[zeugma]

Interesting article. Worth reading the whole thing. I think it all boils down to the fact that we've removed pain from the feedback loop for the political decisions to deploy troops. You make trade-offs with everything. In this case, having an all volunteer military means your troop quality is much better than it would be with draftees, but this quality comes at a cost of isolating the military somewhat from the electorate. Agree with the author that the amount of knowledge about what is going on in the various deployments is abysmal amongst the general population.

Part of this is political. i.e., a republican president would not get the pass that obama has on how he's prosecuted Afghanistan and Iraq. Where is the Nightline broacast giving a roll-call of the dead? Won't happen for a democrat president, even though the casualty numbers during the obama administration are much higher than they were under Bush.

Part of it is because the American public in general is completely disconnected from the realities of what is occurring beyond our border.

[Old North State]

we've removed pain from the feedback loop for the political decisions to deploy troops ...
I agree with that that wholeheartedly. I think a lot of the issues associated with our half-ass military adventures would be cleared up by requiring Congress and the president to declare war before hand. If there is an emergency response required, so be it, but half measures are an insult to men put in harms way. You ask them to die for their country? You go all in.

[AFreeBird]

>>> Part of it is because the American public in general is completely disconnected from the realities of what is occurring beyond our borders. <<<

Hell, a good portion of the public is disconnected from the realities occurring *within* our borders.