State of the Union.

There is a good novel to be written playing on the friction between the Clinton administration and the U.S. military: A huge cultural divide separates the White House yuppies from the uniformed military, and behind it is a growing gap between the militar and the nations' political, intellectual, and economic elites. More broadly, if the Cold War is indeed considered to have been a war, we are in unexplored territory because, for the first time in our nations' history, we maintain a large military establishment during peacetime. And we have a military that is probably better than it has ever been, yet also more partisan than ever before -- and is being used heavily as a tool of foreign policy by an administration it doesn't really trust. What a rich set of ingredients for a fresh, nervy post-cold War thriller.

State of the Union is not that novel. Instead, it is a tired updating of the same old Washington adventure story. Remember the Kevin Costner movie No Way Out? Here we go again -- with the Russians replaced by terrorists, as they generally are in '90s thrillers: The hero is a very junior officer, in this case an Army lieutenant, who cuts a swath through the Pentagon and ultimately defeats the bad guys running the Defense Department. At one point, the novel's lieutenant hero even represents the Joint Chiefs at a key meeting with the No. 2 officials from the CIA, State Department, and the National Security Council. Oh, sure. This is roughly equivalent to letting an intern run the Senate for the majority leader.

Why isn't there any good fiction written about the post-draft military? We've had all-volunteer armed services for nearly a quarter-century. Maybe someone should sponsor a contest.