Is The U.S. Military The Finest In The World?

MOUNTAIN SCAN - U.S. Army Capt. Jason Merchant scans the area while on patrol near the village of Sigin, Afghanistan, Jan. 1, 2011. Merchant is assigned to Company A, 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment. The soldiers discovered a command wire in a riverbed, but an ordnance disposal team could not locate an improvised explosive device. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Ryan C. Matson

Does America Really Have The Finest Military In The World? -- Salon

The retired officer in me warms to the sentiment, but the historian in me begs to differ.

Words matter, as candidate Barack Obama said in the 2008 election campaign. What to make, then, of President Obama’s pep talk last month to U.S. troops in Afghanistan in which he lauded them as "the finest fighting force that the world has ever known"? Certainly, he knew that those words would resonate with the troops as well as with the folks back home.

In fact, this sort of description of the U.S. military has become something of a must for American presidents. Obama’s predecessor George W. Bush, for example, boasted of that military as alternately "the greatest force for freedom in the history of the world" and "the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known." Hyperbolic and self-promoting statements, to be sure, but undoubtedly sincere, reflecting as they do an American sense of exceptionalism that sits poorly with the increasingly interconnected world of the 21st century.

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My Comment: A rather somber essay .... read it all.