Guardian Comment

LONDON: Even before the costs of the Iraq war and occupation, which themselves exceed $100 billion, the United States had a regular defence budget this year of $334 billion. The sum is larger than the combined defence spending totals of the 10 next largest military powers on the planet.

For this outlay the US possesses the world’s largest navy, the world’s third largest air force and the world’s sixth largest army, all of which are incomparably better equipped than their rivals, and employ a total of 1.43 million personnel between them. The US has taken part in 14 wars since Vietnam, and has troops of some sort stationed in the majority of the world’s nations, with significant numbers in a dozen or more, from Iraq to the UK’s.

To call the US a militaristic culture may be an exaggeration, but it is a pardonable one. This massive investment forms the bedrock of an intense national feeling in America about its armed forces. Pride in the military has become an essential theme in the national story, from George Washington to George Bush, represented in movies, monuments and an immense range of military literature. Though that narrative took a hit during and after Vietnam, it was rekindled in the Reagan years and has never looked back since. From the 50th anniversary of D-Day in 1994 onwards, modern middle America has been sustained by a renewed self-image of itself as heir to the “greatest generation”. That connection was explicit in Mr Bush’s Iraq speeches, and it has now reached a new apotheosis in Time magazine’s decision to award its Person of the Year accolade to “the American soldier” in the aftermath of the Iraq war.

All of this will play well in Peoria. But the award shows precisely why some Americans just do not get it about other countries, this one included. Earlier this year, in his book Of Paradise and Power, Robert Kagan argued that the US and Europe now see the world differently. Naturally he placed the whole blame for this on the Europeans. Well, anyone who wants to understand why the US is indeed different from us, but why it also bears at least some of the responsibility for the current divergence of ways, would do well to read the current Time. From the front cover onwards, with its trio of posed soldiers — one white man, one black man and one white woman, all straight from central casting — the magazine exemplifies the gap between how America sees itself (“They are the face of America, its might and good will,” as Time expresses it) and how so many others around the world see the current US administration and its military works.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.