Toward a militarist America: the framers of our republic warned of the dangers posed by overgrown military establishments. Could our nation someday succumb to a military dictatorship?

The year is 2012. Prisoner 222305759, a 1992 graduate of the U.S. Army War College, has been convicted of sedition and condemned to die. Armed with smuggled research notes and a small sheaf of writing paper, the Prisoner composes a lengthy letter to a classmate describing in detail how the United States, once a constitutional republic with a military establishment under civilian control, had succumbed to military dictatorship under the reign of General Thomas E.T. Brutus, self-designated "Commander in Chief of the Unified Armed Forces."

"It wasn't any single cause that led us to this point," writes the Prisoner. "It was instead a combination of several different developments, the beginnings of which were evident in 1992." Chief among them was an increasing tendency of America's political class to task the military "with a variety of new, nontraditional 'missions,' and vastly escalating its commitment to formerly ancillary duties." These included not only foreign "peacekeeping" and "operations other than war," but also a variety of domestic missions, from law enforcement to environmental clean-up to educational initiatives. Military personnel became "an adjunct to almost all police forces in the country"; social and economic problems--from deteriorating public infrastructure to bankrupt commercial, airlines--"were transformed into 'national security' issues," and eventually brought within the military's sphere of influence.

With the rapid and apparently painless victory over Iraq in 1991, it seemed as if the military--unlike practically every other branch of the federal government--was a bottomless well of competence. "I am beginning to think that the only way the national government can do anything worthwhile is to invent a security threat and turn the job over to the military," wrote Atlantic Monthly commentator James Fallows in 1992, capturing the prevailing mood.

Infusing the military into the warp and weave of everyday life, the Prisoner ruefully reflects, meant that "people became acclimated to seeing uniformed military personnel patrolling their neighborhood.... Even the youngest citizens were co-opted.... [We have] an entire generation of young people who have grown up comfortable with the sight of military personnel patrolling their streets and teaching in their classrooms."

Even as it became nearly ubiquitous in American society, the military became increasingly alienated from the civilian political class and mainstream society. It subtly "evolved into a force susceptible to manipulation by an authoritarian leader from its own select ranks."

"What made this all more disheartening was the wretched performance of our forces in the Second Gulf War," continues the Prisoner's account. "Consumed with ancillary and nontraditional missions, the military neglected its fundamental [reason for being].... When Iranian armies started pouring into the lower Gulf States in 2010, the U.S. Armed Forces were ready to do anything but fight."

With military morale collapsing and the political class thoroughly discredited, General Brutus exploits the death of the president in February 2012 by persuading the vice president not to take the oath of office. Invoking the "power vacuum" that he created, Brutus moves into the White House, "postpones" elections indefinitely, and engineers a referendum to ratify his new status as military ruler of the United States.