Elite Military Policy

Power Elite Series

The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills, 1956, Excerpts

There is no free and wide debate of military policy or of policies of military relevance. It is in line with a mass society for manipulation to replace explicitly debated authority, as well as with the fact of total war in which the distinction between soldier and civilian is obliterated. The military manipulation of civilian opinion and the military invasion of the civilian mind are now important ways in which the power of the warlords is steadily exerted. The content of this great effort reveals its fundamental pose: to define the reality of international relations in a military way, to portray the armed forces in a manner attractive to civilians, and thus to emphasize the need for the expansion of military facilities.

The younger are growing up in the atmosphere of the economic-military alliance and are being intensively and explicitly educated to carry it on. Religion, virtually without fail, provides the army at war with its blessings, and recruits from among its officials the chaplain, who in military costume counsels and consoles and stiffens the morale of men at war.