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David A. Westbrook's avatar

Nicely done. The seduction of technology is an old story, as you may recall from Social Thought From the Ruins. As a note: for Schmitt to focus on air power is significant, not simply because it's obviously tactically significant, but because he wrote an entire book/had a theory of history around the distinction between land and sea powers.

Wessie du Toit's avatar

It occurs to me that the seduction of special forces is less commented on, but is becoming almost as significant.

David A. Westbrook's avatar

Yes. See Maguire & Westbrook, Getting Through Security: Counterterrorism, Bureaucracy, and a Sense of the Modern. Not just special forces, but the militarization of policing more generally.