My ex was career military. I don't know about the UK, but he always said "You really don't want to bring in the military (for stuff like this). Police are trained to wound and bring them in alive. We are trained to shoot to kill."
"Make no mistake, Senator. We will hunt down the enemy, we will find the enemy, and we will kill the enemy. And no card-carrying member of the ACLU is more dead set against it than I am. Which is why I urge you - I implore you. Do not consider this as an option."
"There is historically nothing more corrosive to the morale of a population than policing its own citizens."
> "There's a reason you separate military and the police. One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people. When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people."
So, I guess the screenwriters guild gets it...
Peace.
"In America 100 years is a long time, in Europe 100 miles a long distance"
Your perceptions are shaped by your culture, and particularly in the US people rarely look at history before the revolutionary era (if they even know about that) so 100 years would be almost half of history. Whereas an older empire might trace some of it's roots as far back as the dark ages.