Of the countless volumes I have read and reviewed here, I cannot name a more sobering treatise on importance of war. While the attributed author, Leonard C. Lewin, claims this was intended as a satire of 1960's think tank productions, others claim that it was undertaken in all seriousness, as some sort of off-the-record study of the consequences of peace.
Whatever its original impetus, this thin book raises some of the most profound questions about "the Possibility and Desirability of Peace". According to the book, war, not peace, is the great stabilizing element of our civilization. Certainly it advances technology and medicine, benefiting many well beyond the battlefield. The book delves into the multitude of benefits derived from the institution of unending war: economic, political, social, and so forth.
Were we to take these arguments at face value, we should all become bloodthirsty war-mongers on first reading. However, the world is not so simple, and we - who fight the wars, and suffer its terrible consequences - are not so powerless and helpless as we often tend to believe.
A favorite minister, where I went to church, once gave a sermon on the profound power of "legitimizing myths" - grand stories which cover steaming piles of iniquity with the mantle of sacred righteousness. And it is my suspicion that the author(s) of this book are engaged in the wholesale fabrication of intellectually challenging fables.
"To what end?", you may ask. As a general rule, seldom contradicted, all commissioned works aim to please those who arrange payment for them. In the 1960's, the growing Military-Industrial Complex was seeking justification for its continued existence, much as it still does today. It should be of little surprise then, that the assessment favors endless warfare, with endless American victories, with a few necessary setbacks to keep the uninformed players interested.
Above all else, The Report from Iron Mountain is a landmark exercise in the intellectual conditioning and moral justification of institutionalized evil. Fascinating, though its arguments are, they usually boil down to simplistic excuses to maintain the status quo - keep the masses ignorant of their manipulation and exploitation, and keep the self-ennobled oligarchs safely empowered.
None of this review should be construed as supporting knee-jerk pacifism, unilateral disarmament, or even modest gun control. It is intended only point out to the awakening citizenry that the sort of rationale advanced in this book is of dubious merit. And though it may have great appeal to hack politicians and pseudo-intellectual policy pontiffs, it is entirely toxic to our freedoms, our families, and our lives.
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