War and armed aggression have ancient roots, but industrialization and globalization have heightened the intensity of militarism’s effects on civilian society.

Consumer lives in the industrialized world are saturated with products directly or indirectly tied to the military industrial complex. Those who live their lives on the margins of the indus­trialized world cannot escape militarism either; such places, in most cases former colonies or current economic zones of interest for industrialized nations, have become the dumping grounds of new and used popular cul­ture as well as first- and secondhand military hardware.

Children form their moral perspectives at a very young age. Toys and play are crucial to the development of their understanding of the world. When war toys and aggressive action figures dominate children’s toy boxes and playtime, war toys become an influential source that teaches children some of the core values of militarism. Physicians for Global Survival (PGS), a physicians’ peace activist group founded in the early 1980s, identifies the four most-prominent moral lessons that war toys teach children as the following:

• War is a game, an exciting adventure.

• Killing is acceptable, even fun.

• Violence or the threat of violence is the only way to resolve conflicts.

• The world is divided into “goodies” and “baddies,” where the bad guys are devoid of human qualities and their destruction is desirable.²

War play that rehearses stories in which “bad” people, who seek to control the world, are defeated by “good people” teaches children that weapons and war are sources of power and are necessary to deal with “evil.” Militarist media feels compelling, sets audience expectation and excitement levels, is all but impossible to avoid, and defines fun as action- and adrenaline-based. War entertainment currently sold to global consumers is not responsible for creating militarist values, but it goes a long way in reinforcing the lessons that help militarism maintain its hegemony.

The encroachment of militarism into the lives of consumers and the seductive dangers it poses are the explicit topics of director Joe Dante's 1998 Hollywood feature film, Small Soldiers. This satire of late twentieth-century U.S. militarist-laced consumerism was ideally built for the market environ­ment it critiques: the movie wittily partakes in the very elements it satirizes. Small Soldiers sells its antimilitarist theme in packaging that highlights the action-based narrative and explosive spectacle that captivates a broad spec­trum of the mainstream viewing audience. Thus, it should come as no sur­prise that the film itself faced protest for glamorizing violence. However, it is my belief that teaching the world's children to play with the dangerous dou­ble-edged sword of militarism's toys with a knowing and satiric awareness is the best defense activists have to offer. Small Soldiers can offer a model for new forms of intelligent engaged play that promotes learning about the dan­gers of war and militarism in our world, making the film and its toy tie-ins entertaining and instructive products for children and adults to explore.