The Best Defense
Posted by Thomas L. Knapp on Apr 24, 2009 in Commentary • 15 commentsGovernments everywhere spend lots and lots of money on something they refer to as “defense.”
The US government in particular shells out more each year than the next 20 largest governments combined on “defense,” which accounts for the bulk of its “discretionary” spending — about 4% of Gross Domestic Product. Yup — for every $25,000 you earn, you’re expected to toss $1,000 in the “defense” kitty.
Contra Republican complaints of “defense” cuts by the Obama administration, President Obama’s budget proposal calls for a $21 billion increase (to $534 billion) in US “defense” spending in 2010 … $6.7 billion more than the Bush administration had projected.
This “defense” spending doesn’t include the costs of actual ongoing military operations, by the way — those are covered by “emergency supplemental” requests. For the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, that extra “defense” spending has so far come to about $1 trillion, and Obama promises to ask for another $130 billion in 2010.
US “defense” spending is effectively at least 25% larger than budget numbers indicate, and probably larger than that. Gore Vidal once estimated that when additional, hidden “defense” spending is traced to other parts of the budget, it ends up constituting 90% of the US government’s discretionary spending.
Two things you get when your government spends so much on “defense” are more enemies and more wars.
Politicians are loath to just leave a military establishment as large and expensive as that maintained by the United States lying around — soldiers in domestic barracks, ships in domestic ports. They want to use it, if for no other reason than to provide a continuing justification for its existence. Theodore Roosevelt’s “big stick” isn’t something politicians can bring themselves to carry at their sides while speaking softly … rather, they’re constantly tempted to wave it around while yelling at the tops of their lungs.
The US “defense” establishment maintains bases in more than 100 countries around the world, enabling American politicians to tinker in those countries’ (and their neighbors’) internal affairs. Its Carrier Battle Groups patrol the world’s major waterways, available for instant placement at chokepoints and off coasts in order to exert yet more international influence.
While the ability to project force over the horizon is a valid object of actual defensive preparations, the US government’s version of it in no way constitutes “defense.” Rather, it constitutes international meddling from a posture of threatened offense if American politicians don’t get their way.
Needless to say, this doesn’t always sit well with the objects of the US government’s meddlesome intents. The more common reaction is outrage, often accompanied by violent expression of same. At which point our “leaders” — more in sorrow than anger, of course! — invoke the “necessity” of war for America’s “defense.”
And, of course, there are other states inclined to compete with the US for “superpower” status which will, they hope, allow their politicians to dictate terms to all and sundry on affairs which may or may not be, strictly speaking, any of their damn business.
What do your “defense” dollars buy?
They buy a standing army available for use by politicians to pursue politicians’ goals.
They buy an active navy available to spread politicians’ malign influence far beyond the water’s edge.
They buy a nuclear arsenal with which politicians hold you hostage to “Mutual Assured Destruction” — your life being a price they’re willing to pay in pursuit of their dreams of control.
If those “defense” dollars buy you any actual defense at all, it’s merely a defense against rule by other gangs of politicians, gangs for all practical purposes interchangeable with the gang you’ve got. And such a defense, even if you cared to have it, would still be outrageously expensive at half the price.
An effective defense against standing armies serving other gangs of politicians is as simple as “a gun and ammo in every house, and a couple of days at the range each year to get, and stay, competent.” Of course, your gang of politicians quails from that, since it constitutes a potential defense against them as well.
While defensive seapower is a bit more complicated, it’s been handled by market entities — “privateers,” for example — in the past, and could be again. And there’s no particular reason why private enterprise couldn’t handle nuclear deterrent functions as well.
What do you get for your “defense” dollars? A lot of stuff you don’t need or could get more cheaply elsewhere. A lot of other stuff which makes you more, not less, vulnerable to attack.
War is the health of the state. The best way to oppose either is to oppose both.
Just a few stray facts.
First, the Obama budget supposedly includes Afghanistan and Iraq, so the personnel are included. Now, fixing the personnel after they come back with lost limbs or a brain injury is not included – instead this is in the VA budget – however at least they are making progress in truth in budgeting.
