I think it's much deeper than "defend the country." For a lot of people, the military is the only ticket out of their bumfuck nowhere life. For some people, it's a chance to learn some self discipline and self confidence. For some people, it's a brotherhood of warriors they're part of. For some people, it's a way to get a college education. For some people, it's about defending their nation. Of course there are plenty of people who watch a Michael Bay movie and think they'll be some badass operator if they enlist.
I think someone like Smedley Butler might have viewed the military as a place that turns boys into confident men, teaches them valuable skills, instills discipline and self respect into them, and hooks them into a network of lifelong brothers.
War is not necessary for any of this, and he realized that when we go to war, he has to send his men to die so that people with contacts in Washington can get rich. He says in the linked paper that he suspected it when he was a Marine and finally realized it after he retired.
It aligns with the fact that the warmongers are putting out a lot of propaganda that makes it a virtue to go to war and die for the warmongers.
Much of the modern recruitment efforts I've seen focus on benefits like paying for student loan debts, workforce training and healthcare.
I would bet that most people who join the military today (at least in the US) do so hoping to avoid ever having to see action, rather than looking forward to killing for their country.
Sounds like you live in a nice bubble.
> Much of the modern recruitment efforts I've seen focus on benefits like paying for student loan debts, workforce training and healthcare.
highly branch-specific. They cater recruiting messages to the target audience. Look up Marine recruiting material.
> I would bet that most people who join the military today (at least in the US) do so hoping to avoid ever having to see action, rather than looking forward to killing for their country
you'd lose that bet
Most of the guys I went to basic with or deployed with could. Not. Wait. To see action.
Having said that, though, do you remember people in that age bracked signing up in the aftermath of 9/11? They were doing so explicitly because they wanted to go out and "fight back." And we've been at war in those areas ever since. I don't think it's particularly plausible that, after nearly two decades of constant deployment to war zones in the Middle East, anyone would sign up for the Marines with the expectation that they would not be required to go kill for their country.
As a result, it's worth cautioning people that just because a fact of foreign policy efforts was true 100 years ago does not mean that it is true today.
Perhaps we might say something contrarian to this: if it was something true 100 years ago, the burden of proof is on the side of proving it is no longer so. And I think you will have a hard time at it.
If you believe that the foreign policy is built on that premise, but that the government is lying about it, then the burden of proof is on you to show that lying is in effect.
Don't say on "me", I was just offering a plausible side. But I agree it is a difficult question. There is the point you make, but there is also the point made by asking "cui bono".
And if those people revolt, then there's a "legitimate government" asking us to help them in a "police action" - not a war, God forbid! And then we train their troops and give them munitions. And if all that fails, then we send our troops to protect the "legitimate government".
And the last time this happened was... ?
Ok, literally true I guess? Not "explicitly" maybe. But you continue
>If you believe that the foreign policy is built on that premise, but that the government is lying about it,
>If you haven't noticed, we no longer invade countries (e.g., Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela) when they threaten to nationalize industries that the US has a large stake in.
What the US does nowadays isn't less appalling. I suggest the recent book The Wikileaks Files: The World According to US Empire, which goes around the world looking at the way US leaders/diplomats/agencies think and talk and act in relation to various countries and regions. Not how their press releases describe it, but quoting from their actual communications and instructions and advice and reports, in great detail. Mostly it's about the 2000s and 2010s, with some historical context. Warning: it will be very disheartening.
In the 1990s I read most of Chomsky's earlier political books, with each book focusing on a particular country/region, and following up his sources - books, papers, media, the UN voting record etc. That was incredibly depressing and sickening. The US crushing any show of real democracy and independence in country after country. Often training torturers and arming death squads in the service of dictators they installed and armed etc. (When they weren't actually invading and/or bombing) And covering it up with self-righteous propaganda about being pro-democracy.. It's hard to believe at first, so different from the glossy CNN/NBC/CBS/ABC picture of the world.
>the burden of proof is on you to show that lying is in effect.
Just read The Wikileaks Files and you should be amply satisfied on that score. (But sounds like your whole world-view will be shattered, sorry for that.) Yes, "built on the protection of American commercial interests abroad", yes, "the government is lying about it", it's plain as day.
One would have to be fantastically incredulous to imagine the USA invaded Iraq for anything other than the loot.
As @yesenadam notes, there's mountains of evidence, readily visible to anyone choosing to notice.
On your point of commercial interests, as though there's a distinction from trade policy, Saddam and Gadaffi had the poor sense to seriously propose abandoning petrodollars, sealing their fates.
Every generation has a supply of young men who go to war simply because they want to go to war. That's a human universal as far as I can tell. The reasons for the war are unimportant. It isn't until they become older and more introspective that they consider the big-picture morality of it. Smedley Butler was in his 50s when he made that speech.