A national security expert indicts the current American conduct of its "forever war." As former NBC News analyst Arkin demonstrates, America's "endless" wars are perpetual by design and sustained by "a gigantic physical superstructure." It's gigantic enough, in fact, that the U.S. has an overbuilt military that, while capable of projecting martial power far from the nation's shores, is not constructed to meet the demands of the wars that it will likely be fighting. "Our way of war," writes the author, an Army veteran, "and our style of warfare has never been well suited for this counterterrorism fight." For that reason, he adds, much of the brunt of the fighting is borne by proxy armies staffed by contractors, and those wars often multiply. At any given time, he writes, American forces are engaging enemies not just in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in numerous nations in Africa. The power of enemies there, as well as in North Korea, is vastly overestimated, by Arkin's account. Whereas the Pentagon reckons that North Korea is "the largest artillery force in the world," the author estimates that its presumed "21,000 howitzers and artillery guns" really amount to about 600 "that both function and can reach Seoul in a surprise attack." In addition to pointing out the problems, Arkin proposes reforms--e.g., stronger civilian oversight over the military in a time when the institution has become accustomed to operating without it. Oversight implies control, and that requires the training of arms-control and nuclear-weapons experts who are "knowledgeable enough to challenge the generals and the status quo." Another intriguing idea is a "global security index." In the manner of a stock ticker, it gives constant, publicly available updates on real threats to the U.S. to guide military deployment--a use of force made all the more problematic, notes Arkin, by the pandemic. Skeptics and critics of military overreach will find Arkin's argument invaluable. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

In this impassioned takedown of the national security establishment, journalist and former U.S. Army intelligence analyst Arkin (Unmanned) excoriates military and civilian leaders for fostering a "perpetual-war machine" in the two decades since 9/11. He notes that the U.S. military has fought the "so-called war on terror" in 55 countries, at a cost of 11,000 American lives and more than $6.5 trillion, and claims that every country where fighting has occurred is worse off than it was 20 years ago. Laying the blame on a sprawling network of "establishment practitioners'' in the military, intelligence, and law enforcement communities, Arkin delves into the network's role in President Obama's failure to wind down conflicts in the Middle East, the overhyping of North Korea's military threat, and the development of massive intelligence-gathering operations that threaten the privacy of U.S. citizens. His solutions include more civilian control over the military and the creation of a "global security index" to measure whether the world is becoming more or less safe. Though lacking in narrative cohesion, Arkin's compendium of national security dysfunctions builds a damning case against the status quo. Readers will be convinced that a sea change is necessary. (Apr.)