Second, we don’t tax everyone equally. People who make $25,000 don’t pay for the defense budget equally as a percentage of their income. Indeed, if that earner has kids he or she doesn’t pay taxes at all, even FICA taxes are returned through the Earned Income Tax Credit. If you assume that all dollars are not broken up the same way – rather you pay for what you use first – it is likely that many don’t pay for defense – which is a different kind of problem.
Third, the Obama budget is likely a cut to what is called the FYDP or Fiscal Year Defense Program. Certain items are certainly not included – although the weapons manufacturers have friends in Congress, so these funds will likely be restored.
Fourth, while nuclear deployment is funded by the Defense Department, the weapons themselves are bought and maintained by an agency loosely attached to the Department of Energy – the NNSA.
Now that this is out of the way, let me address your thesis. You are mostly right, however most deployments aren’t as imperialistic as you say – they are more so. In many nations, we protect the powerful from the people themselves – often at the behest of our economic interests. This is especially the case in the Middle East. The reason Venezuela is an issue is that the powers that be don’t like Hugo Chavez and even like even less the fact that his oil company is making cheap fuel available to America’s poor.
The economics of our international relations cannot be under-estimated. It is two parts of the same coin. The only way out is to change the ownership of companies in the United States, which will change how they behave overseas and what they want from foreign shores. As long as the Oligarchy is in charge, they will pursue policies that spread their interests world-wide, often at the expense of the world’s poor.
This is why transition planning is so important. We need to have a cohearent plan to get from here to there. Currently, companies can be had for cheap – so now is the time for unions to begin buying their workplaces.
One of my grandfathers was a commodities broker. He believed in buying low and selling high.
My maternal great-grandfather was Doc Allen, who helped organize the farm bureau federation and the co-op movement.
They wouldn’t have liked each other. Doc would have hated the fact that his granddaughter married the son of a gypsy commodities broker. However, both of their philosophies are helpful in this instance. There is no time like the present.
Your correlation between defense spending and wars/enemies simply doesn’t work as a straight linear function the way you express it. The USA may have the highest defense budget in the world right now, but it doesn’t have the highest number of combat deaths in the world. That prize would probably have to go to some African country like the Congo.
Furthermore, US military defense spending in many of its wars resulted in _less_ enemies, not more. US military spending in the Civil War resulted in no more Confederacy; in WWI, no more Kaiser. In WWII, no more Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, no more Militarist Japan. What enemies did the USA acquire because of the Korean War and Vietnam Wars, both of which involving higher US military spending than today? Reagan’s 1983 defense buildup resulted in the demise of America’s Main Adversary, the Soviet Union.
A military budget isn’t even necessary to have a war, as it’s entirely possible to be invaded & conquered even if you have no military defense.
A gun in every house is no defense against nuclear missiles; even the Swiss, who do have a gun in every house, realize that, which is why they require all housing to be built with roofs reinforced against strategic bombing.
As for the “war is the health of the state” myth, it’s simply false. To give one of the most recent clear-cut counter-examples, black veterans of WWII and Korea were able to contribute greatly to the abolition of segregation in America, because they had proved their value to the USA through their service. One of the reasons Truman desegregated the military after WWII was so he could retain all the black veteran NCOs, thus reducing the attrition as white NCOs left the military in peacetime. Their military service contributed to the reduction of the burden of statism they and their people bore.
re: “Your correlation between defense spending and wars/enemies simply doesn’t work as a straight linear function the way you express it. The USA may have the highest defense budget in the world right now, but it doesn’t have the highest number of combat deaths in the world.”
That’s an example of rhetorical sleight of hand. The U.S. military *itself* may not have the highest number of combat deaths, but certainly a huge amount of (if not most, and quite possibly most) war casualties in the recent / current era of U.S. global hegemony are directly or indirectly attributable to U.S. imperialism.
re: “…black veterans of WWII and Korea were able to contribute greatly to the abolition of segregation in America, because they had proved their value to the USA through their service.”
Yet statism in aggregate increased over that course of time despite that one improvement.
