Military-Intellectual complex? by Stephen M. Walt

Military-Intellectual complex?

by Stephen M. Walt

I happen to be a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and so I get various emails announcing upcoming events. Yesterday I received a notice about a not-for-attribution tele-conference with the entire Joint Chiefs of Staff. A few hours later, I received the usual invitation to the Council's annual conference in New York. The speaker at the opening session will be General Martin Dempsey (chairman of the Joint Chiefs), and other key events at the conference include a mock NSC meeting focusing on the confrontation with Iran and a dinner reception to be held at the USS Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum. The closing event will be a conversation with retired Army general Stanley McChrystal, former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
None of this is all that surprising, but am I the only one who sees it as more evidence of the creeping militarization of U.S. foreign policy?