<p>Well, if the topic of the thread is whether ROTC programs should be allowed on all campuses, I’m basically for that, while recognizing that each school has the right to make its own decisions. I don’t think we should deny our students any opportunity or any scholarship.</p>
<p>I find the written piece itself, however, full of contradictions, misstatements, and unintended irony (if I can ever figure out exactly what “irony” means.)</p>
<p>The piece starts off with a quote from WWI about a “citizen army.” I expect Ms. Wisse doesn’t know enough history to realize that the US conception of a standing army changed dramatically after WWII and led to Eisenhower’s famous “military industrial complex” warning. To use this quote to make her point is to use this quote to weaken her point if one considers that on-campus military training programs were once, essentially, militia training and not training for a professional, standing army.</p>
<p>She also says that “Democracies are notoriously–and commendably–reluctant to resort to military action.” They are? You mean the democratic Athenians didn’t attack Melos, kill every male old enough to bear arms, and enslave the women and children? The Athenians didn’t attack Egypt? They didn’t attack Syracuse? They didn’t play merry hell up and down the coastline of Greece, Thrace, and Ionia? What about the Romans? Their Republic had pretty widespread suffrage. Has there ever been a more warlike state? How many years has the United States failed to have troops either attacking or occupying a territory that is not part of the US? The British and French were aggressive colonialist powers long after they had become democracies (not that there has been a pure democracy in a long time). Were the colonial wars not wars?</p>
<p>Here’s another odd quote: “ …which means that almost every sector of society joined the debate over how best to respond to the aggression against us. </p>
<p>The elite universities alone kept silent. They did not undertake an inquiry into the reliability and adequacy of programs in Islamic and Middle East Studies, much less encourage those who “do well” academically to volunteer in the national defense”</p>
<p>“Almost every sector of society joined the debate over how best to respond to the aggression against us.” Now that’s a pretty sweeping statement. What would a “sector of society” be, exactly, and how did they manage to “join in the debate”? Then, the accusation that “elite universities alone kept silent.” Alone? Silent? They did? I seem to recall numerous blogs, op eds, letters to the editor, etc. in both mainstream and trade publications and journals. In fact, the way I remember it, there was a virtual torrent of words from the academic sector, much of it from faculty of “elite universities.” </p>
<p>Why and how would a university go about undertaking “an inquiry into the reliability and adequacy of programs in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies”? Would a course on Islam change because of 9/11? Would the history of the ME change? What, exactly, is “reliability” in this context? Maybe they should have taken a hard look at the “reliability and adequacy” of Yiddish Literature after one of the events involving Israel? Really, I have no idea what this even means.</p>
<p>Here’s a gut buster: “Harvard professor of economics Gregory Mankiw writes, “No one benefits more from the freedoms that the military defends than academics, who use the freedoms of expression more liberally than the average American. It seems particularly reprehensible for us to free ride as completely as we do.”</p>
<p>In order to make this as funny to you as to me, you need to know a bit about the role of economics professors on most campuses. In most inter-departmental meetings, you find these guys (they’re mostly guys) making arguments about how all behavior is driven by the profit motive and how acting in one’s own self-interest is what we should expect and even encourage. And here you have an economist urging … gasp … choke … self-sacrifice!!! Acting in a way that’s not in one’s self-interest?</p>
<p>Then, Ms. Wisse ascribes this aversion to the military to liberalism. Hmm. Of the conservatives in the White House and Congress, how many have either been to war or have children who are in one of the armed services? I would say that aversion to the military among advantaged families is a widespread phenomenon.</p>
<p>Ms. Wisse fails to understand a few things. First, the military does not have unlimited room. If there were sudden influx of recruits because we in the faculty suddenly started to talk it up (and that’s a pretty laughable conclusion in itself), the services would simply turn away less-well-educated kids who have vastly fewer prospects than the average kid at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale. So, the US ends up training a Harvard kid to repair radar for two years, after which she goes on to an investment banking firm, never to use those skills again. The less privileged kid could leverage those skills into a military service career or into a job in electronics in the private sector.</p>
<p>Secondly, the US military is no longer designed to accommodate large numbers of semi-trained individuals. The country has clearly switched to the 19th century British model of having a small, highly professional army that benefits mightily from control of the other dimensions of warfare. For the English, this dimension was the sea. For the US, it’s still the sea but, more importantly, the air. The US Army depends heavily on C3I technology as a force multiplier, and on smart weapons dropped from the sky to so degrade an opponent’s army that it is easy meat for the best equipped and trained, but relatively small, force in the world. Our generals don’t want massive forces, the President hasn’t asked for them, and Congress hasn’t funded them. </p>
<p>Once again, I’m for having ROTC on campuses. It’s another career and scholarship opportunity. But I find Ms. Wisse’s editorial unconvincing.</p>