With that in mind, I present to you Why We Don't Need A Military.
And then, it hit me. Why do we even have a military at all?
For many of you, the answer to this question will seem obvious, and will be in the affirmative. Fair enough. All I ask is that you follow my reasoning here. I like to think that it makes some sense, and isn't the ramblings of a socialist nut.
First, do we really need a military for national defense, perhaps its most cited purpose? I don't think so. Who is going to invade us? Indeed, who ever has invaded us? The British, but that was 200 years ago. Japan attacked us, but that was 60 years ago in a different world. September 11, I'll deal with below.
I submit that no country would invade the US, even if we did not have a military. I use Taiwan as an example. China could very easily conquer Taiwan tomorrow. Sure, the Nationalists would put up a good fight, but the might of the PLA would overwhelm them. Yet China has not yet done so. This is because in the process of invading, they would destroy Taiwan's economic value, rendering the cost of invasion prohibitive.
Isn't this a function of the fact that Taiwan is pretty heavily armed itself? Only in part. The other reason China holds back is because they know that an invasion of Taiwan would provoke certain reaction in the world, notably in the EU and the US. They would be unable to prevent the US in particular from slapping punishing economic sanctions on China and Chinese trade. Beijing would have Taiwan, and an economic crisis on its hands. So that wouldn't work.
The US is a very similar situation. We know that our neighbors are peaceful. So there's no fear from them. The countries in the world that might like to attack us - and there are VERY few of them - are simply too far away to launch an attack. If they could overcome that, they would still have to contend with the fact that the US remains the pre-eminent economic power in the world, and that an attack would not only cause that power to be used against them, but would provoke others in the world, again the EU especially, to lodge sanctions against the attacking nation. The cost, again, would prove prohibitive.
So we don't need a military for national defense. Don't we still need it for important overseas work? Such as guarding the Korean border? Iraq? Kosovo? Here again, I claim that this is unnecessary. The Bush Administration has repeatedly pissed away opportunities to resolve tensions on the Korean peninsula. With Chinese pressure, North and South would probably reach some kind of accord that, if not resulting in outright unification, would drastically reduce the threat of war. Scholars such as Chalmers Johnson have argued in detail that this is a very likely scenario, blocked only by the Bush Administration.
We all know Iraq was an unnecessary war. And we could have prevented the Kosovo situation by nipping Milosevic in the bud in the late '80s - non-militarily. Beyond that, the world is simply not a warlike place any longer. Small wars abound, but they're small, and do not require the massive US military establishment that we currently possess, in any way.
What, then, about terrorism?
I think one of the most important failures with our response to September 11 was to treat it as a military problem. European governments have long understood that military solutions to terror do not at all work - look at the Northern Ireland experience. And the US will come to learn the same thing. Al-Qaeda could have, and will be, fought with conventional police methods. In some situations, you'll need more than regular police, but I also submit that you don't need a full-blown military to fight the war on terror. Some special forces, numbering in the few thousands, would be sufficient to aid law enforcement in their anti-terror work.
In fact, terrorism proves my point about how the military-as-national-defender argument no longer holds any water. The US military proved utterly unable to protect us against September 11. It's simply not a military matter.
What about military intelligence gathering? Well, what about it? That job can be done by the CIA. There's no specific reason why it has to be military.
We're not left with much, at this point, in the question of 'do we need a military at all'? Most arguments now come down to some sort of national machismo, or arguments about the inherent warlike state of mankind. The first is patently ridiculous, the second, has no bearing in reality. Developed nations have not fought wars against each other in 60 years. With globalization, all countries are, for better or worse, tied into the same economic networks. Wars increasingly become an enterprise that is not cost-effective.
But, eugene, what if the world we live in now doesn't stay as it is? Couldn't we need a military in the future?
Yes. And this is where the Founding Fathers come into the picture. They opposed standing armies and would be shocked at the one we have today. Our military sucks away billions of dollars that instead should go to infrastructure, education, health care, jobs - things we actually need. This too would have appalled them. Yet they did recognize that the national defense might have to be provided for - after all, they did live through the Revolution. So their solution was a citizen militia that could be called upon in times of true national emergency. If we ever did get invaded - and I suggested above that this is a vastly unlikely scenario - then there's nothing to stop us from raising a military to fight it off. Aside from that, a military such as we have simply is not necessary.
Just look at what we've used the military for since the end of World War II (after which point I suggest the world has dramatically shifted): wars to prop up unpopular political regimes, the overthrow of democratic governments, the securing of spaces for capitalist exploitation. Not exactly necessary. Indeed, our military and the use of it has dramatically worsened our global position - see again Chalmers Johnson.
I hope this isn't read as anti-soldier. I have respect for people who have served in the past. But that doesn't mean we need a military now.
I doubt many will agree with me, and that's OK. I at least hope I've made you think. A military is not necessary in the 21st century. There may be uses for it, but that is by no means the same as necessity. Have a good night.
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