Clearly what you mean by “rhetorical slight of hand” is “facts which cause me cognitive dissonance.” Here’s some more for you:
The most democidal regimes of the 20th century have not been American: Maoist China, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Democratic Kampuchea, etc. Those deaths cannot be plausibly blamed on America. Furthermore, many of those regimes have not had military budgets anywhere near as high as that of America. Rwanda in the 1990s, for instance, had a much smaller military budget. Thus, there is no correlation between military spending and democide, either.
Furthermore, the best predictor of whether two regimes will go to war with each other or not is not their military budgets, but whether they are democratic or not. The more democratic they are, the less likely they are to go to war against each other. Thus, when the British Empire’s global hegemony was challenged by an undemocratic rival (Germany, in WWI & WWII), the result was the worst wars the world had ever seen. But when it was challenged by a democratic rival (the USA), the result was a peaceful transition from one hegemon to another.
As for the claim that aggregate American statism has increased since WWII, I could quibble with that conclusion (not true for Jews, Asians, women, or homosexuals either), but it suffices to simply point out that post-WWII European military spending plummeted, but European statism increased far more; Europe today, by virtually any measure, is far more statist than America, despite its having virtually no military spending. Perhaps the most extreme example, Sweden, came up with the most comprehensive womb-to-tomb welfare state in western Europe despite its neutrality in WWI, WWII, and the Cold War.
Elsewhere, Costa Rica abolished its military entirely shortly after WWII (in which it was neutral), but came up with quite the oligarchical welfare state of its own anyway. Meanwhile, other Latin American countries that have fought wars since WWII (either internal or external) have had more freedom than Costa Rica for a longer time period (e.g., Chile).
Now who’s indulging in “rhetorical slight of hand”? Have a closer look at “Thus, when the British Empire’s global hegemony was challenged by an undemocratic rival (Germany, in WWI & WWII), the result was the worst wars the world had ever seen. But when it was challenged by a democratic rival (the USA), the result was a peaceful transition from one hegemon to another.”
The world wars had nothing whatsoever to do with Germany challenging British hegemony but bypassing it in ways that started wars with yet other countries, which dragged Britain in. Granted, Germany wanted to get out from under that hegemony – but it chose avenues that didn’t challenge it, and the British response was not because of any threat to that but because of the threat to Europe’s balance of power that would have led to a direct threat to Britain itself.
Consider further, the only reason that the US takeover was “peaceful” was that there had just been those wars, leaving Britain vulnerable economically and militarily. Taken as a whole, it wasn’t peaceful, because it required huge war first. Does anyone think it would have happened peacefully otherwise, except on terms that maintained Britain as a partner in the new enterprise such as Sir Lionel Curtis was after?
“Furthermore, the best predictor of whether two regimes will go to war with each other or not is not their military budgets, but whether they are democratic or not” is an old furphy. There are damned few cases in which such countries have interacted anyway – but those have had wars (the French Revolutionary Wars, the British-American War, the US Civil War, both Boer Wars, Vichy French resistance to Britain and the USA in the Levant and North Africa respectively,,,). The only way to dismiss these counterexamples is to define away combatants’ democratic status – but if you do that you find that there were fewer still interactions of democratic states anyway. It’s like saying that the best indicator of not being in a traffic accident is to be a blue eyed, red headed black man.
On top of that,even if true how on earth would it suffice to exonerate US deterioration by pointing out that others have fared even worse? (Of course, many didn’t.)
There’s a lot of post hoc ergo propter hoc and similar sophistry going on here.
I just checked. Costa Rica was not neutral in the Second World War but declared war on the allied side immediately after Pearl Harbor.
“Your correlation between defense spending and wars/enemies simply doesn’t work as a straight linear function the way you express it. The USA may have the highest defense budget in the world right now, but it doesn’t have the highest number of combat deaths in the world. That prize would probably have to go to some African country like the Congo.”
How about the millions of Southeast Asians killed in the aggressive Indochina wars? How about the million+ Iraqis killed in the US’s current war of aggression?
