The implications of the change in the US High Command in Afghanistan go a lot deeper than the sacking of a general for mutinous behaviour.   Obama had already excessively delayed his endorsement of the Afghan surge strategy because he never believed in it, but could find no politically and militarily viable alternative to replace it with.   He felt trapped by its inevitability, but McChrystal and his aides now overplaying their hand against the ‘wimps in the White House’ offers him his best opportunity to re-write the strategy.   First signs are that he intends to take it.

What the McChrystal incident has really exposed is the increasing dominance of US militarism in both American politics and society.   George Bush defined himself as a war President, propagated the Long War doctrine of the unending worldwide struggle against terror, and demanded unquestioning patriotism as the price for achieving US global hegemony.

With US defence spending now nearly $1 trillion a year – more than nearly all other countries put together – and the military top brass increasingly occupying key positions both in running government and driving media opinion,  the McChrystal episode rapidly morphed into the central one of civilian control of the military.

With McChrystal’s sacking, this is not over: in fact it is only just beginning.   Significantly Petraeus has refused to rule out a second surge, even though the US now has 120,000 troops in Afghanistan.   The normalisation of war in an increasingly militarised society and the overall global US military superiority has glorified the use of force and the image of the American warrior as well as accustoming the mindset of the officer corps to the expectation of dominance.

It will be a huge political task to confront and break this culture.   Obama’s insistence that Petraeus’ appointment does not change his commitment to being the US pull-out in July 2011 is a good start.

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