War, being a dramatic departure

War, being a dramatic departure from the stream of events that went before it, is an especially fertile occasion for the pursuit of private agendas. World War I, for example, institutionalized the public relations industry. Most of the founding figures of public relations first came to prominence by participating in the propaganda campaign that persuaded Americans, against great odds, to join the war on the side of France despite isolationist sentiments and the large number of German immigrants in the country. As they built the government's propaganda machinery, they also built the professional networks and personal reputations that guaranteed their success, and the success of public relations as a concept, in the post-war world.

What new social structures will be institutionalized in the course of the war that is now getting under way? The answer, I think, can be found in plain sight, in the military doctrine that the Bush people have been articulating. ... One of the great dangers of the coming war is that it will institutionalize this kind of warfare, applying it not simply to dangerous individuals in foreign countries but to the civilian populace of the United States.