The Decline of the American Military

Download the book here.

The authors go into the history of the US Military, as well as what is wrong now and how to fix it.

I thought this was a great quote from chapter 1:

"By the end of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648 Europe had had enough. The Thirty Years’ War began as a Central European religious struggle between Protestants and Catholics but ended as a purely political contest. Germany in particular was devastated. Europeans wanted order, stability and security, and the Treaty of Westphalia gave it to them. It defined the nation-state as the new governing entity, and decreed that it alone would have the power to make war. All other war-making entities were illegitimate and those who fought for them would be treated not as soldiers but as outlaws. The confinement of lawful violence to states would bring the stability needed for commerce and industry to flourish, learning and science to advance, and for people to feel secure for themselves and their property."