“Furthermore, US military defense spending in many of its wars resulted in _less_ enemies, not more. US military spending in the Civil War resulted in no more Confederacy; in WWI, no more Kaiser. In WWII, no more Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, no more Militarist Japan. What enemies did the USA acquire because of the Korean War and Vietnam Wars, both of which involving higher US military spending than today? Reagan’s 1983 defense buildup resulted in the demise of America’s Main Adversary, the Soviet Union.”
The Civil War could have been averted by not provoking the Confederacy. Germany was never an enemy of the US in WW1 until the US decided to enter. The same goes for WW2. The US gained nothing by entering in the Korean and Vietnam Wars (except for the chance to murder millions of people and thousands of its own citizens) so your question is moot. The USSR would have fallen anyway due to its bankrupt economic policies; all Reagan did as make a bunch of private contractors rich.
“A gun in every house is no defense against nuclear missiles; even the Swiss, who do have a gun in every house, realize that, which is why they require all housing to be built with roofs reinforced against strategic bombing.”
You’re creating a false dichotomy. A state-run military isn’t the only way to provide defense.
“As for the “war is the health of the state” myth, it’s simply false. To give one of the most recent clear-cut counter-examples, black veterans of WWII and Korea were able to contribute greatly to the abolition of segregation in America, because they had proved their value to the USA through their service. One of the reasons Truman desegregated the military after WWII was so he could retain all the black veteran NCOs, thus reducing the attrition as white NCOs left the military in peacetime. Their military service contributed to the reduction of the burden of statism they and their people bore.”
Once again, America’s involvement in the Korean war was not necessary, so the fact that a lower percentage of enslaved blacks were killed in it than in WW2 is quite irrelevant.
“Furthermore, the best predictor of whether two regimes will go to war with each other or not is not their military budgets, but whether they are democratic or not. The more democratic they are, the less likely they are to go to war against each other.”
What constitutes “democracy” in your opinion?
During WW1, less than half of America’s population could not vote (Women did not yet have the vote, most blacks, though they nominally had the right, could not vote, the minimum age for voting was 21). The federal government centrally planned the economy (see Rothbard’s essay “War Collectivism in World War I), jailed dissenters, shut down newspapers, engaged in a massive propaganda campaign (Google “Creel Committee), and enslaved its own citizens (the “draft”) despite passing an amendment to the constitution that explicitly prohibited it from doing so.
Would you consider WW1 America a democracy?
Oops, make that “less than half of America’s population could vote.”
Replies to P.M.Lawrence:
1) You say “bypass,” I say “challenge.” Either way, Britain’s hegemony would’ve been undermined by Germany, which is why Britain treated Germany as a threat. Britain could’ve chosen to surrender its hegemony to Germany instead of transferring it to America, but didn’t in large part because Germany was undemocratic.
2) Your alleged counter-examples of inter-democratic wars fail. Britain under the reign of George III was an oligarchy, not a democracy, as were the Confederacy, the Transvaal, and the Orange Free State. These are all well-discussed in the literature (such as Spencer Weart’s “Never At War”), but you’re the first I’ve ever seen claim Vichy France as a democracy rather than a puppet of a dictatorship. There have been plenty of interactions of democratic states.
3) Costa didn’t actually _fight_ in WWII, and was thus neutral in practice. Its declaration of war was merely nominal. The definition of war used in democratic peace theory is a conflict in which at least 1,000 deaths occur.
Replies to Andrew:
1) The USA was not the aggressor in either the Indochina Wars or the Iraq Wars (whose death toll you’ve greatly exagerrated, buying into the lies of the Islamo-fascists and their dupes/symps). Even if it were the aggressor, the fact that far more non-US people were killed in those wars is an argument in favor of America’s higher defense budget, not against it.
