ABSTRACT
The ethos of “the military way” as distinguished from that of “militarism,” according to Vagts, requires that the effectiveness of the military establishment be kept as a supreme value at all times. Underlying Vagts’ distinction between “the military way” and “militarism” is an assumption that Vagts apparently regards as self-evident, namely, that the military profession has a vital function in a society. The “military way,” as Vagts sees it, regards war as a means to an end and is committed to waging war as “rationally” as possible. The vast officers’ corps of the American armed forces contained a large proportion of civilians recruited from the general population for their management rather than their martial skills. Tribal warfare was, for the most part, “democratic” in the sense that the people engaged in war faced each other as personal enemies. In countries of the Third World, military establishments have assured their parasitic existence by direct use of force.
