The Militarized Society: No End to War?

This book explores the long and complex history of antiwar movements in the United States, with emphasis on the 1960s sustained protests against the Vietnam War as historical and conceptual point of departure. While some movements have enjoyed short-term success, helping to end particular wars and other types of U.S. foreign interventions, the general outcome has been that of failure: no movement has been able to overturn the powerful institutions of warmaking in American society - nor in fact has there been a political strategy to achieve such a goal. The result is that, with the end of any specific cycle of mass protest, the warfare state (still fully intact, with strong popular legitimacy) prepares for the next round of military ventures while the permanent war system expands year by year, decade by decade. This book explores some possible resolutions to this historical impasse.