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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Military Preparedness
Message-ID: <1621@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 17-Sep-85 23:57:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1621
Posted: Tue Sep 17 23:57:28 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Sep-85 05:41:37 EDT
References: <3677@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 40

In article <3677@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> josh@topaz.UUCP (J Storrs Hall) writes:

>> Now here comes a large army pouring over the borders from
>>next door.

>Which one, the glorious forces of Canadian hegemony, or the invincible
>fury of the Mexican War Machine?

Ah yes, if we don't have an answer, say something stupid.  We have two ocean
borders too, you know.  THere's a large, rather agressive People's
Dictatorship on the other side, you know.

>> Just what market forces are going to recruit, train, equip,
>>and organize an effective resistance force before the country is
>>essentiallty completely overrun? Under these cicumstances it is
>>*preparedness*, not size and wealth that determine victory.

>Neither market nor government can "recruit, train, equip,
>and organize" an army (or a set of retaliatory nuclear missles)
>while an invasion is in progress.  You've assumed your conclusion,
>namely that the market would be unprepared.  

>Let's consider the Blitzkreig invasion of France in WWII.  France
>was *not* unprepared; she had spent enormous sums on the Maginot
>Line.  The French had put all their eggs in one basket.  A market
>for defense would not do that:  it would have the country under
>a wide variety of schemes, some of which might work.  I'd personally
>favor an assassination defense:  permeate the other country with agents 
>and assassinate its political leaders, instead of slaughtering thousands
>of luckless doughfoots, who were probably drafted anyway.  Anyway,
>you can come up with your own scheme--and sell it *concurrently*
>with mine.

Oh really?  Isn't it much more likely that market forces would make one
particular Defense Inc. strategy become dominant at a given time?  And if
you have five competing defense systems, what about cooperation?  When four
of them collapse, what's the fifth to do?  What if three of them turn
traitor?  Who is to stop them?

Charley Wingate