Framing, individuals, and the Almighty Dollar

Call me a liberal, but if ever an institution seemed hellbent on making its practices acceptable within a society's norms, it's our military. A recent NYT article revealed that the military analysts that appear on major news networks to assess the administrations' war policies sometimes have professional ties and often have financial ties to military contracting companies. Their often suspiciously favorable evaluation of administration war policy suggest that their opinions may be guided by more than their professional experience--their bank accounts. This lends support to a few international relations theories we've run across, including political economy. Making a compelling case for the economic guidelines that the world tends to follow, Gilpin makes an incidental, unintended argument, that money makes the world go round, a theory this lends credence to. The article is also a good example of leadership trying to frame a crisis so that it is less alarming to the American public– but the real underlying point is that the Pentagon obviously feels that it is necessary to frame the war for the American public. It reveals their stake in the network of institutions and norms that comprise American society, from elections and the power of a constituency to approval ratings. Top leadership in a democracy, it is clear, feels that it relies on the support of actors that are traditionally not empowered in non-democratic states. It’s in this way that liberalism could almost apply to democracies more readily than it applies to other, more autocratic states. Traditional autocratic states could be said to act more like realism says states should, for their own self interests. However, without public support for policies that enhance their security interests, democracies could conceivably act in ways that their leadership do not deem best for their security.