2) The American Civil War was caused by slaver expansionism, which threatened the spread slavery throughout North and Latin America; slavers fought a mini civil war in Kansas to try to turn it into a slave state, invaded Nicaragua to try to turn it into a slave state, supported the annexation of Florida, Texas, and the territories gained in the Mexican-American War to add new slaves states to the Union, and were about to use the Dred Scott decision to spread slavery throughout the non-slave states of the USA. They tried to make California into a slave state, in which slaves would be used to mine gold and silver. It was Germany’s offer to support Mexico in a war against the USA that triggered American entry into WWI, and Germany’s plans for war against America were laid long before America’s entry into WWII and were only averted thanks to the war starting before Germany’s preparations were complete. The Korean War protected South Korea and Japan from Communism, allowing them to become peaceful and prosperous trading partners with the USA. The Vietnam War protected Thailand, Indonesia, and other Asian countries from Communism, also allowing them to contribute far more to the well-being of the USA and the rest of the world than if they’d been allowed to become slave states like North Korea or Vietnam. Before Reagan, the Soviet Union was prosperous and on the march, bringing a dozen countries into its sphere of influence between 1974 and 1980; after Reagan, it fell apart. When Yeltsin took over, he said Russia had enough resources on hand to have kept the USSR going for at least another decade.
3) I never said a state-run military is the only way to provide defense. I merely said that military spending is not in itself the cause of wars, and that widespread distribution of small arms in private hands does not suffice to secure territory against military attack.
4) “Democracy” is defined in the democratic peace literature as a regime in which at least the adult male population has voting rights.
“The USA was not the aggressor in either the Indochina Wars or the Iraq Wars (whose death toll you’ve greatly exagerrated, buying into the lies of the Islamo-fascists and their dupes/symps).”
In both of these wars, the US invaded a country that had not attacked or threatened it, so yes, the US was the aggressor.
“Even if it were the aggressor, the fact that far more non-US people were killed in those wars is an argument in favor of America’s higher defense budget, not against it.”
I’m still trying to make heads or tails of this. The fact that high military spending is necessary to have “low” causalities in a war that should not be fought in the first place does not justify high military spending.
“The American Civil War was caused by slaver expansionism…”
You’ve been spending too much time in publik skool… The Civil War was caused by the US’s failure to recognize the legal right of secession. I would agree that the expansion of slavery is evil, but trading one form of slavery for another does not justify the Civil War.
“It was Germany’s offer to support Mexico in a war against the USA that triggered American entry into WWI…”
lol, Mexico did not pose a real threat to the US during WW1. The country was far too unstable to put up any kind of fight. The Zimmerman telegram was really just an excuse for Wilson to realize his plans.
“Germany’s plans for war against America were laid long before America’s entry into WWII and were only averted thanks to the war starting before Germany’s preparations were complete.
Please provide evidence for this claim.
“The Korean War protected South Korea and Japan from Communism, allowing them to become peaceful and prosperous trading partners with the USA.”
The Korean war protected South Korea from communism… and allowed its military dictatorship to continue oppressing its citizens. Yay!
“The Vietnam War protected Thailand, Indonesia, and other Asian countries from Communism, also allowing them to contribute far more to the well-being of the USA and the rest of the world than if they’d been allowed to become slave states like North Korea or Vietnam.”
Once again, protecting one form of dictatorship from another is not justifiable, even if the latter calls itself “communist” and the former doesn’t.
“Before Reagan, the Soviet Union was prosperous and on the march, bringing a dozen countries into its sphere of influence between 1974 and 1980; after Reagan, it fell apart. When Yeltsin took over, he said Russia had enough resources on hand to have kept the USSR going for at least another decade.”
First of all, correlation does not equal causality. Secondly, I never claimed that the USSR would have fallen apart in the same time frame, just that it would not have lasted even if Reagan had not built up the military. I think your “at least another decade” comment highlights this point.
““Democracy” is defined in the democratic peace literature as a regime in which at least the adult male population has voting rights.”
You seem to be missing my point. There is no difference between Wilson’s “democratic” USA and a totalitarian state, so your claim that “democracy” prevents wars from occurring is ridiculous. If Kaiser Wilhelm changed his country’s name to “The People’s Democratic Republic of Germany,” do you really think WW1 would have been averted?
Andrew:
1) If attacking someone who’s not attacked or threatened you is the criterion for aggression, then attacking a rapist to save his victim is an act of aggression. Defending innocents from aggression is not aggression. Your claim is the sort of thing I would expect from a Pythonesque “Ministry of Silly Arguments.”
