Suchergebnisse

The last time members of the graduating class of 2008 lived in a
nation at peace, they were in the first month of their high school
sophomore year. Because they are not subject to conscription;
because the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are being fought by a
professional army that has separated itself in many respects from
civil society; and because the government has asked little of
society in the way of sacrifice for the wars, today's undergraduates
have little direct experience of conflict, the armed forces, or
those people most affected by it. What do we teach students about
the war? Political scientists are often reluctant to teach current
events—aside from the fact emotions can run high and classroom
discussion can be hijacked by unproductive ideological debates, in
real-time we lack the kinds of patterned data that lend themselves
to systematic analysis and prediction.