His most recent
September 13, 2021
The warpath ahead
Illustration by Carl Muecke.
One of the interesting parts of Michael Crow's empire is the Center on the Future of War, dedicated to exploring "the social, political, economic, and cultural implications of the changing character of war and conflict." With a faculty led by Peter Bergen, a CNN analyst and leading scholar on terrorism, and Daniel Rothenberg, former Managing Director of International Projects at the International Human Rights Law Institute at DePaul University, we're a long way from little Tempe Normal. The UA — or UArizona as they would have it — has nothing to compare.
Crow has a genius for going where the action is, particularly where money can be found in a state that shamefully underfunds higher education. And even with the end of the "Forever War" with President Biden's withdrawal from Afghanistan (that and Iraq were not our longest conflict; that prize goes to the Indian wars of the 19th century), America's seeming hunger for war isn't going away.
The Pentagon, think tanks, and cottage industry of military journalism have us aiming at China, with runners up Russia and Iran. As for the first two, war with nuclear-armed adversaries: What could go wrong? Brown University’s Watson Institute estimates direct costs from the “war on terror” to be 929,000 deaths and a federal price tag of $8 trillion.
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