This article contends that the relatively recent academic movement known as communitarianism can serve as a policy guide that could work catalytically on American cultural development of the sort that would loosen the tight military-industrial connection and in so doing aid the dismantling of the "warfare state." After chronicling the development of our current cultural circumstances, the authors demonstrate the possible contributions of communitarianism to a culture that raises community welfare among its list of policy priorities. They further argue that the deployment of community-oriented policy will require universities that engage students relative to the merits of communitarian theory. (Contains 6 notes.)