Is serious left criticism of government’s share of GDP possible? (Paranoia Interlude)

Continued from here:

Called me paranoid, but when I read Steve Casey’s afore-mentioned passage:

As [then Secretary of State Dean] Acheson noted in one discussion on how to sell NSC-68, “speeches alone would not do it, that people read and heard what was said and then turned their attention to other matters.” What was vital was an incident, a crisis in one of the many flash points of the Cold War. Seen in this light, the start of the Korean War on June 24, 1950, was a godsend.

It immediately calls to mind another passage of more recent vintage:

Any serious effort at transformation must occur within the larger framework of U.S. national security strategy, military missions and defense budgets. The United States cannot simply declare a “strategic pause” while experimenting with new technologies and operational concepts. Nor can it choose to pursue a transformation strategy that would decouple American and allied interests. A transformation strategy that solely pursued capabilities for projecting force from the United States, for example, and sacrificed forward basing and presence, would be at odds with larger American policy goals and would trouble American allies.
Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor. Domestic politics and industrial policy will shape the pace and content of transformation as much as the requirements of current missions.

If you are well read, you will note this latter quote is from the document, REBUILDING AMERICA’S DEFENSES: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century.

It styled itself as “A Report of The Project for the New American Century,” and was published, September 2000.

One year later, the twin towers fell.

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce. — K. Marx

To be continued