Bob Dylan knew what he was talking about when he wrote ‘Masters of War’ — plus his thoughts on Army recruiting!
I noticed the other day with surprise that Bob Dylan’s website lists among books that influenced him Clausewitz’s On War. I wonder if there are any other pop artists influenced by that book? Maybe Eric Burdon or Edwin Starr? What is weird is that as I typed this, a Bob Dylan song came on the ...
I noticed the other day with surprise that Bob Dylan's website lists among books that influenced him Clausewitz's On War. I wonder if there are any other pop artists influenced by that book? Maybe Eric Burdon or Edwin Starr?
I noticed the other day with surprise that Bob Dylan’s website lists among books that influenced him Clausewitz’s On War. I wonder if there are any other pop artists influenced by that book? Maybe Eric Burdon or Edwin Starr?
What is weird is that as I typed this, a Bob Dylan song came on the radio — "Rainy Day Women," which I don’t even like. Btw, he isn’t just an icon of the ‘60s. There are a ton of Dylan songs over the last 20 or 30 years that I think are great and should be better known — "A Sweetheart Like You" (which I think is about an assistant to Lucifer talking to a morally lost woman), "Jokerman" (which I think in part is Dylan talking about himself, and about other false idols), "Working Man Blues No. 2" (with its refrain about fighting on the front lines), and another recent song, "Thunder on the Mountain," which speaks to the issue of military personnel with a neat rhyme:
Gonna raise me an army, some tough sons of bitches
I’ll recruit my army from the orphanages
Well, it works the way he sings it.
PS — While we are on the subject of music, you should check out Radio Paradise. Good music, no ads. I used to listen to it while in Baghdad to get my mind off the war. Now that I think of it, it is kind of ironic — being in Hell but listening to the music of Paradise.
More from Foreign Policy

No, the World Is Not Multipolar
The idea of emerging power centers is popular but wrong—and could lead to serious policy mistakes.

America Prepares for a Pacific War With China It Doesn’t Want
Embedded with U.S. forces in the Pacific, I saw the dilemmas of deterrence firsthand.

America Can’t Stop China’s Rise
And it should stop trying.

The Morality of Ukraine’s War Is Very Murky
The ethical calculations are less clear than you might think.