How to Run Wars

A copy of the top-secret memo below recently came into our hands, and we thought we should bring it to your attention! “Dear National Security Elite: In an ideal world, the public would simply accept whatever their leaders—you, in other words—told them. They would comply with restrictions and mandates, not as a matter of mere obedience, but as a matter of unquestionable patriotic duty. But we don’t live in an ideal world. And with the fate of the world, especially the world’s wars, in the hands of our enlightened, benevolent, and eminently responsible national security elite—in your hands, in other words—we can’t afford to risk opening the conversation to an informed public. And we certainly can’t risk asking for anything so antiquated as “consent,” either. Not when the stakes are this high. You simply must learn: How to control the narrative—every narrative—in your favor; How to completely capture the media and effectively quash dissent; How destroying liberty creates more liberty in the long (long) run; Why top-down economic planning, here and abroad, is your best friend; How to flout international, and of course domestic, law and get away with it; And much, much more... The danger with any book like this is, obviously, that it may fall into the wrong hands. If any member of the general public should happen upon these pages, the consequences would be fatal. After all, people may realize that the national security elite—you, in other words—are not, in fact, all-powerful harbingers of peace... They may realize that you are, literally, a force for good... armed and relentlessly attempting to bend the planet to your noble will. And that realization would be nothing short of disastrous. Don’t let this book fall into the wrong hands!” Merciless in their penetrating analysis, Christopher J. Coyne and Abigail Hall have written the satirical portrait of America’s contemporary military-industrial complex. Drawing inspiration from the 1936 classic How to Run a War, by Bruce W. Knight, this book is a must-read for anyone who would know the truth about America’s endless wars and the people who run them.... The truth might just set us free. It will certainly make you laugh. Then—really angry.