War is a racket
On Ryan Holiday’s recommendation, I decided to give Smedley Butler’s War is a Racket a try. Despite being a really short read, it punches above its weight in providing food for thought. Butler was a major general in the US Marine Corp who was awarded 2 Congressional Medal of Honours – he was truly the epitome of the professional soldier. But by the end of his career he had become strongly opposed to the idea of war. That’s a major about turn and it made me think how radical a departure it is for someone like him.
The thesis of the book, as its title implies, is that war enriches corporations at the expense of taxpayer monies and the lives of soldiers. He wrote this before WWII, which to me always had a sense of righteousness to it, on the part of the Allies. But I cannot say that corporations didn’t benefit .
There was a poignant section on honours awarded to soldiers that stuck with me:
Napoleon once said "All men are enamored of decorations . . . they positively hunger for them." So by developing the Napoleonic system -- the medal business -- the government learned it could get soldiers for less money, because the boys liked to be decorated. Until the Civil War there were no medals. Then the Congressional Medal of Honor was handed out. It made enlistments easier. After the Civil War no new medals were issued until the Spanish-American War.
I suppose this is a cynical take, but isn’t it intriguing how the narrative of honour is often espoused by those with the least to lose, in order to get those with the most to lose to give up their lives?
I think more thoughts will come to me as I sit with the ideas of the book. If it gives you any motivation to read, you could probably be done with it in an hour or less!