the United States. Andrew is not an isolationist (p. 65) - I remember a review he wrote of one of Buchanan's screeds (now there's an isolationist). But don't we perforce have a global leadership role willy-nilly, and not just for fortifying a Pax Americana? Wasn't some kind of intervention in Kosovo necessary? Granted that our military is misused if it's thought of as a humanitarian agency. But what should we do about Darfur?

Finally - and this is more tangential than my first two comments or queries: I don't get the point that lifestyle liberalism at it emerged from the late sixties was the unrecognized flip side of American power projection - referring here to p. 27. Curtis LeMay in any kind of kinship with Betty Friedan, ironic or otherwise? C'mon. Despite efforts to the contrary (e.g. the acknowledgement on the preceding page of the left's credit in advancing civil liberties and personal freedoms), I think the author can't escape the temptation to tar it by association with American over-reaching abroad, from Wilson to W. I'm not getting it.