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Comment by SubiculumCode | Hacker News Reader

Or defense.

Defense is just a polite term for war.

There is this mistaken idea out there that if the U.S. were to disarm, then other nations would also disarm, and the whole world would live in peace. But history tells us over and over that power abhors a vacuum, and were the U.S. to leave the world, another would take its place, probably Russia or China. If we disarmed, then another nation with arms will inevitably invade the U.S.

Fun fact: a successful invasion of the North American continent has very little to do with weaponry and more to do with logistics and projection of force across an ocean. There is only one superpower with the capabilities to do it at all.

Yes. Right now...because the U.S. had the biggest baddest military that the world had ever known. If we had not had that, someone else would have made one. It's one thing to forgo an option that does not seem viable versus expecting the same decision when it is.

You mean like the British Empire? ....The Spanish Empire maybe?

The only modern contender, the Japanese Empire, arose partly by the encouragement of Teddy Roosevelt.

If you are OK with US isolationism, then your fun fact is very salient.

If you'd like to keep the US-led coalition of mostly free countries intact, then your concept of the US military needs must include a lot more activity that just "defending from a hypothetical invasion of North America by Old World powers". Defense of allies elsewhere, keeping trade routes on the ocean open and safe.

I think the fiascos around tariffs demonstrated quite nicely why glorious autarky is no longer an option. Too much stuff is produced elsewhere, from resources to highly specialized products like icebreakers.

What should the ratio be of missiles to missile interceptors?

Ideally 0:0

Since that ideal is not ever going to be a reality unless every human is dead, I'll treat that as a deflection. Having to govern means throwing away fantasies and working with the world we actually live in to protect our actually very real families.

a) You are allowed to dream big

b) You are allowed to set ambitious goals

c) Your speech (e.g. “protect our families”) mirrors those of war mongers, what about the families who’s your bombs are pointing at?

Nobody gets to tell me to throw away my dream of a better and more humane world, and settle for one with horrors and war crimes. Us humans have multiple times in the past significantly reduced our weapons of war, we can, and should, do so again. Lets start with the missiles, and I‘m sure the interceptors will follow.

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