The Cold War provided justification for a larger peacetime military, since we were never really at peace, or so the argument went.

The Cold War is over but Cold War thinking survives.

Since the end of the Cold War, America has been grasping left and right for an identity.

During the Cold War, we lived in coded times when it wasn't easy and there were shades of grey and ambiguity.

There's a tendency to look at anybody who joined the military as if they underwrote everything that happened policy-wise. That's not really the case. I have a friend who both protested the Iraq War and joined the military, and ended up serving two deployments in Afghanistan.

We're no longer in the Cold War. Eavesdropping on friends is unacceptable.