Lava wrote:
Anthropoid wrote:
Notice, I haven't even got into the military at all. I know some of our denizens here feel that having a powerful military is a waste of money, and I'm always for reducing waste or corruption in general and U.S. military expenditures down through the ages have been famous for that. But apart from that, I dont' think that "just making the military smaller/weaker/less expansive/less globally capable" is a wise strategy AT ALL. In fact, I'd have to say it is one of the most bone-headedly stupid strategies any supposedly educated, and intelligent person could suggest. Reducing waste? YES! Chopping for the sake of some myopic isolationist 'principle?' Fuck that stupidity.
The military needs reform as well. It caters to the industrial complex, is top heavy and full of idiots who place their career before their country.
That sounds imminently believable, reasonable and actionable. And nothing at all like the hysterical isolationist clarion call we hear from some.
Hopefully, one day, (I). Russia, China, North Korea, Iran, Pakistan will be "only as high a threat" as say India is today; i.e., a very low probability of hostilities. Beyond that, at some point one would hope that one day (II). ALL nations are about on a level of international relations as say the U.S. and Canada or any of the Commonwealth states, i.e., about as close to zero chance of an actual armed conflict between any two sovereign states as can be imagined in the whole of human history and given the particulars of human nature and the current status of human culture.
At that point, maybe every society on Earth can run with a military that is on the order of a typical Western European force, minus any nukes: an expanded police force with some capacity to perform large scale expeditionary operations.
Until we reach (I), I believe that, we depend on those experts in the Pentagon to propose what we need to remain safe, even while acknowledging the likely truth of your points
Quote:
The military needs reform as well. It caters to the industrial complex, is top heavy and full of idiots who place their career before their country.
When we reach (I), arguments that are philosophically based instead of being pragmatically based will not be absurd. When we reach (II) arguments that are more pragmatically based than philosophically based will have become overly-conservative, if not paranoid.
I'd say we are at least a century if not multiple centuries from (I) and who knows if we will ever reach (II). The botched "EU experiment" suggests it may be impossible. Human nature is a bitch and it just won't go away. Only systems which are specifically DESIGNED to impose checks and balances on individual wickedness have every actually worked, and even THOSE (meaning the U.S. foundational documents and principles) seem to be constantly under siege, imperiled and undermined to varying degrees.
Login
Register
FAQ
Search
