The American Warfare State: The Domestic Politics of Military Spending

How is it that the United States—a country founded on a distrust of standing armies and strong centralized power—came to have the most powerful military in history? Long after World War II and the end of the Cold War, in times of rising national debt and reduced need for high levels of military readiness, why does Congress still continue to support massive defense budgets?

In The American Warfare State, Rebecca U. Thorpe argues that there are profound relationships among the size and per...