In a previous post Jacob Hornberger argues in favor of making the government weaker. I support his position, but extended the discussion to the following with some editing.
Ben:
One of the push backs by those who favor at least some significant standing army/navy is that today we would not have the time we had before WWI and WWII to mobilize and without large conventional forces the U.S. government would be more likely to use nuclear weapons.
Jacob:
“No nation state has the remotest military capability (or the interest) in invading the U.S. It is an absolute impossibility. Most people have no idea of what would be needed to cross the ocean and carry out a successful invasion. By the time some nation had gathered together the millions of troops, ships, aircraft, supplies, bullets, bombs, and other things necessary for an invasion (and occupation), the U.S. would have plenty of time to prepare to defend, especially since the nation would already be oriented to defense. See Switzerland. They are not separated by an ocean and still no one jacks with them. It is much easier for a force to defend than to attack. It was a terrible mistake to convert the U.S. into a national security state–in my opinion the worst in U.S. history. It is taking our country down, both with the destruction of our freedom and financial bankruptcy.”
Ben:
People seem to want more than protection from total invasion. They want protection from:
- lone wolf terrorist attacks
- rogue states like North Korea lobbing a nuke at us
- and even internet hacking or alleged hacking.
Those attacks don’t take months of preparation to be sure, but people also need to understand it does not take a standing army with outpost in 100 nations to try to protect us from those occurrences.
The public doesn’t want to trust that the problem is our interventions, and that other people would not bother us if we did not bother them. Most people still think that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor for the hell of it, and the World Trade Center attack was because Arabs do not like our freedom.
The U.S. should pull its troops out of South Korea and let the world know we will not defend South Korea unless:
- South Korea formally notifies the U.N. that South Korea is a U.S. protectorate,
- and all South Korean businessmen annually send in 1040 Forms and remittances to the the U.S.
When I have nothing better to do, I will try to get John Bolton to make that policy recommendation.
Final words from Jacob:
“The problem is that anti-American terrorism is rooted in what the military and the CIA do to people over there. So, it becomes a never-ending racket–they go kill people over there, people retaliate, and then people say, “we have to be over there to kill them before they kill us over here, and so they kill more people, which then causes people to retaliate, etc. etc.
In other words, the threat of retaliation becomes the justification for doing what is causing the retaliation. That’s why I keep bringing up Switzerland. It limits itself to defense. It isn’t killing people in other countries. It’s not stationed in Korea or anywhere else. No terrorist retaliatory strikes. North Korea is much more concerned about a U.S. war of aggression than in invading South Korea. It just wants to be left alone but it knows that the US national securty state isn’t going to leave it alone, any more than it left Iraq alone, or Libya, or Syria.
Morever, terrorism is a criminal offense. You don’t need an enormous standing army to deal with it.
Japan bombed Pearl Harbor because FDR squeezed them with the embargo on oil. Once that embargo went into place, Japan had two options: cease military operations in China, which it was never going to do, or try to knock out the U.S. ability to interfere with taking oil from the Dutch East Indies. There was never any threat by Japan to invade and occupy the U.S. And Germany couldn’t even cross the English Channel to invade England. Fat chance of crossing the Atlantic to invade the U.S. In any event, FDR got what he wanted and why he was provoking the Japanese into attacking–entry of the U.S. into WWII.
People are still convinced that the military industrial complex, the CIA, and the NSA–all Cold War institutions–are necessary for their security and wellbeing. Our ancestors had it right–which is why America lived without these things for more than 100 years–they bring a nation down, not only with respect to the destruction of liberty and privacy but also financially.”
