I think you need the BS appreciation in order to get people to do it. Scholars are attracted to the real benefits, like the pay or the joy of what they're working on.
They need people with the type of mindset who will follow orders, like you say. If they pay enough, they start to attract more clever people. People who are more likely to realize it's all BS and are going through the motions for the payday. And this is less efficient for them to manage, it doesn't get them the ideal solider. The best "compensation" (for the people they want to attract) is to instill a feeling of adoration into the public.
Like, even it costs more to spread the propaganda than it would to just pay the soldiers a bunch of money, it still makes sense for them to spread the propaganda.
Never thought of it this way before, but not showing adoration for the troops is literally cutting at the lifeblood of militarism.
@full-measure From a nonanarchist perspective, I'll give a soldier props because the military is volunteer and this person risked death for the country. He might have been fighting a useless war, and he might have spent most of his toor drinking in Germany, but if World War 3 happened,he would have been in the thick of it, and he didn't have to do that. I live in the United States, and we're our centuries version of the Roman Empire and the reason is because our military is so strong no one would ever dare fuck with us, and I also appreciate that.
I can definitely respect an aspect of it. It's possible to have instincts that want to defend that got misdirected into the military, and it's possible to do skillful and heroic things in isolation within the framework of being in the military. I have a hard time with the "he didn't have to do it, and we need him" thing though.
We don't say that about other jobs. We need trash collectors, electricians, plumbers.. But we realize that the incentives are worth it to them and that's why they choose to do this, and that we don't need to go around thanking them for their service. If being in the military is only worth it to them when they get praised and thanked, that's indicative of a problem.
To whatever extent they provide a real service, you'd be able to attract people to the job by paying them for what they provide. If you raise the pay as the way you attract people into the military, you get your military, it's just that now you have generally brighter people who are less willing to do things that aren't actually necessary defensive things. So you get your defense, you just don't get your Iraq etc. When you thank them and give them props, you're encouraging Iraq etc., you don't need to do that for the actual service they're supposedly providing.
Amazing post