Ok, earthlien maybe there is a critical need for americans to understand how 'that war stuff' works - so that they can step away from the myth that in D.C. there are these majikal experts who are going to know stuff about how war stuff gets done....
Maybe understanding that the Myths of WWII passed with the arrival of nuclear weapons, and that we would be in a land of asymetric warfare for a good long while. Since, clearly there is this problem about getting into the 'use it or lose it' position with one's nukes. But this is less problematic if one can just send in the 'plausibly deniable ones'....