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I'd say it's right there in your first sentence: a warrior class.
Americans are allergic to the concept. Or at least to talking about it openly. When something implies the existence of a class divide, we tend to get real uncomfortable real fast, and start casting about for alternate explanations. You can have military families just like you can have legacy admissions, so long as they're framed as pure personal preference.
"Warrior class" isn't the right word, anyway. We're not talking about kshatriyas or samurai or knights. Those classes are no longer economically viable. Back in the days of subsistence farming, feudal dues were one of the more effective ways to support specialization of labor. Peasants farmed, lords taxed, and when it came time for violence, the necessary logistics and command structures were already in place. As food production improved, and state capacity generally expanded, this relationship was no longer the only game in town. The standing armies of Renaissance Europe were already decoupled from retinue-of-retinues feudal structures.
Simultaneously, the proliferation of firearms and fire artillery was closing the technological gap between the aristocracy and the plebes. By the modern era, the warrior aristocracy was no longer load-bearing. Officers got down in the mud and choked on mustard gas just like their lowborn brethren. The most successful militaries coming out of the World Wars adapted to this reality by treating military expertise like any other economic niche. Career soldiers are no longer a class. They're a commodity.
So there is a class of Americans which makes up the tip of the spear. But they're not a warrior class. They're just another one of the socioeconomic strata which form our vast, Byzantine economy. As with doctors, lawyers, police officers and chronic welfare recipients, membership in this class is to some extent inherited. Members hail from certain regions and tend to hold particular political beliefs. Their parents were likely in the class, and their children may find themselves making suspiciously similar choices.
On the flip side, we don't allocate greater rights to our doctors and lawyers and other extreme specialists. At least not explicitly. The privileges of rank, and of choosing to commit oneself to a particular niche, are supposed to be folded into pure economics. If, on noticing your material wealth and stable retirement prospects, others choose to treat you better...well, that's their prerogative, isn't it? Once again, any implication of class barriers is swept under the rug.
I cannot stress how important this is to our national mythos! As such, I can't endorse giving the military class some sort of immunity or credibility. Just look at how much damage the perception of such immunity has done to American politics. The cult of personal responsibility may be one of our greatest pretensions, but it's also one of our most effective. I think we should be trying to repair it rather than work around it.
Perception of immunity only happens when there's actual immunity. If there was a true system of personal responsibility, that would be great, near-ideal. But since there isn't, immunity and special privileges should be distributed outside the elite.
Even if we don't call it a class, class is still there. In the US, there are the Harvard and Stanford people, people with connections.
And isn't there this whole cult of veteranhood in the US, how soldiers get discounts on certain goods? Don't they get cheaper education and preferences in employment, in some places? Isn't there Veteran's Day, (like we have ANZAC day)? It seems like they're a class with positive privileges. I simply propose the negative privilege of not having the predominant, load-bearing echelon be harassed or insulted by their leaders.
Napoleon is right IMO. Soldiers aren't just an economic product, they need some kind of ideal to fight for. If there's one lesson from the Middle East, it's that money is secondary to will. The hatred, fanaticism and self-confidence of the Taliban overcame our firepower and funding.
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