2) There’s a difference between saying “X is an argument in favor of Y” and “X is a justification for Y.” America’s lower casualty count in its recent wars is a point in favor of America’s defense budget, even if that point all by itself does not suffice to justify that budget. In other words, it is a feature, not a bug.
3) I never learned anything about the American Civil War in any of the public schools I attended, right on up through college. We never got that far in American history. I used to be of the view that the North was the aggressor in that war, before I learned more about the true facts of the matter. I notice that you don’t deny any of the facts I marshalled in support of my claim, which I take as implicit admission that all those facts were correct. If secession was legal, then it was also legal for the USA to go to war against the Confederacy to prevent it from further aggressive expansion of slavery.
4) Germany was the aggressor in WWI (just as in the Franco-Prussian War and WWII). The extent to which its aggression threatened the USA is irrelevant to the question of whether US entry into WWI was aggression. So long as the USA was defending anyone against German aggression, the USA was not an aggressor in that war.
5) Some proof of Germany’s aggressive plans for America can be had from the Amerikabomber project, and from Hitler’s Second Book.
6) South Korea’s authoritarian dictatorship was vastly superior to North Korea’s totalitarian Communist regime. America helped South Korea become a democracy, while North Korea’s still starving its people to death and threatening its neighbors with nuclear attack.
7) Protecting an authoritarian dictatorship from a totalitarian one is perfectly justifiable, as it protects the subjects of the authoritarian regime from greater harm. To deny this is analogous to saying that it’s wrong to prescribe treatment for any disease if the treatment has any negative side-effects at all (which most of them do).
9) Your denial that totalitarianism is any worse than the USA (even under Woodrow Wilson) is another one for the Ministry of Silly Arguments. At a minimum, you are equivocating between the temporary wartime suspensions of some freedoms by a democracy with the permanent revocation of all freedoms under totalitarianism.
The issue of federal supremacy and resistence to it is one of the oldest arguments of the Republic. Madison, in the original draft of the Bill of Rights passed by the House of Representatives included a federally enforceable right of speech, press and conscience against state government power. The provision died in conference. The successor to that measure is the 14th Amendment, which ratified Appomatox. Had the original provision passed, the Slave Power might not have become the kind of tyranny that had to eventually lead to war. You cannot have a tyranny and free society exist within the same borders and not expect some type of violence to break out.
The 14th Amendment met with more success than people think, although the slave power reasserted itself under another name – law enforcement and corporate power – where blacks caught in the justice net – often innocent of any crime – were enslaved by kangaroo court. According to Mr. Blackman’s recent pulitzer prize winning book, this continued until WWII, when the Justice Department cracked down on it because it would lead to bad propoganda against the U.S. Share cropping still continued virutual slavery until people started moving north and technology lead to automated cotton picking, which Milton Friedman states caused the Civil Rights movement as much as anything else (although returning veterans likely had as much to do with it, if not more). The real enemy of the 14th Amendment was Woodrow Wilson, who made the nationalization of Jim Crow his pet project, so yes Virginia, the U.S. was a tyranny under his rule (and his wife’s regency).
WWI was perhaps the most unneccessary war of all wars, although it was the certain result of great power diplomacy. The attempt to neuter Germany after this war caused the next one because it made Hitler an innevitability. American involvement should not be a surprise given the fact that the Spanish American War primed the military to want something more for itself – like not missing out on a big war overseas.
American involvement in WWII was primed by American denial of oil to the Japanese. Had we remained neutral in this regard, Pearl would never have been attacked. If Hitler had invaded Ireland (liberating it for Catholicism) he could have starved the Brits into neutrality and had the resources to destroy Stalin, giving him access to Siberian oil. If the great meet-up in the war was Japan and Germany at the Great Wall there might not have been U.S. involvement in the war. Of course, if the 2nd Maine had not held the high ground at Gettysburg a balkanized US would not have been a major player anyway. The bottom line on WWII was that FDR wanted in, largely because he feared Hitler more than Stalin (posssibly with good reason, possibly not). It certainly allowed him to squeeze money from savings into circulation, thus ending the Great Depression. His dream of a United Nations was just more great power diplomacy and it lead to Korea, along with Churchil’ls second thoughts about Stalin and the sudden need to contain the Red Menace.
