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From: josh@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU (J Storrs Hall)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Military Preparedness
Message-ID: <3690@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Wed, 18-Sep-85 15:11:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: topaz.3690
Posted: Wed Sep 18 15:11:13 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 21-Sep-85 11:15:25 EDT
Reply-To: josh@topaz.UUCP (J Storrs Hall)
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.
Lines: 37

>...  Isn't it much more likely that market forces would make one
>particular Defense Inc. strategy become dominant at a given time?  

If so, you would just have a conventional military, so what's the problem?
However, I don't think it would happen like that.

>And if
>you have five competing defense systems, what about cooperation?  When four
>of them collapse, what's the fifth to do?  

Everybody who took up this argument, (not just Charley) omitted the 
reference to Luttwak.  Let me reccomend him again:  He makes a good 
case for the aphorism, "Great military victories happen when a force that's
3% efficient beats one which is 2% efficient."  My major point is that
the vaunted efficiency, coordination, and so forth of a centralized
government military system generally just don't exist, and that forces
organized along market lines would likely be just as efficient.

"Hello, Amalgamated Artillery."

"This is Sgt. Foobar of Infantry, Inc.  I'd like to order a barrage on
the west slope of Humongous Hill at 3:45 this afternoon."

"Thank you for your order, sir, will that be all?"

"For the moment--and bill me!"

>What if three of them turn traitor?  Who is to stop them?
>Charley Wingate

What if the Army, Navy, and Air Force turn traitor?   *Who would
stop them?*  Why do you think the other is any more likely?  You've
completely disregarded the question of individual motivations--
I believe people love, and will die for, their society, not their 
State.  And would love it more if it were just and non-coercive.

--JoSH