Viet Nam was American colonialism replacing French colonialism. Had we let Ho Chi Mihn succeed originally many lives would have been saved – however that was not possible with the desire to contain Communism – any more than Obama can simply end the Boycott of Cuba.
We know Iraq was aggressive war on our part. Only Dick Cheney knows for sure why we went and not even an inevitable trial will get to his true reasoning – although the Defense Guidance issued by him when he was SECDEF provides a clue – the desire for a stable client state in the Middle East from which to launch neocon campaigns and thereby justify the existence of a functioning Defense Department. If there was peace and stability in that region (not necessarily democracy or even human rights) – say by propping up the Hashemite Dynasty’s ancestoral perogatives as the heir to the Prophet (PBUH) – the DoD could be drawn down to a level that would make the Chairman of Lockheed Martin cry.
A little creativity could get us out of the Mid-East and even East and Central Asia – and shifting the NASA budget from HUD-Independent Agencies to DOD Research and Development would allow the continued flow of pork without the attendant loss of liberty associated with the continued existence of the DoD.
Like I asserted above – without a backup plan/transition strategy there is no getting out of this mess.
Replies to Bindner:
1) We seem to agree about slavery & the Civil War; Good. I also endorse “Slavery by Another Name,” which puts the lie to the claims about the inevitability of slavery and the incompatibility of slavery and industrialism.
2) The fact that Germany was able to re-arm so much as to be able to invade & occupy virtually every country in Western and Central Europe, and much of Eastern Europe, plus north Africa, puts the lie to the claim that Germany was “neutered” after WWI. Germany was far more “neutered” after WWII, and has been peaceful ever since. It was the failure to fully democratize Germany after WWI that led to WWII.
3) The reason for the US naval buildup starting in the late 19th century was that other countries were catching up to Britain’s industrialization. If America hadn’t take up naval patrols in the Western hemisphere, then Britain’s successor in that regard would’ve been some other industrialized power like Germany, which would only have encouraged the militarist and authoritarian tendencies in Latin America (if not the USA, too).
4) Germany was just waiting until it had enough time to build the fleet, planes, and rockets it needed to attack the USA. Japan had the navy Germany lacked, which is why Hitler declared war on America after Pearl Harbor, even though he had no treaty obligation to do so. A later war against the Axis would’ve been a war against a more well-prepared Axis, one capable of hitting the American mainland, and not just its ports and remotest territories.
5) Hitler liberating Ireland for Catholicism?!? Ireland was entirely independent in the 1930s and 1940s, most of it in the Irish Free State or Irish Republic. Only Northern Ireland remained British, as most of its population wanted. Besides, Hitler was hardly pro-Catholic. He was anti-Christian, just as he was against any ideology except his own.
6) WWII didn’t end the Great Depression. That wasn’t ended until wage & price controls were lifted in 1948 when the GOP took over Congress.
7) Letting Ho Chi Minh succeed would’ve meant another 30 years of Communist tyranny & enslavement for the people of Indochina, plus the probable loss of other southeast Asian countries to Communism, too, such as Malaya and Indonesia.
Liberating Iraq would have been better than the embargo on Iraq had it been followed up with a better planned occupation. The occupation that happened was a disaster that more than makes up for the virtues of giving Saddam the Danny Deaver.
The Viet Nam war likely further radicalized the Communists. Had we not instituted a blood feud it is likely that Laos and Cambodia would not have even fallen. Sometimes it is better to leave well enough alone.
Hitler was a Catholic and thought himself the Great Catholic Monarch, hence the desire for a 1000 year Reich. However Hitler conquered Ireland, even if it was an unfriendly invasion, a successful beach head and operating naval base would have screwed Britian. It would have been much harder to win WWII if that had happenned and FDR might have had to sue for peace. I am not arguing that this would have been a good result, merely a different one.
History cannot be changed. Time travel scenarios are the last refuge of science fiction stories that have finished their natural plot lines.